The 'Skies' Sketchbook

The 'Skies' Sketchbook presents a stunning and dramatic selection of sky studies from one of Britain's most influential and important artists.

While weather and climate were longstanding interests for J.M.W. Turner, the dramatic consequences of the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, darkening skies and reddening sunsets around the world and turning 1816 into a 'year without a summer' surely caught his attention. Since the pages of this sketchbook are watermarked 1814, its more intensely-coloured studies may document these effects which lasted for more than a year.

Most of the skies in the book were presumably observed in England, but a few may have been seen in Italy when Turner visited in 1819. Notably varied cloudy skies also appear in Turner's paintings at this period, especially in those arising from his journey to Germany and the Netherlands in 1817.