3-052-633 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Pass of St. Gothard, from Turner's "Liber Studiorum", 1880. 'In this fine drawing by J. M. W. Turner, the weird character of mingled rock and cloud scenery, which may often be observed amidst the Alpine heights, is rendered most effectively; and the tourist who has, in suitable conditions of the atmosphere, traversed either the St. Gothard, the Simplon, or the Mont Cenis Pass, will not fail to recognise its general truth. The recent virtual completion of that Titanic engineering work, the boring a tunnel railway passage through a cluster of mountains grouped together by the name of St. Gothard, of which we have given some Illustrations in this Journal, ought not to prevent many lovers of the picturesque and romantic in nature still visiting the lofty road where such sublime sights are to be enjoyed. Travellers for pleasure and recreation between Switzerland and Lombardy can seldom be in so great a hurry that they must go through or under the Alps in less than an hour, instead of spending a delightful day, at a trifling extra expense, in the journey over the Pass. The View we have engraved is at any rate calculated to serve as a protest against that mistaken course of conduct'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.