The Lauerzersee with Schwyz and the Mythen, Switzerland
J. M. W. Turner·c. 1813
Historical Context
The Lauerzersee with Schwyz and the Mythen from around 1813 depicts one of the most dramatically situated views in central Switzerland, where the Mythen peaks rise sharply above the town of Schwyz — capital of the canton that gave Switzerland its name — across the reflective surface of the Lauerzersee. Turner had visited Switzerland in 1802, crossing during the brief Peace of Amiens, and the Swiss Alpine subjects he produced from sketches made then and on subsequent tours represented his sustained engagement with the highest and most extreme European landscape he had access to. The combination of lake, town, and mountain peaks — each element at a different scale, creating a complex spatial recession from reflecting foreground water to distant summits — was a compositional challenge he returned to across many Swiss subjects. By 1813 he had not yet returned to Switzerland but was working up oils from the extensive sketch material of 1802, supplemented by his reading of Swiss topographical literature and the reports of travellers.
Technical Analysis
Turner renders the Alpine lake and towering peaks with dramatic contrasts of scale, using atmospheric effects to convey the overwhelming grandeur of the Swiss mountain landscape.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the Mythen peaks rising behind the Lauerzersee — the distinctive double summits visible above the lake, one of Switzerland's most dramatic alpine profiles rendered with Turner's mountain authority.
- ◆Notice the lake's reflective surface — Turner captures the mirror quality of the Alpine lake with horizontal strokes, the surrounding mountains visible both above and below the waterline.
- ◆Observe the scale of the mountains relative to the lake in the foreground — Turner uses this contrast to give the Swiss Alpine landscape its characteristic quality of compressed, dramatic scenery.
- ◆Find the warm atmospheric haze that Turner introduces even in this mountain subject — the quality of Alpine air in summer, warm and slightly misty, that he observed during his Swiss tours.
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