J. M. W. Turner: Landscape with Rainbow
oil on canvas, 36x54 inches.

The photo on the left shows the painting as it appeared before restoration. The masterpiece that was to emerge later was hidden under layers of overpainting some in acrylic. It is not possible here to go into the several year project that was required to remove the layers that did not belong to the original. The image on the right shows the final condition of the painting.

It has not proved possible to identify the subject with certainty. Infrared photography reveals details of a small country church to the left, partly obscured by the tree. This has a squat square tower to the left, and three pointed arches to the nave, probably perpendicular in date. This gives us an orientation northwest since the church tower will be to the west as is customary. The subject is clearly English, but a river valley such as this could be found in many widely differing regions. A suggestion that this may show a Sussex landscape would be consistent with Turner's activities in the later 1820's when he was associated with the Earl of Egremont and was a regular visitor to Petworth House in West Sussex.

The painting has at some stage lost some surface layers and detail, probably in some overzealous attempt at cleaning and was consequently 'repainted'. Nevertheless, a dramatically atmospheric composition survives. Within a Claudian framework is a clockwise cycle of evaporation and precipitation. The cycle is expressed in abstract terms through color, particularly in the use of complementary mauve and yellow. The juxtaposition is most vivid at the left where the upward movement of the cyclic is at its most pronounced. Mauves and blues mark out the lines of evaporation and precipitation across the sky, and yellow marks the points at which the energy of light is at its most active, streaked across the sky in the rainbow and dappled across the land in the mid distance. The cycle is further animated by the broad impasto of the sky and the intricate interleaving of color in the middle distance. The result is an equation of abstract form and elemental content highly characteristic of the work of Turner's late career.

This painting was first reported by Dr. David Hill in "Turner Society News 66", March 1994, when the discovery attracted worldwide media interest. Coverage focused on fingerprints found in the paint at the top left of the foreground tree, which had been positively cross-matched by Biro, Laliberté and Manners, with fingerprints in the paint of examples in the Turner Bequest at the Tate Gallery. Early in 1995 these were independently re-examined by John Manners and his staff at the Fingerprint department of West Yorkshire Police, and the cross-match confirmed the fingerprint from Turner's painting "Chichester Canal" at the Tate Gallery.

Further tests have since been carried out. The Painting Analysis department of University College, London has recently made a detailed physical examination, and found the structuring method consistent with Turner's known techniques as described by Joyce Townsend in "Turner's Painting Techniques," 1994. Pigment analysis indicates a date of the later 1820's or after, that is, in the latter part of Turner's career.

( Images reproduced by permission of the former owner. )

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