[CHAPTER XV]
1808: AGED THIRTY-THREE
HE WRITES P.P. AFTER HIS NAME AND PAINTS IN A GARDEN AT HAMMERSMITH
Yoshio Markino is not alone in his adverse criticism of the Battle of Trafalgar, as seen from the mizzen starboard shrouds of the Victory, known as 'The Death of Nelson, October 21st, 1805, at the Battle of Trafalgar on board the Victory.' We all admire this work for the splendour of the decorative scheme, the gathered masses of golden brown, and the towering fantasy of the sails. To me it is the most attractive of the earlier pictures. I never look at the details; but those details aroused adverse criticism while the picture was being painted, and after exhibition. Turner cared little about accuracy; he was an artist, not an illustrator. When he was asked to paint the 'Trafalgar' picture as a companion to 'A Sea Fight' by de Loutherbourg, he had not the slightest intention of producing an accurate representation of the death of Nelson. He saw the scene decoratively, and decoratively he painted it.
Plate X. The Death of Nelson (1808) Tate Gallery
Some of the contemporary criticisms are amusing. Nelson's Flag-Captain pronounced it to be 'more like a street scene than a battle, and the ships more like houses than men-of-war.' A Greenwich pensioner is said to have exclaimed: 'I can't make English of it, Sir. It wants altering altogether.' Another remarked: 'What a Trafalgar! It is a d——d deal more like a brickfield.'