Turner’s set of Yorkshire views begins chronologically with this depiction of the south bay of Scarborough, from the shoreline, taking in the bay with its busy fishing harbour and the bathers going out in their bathing machines, illustrating the town’s thriving fishing and tourist activities.
Turner had by this stage painted his great stormy marine paintings in oil for the Royal Academy exhibition, but here all is calm. As John Ruskin noted of a later Turner composition, this sense of calm was achieved through the repetition of forms. For example, in the oval shape of the bay echoed in the small pools on the beach, and in the hoop held by the boy, all drawn in remarkably confident freehand and in the repetition of the crisp contour of the shored-up bank in the foreground with the misty headland crowned by its medieval castle.
Here we see the boys on the shore with a hoop, and Turner shows with characteristic wit the crabs already escaping from their baskets and the starfish that are a recurrent motif of his Scarborough paintings. A shrimper can be seen behind wading into the shallow waters.
Turner has painted or scratched away his initials and date into the paint on the lower left, as if chiselling into the rock. The rough wooden structures of the bank recall similar elements in Rembrandt’s landscapes, already recognised in the 17th century for their picturesque qualities. The figure hanging out linen is a recurrent motif in the Scarborough compositions, where figures are seen washing linen in the sea.
Painted in 1809, Scarborough Castle: Boys Crab Fishing it is based on a drawing Turner made eight years earlier during a sketching trip of the coast of Northern England and Scotland. The drawing of the bay covers two continuous pages of a small 12 x 16 cm sketchbook called the Dunbar Sketchbook, with pages tinted with red wash. The viewpoint is the same as that in the watercolour, from behind the bank, but much emphasis is given to the light reflecting off the crests of the waves, the tinted paper scratched away to reveal the whites for the sea spray.
The colour beginning is another important preparatory stage in the making of the watercolour, which would have complemented the sketch in Turner’s creative process. Scarborough from the South shows us how Turner achieved this sense of pictorial depth in the composition, by the arrangement of the massive forms of the foreground bank and distance headland. Colour is a key component, in the contrast between the rich dark browns of the bank with the lighter, almost transparent, shades of the headland. Like his other colour beginnings, Turner used this sketch to establish a sense of atmosphere as well as tonal range.
Turner must have been pleased with his watercolour for William Pilkington, for he made a larger, more grandly conceived painting for Walter Fawkes a year later (Scarborough). The themes of crab fishing and the drying of linen have been amplified to include more figures, and a cutter now occupies the shallow waters.
The Scarborough series ends with this watercolour (Scarborough Town and Castle) that Turner submitted for the lavish historical guide to the Ports of England. In keeping with the patriotic mission of the volume, to celebrate British commercial activities and maritime strength, Turner has shifted the emphasis to the fishing harbour and its lighthouse. The town itself and its looming castle are painted in greater detail, reminding the viewer or reader of the attractions of this tourist resort and its historic importance as a stronghold. The castle itself had been the site of several sieges during the English Civil War, a subject of great interest to Walter Fawkes and his circle.