1825: AGED FIFTY
A SOMEWHAT BARREN YEAR COMMENTED ON IN A BITTER LAMENT BY RUSKIN
A somewhat barren year for Turner as regards exhibited work. One picture only was shown, 'The Harbour of Dieppe,' which the present generation saw at the Old Masters Exhibition of 1910, a flayed and not very interesting picture.
The 'Thames' Sketch-Book of 1825 opens with some calculations as to 'the House, Taxes, etc.,' and later there is a water-colour of a Barge with the following in his handwriting: 'Tarpaulin in the light green.' In the 'Mortlake and Pulborough' Sketch-Book on a drawing of Three Views of a River are these notes:—
'Children yoked to twig cart,' 'Sheep,' 'River,' 'Park Monsel' (or 'Mount,') 'Stoten or Storton.'
In the 'Holland' Sketch-Book are eleven successive drawings of Cliffs, twenty-five of Scenes on Coast, thirty-five of Shipping, and twenty of Views on the River. This Book also contains a sketch of Terburg's 'Visit of Parents' with this comment: 'Green drapery, beautiful Satin,' and the following against a drawing of a Bridge: 'The whole of the Bridge in shadow, Water, Blue-grey. 10 o'clock—at five sunrise.' Here, finally, is a scene that he may have intended to use as a foreground written on a drawing of a Market-place:—
'Mountebank selling Eau-de-Cologne, beating a drum,' 'Man trying on Boots, all on the ground,' 'Bird Cages,' 'Pots,' 'Pans,' etc.
In this year his friend and patron Mr. Fawkes of Farnley died. Turner was much affected and would never visit the house again. His friendship with the son, Hawkesworth Fawkes, continued to the end of his life, to January 31st, 1851, under which date there is a letter to 'dear Hawkesworth' extant.
Ruskin considered that about 1825 a grievous metamorphosis took place in Turner, that his work became 'partly satirical, partly reckless, and partly—and in its greatest and noblest features—tragic'—a bitter lament.
Well, he was yet to produce such a sane and magnificent work as 'The Burial of Wilkie,' the antithesis of satire, recklessness, and tragedy; he was yet to awaken to the vision of 'Rain, Steam, and Speed' which Mallarmé seeing, said, 'Turner is the greatest painter that has ever lived.' He was yet to will the later water-colours.