Turner’s visit to Italy did not have a very beneficial effect upon his art. He came back with a mass of material and then seems to have been puzzled to know what to do with it all. The Bay of Baiæ, the first important oil painting which he produced after this visit, is overloaded with detail, and the design possesses no organic unity. The best artistic results of the journey were a few water-colours painted for Mr. Fawkes. The Rialto, Venice, a brilliant drawing, though overcrowded with facts, is interesting as Turner’s first Venetian picture done from his own sketches—the drawing of the same subject engraved in Hakewill’s “Italy” having been made from camera-obscura tracings furnished by Hakewill. The Interior of St. Peter’s, Rome, is a wonderful drawing, remarkable for the sense of height and space obtained by taking deliberate liberties with the laws of perspective. The view of The Colosseum, Rome, is exquisite in colour and effect. The best inspired of all the drawings produced this year (1820) is, however, The Passage of Mont Cenis, in which the contrast between the frightened passengers in the diligence, with its wildly plunging horses, and the gleaming peaks of the frozen mountains, is emphasized with extraordinary skill and eloquence.
These drawings practically completed the Farnley Hall collection. Turner’s friendship with Mr. Fawkes continued unabated till the latter’s death in 1825, but the only drawings added to the collection after 1820 are interesting rather on private and personal grounds than for their artistic importance. They are mere records of relics of the Civil War preserved at Farnley, or vignette illustrations, the poetical or historical compilations with which members of the Fawkes family amused their leisure.
I do not think I can better conclude this account of Turner’s personal relations with Mr. Walter Fawkes than by placing on record the remaining entries in Mrs. Fawkes’s diary in which the artist is either directly or indirectly referred to.
In 1821 the family came to Mr. Fawkes’s London house on Wednesday, 21st March, “at 4 o’clock.” The next day, Thursday, “Turner and Parker dined with us.” On Thursday, 21st June, the entry runs: “Went to Eton with Walter, the girls, Mr. Swinburne and Turner.” The family left London on 23rd July, and Turner does not seem to have seen them till he went up to Farnley to spend Christmas with them. “Mr. Turner came” is entered against Sunday, 23rd December, but the date of his departure is not given.
In 1822 the family arrived at Grosvenor Place on 10th April. On Sunday, the 14th, “Mr. Alston, Turner and G. Wentworth dined with us.” The 20th of June was a great day for the family. On that day Miss Anne Fawkes, the youngest of Mr. Fawkes’s daughters by his first marriage, was married to Mr. Godfrey Wentworth, of Woolley Park, co. York. There were twenty-three guests present at the dinner given in honour of this event, among them several Lords and Ladies and “Mr. Turner.” The entry in the diary on this day is brief but eloquent. It runs: “Anne and Godfrey married. A very long day. Had a large party to dinner. All tipsey.”
Turner’s name does not appear in the diary during the whole of 1823, nor in 1824 till the end of the year, when he went to Farnley for nearly a month. The following entries speak for themselves:—
This entry enables us to date with certainty the “Holland Sketch-Book” (CCXIV) in the National Gallery. Mr. Walter Fawkes died on the 25th of October of this year, probably before Turner got back to London from his tour in Holland.
Mrs. Fawkes spent a few days in London in May the following year, and Turner dined with her on two occasions, on Tuesday the 2nd and Sunday the 7th of May. The diary was continued till 31st December, 1838, but I can find no further mention in it of Turner’s name.
Thornbury says, “Turner was so sensitive that he could never make up his mind to visit Farnley after his old friend’s death.” And we have Ruskin’s testimony that Turner could never speak of the Wharfe, about whose shores the shadows of old thoughts and long-lost delights hung like morning mist, but his voice faltered.