Crypt of Kirkstall Abbey (Liber Studiorum, part VIII, plate 39)
Joseph Mallord William Turner
February 11, 1812 · Etching, aquatint and mezzotint; second state of four · 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. This is one of the few instances where he also developed the layers of tone, using aquatint and mezzotint to describe the gloomy crypt of a ruined Norman (Romanesque) abbey in Yorkshire. Light streams from the left to reveal cattle resting around a pillar beneath round-arched vaults, with a pool of water at right. Trees are glimpsed through an open doorframe, and the "A" above the image indicates Turner's category of Architectural landscape.
- Artist
- Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date
- February 11, 1812
- Medium
- Etching, aquatint and mezzotint; second state of four
- Department
- Drawings and Prints
- Credit line
- Gift of William Loring Andrews, 1883, transferred from the Library
