He made also during this period a few drawings for engraving, but, with the exception of the well-known Oxford Almanacks, these were chiefly on a small scale and gave him but little scope; nor was he fortunate in his engravers until in James Basire, the engraver to the University, he met with an artist of higher standing. The University commissioned from Turner ten large drawings for the headings of the Oxford Almanacks, all of which he executed between 1798 and 1804. They are preserved in the University Galleries, and are noticeable alike for their architectural draughtsmanship, their admirable composition, and their general breadth of treatment.

About this time, and also in connection with a commission for engraving, he was first attracted to that Yorkshire scenery which was afterwards to have such an important influence on his career. Dr. Whitaker, the Vicar of Whalley, on the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire, a wealthy and learned antiquary, required some illustrations for his forthcoming “History of the Parish of Whalley,” and Turner was recommended to him, it is said by a Harrogate bookseller, as a young artist of fast-rising reputation. It was during this visit that he made the acquaintance of Mr. Walter Fawkes, the squire of Farnley, near Leeds, at whose hospitable mansion, Farnley Hall, he was shortly to become a frequent and an honoured guest.

It is time that reference should be made to the sketches, which form such an important part of the volume of Turner’s work in water-colour. From the outset of his career, on every journey, he made copious studies—at first mainly in pencil, but sometimes in water-colour and occasionally in crayon or oil—of every paintable spot he visited, keeping usually a separate pocket-book for each tour. The sketches were sometimes rapid, sometimes elaborate. Especially he made notes in colour of skies, clouds, water, and any striking atmospheric effects which he might chance to see. These although often slight, and usually swiftly executed, were nevertheless singularly accurate. In a pocket-book of 1798 I find twenty-five such, with a list describing each:—Twilight, Clear, Rain Coming, Sunny, Crimsoned, Showery, Gathering after Fog, and so on. These sketches and studies he continued to make and to store throughout his life, even up to his last journey on the Continent in 1845. By the decision of the Court of Chancery, at the end of a long litigation over his will, they were awarded—nineteen thousand in all—to be the property of the nation, and after many years delay they are now being admirably arranged and catalogued at the National Gallery by Mr. Finberg, who writes on them here. It is needless to say that to the student of Turner’s life work they are of the utmost interest and importance, and often—especially the later ones—of surpassing beauty. The examples which have recently (1908) been placed on view in the National Gallery are mostly of Turner’s earlier periods, but one or two belong to quite the close of his life; some are drawings nearly finished but discarded.

In 1802 Turner visited the Continent for the first time. He was naturally impressed with Calais, his first French town, and on his return he painted the well-known picture of Calais Pier (National Gallery), and the still magnificent but now much darkened Vintage at Mâcon (the Earl of Yarborough). But it was in Switzerland, Savoy and Piedmont that he spent most of his time, and the results may be seen in the fine drawings of Bonneville, Chamounix, and the Lake of Geneva in various collections, the Falls of the Reichenbach, the Glacier and Source of the Arveron, and others at Farnley, and the superb large body-colour sketches of The Devil’s Bridge and the St. Gothard Pass, in the portfolios of the National Gallery. Three of his Swiss drawings he sent to the Royal Academy Exhibition of 1803.

From 1803 to 1812 he was continually receiving commissions, both for oil pictures and water-colours, from influential patrons, including the Earls of Egremont, Essex, Lonsdale, and Yarborough, Sir John Leicester, Sir John Soane, and other wealthy amateurs. In 1807 he started his well-known Liber Studiorum in rivalry of the Liber Veritatis of Claude Lorraine, which had recently been successfully reproduced in engraving by English publishers. For this he made about a hundred drawings in sepia—a colour he rarely used elsewhere—as guides for the professional engravers whom he employed on the work. Nearly all these drawings, which are mostly slight, are now in the National Gallery.

During the ten years between 1803 and 1812, Turner’s style in water-colour underwent a gradual, but a very considerable change. He left the dark blues and deep golden browns which, as we have seen, marked his first departure in 1797 from the “tinted manner” of his early days, and he gradually adopted a lighter and more natural range of colour. This new style is best seen in the work of what is known as his “Yorkshire period,” which began about 1809, and continued, with various developments, up to about 1820. His subjects were at first mainly taken from the neighbourhood of the stately house in the beautiful valley of the Wharfe which has become a place of pilgrimage to Turner students from all parts of the world—I refer, of course, to Farnley Hall. Its then owner, Mr. Walter Fawkes, was up to his death a kind friend and liberal patron of the painter, who was a frequent visitor at the house, and retained the friendship of the family down to his latest years. Farnley Hall is still filled with drawings by Turner of its surroundings, the neighbouring Wharfedale, important Swiss and other foreign landscapes, illustrations to Scott’s and Byron’s Poems, studies of birds, fish, etc. It also contains some important oil pictures by him. To one series of water-colours—the “Rhine Sketches”—I shall have occasion to refer later.

Ruskin admirably describes the characteristics of these ‘Yorkshire drawings’ (“Modern Painters,” Vol. I., pp. 124, 125):—

“Of all his [Turner’s] drawings, I think those of the Yorkshire series have the most heart in them, the most affectionate, simple, unwearied serious finishings of truth. There is in them little seeking after effect, but a strong love of place; little exhibition of the artist’s own powers or peculiarities, but intense appreciation of the smallest local minutiæ. These drawings have, unfortunately, changed hands frequently, and have been abused and ill-treated by picture-dealers and cleaners; the greater number are now mere wrecks. I name them not as instances, but proofs of the artist’s study in this district; for the affection to which they owe their origin must have been grounded long years before.........

“It is, I believe, to these broad, wooded steeps and swells of the Yorkshire downs that we, in part, owe the singular massiveness that prevails in Turner’s mountain drawing, and gives it one of its chief elements of grandeur.... I am in the habit of looking to the Yorkshire drawings as indicating one of the culminating points of Turner’s career. In these he attained the highest degree of what he had up to that time attempted, namely, finish and quantity of form, united with expression of atmosphere, and light without colour. His early drawings are singularly instructive in this definiteness and simplicity of aim.” ... “Turner evidently felt that the claims upon his regard possessed by those places which first had opened to him the joy and the labour of his life could never be superseded. No alpine cloud could efface, no Italian sunshine outshine the memories of the pleasant days of Rokeby and Bolton; and many a simple promontory dim with southern olive, many a lone cliff that stooped unnoticed over some alien wave, was recorded by him with a love and delicate care that were the shadows of old thoughts and long-lost delights, whose charm yet hung like morning mist above the chanting waves of Wharfe and Greta.”

From 1809 to 1820, Turner’s powers were rapidly developing, and he was producing many important oil pictures, some of which—The Frosty Morning, Crossing the Brook, Somer Hill, Walton Bridges and Raby Castle—were, perhaps, among the finest of his whole life. He was also busy with drawings for engraving—chiefly for book illustrations, and probably for this reason he seems to have executed comparatively few water-colours for commissions or for sale. One, however, the magnificent Chryses (Mrs. T. Ashton), which he sent to the Royal Academy in 1811, calls for notice. It is a large, impressive work, closely resembling in design the Glaucus and Scylla of the Liber Studiorum, but on a broader and nobler scale; the colour-scheme intermediate between that of his early and his middle time. What is so remarkable is its extraordinary Greek feeling. Colour apart, it at once recalls the scenery and the sentiment of the Greek Islands, although Turner never in his life saw them. Many will remember the effect which the drawing produced in the Winter Exhibition of 1887 at Burlington House. Mr. Morland Agnew’s beautiful Scarborough, reproduced here ([Plate VIII.]), also belongs to this period.