53. Malmesbury Abbey, 1794 ([Plate II]).
Though a year later in execution than the Evesham drawings, this was based on sketches which had been made in 1791. These are now in the National Gallery (Turner Bequest, VII C. and D.) One is inscribed in Turner’s handwriting, “The Ruins of the Tower at the West End of Malmesbury Abbey, taken from the Friars Walk, 1791.” It is carefully worked in water-colour with brown ink outlines. The other drawing is similarly worked and represents the same tower from a point of view a little more to the left and lower down. The picturesque features of these two views have been cunningly combined in the finished drawing.
Turner exhibited a drawing of Malmesbury Abbey at the Royal Academy in 1792. I was once misled by other writers into thinking that this drawing might be the one which was then exhibited. The date, 1794, disproves this. The present drawing is probably a reduced replica of the exhibited work.
156. Willesden Church, circa 1796.
I believe this is the drawing which was described as “Kilburn Church” in the J. E. Taylor sale. It is worked in blue and grey washes. It is connected, I think, with Turner’s activities as a teacher of drawing.
> 147. Water Mill, 1797-1798 ([Plate III]).
152. A Mountain Stream, 1798 ([Plate IV]).
159. Mountainous Landscape, 1798.
These drawings are separated from the views of Evesham by an interval of five or six years. Turner was now twenty-three years of age. His exhibits at the Royal Academy in 1796 and 1797 had proved him to be the most accomplished topographical and antiquarian draughtsman which this country had produced, but the limitations of such work were too narrow to satisfy either his ambitions or his powers of expression. He had made up his mind by this time to be an artist and not merely a draughtsman. He had felt the glamour of Richard Wilson’s paintings, and their rich and sombre harmonies of colour were haunting his imagination. There is a small pocket-book, bound in green leather, in the National Gallery, labelled by Turner on the back, “Studies for Pictures. Copies of Wilson,” which contains many colour sketches done from memory of pictures by Wilson which he had seen in public exhibitions or private collections. All the drawings and sketches from nature Turner made at this time show the influence of Wilson’s work. He was trying hard to see nature as Wilson had seen it, and he had evidently taken a strong dislike to the neat “bit-by-bit” style of painting of the “Evesham” and “Malmesbury Abbey” period. He had also begun painting in oil on rather a large scale; another influence which made for breadth of style.
In the Water Mill ([Plate III]) the results of his early training in topographical and antiquarian work are evident in the treatment of all the quaint details of the old mill. The irregularity of its structure, the effects of age and weather on the shapes of the roofs, and the colouring of the tiles, bricks and woodwork are rendered with intense sympathy and the most delicate and accurate observation. This delight in the irregularity and picturesqueness of old buildings, and the effects of weather, use and decay reminds one of Prout’s drawings; yet there are no traces of Prout’s mannerisms and shortcomings in this beautiful work of the young master, and there is a breadth and ease in Turner’s drawing which we look for in vain in Prout’s numerous productions.
In the first volume of “Modern Painters” Mr. Ruskin wrote: “we owe to Prout, I believe, the first perception, and certainly the only existing expression of that feeling which results from the influence among the noble lines of architecture, of the rent and the rust, the fissure, the lichen, and the weed, and from the writing upon the pages of ancient walls of the confused hieroglyphics of human history.” The Water Mill shows that Turner forestalled Prout by a good many years. If it were my business to point out to people the qualities of sight, brain-power and manual dexterity which distinguish the works of great artists from those of inferior ones, I should choose the best drawing of Prout I could secure and ask my students to compare it carefully with the Water Mill. Such comparison would show that Turner did everything that Prout did, and did it better; every picturesque detail is rendered with the same affectionate interest and fidelity; but while Prout seems to be working with a certain stiffness and rigidity, as though practising a formula, Turner’s rendering is delicate, supple, and without any self-consciousness or display.
In A Mountain Stream ([Plate IV]) Turner has got completely away from his early “bit-by-bit” manner of working. The scene is grasped as a whole, and every detail and part is subordinated to the general effect. This is a fine example of the early development of Turner’s executive mastery. Every touch is inspired by the general conception.