Turner's Watercolour Explorations 1810-1842

One of the largest sections of the Turner Bequest at the Tate Gallery is a group made up of watercolour sketches, early studios for finished works, and finished and unfinished drawings. Although many of the designs appear to be abstract, Turner was not creating non-representational images but was employing a rapid "visual shorthand". These pictures remain among Turner's most popular works. This volume explains the creative process that underlies these images and the interpretive techniques which have been used to analyze them. Many of their subjects are identified and the pictures are arranged according to their subject-matter and historical purpose.