PLATE XXI
STUDY FOR “THE SHIPWRECK”
PEN AND INK AND WASH. ABOUT 1805
weight and bulk of these sailing hoys. We feel them settling down in the mettlesome sea, gripping it tight as a rider grips his horse with his knees, while they fling out their sails to the wind. They are like living, panting, quivering animals. In the far distance rides a large frigate at anchor, and the firm base line of the horizon might stand as a symbol of the self-possession, strength of will, and unity of the conscious self, which delights in differences, while never entirely losing itself in the multifarious maze of experience.
In our sketch-book there are some of the undeveloped germs of this picture. In these sketches parts of the design have been firmly grasped, but the whole movement has not yet come to light. In the fine drawing running across pages 90 and 91, for example, the action of the two scurrying hoys on the right, together with the rocking boat in the foreground, is clearly marked. But there is nothing to counterbalance the swift rush of these boats. If we look at this study with the remembrance of the final design in our minds we feel there is something missing. We want the heavy waddling hoys on the left coming towards us, with their hulls jammed deep in the waves; we want something to give us a sense of solidity, something, as it were, to hold on to, to steady ourselves in the sway and rush.
All these trial sketches, this laborious piecing together of the designs, suggest that Turner was not trying to realise something that he had actually seen. No doubt this was the case, yet we must not hastily conclude that he was simply making it all up out of his head, as the common saying runs. His smaller sketch-books show that he had constantly watched such scenes. The object of his trial sketches was therefore to find an adequately expressive form which would do justice to the wealth of his experience. He was not trying simply to make an abstractly beautiful composition. His task was rather to knit together into conceptual unity his wide range of experience, and then to body this forth in a carefully selected and articulated sequence of sensuous signs.
But some of the pages of the book in which the sketches referred to above occur, prove that the well-known picture of ‘Calais Pier’ is in the main an attempt to realise a scene that Turner had actually witnessed. On pages 58 and 59 there is a vigorous drawing in black and white chalk inscribed ‘Our landing at Calais—nearly swampt.’ The packet boat had evidently had a rough crossing, and now the passengers are being landed in boats with considerable difficulty. In this sketch the boat seems to have stuck on the harbour bar, and, beyond, the packet which the passengers have just left is lowering its mainsail. Another sketch shows the small boat flung finally on the shore with the passengers struggling among the surf. The picture is no doubt an attempt to realise the scene which presented itself immediately on the arrival of the packet boat, before the passengers began to land. This was Turner’s general idea, but the composition had to be invented and appropriate details found to sustain and reinforce the main idea.
This incident occurred in 1802, and we have to go back to the previous year to find what seem to me the materials used in the construction of Lord Iveagh’s superb ‘Fishermen upon a Lee-Shore in Squally Weather,’ a picture that will be fresh in the public mind, as it formed one of the chief attractions at the exhibition of English pictures at the Franco-British Exhibition held in London last year (1908). Two little pocket-books, used during Turner’s journey to the Scotch lakes, are filled with drawings of the heavy billows of the North Sea thundering on a lee shore. The first book was used on the Yorkshire coast, the other on the wild coast between Berwick and Edinburgh. The Yorkshire book bears Turner’s label, ‘Guisborough Shore,’ on the back. It consists of a small number of pages of coarse blue paper. These pages are filled with magnificent impressions of waves dashing against rocks, and of dark, heavy fishing-boats silhouetted against the foaming white sea. The ‘Liber’ design of the ‘Coast of Yorkshire near Whitby’ (R. 24) was doubtless suggested on this occasion.
The other book, the ‘Dunbar’ sketch-book as Turner named it, consists of leaves of stout Whatman coated with washes of a murky pinkish brown. The advantage of using white paper prepared in this way is, that the artist can get his lights by simply using his knife to scratch away the preparation. This book contains sketches of the ruins of Roslin Castle, the Bass Rock, Tantallon and Dunbar Castles. The wild and disconsolate scenes