From Spenser's Fairy Queen (Liber Studiorum, part VII, plate 36) 1811

This print, ‘From Spenser’s Fairy Queen’, comes from Turner’s series of landscape studies, the ‘Liber Studiorum’. It uses a printmaking technique called mezzotint, a painstaking process where the artist textures a copper plate with a tool called a rocker, creating thousands of tiny pits that, if printed at this stage, would produce a solid black field. From there, the image is created by selectively burnishing or scraping away the burr to lighten areas, and create the tonal variations you see here. It's a labor-intensive method, demanding immense skill, patience and control. In the 19th century, printmaking was essential for disseminating images widely. Turner carefully managed the production of the ‘Liber Studiorum’ prints, but he relied on skilled printmakers to execute the mezzotints. The resulting print cleverly simulates the atmospheric effects of Turner’s paintings. The rich blacks evoke the sublime, but also hint at the social context of the print as a commodity, a product of skilled labor and artistic vision. Understanding the means of production helps us appreciate the artistry and cultural value embedded in this seemingly simple image.