Bonneville, Savoy, with Mont Blanc, 1803
Oil on canvas
Dallas Museum of Art, Texas, Foundation for the Arts Collection, gift of Nancy Hamon in memory of Jake L. Hamon, with additional donations from Mrs. Eugene D. McDermott, Mrs. James H Clark, Mrs. Edward Marcus and the Leland Fikes Foundation, Inc., 1985.97.FA

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:—the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Percy Shelley, “Mont Blanc,” 1817

Joseph Mallord William Turner first crossed the English Channel to France and Switzerland in July of 1802, following the Treaty of Amiens. Bonneville was on the primary route for Alpine travel and the Mont Blanc area had some of the most dramatic scenery leading into the Alps. Turner used numerous sketches that he made on his trip to create this oil painting. Calm water, reclining peasants, and a town appear in the foreground of the picture, while jagged mountains dominate the background. The painting shifts from darker earth tones on the right to lighter, atmospheric color on the left, culminating in the far white peak of Mont Blanc. Throughout his life, Turner’s way of painting landscapes became more abstract, full of light, and dominated by the power of nature.