Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland
- Artist: Joseph Mallord William Turner
- Date: exhibited 1798
- Medium: Oil paint on canvas
- Dimensions: support: 1229 × 899 mm
- Museum: Tate Britain
- Collection record: Tate Britain website
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About this artwork
This is “Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland”, a work by Joseph Mallord William Turner. Painted in 1798, it captures the mist‑shrouded Coniston Old Man in Cumbria that Turner first saw in the summer of 1797. What makes this piece stand out is that Turner was the first artist to lift poetry into the Royal Academy catalogue – he quoted lines from Milton’s Paradise Lost: “Ye mists and exhalations that now rise… till the sun paints your fleecy skirts with gold…” Those words echo the soft, moving clouds and the flock of sheep that drift across the canvas, giving the landscape a natural drama that feels almost alive. A contemporary reviewer praised Turner’s “strength of mind” and called the work “sublime” in oil. The painting is part of the Turner Bequest that entered the national collection in 1856 and has been shown in many exhibitions since its 1798 debut, including a recent run in the Turner & Constable Rivals & Originals show. The moment you look at it, you almost feel the morning mist lifting off the fells.
See it in person
Morning amongst the Coniston Fells, Cumberland is in the collection of Tate Britain on Millbank, London — free to enter. Point your phone at any artwork there and audioguide.london plays a free audio guide in six languages — no app download needed.
