The Frontispiece to Liber Studiorum
Joseph Mallord William Turner (border engraved by J.C. Easling (British, active 19th century))
Published May 23, 1812
- Medium
- Mezzotint and etching in brown on ivory wove paper
- Classification
- Dimensions
- Image: 18.9 × 26.7 cm (7 1/2 × 10 9/16 in.); Plate: 21.3 × 29.6 cm (8 7/16 × 11 11/16 in.); Sheet: 29.8 × 44 cm (11 3/4 × 17 3/8 in.)
- Culture
- England
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Prints and Drawings
- Credit line
- The Joseph Brooks Fair Collection
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its museum says too little about what it shows to place it for younger viewers. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
J. M. W. Turner’s paintings epitomized the sublime, a sense of awe-inspiring beauty beyond simple loveliness. His evocative etching and mezzotint print series, the Liber Studiorum (1807–19), was just as influential. Printed in sepia lines and tonal areas evoking Old Master drawing ink and modeling, Turner’s series of 71 prints is an extended ode to the landscape. The letters above each work designate the subject type, including architectural (A), pastoral (P) and elevated pastoral (EP), and historical (H), marine (M), and mountainous (M). Turner’s exhaustive categories inspired John Constable to produce a further-specialized mezzotint series of 22 English landscapes.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
