Pleasant views British Watercolors shine at the RISDMuseum of Art BY BILL RODRIGUEZ

Anyone who has ever associated watercolors with Sunday painters owes themselves a stroll through "Luminous Landscapes: British Watercolors from the Museum's Collection" at the Rhode Island School of Design’s Museum of Art.

Twenty-seven paintings and watercolor drawings from a world-class collection of nearly 800 have been selected not necessarily as masterworks, but rather to tell a story. This is a teaching museum, after all, so the tale told is that of how various artists raised a humble medium to high regard by the British Royal Academy as well as the art-appreciating public.

Beginning in 1969 when the museum received a large number of British watercolors from an anonymous donor, RISD’s collection has developed into one of international prominence.

The title of the exhibition establishes as much about the virtues of the medium as the focus of the show. The techniques possible with watercolor are exquisitely appropriate to landscapes: the visual impact of the sun backlighting clouds is much the same as that of white paper glowing through translucent swaths of color. Light bounces off oil paint but suffuses and illuminates thin washes of pigment.

Take one of the most powerful paintings on display here, J.M.W. Turner’s "Dazio Grande" (1842). As the accompanying text explains, this is a color sketch done on-site in Switzerland in hopes of later obtaining a commission for a full-size series. Its mountain pass becomes a vortex of energy, the yellows and browns of the rock merging with the blues of ice and shadows, as could not have been accomplished in thick paint. Turner may send us reeling before his seascape oil paintings, but in those he had the sun blazing on horizon lines; here he was viewing mere light and shadow playing upon a valley, seeking to reproduce internal fires. (As is noted below the painting, seminal art critic John Ruskin eventually considered these studies to be the best keys to unlocking Turner. Ruskin had been impressed enough with "Dazio Grande" to draw it from memory much later in a letter.)

In the early 19th century, British Romantic poets were rhapsodizing about nature, both human and pastoral. Painters, however, could inspire by directly showing rather than telling. The flowing lines of the hill country presented in Francis Towne’s "Vale of St. John, Cumberland" (1786) is a lyrical precursor, its flowing diagonal beginning at upper left at the curves of a hillside, then dropping down through a tree line and ending with a meandering path at the lower right.

Thomas Gainsborough is better known for the atmospherics of his portraits, such as "The Blue Boy," than his fresh air scenes, but he loved the genre. His "Landscapes with a Waterfall" (ca. 1783) depicts the sensation of flowing water through a loose, painterly style rather than a draftsmanly capturing of the surrounding terrain. The medium rewards such spontaneous brushwork by freezing it in time.

In "Landscape with Trees, Near Lincoln," done in the late 1830s or early 1840s, Peter De Wint accomplished an effect that is still emulated today, we are informed. His painting on coarsely textured wet paper unified the brown foreground of a field, the line of trees beyond, and the vast, pink-tinged sky with an atmospheric softness.

As the exhibition points out, some watercolorists were after topographical precision rather than sublime beauty. Yet as photography eventually revealed, the former does not preclude the latter. Edward Lear may have been better appreciated for his nonsense verse, but admiring his "Garf Harbor, Malta" (1866) might easily be a more inspiring experience than standing at the actual cliff overlook. A still sky and sea are contrasted with a stark, sheer wall of stone, cracks and crannies meticulously re-created, jutting foreground outcroppings pointing like fingers down to the peaceful water. A notation tells us that this was drawn in an hour, and it was completed in gouache and watercolor in his studio.

Since landscapes painted in oils were more profitable and appreciated, many works on display here were not often exhibited, if at all, in their day. For example, celebrated landscapist John Constable customarily did not show his watercolors, as though they were mere tossed-off sketches. But his "The Dorset Coast" (1816) is difficult to not appreciate today, its dreamy mood hinting of early morning mists viewed from an overlook.

As with many of the impressive works here, Constable’s chosen medium matched his message perfectly. Don't miss these illuminating selections before they rejoin their companions in the RISD archives.