Crossing the Brook

Turner developed this painting of the Tamar valley from sketches he made in Devon in 1811 and 1813. His watercolours and drawings of the area were fresh and informal. Here he creates a more self-consciously artful image. This was meant to evoke the 17th-century classical landscapes of French painter Claude Lorrain. The painting was exhibited in the year of the battle of Waterloo. Viewers at the time would have been alert to the patriotic subtext of such an imposing depiction of the British landscape.

Credit: Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856...