Crypt of Kirkstall Abbey, part VIII, plate 39, from Liber Studiorum

Turner visited the ruins of the Cistercian Abbey at Kirkstall in Yorkshire in 1797 and recorded his impressions in a watercolor now in the Sir John Soane’s Museum in London. This print, which is based on that composition, depicts light streaming into the crypt to reveal a herd of cattle near a pool of water.

Turner’s contemporaries drew a moral lesson from the dilapidated state of the abbey and its use by animals rather than the original Cistercian monastic community. Critic John Ruskin wrote: “Here, where the dark pool reflects the chancel pillars, and the cattle lie in unhindered rest, the soft sunshine on their dappled bodies, instead of priests’ vestments; … Strong faith, and steady hands, and patient souls—can this, then, be all you have left?”