Watercolor and graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, light blue wove paper
Dimensions:
Sheet: 10 1/8 × 15 inches (25.7 × 38.1 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1975.4.1107
Gallery Label:
Joshua Cristall preferred to paint ambitious figurative watercolors of classical subjects, but he did paint and exhibit landscapes on occasion. This landscape was probably the product of a tour of Wales made in 1803 with fellow painter Cornelius Varley. While this view of cloud-covered mountain tops achieves a sublimity akin to the work of Alexander Cozens, the attempt to capture the precise atmospheric conditions marks a shift in the depiction of nature. Cristall strives to record actual meteorological phenomena by carefully rendering the low-lying stratus clouds, shifting dawn colors, and the patch of green landscape glimpsed through the cloud. Cornelius Varley’s diary of this tour with Cristall records the pair risking life and limb in the mountains of Wales in order to record unusual atmospheric effects such as this. Gallery label for Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Yale Center for British Art, 2008-06-09 - 2008-08-17)
