Caerlaverock Castle by Turner

Acquisition at auction of Turner's watercolour of Caerlaverock Castle, Dumfriesshire. Turner visited Scotland on six different occasions. Each visit proved to be enormously fruitful. His fifth visit, in 1831, had been prompted by an invitation from Sir Walter Scott for Turner to sketch locations as illustrations for Scott's 'Poetical Works'. The thirteenth century Caerlaverock Castle is depicted as a magnificent feudal fortress. Turner emphasises its proportions by his dramatic use of lighting, the suggestion of rain clouds in the distance and the way in which a centrifugal force seems to whip up the building into a torment of energy which appears to be only just contained by its massive sandstone walls.