Aesacus and Hesperie, Vide Ovid Metamorphosis, Book XI (Liber Studiorum, part XIII, plate 66)
Joseph Mallord William Turner
January 1, 1819 · Etching and mezzotint; third state of six (Finberg) · Drawings and Prints
Turner distilled his ideas about landscape In "Liber Studiorum" (Latin for Book of Studies), a series of seventy prints plus a frontispiece published between 1807 and 1819. To establish the compositions, he made brown watercolor drawings, then etched outlines onto copper plates. In a few instances he also developed the tone, here adding mezzotint to evoke a wooded landscape centered on the water nymph Hesperia, watched drying herself on a river bank by Aesacus, a prince of Troy. The Ovidian theme ties the imag to poetry, and Turner weaves arborial layers, slanted rays of sun, and dappled shadows into a kind of magic naturalism. The letter "H" in the upper margin indicates the artist's category of Historical landscape.
- Artist
- Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date
- January 1, 1819
- Medium
- Etching and mezzotint; third state of six (Finberg)
- Department
- Drawings and Prints
- Credit line
- Harris Brisbane Dick Fund, 1928
