BLACK AND WHITE CHALK ON BLUE PAPER. ABOUT 1804
that commonly used by students in the French ateliers, and known as Michallet paper. The designs were generally roughly pencilled in, and were then carried further in pen and ink, with bold washes of Indian ink. White chalk was also freely used. The book was in use before 1799, as it contains a number of studies for the painter’s diploma picture of Dolbadarn Castle. These studies are made in coloured chalks, most of them still very effective, although they have wasted a good deal of their force upon the pages that have been pressed down over them. This is, I believe, one of the few occasions on which Turner has been known to work in pastel. Doubtless many of the shipping designs were never carried out, but among them there are studies for the large water-colour of Carnarvon Castle exhibited in 1800, and for the two water-colours of Pembroke Castle, one (now belonging to Mrs. Pitt Miller), exhibited in 1801, and the other (the glorious one now belonging to Mr. Ralph Brocklebank), exhibited in 1806.
But the actual studies for the ‘Bridgewater Sea-piece’ were made in a much larger book, a book which seems to have been devoted at first to the purpose of making life studies at the Academy classes. But it contains only about half a dozen drawings of this kind, while about sixty pages are devoted to studies of pictures, some historical, like the ‘Deluge,’ etc., but most of them sea-pieces. The paper is coarse blue, like the smaller book, the size of the leaves being 17 × 10½ inches, and most of the studies are continued over the two open pages. Throughout the book one recognises a certain sense of pride and exaltation in the mere size of the paper, and in the unchecked freedom with which the artist’s hand and imagination could disport themselves.
One of the earliest studies for the ‘Bridgewater Sea-piece’ represents simply a straight line of sea with two ships on it in the distance, one foreshortened, the other in profile. In the extreme distance is a line of white chalk suggesting a strip of sunlight on a distant coast. The idea is so bald and empty and so unlike the final result that one would not connect the study with the picture did it not bear Turner’s inscription, ‘Duke’s Picture,’ in the margin.
The next study shows that Turner’s mind is occupied with the idea of filling up the emptiness of the middle distance and foreground. On the left we have two fishing-boats pitching to the right in shadow, while the two frigates ride at anchor in the distance, very much as in the first sketch. The two groups are united simply by the cast shadow on the water thrown by the fishing-boats in the direction of the frigates (Plate [XVII.]).
The next study shows the artist trying to find a more interesting way of uniting the two groups. Here the two motives are tied together as it were by a small rowing-boat with men in it half hidden in the trough of the waves. The group of fishing-boats is also slightly altered, their sails accentuating their common swaying motion. In this drawing the various objects are no longer juxtaposed in a seemingly casual or arbitrary way. A subtle bond of union has sprung up between them. The rowing-boat rocks the reverse way to that of the large group of sailing vessels. The two rocking motions reinforce and explain one another. The movement of each gains in vividness, and they both increase the intensity of our perception of the steadiness and weight of the boat riding at anchor out there on the right. In this way the sea comes to life in its effects, and the design is ready to be transferred to the canvas and for further elaboration.
This playing with our feelings of equilibrium and movement constitutes one of the prime factors of Turner’s enjoyment in his earlier sea-pieces. He is taking possession of his new realm, getting his sea-legs as it were. We see this plainly in the beautiful little picture of ‘The Meeting of the Thames and Medway’ in the National Gallery. (This is a small version of the larger picture now in America. There is also another equally fine small version in the University Galleries, Oxford.) The strong heaving wave on which the buoy dances in the foreground sets the main motive of the picture—the play of wind and waves—clearly forward. The small boat with the four men in it is flung sideways and upward. We feel it as the light plaything of the heavy waves. In the middle distance there are two groups of heavier craft with sails set, one group, on the left, coming straight towards us, the other group scudding straight across the picture plane, just about to disappear out of the frame on the right. The dancing buoy and the light rowing-boat in the foreground make us feel at once the
