This watercolour, showing the view north towards the hill known as Simon’s Seat, with the stepping stones on the river Wharfe opposite Bolton Priory forming a bold diagonal, is one of two almost identical versions of a composition that Girtin sketched on the spot (the other being TG1684). The original colour sketch (TG1613) was in all likelihood made on an excursion from Harewood House in the summer of 1800, where the artist was staying with his patron Edward Lascelles (1764–1814). Girtin painted part of this view, showing the central tree-lined cliff face, as a commission for Lascelles with the title On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey (TG1554). Neither of the more open, elevated views of the river was made for Lascelles, however, and there is some evidence that at least one of them was painted for Samuel William Reynolds (1773–1835), who acted on behalf of the artist in his final years in a role somewhere between agent and dealer. Both versions thus conform to the standard size of his stock, 32.7 × 51.8 cm (12 ⅞ × 20 ½ in), and one can imagine that the second was therefore created following the sale of this watercolour, presumably to its first known owner, John Allnutt (1773–1863). Which of the works is the ‘primary’ watercolour is difficult to say from visual evidence alone, however; though there have been attempts to suggest that this newly discovered version demonstrates a greater ‘spontaneity’, I suspect that this just means that it is in a slightly less faded condition, without the unpleasant hot tonality seen in the drawing formerly in the Girtin family collection (Lowell Libson, London, 2011, pp.44–47). That said, it may be that this work was produced with rather more care, as evidenced by the fact that the artist used two different blue pigments, one of which has faded so that the greys of the clouds have been compromised and the greens of the foliage have lost much of their depth. Nonetheless, another more stable blue was employed for the sky and its reflection in the river, and this has remained relatively unchanged, so that the composition as a whole has retained a greater spatial clarity, and something of the effect of a warm sunny day is still evident. Ironically, the effect is less overtly dramatic than the other version, which Thomas Girtin (1874–1960) and David Loshak implausibly praised as a ‘masterpiece’ redolent of ‘a new feeling of anguish’ occasioned by an impending sense of the artist’s mortality (Girtin and Loshak, 1954, pp.76–78). But perhaps that is no bad thing, as it allows us to concentrate on the knowable qualities of a composition that was amongst Girtin’s most innovative and influential, inspiring artists such as John Sell Cotman (1782–1842) and his engagement with river scenery, as in his celebrated On the Tees at Wycliffe (see comparative image TG1685).

The example of Cotman’s work, with its evident debt to Girtin’s characteristic composition, helps us to appreciate the way in which Girtin refined his source material – an on-the-spot colour sketch (TG1613) – to create a seemingly artless studio watercolour that simplifies its essential components. The key lies in the manner in which the artist organised features such as the line of the riverbank, the stepping stones themselves and the forms of the cliffs into a series of powerful diagonals. This is most noticeable in the distant trees, which follow no discernible pattern in the sketch but are here structured into a series of parallel and intersecting lines that create a sense of recession, and this is also apparent in the cliffs, which gain spatial clarity as a result. The studio watercolour also illustrates more fully the benefit of Girtin’s use of a high viewpoint, which, as David Hill has shown, can be recreated today, albeit that the artist brought all of the features a little closer to the spectator and inflated the height of Simon’s Seat in the distance (Hill, 1999, p.34). This increased the area of the river that is visible, turning the plane of water into an arena for the play of shadows and reflections, which, in turn, register as highly attractive abstract shapes of flat colour, all of which clearly influenced Cotman’s approach. Finally, in what seems to me the most innovative and interesting aspect of the work, Girtin was able to convince at least two of his contemporaries to purchase views that literally saw him turn his back to a well-known beauty spot, with the picturesquely sited ruins of Bolton Priory tellingly omitted from the composition to the left. The ‘mighty amphitheatre of rugged mountains’ may have been praised by contemporary travellers to the area, but it took a considerable leap of imagination to omit the famous ruins and reduce them to a line of stones, and to take at least part of his audience with him (Anonymous, 1813, p.15). The sorts of formal qualities highlighted above therefore made the scene attractive to sympathetic collectors, aside of the subject, and one can imagine that the view was acquired primarily as an example of the work of an admired artist.

1800 - 1801

Stepping Stones on the River Wharfe, near Bolton Abbey

TG1684

(?) 1800

Stepping Stones on the River Wharfe

TG1613

1800 - 1801

On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey

TG1554

1800 - 1801

Stepping Stones on the River Wharfe, near Bolton Abbey

TG1685

(?) 1800

Stepping Stones on the River Wharfe

TG1613