Lake Lucerne: the Bay of Uri from above Brunnen circa 1844 (below) has been an important painting for me since the early 1970’s. I have always admired the New York Abstract Expressionists of the mid 20th century but when I first saw this painting by Turner…… my sock were blown off. This is the ultimate painting of landscape and nature – it tells a massive story with very little content…….Read more

The scumbled and brilliant paint surface is, at first, difficult to decipher. A small house beneath a cliff is discernible in the lower left corner, while mountains loom on the right hand side of the canvas. As a work begun a year or two after Turner’s 1842 visit to Switzerland and has been connected to a watercolor of the same subject completed that year. [Lake Lucerne: The Bay of Uri from above Brunnen: Sample Study circa 1841-2 ~ Watercolour and gouache on paper, 242 x 297 mm .]

(From the display caption September 2004)