Sketch for "Nantes from the Ile Feydeau."
J. M. W. Turner·1826
Historical Context
This sketch for Nantes from the Ile Feydeau from 1826 records the French Loire city during Turner's tours of the great European rivers. Nantes offered a combination of urban architecture and river landscape that suited Turner's interests in the interaction of water, buildings, and atmosphere. Turner's technique evolved from precise topographical watercolor toward atmospheric oil painting of radical freedom; his late works particularly dissolved architecture and nature into pure fields of colored
Technical Analysis
The sketch captures the essential character of the riverfront with economical brushwork, recording the main compositional elements and atmospheric effects for potential development into a finished painting.
Look Closer
- ◆Look at the sketch quality of the work — Turner's rapid notation of the Nantes waterfront, capturing the essential compositional elements and atmospheric effects without the refinement of a finished painting.
- ◆Notice the Île Feydeau itself — the island in the Loire at Nantes where the sketch's viewpoint is located, Turner using the elevated river position to survey the city's waterfront.
- ◆Observe the brushwork — more rapid and notational than Turner's finished works, the sketch revealing the speed and economy with which he captured his Continental impressions.
- ◆Find the river traffic that Turner includes even in this rapid sketch — the barges and boats on the Loire that were as essential to his observations as the buildings along the bank.
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