Rapid Gestures: Waterfalls in British Romantic Art

December 18, 2009-June 6, 2010

J.M.W. Turner, Dazio Grande, 1843 Gift of Mr. Richard Brown Baker in memory of his parents, Harvey and Marion Baker

According to John Ruskin, no one painted waterfalls as skillfully as J.M.W. Turner, who captured their "majesty of motion" like no one else. Rapid Gestures: Waterfalls in British Romantic Art showcases the variety of materials, colors, lines, and brushstrokes artists used to portray these boisterous features of the natural world. Drawn from the Museum's rich collection of 18th- and 19th-century British watercolors and sketches, this exhibition offers the rare opportunity to compare works by Turner, including his magnificent Dazio Grande (1843), with depictions by contemporaries such as Ruskin, John Constable, Edward Lear and John Robert Cozens. Visitors journey through some of the most popular tourist destinations of the Romantic era to powerful sites of artistic and poetic inspiration in Britain, Switzerland and beyond.

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