TURNER’S SKETCHES
AND DRAWINGS

By
A. J. F I N B E R G
WITH 100 ILLUSTRATIONS
SECOND EDITION
METHUEN & CO. LTD
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published...July 21st 1910
Second Edition...1911

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.

CONTENTS

PAGE
LIST OF PLATES,[ix]
INTRODUCTORY,[1]
The nature of our subject-matter,[1]
The raw material of art,[2]
The character of our subject-matter, as embryonic forms of artistic expression, prescribes our method of study,[2]
Our difficulties of description and analysis,[3]
The separation of Art-criticism from Aesthetic,[3]
Eight aspects of Turner’s genius,[4]
CHAPTER
[I. SEVEN YEARS’ APPRENTICESHIP—1787-1793,][6]
Turner’s first drawings,[6]
‘St. Vincent’s Tower,’[6]
Copies and imitations,[8]
His debt to art,[10]
Work with Mr. Hardwick,[10]
Oxford sketches,[11]
‘Radley Hall,’[12]
Working from the Antique,[14]
The Bristol sketch-book,[14]
End of the apprenticeship,[16]
[II. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL DRAUGHTSMAN—1793-1796,][17]
Welsh tour of 1793,[17]
‘St. Anselm’s Chapel,’[18]
Turner’s topographical rivals,[18]
Midland tour of 1794,[20]
Limitations of topographical and antiquarian art,[22]
‘Interior of a Cottage,’[23]
Light and Shade as a means of expression,[24]
The sketch-books of 1795 and their contents,[25]
‘High Force of Tees’ or ‘Fall of Melincourt’?[27]
[III. THE SUBLIME—1797-1802,][29]
Change from pure outline to light and shade,[29]
‘Ewenny Priory,’[30]
Contrast between ‘Ewenny’ (1797) and ‘Llandaff Cathedral’ (1796),[30]
Transition from Objectivity to Subjectivity,[31]
Growth of taste for the Sublime,[31]
There are no sublime objects, but only objects of sublime feeling,[32]
Therefore no guidance but from Art,[32]
The Wilson tradition,[33]
The two currents in Turner’s work at this period—
(a) Study of Nature;
(b) Study of the Wilson tradition,[33]
In the 1797 sketches these two currents are kept distinct,[34]
The North of England tour (1797) and its record,[34]
‘Studies for Pictures: Copies of Wilson,’[36]
The two currents begin to coalesce,[37]
The origin of ‘Jason,’[38]
Scotch tour (1801),[38]
Swiss tour (1802),[39]
[IV. THE SEA PAINTER—1802-1809,][41]
Contrast between Marine painting and the Sublime,[41]
Turner’s first sea-pieces,[42]
The ‘Bridgewater Sea-piece,’[42]
‘Meeting of the Thames and Medway,’[46]
‘Our landing at Calais—nearly swampt,’[48]
‘Fishermen upon a Lee Shore,’[48]
The Dunbar and Guisborough Shore sketch-book,[48]
‘The Shipwreck,’[49]
The mouth of the Thames,[51]
‘Sheerness’ and the ‘Death of Nelson,’[53]
[V. ‘SIMPLE NATURE’—1808-1813,][55]
The works of this period an important yet generally neglected aspect of Turner’s art,[55]
Turner’s classification of ‘Pastoral’ as distinguished from ‘Elegant Pastoral,’[56]
The Arcadian idyll of the mid-eighteenth century,[57]
The first ‘Pastoral’ subjects in ‘Liber,’[57]
The ‘Windmill and Lock,’[57]
Events connected with the development of Turner’s deeper and more solemn conception of the poetry of rural life,[58]
An attempt to define the mood of pictures like the ‘Frosty Morning,’[64]
The work of art is nothing less than its full significance,[67]
Distinction between mood and character,[68]
[VI. THE ‘LIBER STUDIORUM,’][72]
Object of this chapter,[72]
The first ‘Liber’ drawings were made at W. F. Wells’s cottage at Knockholt, Kent,[73]
‘Bridge and Cows,’[73]
Development of the so-called ‘Flint Castle,’[75]
‘Basle,’[78]
‘Little Devil’s Bridge,[80]
‘London from Greenwich,’[80]
‘Kirkstall Crypt,’[81]
Etchings of the so-called ‘Raglan Castle’ and ‘Source of the Arveron,’[82]
Suggestion for the better exhibition of the ‘Liber Studiorum’ drawings,[83]
[VII. THE SPLENDOUR OF SUCCESS, OR ‘WHAT YOU WILL’—1813-1830,][84]
Survey of the ground we have covered,[84]
The training of Turner’s sympathies by the Poets,[85]
The limits of artistic beauty,[86]
The predominantly sensuous bent of Turner’s genius,[86]
The parting of the ways,[87]
The influence of the Academy and society,[88]
Turner’s first visit to Italy,[89]
The Naturalistic fallacy,[95]
Turner’s work for the engraver,[97]
[VIII. MENTAL AND PHYSICAL DECAY, AND THE ORIGIN OF IMPRESSIONISM—1830-1845,][116]
Mental Characteristics of the 1815-1830 period,[116]
Their influence on form and colour,[117]
Colour enrichment a general characteristic of Romantic art,[118]
What further development is required to give the transition to Impressionism?[118]
Turner’s first Impressionistic work,[119]
Vagueness as a means of expression,[119]
Two ways of painting one’s impressions. Turner’s earlier way contrasted with the modern Impressionistic way,[119]
The change after 1830 is it a change in terms of sight or of thought—visual or mental?[120]
The content of Turner’s later work,[120]
Relation of Turner’s later work to Impressionism defined,[121]
The historical development of Turner’s later manner,[126]
The Petworth sketches,[126]
Discovery of the artistic value of the Indeterminate,[128]
‘Rivers of France,’[129]
Venetian sketches,[131]
Swiss and Rhine sketches,[134]
The end,[135]
[IX. CONCLUSION,][136]
The distinction between Art-criticism and Aesthetic,[136]
The aim of this chapter,[137]
Art and physical fact,[137]
The ‘common-sense’ conception of landscape art as evidence of fact,[137]
Mr. Ruskin’s treatment of the relation of Art and Nature,[138]
His confusion of Nature and Mind,[140]
Art as a form of communication implies that the dualism of Nature and Mind is overcome,[143]
What does Art represent?[144]
An individualised psychical content present to the mind of the artist,[145]
Classification of Turner’s sketches and studies from the point of view of their logical content,[146]
The assertions in a work of art do not directly qualify the ordinary real world, but an imaginary world specially constructed for the artist’s purpose,[150]
The ideal of complete definition,[151]
Yet the content must determine the form,[151]
Plea for a dynamic study of Artistic form,[153]
[INDEX],[155]

LIST OF PLATES

All the Drawings are in the National Gallery, unless otherwise specified.