FROM 'THE BAY OF BAIÆ TO 'ULYSSES DERIDING POLYPHEMUS'
[CHAPTER XXVIII]
1822: AGED FORTY-SEVEN
HE THROWS OFF ANOTHER 'NORHAM CASTLE' AND PREPARES TO STARTLE THE WORLD WITH 'THE BAY OF BAIÆ'
Turner sent nothing to the Royal Academy of 1821, and in 1822 he exhibited only the unimportant 'What you Will,' a mere nothing, a memory of some other painter. 'What you Will' was probably forgotten except by its owner and students of Turner; but in 1910 it appeared at Christie's and was described by an influential daily paper as a fine early Turner 'depicting a party of ladies and gentlemen in a garden near some groups of statuary.' It realised £1,176, an enormous rise on the price, one hundred and fifty guineas, which Chantrey gave for 'What you Will.' He wrote the price on the back of the picture, so that there might be no mistake. Turner would have been amazed to learn what the twentieth century thought of this experiment of his in 'figured landscape.' Perhaps the price it fetched answers a caustic comment of Hazlitt's: 'Mr. Turner's pictures have not like Claude's become a sentiment in the heart of Europe; his fame has not been stamped and rendered sacred by the hand of time. Perhaps it never will.'
A Sketch-Book of this year is called 'King's Visit to Scotland.' On leaf 58, à propos of the reception of George IV., is this note in Turner's handwriting: 'Custom House Key. The Authorities in Blue and White Gowns. Red Flags and Gold.' According to Ruskin's endorsement on the wrapper Turner went to Edinburgh by sea.
In the 'Medway' Sketch-Book of the previous year on a drawing of 'Scenes on Medway' are these notes on Clouds in his own handwriting:—'Cold,' 'Warm,' 'Yellow Clouds,' 'Rain with ... Colour along its edge,' 'Rain in Shade.'
No labour either with pen or pencil was too arduous to hinder him from noting down his impressions of the effects of nature from hour to hour and day to day. And always every year there is some work that starts out and affects us by its beauty. With this year I associate the imposing 'Norham Castle' in the National Collection engraved for River Scenery in 1824. The tyranny of the foreground still holds him—cows, boats, shed, outbuildings; but this foreground is less insistent than usual. How beautiful is the blue-grey ruin rising up against the pale sunset sky; how limpid is the water, with its reflection of castle and sail rippling on the quiet surface.
This 'Norham Castle' is one of his 'delight pictures,' but the more arduous work of the Wizard in 1822 was meditating upon and painting the 'Bay of Baiæ,' with which he proposed to startle the world at the next Royal Academy exhibition.
[CHAPTER XXIX]
1823: AGED FORTY-EIGHT
'THE BAY OF BAIÆ': A CRITIC IS CRITICAL, AND A PAINTER IS ENTHUSIASTIC
'Waft me to sunny Baiæ's shore' wrote Turner in the Fallacies of Hope, one of the simple lines, a line that it was quite permissible to print in the catalogue of the Academy of 1823 against his much discussed, much criticised, and much loved 'Bay of Baiæ.' The picture indeed wafts us to Baiæ, one of the most beautiful spots in Italy, and we are content with its beauty if we neglect the pines, their heavy shadows, and the figures of Apollo and the Cumæan Sibyl posing in the shade. But could anything be lovelier than the blue sea rippling on the yellow sand, the subtle hills and the fairy building, a kind of Claude 'Enchanted Castle' that has passed into a golden dream.
Turner, as I have said before, has his admirers and detractors, and those who adore part of his achievement and are critical of the rest; few, if any, admire him all in all. Let me here quote two authorities on 'The Bay of Baiæ'—Mr. Finberg, a critic who has devoted years of his life to Turner, and Mr. Wyllie, a painter who has written an admirable book on the master. The reader can decide which form of criticism or commentary he prefers: the cold objectivity of the critic or the glowing subjectivity of the painter. Here is Mr. Finberg on 'The Bay of Baiæ,' extracted from the admirable Extra Number of The Studio on the 'Water Colours of Turner':—
'It is conceded on all hands that Turner's artistic work went all to pieces as a result of his Italian experiences. "The Bay of Baiæ" contains faults altogether new in his completed works. Even the feeblest of his earlier works had been animated by some central idea or emotion to which all the parts were subordinated, and which infused into them whatever of life or significance they possessed. In "The Bay of Baiæ" the artist has an unusual quantity of material on his hands, but he can neither find nor invent a pictorial idea to give coherence to his disconnected observations. The picture is made up of bits of visual experiences elaborately dovetailed into one another but which absolutely refuse to combine into any kind of conceptional unity.'
And here is Mr. Wyllie on 'that wonderful work' 'The Bay of Baiæ':—
'Only eight years before, the "Crossing the Brook" was painted in little more than black, brown, and palest blue, and now Turner has thrown aside the inky shadows as cold, grey skies and has burst out a perfect blaze of splendid colour. Years ago when I was a student at the old Academy schools in Trafalgar Square I used to stroll out at the luncheon hour or after closing time, to have a look at the Old Masters in the National Gallery next door. Somehow my feet always seemed to carry me to this my favourite picture at that time.
Plate XVI. The Bay of Baiæ (1823) Tate Gallery
'I think the blue sea breaking gently on the sandy shore is one of the most perfect of Turner's visions of Italy. The little jetty, the fishing boats, the castle, and the volcanic hill thickly wooded and piled ridge beyond ridge as they pale into the haze are all most splendidly painted; the ruins half hidden in vines and long trailing creepers are well done and take their places in the scheme. There are thin rich glazes and strong yellows in the foreground and two very conventional stone pines, which throw a mos unnatural dark shadow right across the foreground. The Sibyl holding up the cryptic handful of sand to Apollo as a request for many years of life is painted quite carelessly; indeed one would almost fancy that the whole of the near objects were formed up in that rich, juicy fashion merely to drive back the delicate middle distance and enhance its beauty. There is no doubt that it does produce that effect, for if you shut out that part of the composition with your hand the rest of the picture suffers though the foreground is nothing by itself.'
Turner's contemporaries made the usual remark that the real locality had been rather freely treated, or, as Thornbury puts it, half the scene was sheer invention. As a matter of fact 'Baiæ' is more accurate, from a topographical point of view, than most of Turner's pictures. Jones wrote across the frame with a piece of chalk the words 'Splendide Mendaæ.' Turner laughed; he did not even take the trouble to rub out the chalk. For years the marks remained on the frame.
Here is a pen picture of Turner at this time. David Roberts, who became one of Turner's most intimate friends, decribes how he first met him at a meeting of the Artists' Benevolent Fund, one of Turner's pet schemes which he helped to found and to carry out. It was characteristic of Turner that he was in favour of hoarding its funds and distributing but a small sum each year in charity.
Of this meeting of the Artists's Benevolent Fund at the Crown and Anchor in the Strand, Roberts wrote:—
'Being seated round a table covered with green baize—of course with the exception of my friend whom I accompainied, John Wilson, all to me were strangers—a little square built man came in, to whom all paid respect; the business having begun, he joined in the conversation, and made some weak attempts at wit—at least I thought so, for no one seemed to laugh at his jokes but himself! So I asked who this very facetious little man was, and my astonishment on being told that it was the 'Great Turner' almost, without meaning a pun, turned my head.'
Turner was not the first great man, and he will not be the last little man, at whose jokes no one laughs but himself.
[CHAPTER XXX]
1824: AGED FORTY-NINE
A GLANCE AT SOME OF 'THE RIVERS OF ENGLAND' AND 'HARBOURS OF ENGLAND' WATER-COLOURS
In 1824 the British National Gallery was founded, and it was decided by the Committee, which included Sir Robert Peel and Lord Harding, to buy two of Turner's pictures, for presentation to the Gallery. The works chosen were 'Dido Building Carthage' and' The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire.' Five thousand pounds were to be offered for the two. A memorial was drawn up, and Griffiths, Turner's old friend, was instructed to present it to the painter.
Turner, we are told by Thornbury,
'was deeply moved, even to tears, for he was capable of intense feeling. He expressed his pride and delight at such a noble offer from such men. But his eye caught the word "Carthage" in the memorial, and he exclaimed sternly: "No, no, they shall not have it"; and upon Griffiths turning to go, he called out after him: "Oh, Griffiths! make my compliments to the memorialists, and tell them 'Carthage' may some day become the property of the nation."'
After this interview, it is said that he went about muttering to himself—'A great triumph! A great triumph!'
In this year he is apparently fumbling towards lithography. In the 'Brighton and Arundel' Sketch-Book is the following note in his own handwriting in pencil:—
'Lithography—the soap is ... dissolved by the aqua fortis, being saturated to the utmost by pieces of Lith stone, then diluted with water.
'Silicated potash makes gum a white flakey insoluable process (?).'
He had not forgotten his old rivals and masters, as on another page, written against 'Views on Coast,' are these two words followed by a note of interrogation—'Claude Morning (?).'
On the 'Academy Auditing' Sketch-Book, Ruskin has made this curious endorsement: 'Kept as evidence of the failure of mind only.' This Sketch-Book is devoted mainly to figures, probably Academy finance; but Turner soon tires of sums, and turns to matters more congenial—to sketches of a Sleeping Figure, a Running Figure, Nymph with Children, Satyrs at Play, and A Falling Figure, against which he has scrawled the words—'Fall of Satan?' On the wrapper of the 'Paris, Seine and Dieppe' Sketch-Book, Ruskin wrote, 'Containing studies for, I believe, his own house and furniture.' Having done his duty by these domestic details, Turner treats himself to a sketch of a Vessel Sailing, to a design for a Classical Composition, to a Boat with Figures, Cows, etc. And on a later page is this information, written upon a sketch of the back view of a man with a fishing-rod:—
'Provide yourself with plenty of gentles in the ... corner of your jacket pocket. If the aforesaid be old, so much the better because they [the maggots] will work through the same cleaning themselves the while. Wade up to an inclination [?] of 45 or thereabouts in the stream and you are sure to have fish before and behind.'
Turner was never particularly careful about his attire, but to allow maggots to clean themselves by working through the jacket pocket is more than most fishermen would allow.
Turner did not exhibit at the Royal Academy this year. He was busy with The Rivers of England, also called River Scenery and its companion, The Ports of England, afterwards re-published as The Harbours of England, all of which were engraved in mezzotint. These beautiful water-colours have suffered from exposure through many years at the National Gallery. The Rivers of England were published between 1823 and 1827, and the Ports between 1826 and 1828. The latter series ended abruptly: some of them were never issued.
Plate XVII. View on the Moselle. Water colour (1834) In the collection of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq. (Size, 7 3/8 x 5 1/2)
Many of us have happy, very happy, memories of days spent among the Turner water-colours in the National Gallery, where they seemed more at home in those little rooms on the ground floor than in their august abode at Millbank. It was an experience to turn (with 'Calais Pier' and the other dark pictures fresh in the mind) to such lyrical moments as the four sketches of 'Evening at Petworth Park,' to such wonders as 'Ehrenbreitstein,' 'Bellinzona,' 'The Bridge on Moselle at Coblenz,' and the 'Rigi from Lucerne.' But I am again anticipating.
In The Harbours of England, the handling is still a little hard, and he does not always escape from the thrall of convention; but there is beauty in the white towers of 'Dover Castle,' rising up from the golden sward; in the rainbow arching over 'The Medway'; in the splendid theatricality of 'North Shields,' with a huge white moon riding in an excited blue sky, and in the golden loveliness of 'Scarborough Castle.'
In 'Totnes on the Dart,' in The Rivers of England, he has almost discarded the foreground muddle and allows himself merely one boat, and a group of water birds. Magnificent, overpowering, is the rainbow cutting the picture in 'Arundel Castle.' What a glory of space he shows in 'Arundel Park,' and what a tumult of distant rain in 'More Park.' The ruins of 'Kirkstall Abbey' have a foreground of red, brown and white cattle, as decorative as a Brueghel. One of the simplest and the most beautiful of them all is 'Brougham Castle': the ruin rises from the meadow against a threatening grey-blue sky, cut at the left by a rainbow; the trees are well observed and simply stated, and very attractive is the foreground water with the streaming red and yellow reflections of the castle.
At Cooke's Gallery, he exhibited a water-colour of Hastings, showing the fish-market on the beach. Perhaps this formal 'Hastings' was the parent of that most lovely Hastings, one of the 'unfinished' oils, the Hastings with the red sail, and the flecks of gold and red in the sky.
[CHAPTER XXXI]
1825: AGED FIFTY
A SOMEWHAT BARREN YEAR COMMENTED ON IN A BITTER LAMENT BY RUSKIN
A somewhat barren year for Turner as regards exhibited work. One picture only was shown, 'The Harbour of Dieppe,' which the present generation saw at the Old Masters Exhibition of 1910, a flayed and not very interesting picture.
The 'Thames' Sketch-Book of 1825 opens with some calculations as to 'the House, Taxes, etc.,' and later there is a water-colour of a Barge with the following in his handwriting: 'Tarpaulin in the light green.' In the 'Mortlake and Pulborough' Sketch-Book on a drawing of Three Views of a River are these notes:—
'Children yoked to twig cart,' 'Sheep,' 'River,' 'Park Monsel' (or 'Mount,') 'Stoten or Storton.'
In the 'Holland' Sketch-Book are eleven successive drawings of Cliffs, twenty-five of Scenes on Coast, thirty-five of Shipping, and twenty of Views on the River. This Book also contains a sketch of Terburg's 'Visit of Parents' with this comment: 'Green drapery, beautiful Satin,' and the following against a drawing of a Bridge: 'The whole of the Bridge in shadow, Water, Blue-grey. 10 o'clock—at five sunrise.' Here, finally, is a scene that he may have intended to use as a foreground written on a drawing of a Market-place:—
'Mountebank selling Eau-de-Cologne, beating a drum,' 'Man trying on Boots, all on the ground,' 'Bird Cages,' 'Pots,' 'Pans,' etc.
In this year his friend and patron Mr. Fawkes of Farnley died. Turner was much affected and would never visit the house again. His friendship with the son, Hawkesworth Fawkes, continued to the end of his life, to January 31st, 1851, under which date there is a letter to 'dear Hawkesworth' extant.
Ruskin considered that about 1825 a grievous metamorphosis took place in Turner, that his work became 'partly satirical, partly reckless, and partly—and in its greatest and noblest features—tragic'—a bitter lament.
Well, he was yet to produce such a sane and magnificent work as 'The Burial of Wilkie,' the antithesis of satire, recklessness, and tragedy; he was yet to awaken to the vision of 'Rain, Steam, and Speed' which Mallarmé seeing, said, 'Turner is the greatest painter that has ever lived.' He was yet to will the later water-colours.
[CHAPTER XXXII]
1826: AGED FIFTY-ONE
ANOTHER UNIMPORTANT YEAR, IN WHICH HE LEAVES TWICKENHAM
Another unimportant year as regards the exhibition of pictures. It would almost seem as if Turner were reserving himself, pondering over his Italian experiences; or it may have been that his time was broken into by the trouble of leaving Twickenham.
He had taken Sandycombe for 'Dad'; he gave it up for the sake of 'Dad,' who was always catching cold while working in the garden. 'Without,' says Monkhouse, 'the pleasant and wholesome neighbourhood of the Trimmers, with no home but the gloomy, dirty, disreputable Queen Anne Street, he became more solitary, more self-absorbed or absorbed in his art (much the same thing with him), and lived only to follow unrestrained wherever his wayward genius led him, and to amass money for which he could find no use.'
About this time, too, he added to his troubles by another quarrel with Cooke the engraver, which prevented a proposed continuation of The Southern Coast series begun in 1814. Cooke's long letter is extant, and Turner's most ardent admirers must admit that he shows badly in the dispute. To set against his treatment of Cooke there is his gruff kindness to Lawrence à propos of his picture of this year called 'Cologne, the Arrival of a Packet Boat, Evening.' This sea-piece, which had a brilliant sky, was hung between two portraits by Lawrence. Being painted in a low key, they suffered from the juxtaposition. 'Sir Thomas was in despair,' whereupon Turner took some water-colour lamp black and went all over his sky: 'Why, Turner, what have you done to your picture?' asked a friend, who had seen it before the coat of lamp-black. 'Oh! it's all right,' said Turner, 'it will all wash off after the close of the exhibition.'
The Inventory shows that Turner was abroad this year wandering mainly by the Meuse, Moselle, and Rhine. On one of the pages containing 'Various Views' Ruskin has the following note: 'It has seven subjects from Andernach on the Rhine, showing stormy sunsets and drifts of cloud all completely designed; the best, that on the left in the second row from the bottom, only measures one inch and a half in length by three-quarters of an inch in height.'
A 'View of Dieppe Harbour' in the 'Meuse-Moselle' Sketch-Book is one of twenty coloured sketches found in a parcel with the following endorsement in Ruskin's handwriting:—
'There are one or two in this parcel that some people might like; I consider them all done in some careless or sickly state of mind, and have therefore put all aside, except one.'
Poor Turner! It is hard to have the work of one's bad days as well as of one's good days passed before the critical eyes of a temperamental genius who also had his bad and his good days. Ruskin was always either hot or cold—never tepid. I dip at random into his pages and find this:—
'In the modern French School, all the colour is taken out of Nature, and only the mud left. By Turner, all the mud is taken out of Nature, and only the colour left.'
Great praise for Turner, but grossly unfair to the 'modern French School.'
[CHAPTER XXXIII]
1827: AGED FIFTY-TWO
HE PAINTS THE SEA IN THE OPEN, AND SOME THAMES-SIDE PICTURES
In this year Turner is magnificently himself again. His works show an extraordinary variety, ranging from the peaceful and unambitious twin pictures of 'Mortlake Terrace,' one on a Summer Morning, the other on a Summer Evening, to the ambitious and extravagant 'Rembrandt's Daughter,' wherein the painter pitted himself against the great Dutchman; but the most welcome work of Turner at this period, and probably that which gave him the greatest pleasure, arose from his sojourn at East Cowes Castle with J. Nash, the architect of the Quadrant, Regent Street, for whom he painted two yachting pictures with East Cowes Castle in the background.
Plate XVIII. Yacht Racing in the Solent, No. 1 (1827) Tate Gallery
We can see the beginnings of his magnificent series of yachting pictures in the Sketch-Books of this year, particularly in those labelled 'East Cowes Castle' and 'Yachts.' These studies resulted in the two pictures of East Cowes Castle, exhibited in 1828, one of which is now in the Victoria and Albert Museum—gold in the sky, gold in the foreground, and the golden sun in the centre of the picture. I for one prefer the studies to the pictures—brisk, impulsive atmospheric works, a delight to the eye. These nine studies, which include the vivid and amusing 'Between Decks,' are now in the Turner Gallery at Millbank. They were among the 'unfinished' works exhibited for the first time in 1906. A note to the official catalogue states that—
'These nine pictures were painted on two pieces of canvas measuring 3 feet by 4 feet. Nos. 1993, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001 on one piece, and Nos. 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999 on the other. Mr. Finberg has communicated a copy of the following letter, which probably refers to these two canvases; it is in the possession of C. Mallord Turner, Esq., who has kindly consented to allow it to be published.
'"Sunday.
'"I wrote yesterday to Mr. Newman to get a canvas ready—6 feet by 4 feet. I wish you to call and ask if he has it by him and if he gets it done by Middleton in St. Martin's Lane, or at home. If by Middleton, then let two be sent; if he does it at home, then he will be some time about it, and then tell him if he has by him a whole length canvas to send it instead of preparing the 6 feet 4 canvas. If he has not then go to Middleton, and if he has one, a whole length canvas, let him send it me immediately. I want the canvas only I don't want the stretching-frame made in town if Middleton or Newman has the canvas ready done, and if a whole length, let either send it down to me
at J. Nash, Esq.
East Cowes Castle,
Isle of Wight.If they are both ready send them together rolled up on a small roller and put the linen things I wrote for on the outside.
"I want some scarlet lake and Dark Lake and Burnt Umber in powder from Newman's, one ounce each.
1 ounce of mastic.
To Mr. Turner,
Queen Anne Street,
Cavendish Square."'
Turner is now painting the sea in the open air, not in a studio as in the 'Calais Pier' days. The boats in the two pictures of 'Yacht Racing in the Solent' are sailing in broken water, their canvases lit and flecked by sunlight. In No. 2 may be seen the guard-ship moored under the cliffs upon which East Cowes Castle stands. Each of these fresh and direct impressions of nature is a small picture, one measuring 1 foot 5 1/2 inches by 2 feet 4 1/2 inches, the other 1 foot 6 inches by 2 feet. In 'Shipping at Cowes' No. 1, he has chosen a still moment. It is the morning of the Regatta; the sun is in the position where Turner loved to place it, in the centre of the sky; the boats are at their moorings and we see only a few sailors preparing for the day's work. This small picture was probably a sketch for the 'Regatta at Cowes,' exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1828.
Plate XIX. Shipping at Cowes, No. 1 (1827) Tate Gallery
I never look at 'Between Decks' with the fore-shortened gun pointing at the blue sea, with the ungainly figures of sailors and marines accompanied by their wives and sweethearts, making such strong blobs of colour, but I think of a note by Mr. Finberg in one of the Sketch-Books of a few years forward prefacing some Turnerian studies which have been called 'Tone Preparations.'
'A number of these pages have been prepared with smudges of red and black water-colour, the colour being then dabbed and rubbed, with the object apparently of producing suggestions of figures, groups, etc. In some cases these suggestions have been further determined by pencil work.'
Turner was always careless with the figure. The red and gold sailors and their sweethearts are little more than suggestions of colour. The eye sees what it wants to see and he saw this vivid scene on the mess deck in the mass. There is more detail in 'Rembrandt's Daughter,' which was lent from Farnley Hall to the 'Fair Women Exhibition' of 1910. How Turner would have chuckled if he could have known that this work would be chosen to adorn a gallery devoted to types of Fair Women. He cared little about making Rembrandt's daughter fair. The idea in his mind was how he could best adapt and improve Rembrandt's 'Potiphar's Wife' and beat the Dutchman in the undertaking.
And how he would have chuckled if he could have foreseen that his 'Mortlake Summer Morning,' which he painted in 1826, would be sold in 1908 for twelve thousand six hundred guineas. The companion picture' Mortlake Terrace Summer Evening' was exhibited in 1827. It is said that Turner, thinking that a dark object was needed in the foreground, cut out a dog in black paper and pasted it on to try the effect. Another version of the story states that the black dog was affixed to the canvas by a jocular friend in Turner's absence. The dog remains to this day a dominant note. Those who saw the 'Mortlake Terrace Summer Morning' in London before it was sold wondered that Turner did not oftener confine himself to rendering simply and sympathetically what his eyes saw and what his heart felt. Burger, the great French critic, considered that these unaffected, straightforward, atmospheric riverside pictures deserved a place amongst the finest things in art. 'Ce qu'on voit des arbres et des pierres est enveloppé et dévoré par la lumière; tout semble être la lumière même et jeter aussi des rayons et des étincelles. Claude le suprême illuminateur n'a jamais rien fait d'aussi prodigieux.'
These canvases, representing the Thames-side seat of William Moffatt, used to be known as 'Mortlake Summer Morning' and 'Barnes Terrace Summer Evening.' It is a matter of regret that they are not in the Turner Gallery.
Plate XX. Between Decks (1827) Tate Gallery
In this year the issue began, and continued until 1838, of what was to have been his magnum opus, the Picturesque Views in England and Wales. Says Mr. Rawlinson:—
'In this ill-fated work, which was from first to last commercially a failure, he proposed to depict every feature of English and Welsh scenery—cathedral cities, country towns, ancient castles, ruined abbeys, rivers, mountains, moors, lakes, and sea-coast; every hour of day—dawn, midday, sunset, twilight, moonlight; every kind of weather and atmosphere. The hundred or more drawings which he made for the work are mostly elaborately finished and of high character. Some are perhaps over-elaborated; in some the figures are carelessly and at times disagreeably drawn; but for imaginative, poetical treatment, masterly composition, and exquisite colour the best are unsurpassed. I have ventured to say elsewhere that in my opinion there are at least a dozen drawings in the England and Wales series any one of which would alone have been sufficient to have placed its author in the highest rank of landscape art.'
The 'Launceston' belonging to Mr. Schwann is certainly an imposing vision of height and grandeur; all the more imposing by reason of the tiny figure on horseback in the foreground. I who know Launceston well have never seen the castle rising sky-high as Turner saw it so magnificently in his mind's eye. Neither shall I ever see 'Barnard Castle' as seen by Turner, looking up the Tees towards the castle, in the sketch he made for the England and Wales water-colour, a poet's vision of opalescent colour floating in atmosphere.
[CHAPTER XXXIV]
1828: AGED FIFTY-THREE
THE YEAR WHEN CONSTABLE DESCRIBED TURNER'S VISIONS AS 'GOLDEN, GLORIOUS, AND BEAUTIFUL'
In 1828 Turner was again in Rome. 'The foreign artists,' says Thornbury, 'who went to see his pictures could make nothing of them. Turner's economy and ingenuity were apparent in his mode of framing those pictures. He nailed a rope round the edges of each and painted it with yellow ochre in tempera.'
The Inventory shows his travels of this year and the next—'Orléans to Marseilles'; 'Lyons to Marseilles'; 'Marseilles to Genoa'; 'Coast of Genoa'; 'Genoa and Florence '; and then the 'Roman and French' Sketch-Book. On page 26 of the 'Florence to Orvieto' Sketch-Book he wrote this as if the event had significance: 'Thursday Orvieto.'
One day he made Turnerian poetry:—
'Farewell a second time the Land of all bliss
That cradled liberty could wish and hope
Ere the fell Saxon and Norman band
Flouted her ... on the shore
Why go then? No gentle traveller
Cross thy path save the ...
The yellow, winding Tiber,' etc.
From Rome he wrote several letters. Here is the beginning of one to George Jones, R.A., showing the manner of Turner's correspondence:—
'Rome, October 3th, 1828.
'Dear Jones,—Two months nearly in getting to this terra pictura and at work; but the length of time is my own fault. I must see the South of France, which almost knocked me up, the heat was so intense, particularly at Nismes and Avignon; and until I got a plunge into the sea at Marseilles I felt so weak that nothing but the change of scene kept me onwards to my distant point. Genoa and all the sea-coast from Nice to Spezzia is remarkably rugged and fine; so is Massa. Tell that fat fellow Chantrey that I did think of him then (but not the first or the last time), of the thousands he had made out of those marble craigs which only afforded me a sour bottle of wine and a sketch; but he deserves everything which is good though he did give me a fit of the spleen at Carrara.'
And here is the beginning of a letter to Chantrey:—
'No. 12 Piazza Mignanelli, Rome, NOV. 6th, 1828.
'My Dear Chantrey,—I intended long before this (but you will say "Fudge!") to have written; but even now very little information have I to give you in matters of Art, for I have confined myself to the painting department at Corso; and having finished one am about the second, and getting on with Lord E.'s, which I began the very first touch at Rome; but as the folk here talked that I would show them not, I finished a small 3 feet four inches to stop their gabbling. So now to business....'
The small 3 feet by 4 was the 'View of Orvieto' exhibited in 1830, referred to with much affection in the opening chapters of this book.
The pictures shown by Turner at the Royal Academy this year evoked from Constable the generous and beautiful appreciation that I have already quoted. It bears repetition: 'Turner has some golden visions, glorious and beautiful. They are only visions, but still they are art, and one could live and die with such pictures.' What were the works that called forth this tribute of admiration from his great contemporary? They were:—
'Dido Directing the Equipment of the Fleet, or the Morning of the Carthaginian Empire.'
'East Cowes Castle, the seat of J. Nash, Esq. The Regatta beating to windward.'
'East Cowes Castle, the seat of J. Nash, Esq. The Regatta Starting for their Moorings.'
'Boccaccio relating the Tale of the Bird-cage.'
Hardly the finest examples of Turner's golden visions; but Constable found them glorious and beautiful. What did Constable think of the Turner exhibited next year, that magnificent riot of the imagination, 'Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus'?
It was probably during his second visit to Italy that he made the slight and lovely 'Sketch of an Italian Town,' now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. This, like the 'Orvieto,' is essential Italy. Rarely has the feeling of an Italian hill town been given with such intimacy of observation, just as it looks, a moment snatched and recorded, artlessly, but with great art.
Plate XXI. Sketch of an Italian Town. Water colour (about 1828) Victoria and Albert Museum
[CHAPTER XXXV]
1829: AGED FIFTY-FOUR
THE YEAR OF 'ULYSSES DERIDING POLYPHEMUS'
Of all Turner's pictures, 'Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus' makes the strongest appeal to the popular imagination. Call it scenic, call it theatrical; say that it is like the transformation scene at a pantomime; admit that it is all wrong, artistically; that it is lighted from anywhere and everywhere; concede all its impossibilities and incongruities, and the 'Ulysses' still remains a magnificent effort of the imagination, a glory to behold, from the figure of Phœbus, rising with his horses from the sea, to the vast Polyphemus, who, not being a mortal and bearing no resemblance to nineteenth—century man, is the most convincing figure that Turner ever painted. How often I visited the old Turner room at the National Gallery to study this picture or that, but always finding myself, sooner or later, drawn to this supreme effort of his imagination.
And now that he had emptied himself of all he knew and all he had dreamed, of wonder and splendour, came the reaction, and his humorous contempt of the chatter about this masterpiece, the wonder of the 1829 exhibition. (Yet nobody bought it.)
Thornbury recounts that at a dinner party at which Turner was present, a lady (she exists to-day, and is still making similar observations) who had seen the 'Ulysses' said to her neighbour, Mr. Judkins, 'the clerical artist,'—'Don't you now think it is a sweet picture?'
'Turner, glum and shy, opposite, is watching all this. He sees where the lady's eyes fall after she addresses her whispers to Mr. Judkins. His little beads of eyes roll and twinkle with fun and slyness. Across the table he growls:—
'"I know what you two are talking about, Judkins—about my picture."
'Mr. Judkins suavely waves his glass and acknowledges that it was. The lady smiled on the great man.
'"And I bet you don't know where I took the subject from; come now—bet you don't."
'Judkins blandly replied:—
"Oh, from the old poet, of course, Turner; from the Odyssey of course."
'"No," grunted Turner, bursting into a chuckle; "Odyssey; not a bit of it. I took it from Tom Dibdin. Don't you know the lines:—
'He ate his mutton, drank his wine.
And then he poked his eye out.'"'
Plate XXII. Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus (1829) Tate Gallery
To this year also belongs 'Chichester Canal,' unfinished, a scene of peace and quiet beauty, and was it this year or the next that he painted 'The Evening Star,' perhaps in its way one of the most appealing of the 'unfinished' Turners? How beautiful, how perfectly satisfying it would be if only the figure of the Shrimper and the dancing dog had been omitted. Truly a contrast to the splendour of the 'Ulysses.' There the sun was rising in fiery magnificence with the horses of Phoebus dancing up from the waves, and all that mythical world aglow with colour: here the sun is setting over the darkening sea, and in the mystical afterglow gleams the evening star reflected in the water that ripples gently to that lonely beach.
The authority for ascribing 'The Evening Star' to this period is to be found in some verses on page 70 of the 'Worcester and Shrewsbury' Sketch-Book, dated 1829-30, among which the following fragments have been deciphered:—
'Where is the star which shone at ... Eve'—'
The gleaming star of Ever ... '—
The first pale Star of Eve ere Twilight comes
Struggles with ... '
These broken lines may be a reference to 'The Evening Star,' which Mr. Finberg believes was painted about this time. The Official Catalogue of the Tate Gallery, however, suggests that 'The Evening Star' may be of the same date as 'The New Moon' exhibited in 1840.
Two of the other 'unfinished' oils first exhibited in 1906 may have been painted about this date. Each is similar in composition to sepia drawings for the Liber Studiorum, the 'Rocky Bay with Figures' to the 'Glaucus and Scylla,' which was never published, and the 'Sunrise, a Castle on a Bay,' to the 'Solitude.' Turner, of course, gave no title to these suggestions of colour and atmosphere, and he did not exhibit them. It is only literary pictures that require titles or descriptions. In one, the sun has risen behind a mist-shrouded castle on a bay; in the other, sunrays gleam through a natural arch and light the deep green sea. Greek galleys are moored in the bay and drawn up on the shore. A man with outstretched arms may be dimly seen haranguing a group of sailors. We shall never know when or where he painted these 'delight pictures.' They call up the spirit of Turner the poet as the Sketch-Books call up the spirit of Turner the wanderer.
My eyes fall on the following words in his own handwriting, and for the moment he seems to be present, noting nature, ready to record some sudden beauty.
'Moonlight . . . . . .
Fish . . . . . . .
Temple . . . . . . .
. . . . . . Copper
Venice . . . . . . .
Sunrise . . . . . . .
Hare . . . . . . .
Ship—Storm . . . . .
Evening Sunset . . . . . .
Visions were then passing through the mind of the dumb poet who once 'confessed that he knew much more of his art than he could explain.'
Plate XXIII. The Evening Star (1829 or after) Tate Gallery
[PART SIX]
1830-1834