- Description
-
- Creator(s)
- Thomas Girtin (1775-1802)
- Title
-
- The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
- Date
- 1798 - 1799
- Medium and Support
- Graphite, watercolour, bodycolour, scratching out, stopping out and gum arabic on laid paper
- Dimensions
- 51.9 × 64.3 cm, 20 ⅜ × 25 ⁵⁄₁₆ in
- Inscription
‘Girtin’ lower left, by Thomas Girtin
- Object Type
- Studio Watercolour
- Subject Terms
- North Wales; Waterfall Scenery
-
- Collection
-
- Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
- (1953P277)
- Versions
-
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
(TG1319)
- Catalogue Number
- TG1320
- Girtin & Loshak Number
- 322ii as 'Cayne Waterfall, Merioneth'; '1799'
- Description Source(s)
- Viewed in 2001 and June 2024
Provenance
Leggatt Brothers, London, 1948; James Leslie Wright (1862–1954); presented to the Museum, 1953
Exhibition History
London, 1949, no.196; Birmingham, 1970, no.25; Birmingham, 1980, no.34
Place depicted
Other entries in The 1798 Welsh Tour:
Sketches and Subsequent Watercolours
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Rhuddlan Castle, from the River Clwyd
Tate, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
National Museum of Wales, Cardiff
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery
The Eagle Tower, Caernarfon Castle
Private Collection, North Wales
Caernarfon: A Street Scene with Plas Mawr
Tate, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
British Museum, London
Caernarfon Castle, from the River Seiont
Williamson Art Gallery & Museum, Birkenhead
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
British Museum, London
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
Birmingham Museums & Art Gallery
A Mountain View, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
A Bridge over the Glaslyn, near Beddgelert
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
British Museum, London
Pont Seiont, Looking Towards Mynydd Mawr (Big Mountain)
Private Collection
Pont y Pair, Betws-y-Coed
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
Llyn Tegid (Bala Lake), Looking towards Cadair Idris
Private Collection
A View of Hills and a River, Probably in North Wales
British Museum, London
Denbigh Castle and the Vale of Clwyd
British Museum, London
An Unidentified Landscape, Possibly the Vale of Clwyd
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River; Studies of Seated Figures
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth
Valle Crucis Abbey, from the River
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
Valle Crucis Abbey: From the Cloister Looking Towards the Dormitory
Private Collection
Valle Crucis Abbey: The Chapter House, from the South West
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven
A River Scene, Probably the Dee near Corwen
The Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens, San Marino
The Cloisters of Chester Cathedral
Private Collection
The Red Castle, from Hawk Lake, with a Distant View of Shrewsbury
Private Collection
Wroxeter: The Roman Wall
Harvard Art Museums / Fogg Museum, Loan from George and Patti White
The Old Severn Bridge at Bridgnorth
British Museum, London
Hereford Cathedral, from across the River Wye
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
The Great Hall, Kenilworth Castle
Private Collection
An Unidentified Valley, Probably in North Wales
Southill Park, Bedfordshire
Cadair Idris, from the Estuary near Barmouth
Private Collection
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About this Work
This large studio watercolour depicting the Cain Falls near Dolgellau is based on an on-the-spot colour sketch that Girtin made on his trip to North Wales in the summer of 1798 (TG1319). The sketch is only marginally smaller than the finished watercolour, and I suspect that the artist would not have invested so much time and effort into producing it, or have made what seems to have been something of a detour to reach the most southerly point of his trip, unless he had secured a commission for a major work beforehand. This is not to say that Girtin could not have travelled to the site of his own volition. However, it is more likely that he was directed there by a patron who had either visited previously or knew about the picturesque location from one of the number of enthusiastic descriptions of the site in the tourist literature that proliferated in the 1790s, and the fact that there does not appear to have been any precedent for Girtin’s depiction of the falls only makes the latter more probable. The account of the Revd John Evans (1768–c.1812), who visited Cain Falls on his Tour through North Wales, in the Year 1798, is typical of the experience of travellers who sought out one of the region’s most picturesque waterfalls, noting the approach through a ‘fairy region’ of ‘sylvan shades’, from where the falls could be heard ‘in an angry roar … like distant thunder’. Arriving at the bottom via a ‘truly alpine bridge’, Evans finally saw the water descend through ‘the rocky fissures’ and a ‘thick wooded glen, shaded by ancient oak’; the effect, he concluded, was an ‘enchanting style of romantic beauty’ (Evans, 1804, pp.105–6). Girtin almost certainly did not read such accounts and thus would not have been influenced by them when he fashioned his image, but the point is that in order either to satisfy the expectation of a patron or to create a successful commodity, he had to embody such sentiments. Girtin achieves something of the immersive experience described by Evans by adopting a viewpoint close to the falls and by employing an almost square format that allows for just a glimpse of the sky, so that the elemental constituents of rock, vegetation and water are compressed into a confined space.
The watercolour has faded badly over the years, suffering the same fate as many of the artist’s largest works that were designed to be framed and glazed for display on the wall (such as TG1554). Nonetheless, it remains a useful indicator of Girtin’s style when working on a large scale, with the paint surface scratched into to form highlights, whilst other details are created with the addition of opaque bodycolour. The artist’s standard repertoire of effects is further enhanced by the extensive use of stopping-out, and this technique features prominently in other larger Welsh scenes, including The Great Hall, Conwy Castle (TG1306) and The Ogwen Falls (TG1330). The technique of using a wax-based resist, which might be brushed in, washed over and then removed by gently heating to leave negative areas as highlights, was published by the artist Francis Nicholson (1753–1844) in 1799, and it appears that Girtin was keen to try the process out for himself as almost all of the works that employ stopping-out date from that year.
(?) 1798
The Cain Falls (Pistyll Cain), near Dolgellau
TG1319
1800 - 1801
On the River Wharfe at Bolton Abbey
TG1554
1798 - 1799
The Great Hall, Conwy Castle
TG1306
1798 - 1799
The Ogwen Falls
TG1330