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Buttermere Lake, with Park of Cromackwater, Cumberland, a Shower
J. M. W. Turner·1797
Historical Context
This version of Buttermere Lake, dating from around 1797-98, is closely related to the painting exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1798. The Lake District landscape, showing Buttermere under dramatic storm conditions with a rainbow, represents Turner's early engagement with the sublime potential of British mountain scenery. Turner toured the Lake District in 1797, producing sketches that would fuel major exhibition paintings. The dramatic interplay of storm, rainbow, and mountain reflections in the lake demonstrates the young Turner's already formidable command of atmospheric effects. Now in Tate Britain, the painting documents the beginning of Turner's transformation from topographical artist to painter of the sublime.
Technical Analysis
Turner captures the lake's mirror-like surface and the rain shower with delicate atmospheric effects, using the interaction of water, light, and weather to create a unified natural spectacle.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the mirror-like surface of Buttermere Lake in the foreground — Turner captures the lake's reflective calm with horizontal strokes that create a perfect doubling of the mountainous landscape above.
- ◆Notice the rain shower visible on the right side — described in the Royal Academy catalogue as a 'shower,' Turner paints the diagonal curtain of rain with a specificity unusual for this early date.
- ◆Observe the dramatic scale of the mountains surrounding the lake — the Buttermere fells rendered with the brooding grandeur of Turner's Romantic approach to mountain scenery.
- ◆Find the tiny figures on the lakeshore — a Picturesque convention that Turner uses to establish the water's scale and the overwhelming height of the surrounding fells.
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