Plate II. View of Orvieto (1830) National Gallery
[CHAPTER II]
THE BOY WONDERS AT TURNER'S ART LIFE
From 'Orvieto' as a starting-point, the boy, who is now a man, proceeded in time to explore the art life of Turner, dwelling oftenest on his golden visions, in which this persistent man, eloquent nowhere but in his art, truly found himself. They were the goals of his pilgrimage, but few appreciated them. Among the few was honest, plain-spoken John Constable, who said of Turner's contributions to the Royal Academy of 1828, which were so unlike his own practical art: 'Turner has some golden visions, glorious and beautiful. They are only visions, but still, they are art, and one could live and die with such pictures.' Yet in that year the tale of Turner's golden visions had hardly begun to be told. He was to go on simplifying and simplifying, until modelling became subordinated to colour, and the forms and shapes of things became lost in the effulgence of light.
Was there ever such a life of industrious and progressive work? It began when he was a mere boy, in the dark court off Maiden Lane near the Strand; the long, laborious, loving effort ended only with the end, that furtive, fugitive end when, tired of man and his ways, the old, self-sufficient painter disappeared from his haunts and his friends, and under the assumed name of Mr. Booth, the sun his master, the river his companion, met death in a little balconied house overlooking the Thames at Chelsea.
Work, work, work—absorbing, concentrated work—that was his life. This 'short, stout man with a red face and covetous eyes,' was hardly what the world calls a fine character, although there are on record many instances of his generosity and kindness, he was as secretive about his work as about his life. The door of his studio, whether in Queen Anne Street or on the hills was, metaphorically, always locked.
When the boy, who loved the view of 'Orvieto' more than any picture he had ever seen, began to study Turner's art life he amused and confused himself by dividing it, as all his biographers have done, into periods. These he simplified into two broad divisions, first when this ever-ambitious painter pitted himself against his predecessors and contemporaries, and later when, entirely disregarding the works of man, he faced Nature, and challenged nothing less than the source of all light and colour—the sun.