Explorations in the footsteps of Turner, Cotman, Ruskin and others with Professor David Hill
This post continues the essay begun on 19 October 2015. There, I followed in the footsteps of Turner’s comprehensive and systematic exploration of Heidelberg in 1833. Here, I look at a major finished watercolour that he developed in the early 1840s, and a return visit to Heidelberg at the same time. After the visit of … Continue reading In Turner’s Footsteps at Heidelberg: Part 2
On 27 February 2015 I announced that the Pilkington Anglo-Japanese Cultural Foundation had commissioned a SublimeSites exploration of Turner’s associations with Heidelberg. I promised to visit the site in May but then remembered that Cecilia Powell had discovered in Turner and Germany (1995, p.74) the actual dates on which Turner stayed in Heidelberg in 1844; … Continue reading In Turner’s Footsteps at Heidelberg: Part 1
This is the second in my intended series of reports on sites drawn by John Sell Cotman in his native county of Norfolk. A recent mini-tour of sites around King’s Lynn allowed me to take in the ocean-liner sized church of Terrington St Clements, about five miles north of Tilney All Saints, the subject of … Continue reading Cotman’s Norfolk: #2 Terrington St Clement’s Church, near King’s Lynn
This article focuses on the wonderful church of Tilney All Saints in the farmlands of West Norfolk about ten miles from King’s Lynn. This provided him with material for a fine early watercolour now at San Francisco Fine Art Museums, but never before (I believe) reproduced or discussed in the Cotman literature. This is the … Continue reading Cotman’s Norfolk: #1 Tilney All Saints, near King’s Lynn
I am fortunate to have been appointed to work through the whole collection of over eight hundred drawings by Cotman at Leeds Art Gallery. This will be a three-year project funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation culminating in 2017-18 in an online catalogue and an exhibition. The Leeds Collection of Cotman comprises principally of a … Continue reading The Leeds Cotman Project: #1: A Study of Turner’s ‘Helvoetsluis’ at the R.A., 1832
Thanks to the support of the Pilkington Anglo-Japanese Cultural Foundation I was able to make a site visit to Rome 10-14 April 2015. This was to visit the exact viewpoint of Turner's painting of Rome from Mount Aventine that was sold at Sotheby's in London in December 2014 for a record £30.3m. It is a … Continue reading Rome Revisited
This article returns the attention of Sublimesites.co to the southern Swiss city of Bellinzona to investigate another site drawn by John Ruskin. Bellinzona has been the subject of two previous articles published on 29 September 2014. The new site is the Salita della Nocca, a narrow, cobbled path that climbs outside the walls to Montebello … Continue reading In Ruskin’s Footsteps at Bellinzona: The Salita della Nocca
This article is prompted by a watercolour that Turner made on his tour to the Alps in 1836. That tour was the subject of the exhibition Turner, Mont Blanc and the Val d’Aosta held at the Archaeological Museum in Aosta in 2000. At that time I identified its subject as the French town of Sallanches, … Continue reading Turner at Sallanches, 1836
This article represents a diversion for SublimeSites, away from its usual focus on Turner, Cotman and Ruskin, to an artist who may be less familiar to readers, but is a long-held interest of mine. John Atkinson Grimshaw (1836-1893) was a Leeds- born artist, who practiced most of his career in Leeds and who by any … Continue reading John Atkinson Grimshaw: The Fields of Headingley
I am pleased to report that Sublimesites has received a second commission from the Pilkington Anglo-Japanese Cultural Foundation. This will fund site research in May into the topography of a wonderful later painting by Turner of Heidelberg. I have always loved the extraordinary crowd, gathered as if at some prototype of Glastonbury to celebrate a … Continue reading Turner and Heidelberg: A second Pilkington Foundation Commission
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