Flüelen, from the Lake of Lucerne
Joseph Mallord William Turner (British, 1775–1851)
1845
- Medium
- watercolor with gouache and scratch-away
- Classification
- Drawing
- Dimensions
- Sheet: 29.2 x 47.9 cm (11 1/2 x 18 7/8 in.)
- Culture
- England, 19th century
- Museum
- Cleveland Museum of Art, Drawings
- Credit line
- Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Cleveland Museum of Art
About this work
In this watercolor, created late in his life, J.M.W. Turner depicted the small Swiss town of Flüelen and its shimmering reflection out of violet-colored mist. The work belongs to a group of highly finished works that the artist created during several summer trips to Switzerland between 1841 and 1845. The swirling vortex of light underscores the grandeur of nature, while the inclusion of figures going about their daily lives within the vastness of the Alps is a reminder of the reality of the scene. At the time he painted this view, Turner was considered the great master of Romantic landscape painting in England.
