"Turner was always, from his youth, fond of stones.. .But that gorge [which Turner passed during his trip in the diligence - South-Switzerland, North of Milan].. ..delighted him exceedingly.. ..[and] was still not well out of his head when the diligence stopped at the bottom of the hill, just at that turn of the road on the right of the bridge, which favourable opportunity Turner seized to make what he called a 'memorandum' of the place, composed of a few pencil scratches on a bit of thin paper, that would roll up with others of the sort and go into his pocket afterwards. These pencil scratches he put a few blots of colour upon (I suppose at Bellinzona the same evening, certainly not upon the spot), and showed me this blotted sketch when he came home [England]. I [Ruskin] asked him to make me a drawing of it, which he did.. .The trees Turner cuts away, and gives the rock a height of about a thousand feet, so as to imply more power and danger in the avalanche coining down the couloir. Next, he raises, in a still greater degree, all the mountains beyond, putting three or four ranges instead of one, but uniting them into a single mossy bank at their base.."
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Quote by John Ruskin, c. 1850's; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, pp. 224-225
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._M._W._Turner
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J. M. W. Turner
William Turner RA (baptized 14 May 1775 – 19 December 1851) was a British Romantic landscape painter, water-colourist, and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling .
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