One of Twenty Vignettes - At Summer Eve (Illustration to 'The Pleasures of Hope')
About this artwork
Thomas Campbell (1777-1844) wrote his first book of poetry, The Pleasures of Hope, in 1795 at the age of eighteen, while teaching on the Isle of Mull. This vignette illustrates the opening lines of the poem: ‘At summer eve, when Heav’n’s ethereal bow/ Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below/ Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye/ Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?’ The poem alludes to the hope lent to the future by the ‘enchantment’ of its distance from the present. Turner’s illustration features an idyllic river valley spanned by a rainbow, ‘Heav’n’s ethereal bow’, set against a backdrop of mountains.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775 - 1851) English
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title:One of Twenty Vignettes - At Summer Eve (Illustration to 'The Pleasures of Hope')
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date created:About 1835
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materials:Watercolour over pencil on paper
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measurements:13.00 x 12.50 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Accepted by HM Government in lieu of inheritance tax and allocated to the National Gallery of Scotland, 1988
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accession number:D 5153
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gallery:
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subject:
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner transformed the art of landscape painting in Britain. From detailed topographical studies to expansive, atmospheric vistas his works celebrate the diversity and emotive power of nature. He was born in Covent Garden, the son of a barber, and exhibited his earliest sketches in his father's...