Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland
Watercolour
1832 (painted)
1832 (painted)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
William Andrews Nesfield (1793-1881) was best known in his day for his representation of water. Water is particularly difficult to paint. He belonged to a young generation of artists who were beginning to experiment with the watercolour medium. They challenged the typical 18th century landscape.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland (popular title) |
| Materials and techniques | Watercolour |
| Brief description | Watercolour of Bamburgh Castle, Northumberland by W. M. Nesfield. Great Britain, 1832. |
| Physical description | Like Turner's view of Warkworth Castle (cat.no. 90), some twenty miles north along the north-eastern coast from Bamburgh, Nesfield's work takes a low viewpoint to emphasise the towering mass of the building. Nesfield's choice of mood, however, is rougher and bleaker; the waves smash against the rocks of that dangerous coastline, battering the fishing boat in the sudden storm, and creating alarm among the onlookers on the desolate beach. As with sunrise and sunset in landscape, it is difficult to determine whether the storm has just begun, or is nearing its end; perhaps the darkly heavy pall of cloud and wind which move from the right to obscure the sun (the direction is indicated by the flag on the castle tower) means this is the onset of the tempest. |
| Dimensions |
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| Style | |
| Credit line | Ellison Gift |
| Subjects depicted | |
| Places depicted | |
| Summary | William Andrews Nesfield (1793-1881) was best known in his day for his representation of water. Water is particularly difficult to paint. He belonged to a young generation of artists who were beginning to experiment with the watercolour medium. They challenged the typical 18th century landscape. |
| Bibliographic reference | It seems that Nesfield was a 'gentleman artist', rather than a painter who had to make his living by his work. Educated at Winchester College and Trinity, Cambridge, his first career was in the army, from which he retired as lieutenant on half-pay. A Member of the Old Watercolour Society, he also wrote on medieval architecture and designed landscaped gardens, eventually giving up painting to concentrate on these other interests. He travelled extensively in the British Isles, and visited the Alps, and seems to have been most inspired by dramatic landscapes such as the present subject. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | FA.536 |
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| Record created | December 15, 1999 |
| Record URL |
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