Oil paint on wood
Tate Collection
Works with images
Joseph Mallord William Turner
Turner Bequest
Oil paintings
Collection
Turner owned by Tate
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/joseph-mallord-william-turner-558" aria-label="More by Joseph Mallord William Turner" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Joseph Mallord William Turner</a>
Quiet Ruin Cattle in Water A Evening
Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856
animals: mammals
architecture
building
cliff
cow
evening
hill
landscape
pool
ruins
sheep
times of the day
water: inland
<p>Turner’s early career coincided with the long wars between Britain and France, particularly the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). Travel to the rest of Europe was almost impossible. Artists turned their attention to the British landscape and architectural heritage. Paintings such as this, of quiet rural British scenes, provided a focus for patriotic feeling. Like other artists, Turner drew on the newly developed idea of the ‘picturesque’. This emphasised the pleasure of roughness and variety in nature or old buildings. Pictures of ruins were popular.</p><p><em>Gallery label, July 2020</em></p>
painting oil paint wood
30 July 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
30 July 2001 – 23 June 2002
2002-06-23
2001-07-30
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-07-30
Painting the English Landscape
Collection based display
5 August 2002 – 21 May 2007
2007-05-21
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2002-08-05
Turner at Tate Britain
Collection based display
14 April 2012 – 8 March 2020
2020-03-08
14 April 2012 – 8 March 2020
2020-03-08
2012-04-14
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-04-14
Turner as a British Artist
Collection based display
1 September 2020 – 20 November 2022
2022-11-20
1 September 2020
2020-09-01
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2020-09-01
Clore 103
Collection based display
The Quiet Ruin, Cattle in Water; A Sketch, Evening
support: 612 × 765 mm
frame: 930 × 1085 × 125 mm
Accepted by the nation as part of the <a href="/search?gid=999999781" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Turner Bequest</a> 1856
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<p>Turner’s early career coincided with the long wars between Britain and France, particularly the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). Travel to the rest of Europe was almost impossible. Artists turned their attention to the British landscape and architectural heritage. Paintings such as this, of quiet rural British scenes, provided a focus for patriotic feeling. <br/>Like other artists, Turner drew on the newly developed idea of the ‘picturesque’. This emphasised the pleasure of roughness and variety in nature or old buildings. Pictures of ruins were popular.  </p>
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Display caption
2020-07-01T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>83. </b>[<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-quiet-ruin-cattle-in-water-a-sketch-evening-n00487" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00487</span></a>]<b> The Quiet Ruin, Cattle in Water; a Sketch, Evening</b>
Exh. 1809?
<br/>
<br/>THE TATE GALLERY, LONDON (487)
<br/>Mahogany, 24 1/8 × 30 1/8 (61 × 76·5)</p>
<p><b>Coll.</b> Turner Bequest 1856; transferred to the Tate Gallery 1910.</p>
<p><b>Exh.</b> ?Turner's gallery 1809 (2, as ‘Sketch of Cows, &amp;c.’); Tate Gallery 1931 (52); on loan to the Ulster Museum 1964–9.</p>
<p><b>Lit.</b> Ruskin 1857 (1903–12, xiii, p. 121); Thornbury 1862, i, p. 294; 1877, p. 430; Armstrong 1902, p. 219; MacColl 1920, p. 8; Gage 1965, p. 79 n.35.</p>
<p></p>
<p>For an alternative candidate for the picture exhibited in 1809 see No. 84 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-river-scene-with-cattle-n01857" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01857</span></a>]. Ruskin dates the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> 1811 with a query; Thornbury 1811 <i>tout court.</i> However it seems likely that this was the work listed by Turner in about 1810 in his ‘Finance’ sketchbook (CXXII-36; for the dating see Nos. 53 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-narcissus-and-echo-t03869" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03869</span></a>] and 56 [<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/turner-the-destruction-of-sodom-n00474" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N00474</span></a>]); the relatively low price set for it of £200 again suggests this picture rather than the larger No. 84 [<span>N01857</span>]. In the ‘Finance’ sketchbook the work is entitled ‘Cows’; if it was the work exhibited by Turner in 1809 it was then entitled ‘Sketch of Cows, &amp;c.’; Ruskin lists the work as ‘Cattle in Water’ but states in a footnote that the full title is that given at the head of this entry.
<br/>
<br/>Ruskin imagined ‘this to be one of the very few instances in which Turner made a <i>study</i> in oil. The subject was completed afterwards in a careful, though somewhat coarse <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/d/drawing" title="Glossary definition for 'Drawing'"><span>drawing</span></a>, which defines the Norman window in the ruined wall, and is one of many expressions of Turner's feeling of the contrast between the pure rustic life of our own day, and the pride and terror of the past.’ If, however, the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/w/watercolour" title="Glossary definition for 'Watercolour'"><span>watercolour</span></a> he refers to is that formerly known as <i>St. Agatha's Abbey, Easby, Yorkshire</i> but more correctly known as <i>The Abbey Pool</i> in the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (see Hartley 1984, pp. 34–5 no. 23, repr.), the oil is almost certainly the later of the two versions of the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>. The watercolour is signed ‘W.Turner’, the form only used by Turner up to about 1800 (there are traces of a date, rubbed and trimmed, which has been identified as ‘1801’). It shows a group of cows, fairly close to that in the oil, against the ruined abbey, which occupies most of the background, though there is a bank of earth on the left. In the oil all of the background is shown as earth and rocks with the exception of an architectural feature similar to that in the watercolour on the skyline on the right. The main forms are the same as in the watercolour, however, and <i>pentimenti</i> suggest that the background of the oil could originally have been much more architectural. In addition the grouping of the cows has been modified in the oil, two sheep added on the right, and the foreground detail inserted.
<br/>
<br/>Two cracks run into the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/panel" title="Glossary definition for 'Panel'"><span>panel</span></a>, one about 9 in. long from the left-hand edge, just below the horizon, the other from the right, about 4 in. long.</p>
<p>
<br/><b>Published in:</b>
<br/>Martin Butlin and Evelyn Joll, <i>The Paintings of J.M.W. Turner</i>, revised ed., New Haven and London 1984
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-22T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
animals: mammals architecture building cliff cow evening hill landscape pool ruins sheep times of the day water: inland