Gray wash, black wash, graphite and buff ground on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, mounted on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper
Dimensions:
Mount: 15 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches (40 x 52.7 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed on back on mount in graphite upper center: (circled) "N"; in graphite center: "32"
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1977.14.139
Classification:
Drawings & Watercolors
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
hills | rocks (landforms) | landscape
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
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)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (The State Hermitage Museum, 2007-10-23 - 2008-01-13)Great British Watercolors from the Paul Mellon Collection at the Yale Center for British Art (Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 2007-07-11 - 2007-09-30)The Art of Alexander and John Robert Cozens (Yale Center for British Art, 1980-09-17 - 1980-11-16)
Publications:
Art : The Definitive Visual History, DK Publishing, New York, 2018, p. 276, NX440 .A785 2018 Oversize (YCBA)Andrew Wilton, The Art of Alexander and John Robert Cozens, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1980, pp. 30-1, no. 25, pl. 11, NJ18 C83 W55 OVERSIZE (YCBA)
Gallery Label:
Alexander Cozens discouraged his students from copying nature directly, urging them to create ideal landscapes from the imagination instead. To do this he developed a notorious drawing system that consisted of making random marks, or “blots,” on a sheet of paper until a landscape gradually began to take shape. This view of an imaginary island was almost certainly worked up from a blot drawing. The monochrome palette and indistinct forms required the viewer to take an active part in imaginatively completing the landscape, something Cozens thought was a “singular advantage” of his method. 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)