In a contemporary press notice, preserved among the Anderdon collection of catalogues in the Print Room of the British Museum, Turner’s drawings of ‘Christchurch Gate, Canterbury,’ and the ‘Porch of Great Malvern Abbey, Worcestershire,’ are said to be ‘amongst the best in the present exhibition. They are the productions,’ the writer continues, ‘of a very young artist, and give strong indications of first-rate ability; the character of Gothic architecture is most happily preserved, and its profusion of minute parts massed with judgment and tinctured with truth and fidelity. This young artist should beware of contemporary imitations. His present effort evinces an eye for nature, which should scorn to look to any other source.’
The first of the drawings which called forth this praise is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Ruskin Bequest), the other is probably the ‘Malvern’ now in the Manchester Whitworth Institute (No. 73). The critic’s remark about the danger of ‘contemporary imitations,’ which I take to mean the danger of Turner imitating the works of contemporary artists, may probably account for his neglect to mention another drawing exhibited at the same time, which strikes the present-day observer as a more accomplished and remarkable effort than either the ‘Malvern’ or ‘Christchurch Gate.’ I allude to the drawing described in the R.A. catalogue as ‘St. Anselm’s Chapel with part of Thomas à Becket’s Crown—Canterbury Cathedral,’ which I take to be the drawing now in the Manchester Whitworth Institute (No. 272). This is a work of infinite patience and wary skill, a remarkable combination of far-sighted knowledge of ultimate effects united with the utmost delicacy, firmness, and patience of execution. These qualities do not seem to me so clearly marked either in the Christchurch Gate or Malvern drawings, but very likely to the contemporary observer, especially to one avid of originality, the drawing of ‘St. Anselm’s Chapel’ may have appeared more ordinary or conventional.[6]
The success of these drawings established Turner’s position as one of the foremost architectural and topographical draughtsmen of the day. But we must not make the mistake of supposing that Turner’s success was the result of an absence of serious rivals. De Loutherbourg, Dayes, Hearne, Wheatley, Sandby and Rooker were by no means unworthy rivals. Nor must we jump to the conclusion that Turner, at the age of nineteen, had outstripped such competitors in any but the purely topographical branches of their profession. The best of the older men were artists of wide sympathies and ambitions, who could not rest satisfied within the narrow limits of purely topographical work. They looked upon such work as a kind of necessary drudgery, useful from a pecuniary point of view, but not calling for the whole-hearted exercise of all their talents and enthusiasm. Dayes, to whom Girtin was apprenticed, and from whom Turner had learnt a great deal, seems to have detested topographical work, in spite of the skill and delicate charm with which he treated it. All his enthusiasm was reserved for figure subjects in the grand manner, for which there was no market. In this 1794 exhibition he had four illustrations for Dr. Aitken’s Environs of Manchester, which have the perfunctory look of work done against the grain, and a ‘View of Keswick Lake,’ which may possibly have been the slight and charming drawing of this subject now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, too small and fragile a thing to attract much attention. The versatile and brilliant De Loutherbourg did not exhibit this year; Hearne also was absent. Rooker had five of his delicately-accomplished but rather prosaic drawings. Paul Sandby had two views of Rochester Castle, and ‘A View of Vintners at Boxley, Kent, with Mr. Whatman’s Turkey Paper Mills,’ where the excellent paper upon which almost all Turner’s drawings were made was manufactured. Wheatley sent no landscapes this year, and Girtin, Turner’s senior and rival, had a single exhibit, a ‘View of Ely Minster,’ the first drawing he had had accepted by the Academy. The result of this state of things was that Turner’s architectural and topographical work was pitted against only the perfunctory or tired work of his older rivals. For the moment all his indefatigable patience and amazing energy and skill were concentrated on this one point of attack, with immediately decisive results.
Turner had now achieved an honourable footing in his profession. Dr. Monro bought his ‘Anselm’s Chapel’ and gave him commissions for many other drawings. Booksellers found his name an attraction. With publishers ready to buy his drawings, though at prices that would merely excite the derision of a modern artist, and with patrons like Dr. Monro ready to encourage his more ambitious efforts, his opportunities of travel were greatly enlarged.
Turner spent the summer of 1794 making a tour of the midland counties of England. Northampton, Birmingham, Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Chester, Matlock, Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, Peterborough, Cambridge and Waltham were among the places he visited. The views published in the Copper Plate Magazine during the next three years of Nottingham, Bridgenorth, Matlock, Birmingham, Chester, Peterborough and Flint were made from sketches taken on this journey, as were also those of King’s College, Cambridge, Flint, and Northampton, published in the Pocket Magazine during 1795. But these were the least important results of the tour. The work into which Turner threw all his enthusiasm and ambition was sent to the exhibition of the Royal Academy of 1795, which contained no less than eight of his important and highly-finished drawings. The best known of these are the ‘Peterborough Cathedral; West Entrance,’ which was included in Messrs. Agnews’ 1908 annual exhibition of water-colours—it had suffered somewhat from the light and had been restored, but was still an impressive work; the ‘Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury,’ now No. 276 in the Manchester Whitworth Institute, a carefully wrought and exquisitely accomplished drawing; and the ‘Cathedral Church at Lincoln’ (Plate [V.]) now in the Print Room. This elaborately finished drawing, I am inclined to think, played an important part in Turner’s development. It is almost the only drawing I know from his hand which has a papery and unconvincing general effect, which is monotonous and insensitive in its textures, and hard and metallic in its details. For once in a way Turner seems to have deferred to the ideals of elaboration of the ordinary connoisseur, who likes to see every detail in every part of a work pushed to its highest point of finish. For these reasons the drawing must have been very generally admired when it was first exhibited, but Turner could not have been satisfied at all with his own work, for he promptly abandoned the style. This is the most ‘mappy’ of all Turner’s drawings, and we know that for the rest of his life he had the greatest horror of this quality.
When we examine the pencil drawings made from nature on this tour we find them all severely governed by the ends they were intended to serve. The sketches for the publishers’ work
PLATE V
LINCOLN CATHEDRAL