ABSTRACT
Watercolour indicates the general nature of the land as pasture or arable, while ink divides it into lots and, with written labels, records their particular identities: 'Glebe no. 21 3 Rood', 'Berryhall Field'. Colour and sheen are of course supplied by the paint. But they are subordinate to the anatomy of the landscape that has been created by the pen: the contours of the hills, the lines of roads, the elevations and thicknesses of walls. In J. M. W. Turner's 'Brunnen, Lake Lucerne', at the Courtauld, a hazy watercolour mountain looms over a village outlined in pen: houses of cards threatened by an idea of the sublime. In botanical illustration, impressions of the represented object are again made subject to an idea of its identity. A specimen's individual features must not distract from those it shares with its type, for the type is what is being 'illustrated'.
