Turner's Water-Colours at Farnley Hall

by A. J. Finberg

THE OIL PAINTINGS.

1. London from Greenwich Park. 36” × 48". (National Gallery, No. 483.)

2. Shoeburyness Fisherman hailing a Whitstable Hoy—sometimes called Pilot with Red Cap hailing a Smack in Stormy Weather. 36” × 48".

3. The Victory returning from Trafalgar, beating up Channel in three positions: fresh breeze. 27” × 40". (Christie’s, 1890; Sir Donald Currie.)

4. Scene in the Apennines, with peasants driving sheep. 13½” × 19¼"—panel. (Christie’s, 1890; E. L. Raphael, Esq. Exhibited R. A. 1892; Guildhall, 1899.)

5. The Sun rising in a Mist. 27” × 40". (Christie’s, 1890; Mrs. Johnstone Foster.)

6. The Lake of Geneva, from above Vevey, and looking towards the Valley of the Rhone. 41½” × 65¼". (Christie’s, 1890; Sir Donald Currie.)

7. Dort, or Dordrecht—the Dort Packet-boat from Rotterdam becalmed. Signed and dated “J. M. W. Turner, R.A., 1818, Dort.” Exhibited R.A. 1818. 62” × 91½".

8. Rembrandt’s Daughter. Exhibited R.A. 1827. 46½” × 44½".

A free rendering of the London from Greenwich Park was engraved in the “Liber Studiorum” and published 1st January, 1811. The plate is inscribed, “Picture in the possession of Walter Fawkes, Esq., of Farnley.” Turner must, however, have bought back or exchanged the picture, as it was in his gallery at the time of his death, and thus passed into the National Gallery. Soon after its first exhibition at Marlborough House, in 1856, Mr. Ruskin published a curious “note” upon it, bewailing in eloquent terms the fact that Turner should waste his genius upon such an unworthy subject as London and a view of the Thames. “What a sorrowful matter it is,” he explained, that there was no one who “had sense and feeling enough” to tell Turner to paint the Rhone instead of the Thames, the Simplon instead of Richmond Hill, and Rouen Cathedral instead of Greenwich Hospital. Turner found his way at last to these subjects, Mr. Ruskin added, “but not till many and many a year had been wasted on Greenwich and Bligh Sands.” We need not on the present occasion trouble to examine too curiously the reasons which induced Mr. Ruskin to take such an entirely perverse view of the kind of subjects an English landscape painter ought to choose. It is sufficient to point out that an artist can only paint with his full power those scenes which he knows and loves intimately. Turner was born in London, and the Thames with its shipping about London Bridge stirred Turner’s imagination with memories of his boyhood, his early dreams and aspirations, in a way that the Rhone, or the Rhine, or the Danube could never stir it. No doubt these rivers are broader and deeper than the Thames, fairer to the eye of the tourist, and richer in historical associations; but these advantages are no compensation for that affectionate intimacy which guides and inspires the artist when he is dealing with scenes familiar to him since his boyhood. I will not hesitate to assert that Turner’s paintings and drawings of his native land and its rivers and ports stir my imagination and emotions far more powerfully and harmoniously than those of foreign parts. In spite of the tranquil splendour of the Farnley Dort, the magnificence of Mr. Naylor’s Cologne and Mr. Ralph Brocklebank’s Ehrenbreitstein, and the intricate play of cunning line and gorgeous colour in the water-colour of Heidelberg (in the Donald Currie Collection), I would not exchange any of these works for the sober harmonies and beautiful feeling of London from Greenwich Park, or the more moving drama of the fisherman’s daily life on the Thames enshrined in the Shoeburyness Fisherman hailing a Whitstable Hoy.

The picture of the Victory returning from Trafalgar was painted about the same time as the Shoeburyness Fisherman. It is hallowed by association with Nelson’s glorious end, but it is lacking in that unity and energy of pictorial motive which make the Shoeburyness Fisherman such a masterpiece of sea-painting.

Rembrandt’s Daughter is the only picture in the Farnley Collection which was bought by Mr. Walter Fawkes’s son, Mr. Hawksworth Fawkes. It was not well chosen. It shows Turner as an imitator and humble admirer of other artists, rather than as the great creative genius he was. It is not a typical work of the artist, but it throws an interesting side-light on the moods of hesitation and tentative experiment in which he occasionally indulged. Rembrandt and his wife are supposed to be surprising their daughter—an entirely mythical personage—while she is reading a love-letter. There are some fine passages of colour in the girl’s dress. The picture was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1827.