Watercolor over graphite on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 6 5/8 x 8 5/8 inches (16.8 x 21.9 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1975.3.1143
Gallery Label:
Thomas Girtin, together with John Robert Cozens and J. M. W. Turner, revolutionized watercolor painting at the end of the eighteenth century. This trio gave rise to what we would now identify as a new romantic approach to painting landscape that had a decisive effect on oil painters as well as watercolorists. In this early watercolor Girtin already shows that romantic sentiment by pushing the ruined priory up close to the picture plane, giving it an imposing, even oppressive, presence. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)
