It would have been better if the new Turner Gallery had adjoined the National Gallery; but that seems to have been impossible. At present the exhibited portion is distributed thus: 129 oils and 467 water-colours, etc., at the Tate Gallery; 20 oils and a large selection of water-colours at the National Gallery; and 31 oils and other works in the provinces. The Salting Bequest water-colours are in the British Museum, and there are also many examples, varying from his first to his last period, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, with several oil pictures. Besides these there is the unexhibited portion of the Bequest, and the numerous oil pictures and water-colours in private and public collections in this country and abroad, making the largest amount of work ever produced single-handed by any artist.
There is one word only to describe the setting of the new Turner Gallery, the word magnificent. There are five rooms on the main floor, and four on the ground floor. The walls of the two large rooms or halls are covered with a rich Venetian red silk brocade, the walls of the others are hung with gold canvas.
The first new Turner Room is 34 yards long, nearly 11 yards wide, and 13 yards high. I hardly knew the old, familiar masterpieces. At first I saw nothing but that gorgeous red brocade, sweeping over the walls, probably the colour Turner himself used (but certainly in a cheaper material) in his own gallery in Queen Anne Street. Red may have been his favourite colour, but we must remember that in his Queen Anne Street Gallery, the walls were covered with pictures, so that the red hangings were barely visible.
In the new Turner Gallery the eyes see first the dominating red walls,—then the pictures. No work is skied. All the pictures are on the line, arranged chronologically, from the dark 'Tenth Plague of Egypt' of 1802, to the flaming 'Fire at Sea' of 1834. How well, sombre but glowing, they all look. Hanging together are those early, grandiose, masterful canvases, a challenge to the art world of his day, the 'Calais Pier,' the 'Nelson,' and 'The Shipwreck.' Opposite, on the line for the first time, is the vast 'England: Richmond Hill,' vastly entertaining.
At one end of the room hangs the well-loved, cool, and temperate 'Crossing the Brook,' and at the other end, facing it, that mighty effort of his imagination, 'Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus,' almost dwarfed, strange to say, by its companions the whirling 'Medea,' and the flaming 'Fire at Sea.' Here and there are the quieter works, pastoral and appealing, done in 1809, when his mind was happy and at rest, the 'Bligh Sand,' and the 'River Scene with Cattle,' so tranquilly aglow.
Plate XLVII. The Burning of the Ships (1840 or after) Tate Gallery
The next room is hung with the best of the 'unfinished' oils. The red silk brocade is almost too overpowering for the aerial loveliness of the 'Sunrise' pictures, for that magical' Hastings,' with the tawny sail, and the crepuscular delicacy of 'The Evening Star.' The pearly 'Yachting' series stands the ordeal better, and that glorious riot of colour, 'Interior at Petworth,' actually flaunts the red brocade. The old warrior pictures look better than ever— 'The Fighting Téméraire,' the 'Burial of Wilkie,' and that swift foreshadowing of Impressionism, 'Rain, Steam and Speed.' If Turner, mad for fame, as for art, could have seen these two rooms, one hung with the pictures he did for exhibition, the other with those he did for joy! If only he could have had prevision of this year of his triumph!
The other seven rooms hung with gold canvas—just right—contain a selection of his water-colours, finished and unfinished, oil beginnings, and others. The water-colours range from the copy of 'Folly Bridge,' which he made at the age of twelve, to such visions of his later years, when definition became lost in light, and form in colour, as 'Ravine and Tower,' and 'The Via Mala,' and certain dreams from the 'Rheinfelden' and 'Heidelberg' Sketch-Books, that one looks at with wonder and joy, and again with wonder and joy.