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By 1794 Girtin had left Dayes's studio and fallen into the circle around Thomas Monro. Tradition has it that Girtin and Dayes parted on poor terms, and it is true that Dayes was sharply critical of his pupil's later style. The watershed for Girtin was his attendance at Monro's Academy, where he met his exact contemporary Turner. There he was exposed to Monro's collection, especially the watercolors of John Robert Cozens (cat. nos. 17-20) and the drawings of Canaletto. According to Joseph Farington, Girtin was paid by Monro to draw copies of Cozens's watercolors, which Turner was then handed to color (cat. no. 44). Estuary on the River Taw, Devon reflects some of the lessons Girtin learned while working for Monro. The specific details of this work have only recently come to light. It is now known to represent a view in Devon, probably what is now the resort of Westward Ho! on Barnstaple Bay and not a Yorkshire scene as previously supposed. Although its exact date is disputed, a date of around 1797 seems most plausible. Girtin made a tour of the West Country in 1797, while still studying the work of J. R. Cozens. In this watercolor, he took a sweeping view along the coast using broad, wet washes laid on a granular paper in a manner similar to Cozens's technique. Just as Cozens aspired to produce landscapes where color and form were the central narrative elements, here it is the formal characteristics of the landscape that commanded Girtin's attention; there is no attempt, for example, to provide specific information about the region's economy or its notable features. The fact that this scene in Devon could have been mistaken for the very different terrain of Yorkshire indicates the extent to which Girtin generalized this coastal view: that it happened to be in Devon was irrelevant to Girtin's art. He searched out the land's abstract qualities: the variety and contrast between enclosed fields and open spaces; the dark hills and the pale, flat plains; sand and grassland; the open sea and the meandering river. This implies a picturesque aesthetic where the landscape's formal properties take precedence over all other features. It also registers a growing awareness of the distinctive qualities of the British landscape. Although he did not travel abroad until 1801, when Girtin did cross the Channel, he complained that the French landscape was entirely unsuited to painting being "spotty, naked, having no hedges and trees only where there are forests." It lacked those picturesque qualities Girtin believed were the essence of the landscape painter's art.

Matthew Hargraves

Hargraves, Matthew, and Scott Wilcox. Great British Watercolors: from the Paul Mellon collection. New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 2007, pp. 93-95, no. 40