The Day Turner Came to Hampstead

In the 1820s, J.M.W. Turner made repeated visits to Hampstead Heath to paint the sky. He was not unusual in this: John Constable was doing the same thing, filling sheet after sheet with cloud studies from Parliament Hill, as we discussed in our Constable feature. But Turner's approach was different. Where Constable was systematic, Turner was improvisatory — using small panels, working in oil, capturing light effects rather than topography.

The sketches

The resulting sketches — mostly in the collection of the Tate — are among Turner's least known works, precisely because they are so abstract. Expanses of pearly grey, sudden breaks of gold, the Heath as a horizon rather than a subject. They anticipate, by thirty years, the direction that European painting would take in the 1870s. Seen in the Tate's Turner rooms alongside the finished Venetian and Alpine pictures, the Heath studies feel startlingly modern.

Why Hampstead

Turner came to Hampstead to visit the engraver W.B. Cooke, who lived on Gower Street, and on occasion his patron and friend the Earl of Egremont, whose north London circle intersected with Hampstead's artistic community. But the practical reason was simpler: the Heath offered the largest, highest, least-built-upon skyscape within walking distance of central London. The climb from the Euston Road to Parliament Hill took under an hour on foot and delivered a painter straight into open air.

The painter's routine

The pattern was to walk up to the Heath in the morning, work for a few hours in whatever light presented itself, then return for lunch. Turner's sketching habits were notoriously fast — five or six studies in a session was not unusual — and the economy of the method suited him. The Heath sketches were never intended for exhibition; some were later used as reference material for larger oils, but most remained in the studio.

Weather as subject

What Turner was looking at is not immediately obvious from a map. He was after weather — specifically the unstable English summer and autumn skies that Constable called "the chief organ of sentiment" in a landscape. The Heath's elevation (around 120 metres above central London), its open aspect, and the way its grassland horizons feed directly into the skyline made it unusually useful for this kind of work. The same quality is still visible today; our photography spots guide notes the same sightlines.

Where to see Turner's Heath works

Tate Britain holds the largest public collection of the Heath sketches, typically rotated through the Turner rooms two or three times a year. The Courtauld, the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum all hold smaller groups. Many of the studies have never been reproduced in major exhibition catalogues; a visit to the Tate print room by appointment is the serious way to see them.

Turner and Constable together

The two painters knew each other slightly and politely disliked each other, but their Heath work — taken together — is one of the most sustained artistic examinations of a single English landscape from the Romantic period. See our Constable feature for the full counterpart.

Walking the same ground

Parliament Hill on a windy summer afternoon, with the clouds moving fast from the west, still produces the sky Turner came to see. The Heath guide lists the best viewpoints.