[CHAPTER XXIII]
1816: AGED FORTY-ONE
SKIES! SKIES! SKIES!
The Sketch-Books of the period are full of Yorkshire and Farnley subjects, and one of them contains a fragment of a letter from Mr. Walter Fawkes concluding: 'Everybody is delighted with your "Mill." I sit for a long time before it every day.' The 'Mill' which delighted Mr. Fawkes may be the 'View of Otley Mills with the River Wharfe and Mill Weir,' sold at Christie's in 1890.
I do not suppose that anybody has ever sat for a long time every day, or any day, before Turner's two contributions to the Academy of this year, 'The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored,' and the 'View of the Temple of Jupiter Panellenius.' I turn from them to the Sketch-Book labelled simply 'Skies.' Inside one of the covers there is a sketch in pencil of a sky with the following in Turner's handwriting: 'Yellow Light. Blue Shadows. Red Crimson Light.' Following this there are sixty leaves and on each leaf is a study of a sky. How far they seem removed from the Temple of Jupiter Panellenius. Skies! Skies! Skies! And on the last leaf of this sketch-book is a pencil drawing showing 'An Interior with open doors leading to a garden,' as if, in this year of sky watching, he must, even when within doors, be looking out towards the light.
[CHAPTER XXIV]
1817: AGED FORTY-TWO