Castelo de Dolbadarn

Turner was about 25 when he painted this in 1800, fresh from a walking tour through the mountains of North Wales. The subject is the lonely stone tower of Dolbadarn Castle, set below dark crags and lit by a low, uneasy sky. He was drawing on a real medieval story: the tower had once held Owain Goch, a Welsh prince kept prisoner there by his own brother for more than 20 years. Turner made the ruin small and the mountains huge, so the whole scene reads as a brooding image of power and captivity rather than a simple view. He submitted it two years later as his diploma work, on being made a full member of the Royal Academy, one of the youngest painters ever elected to it.