He was true to others. No accusation had ever been brought forward against Turner by his most envious enemies, of his breaking a promise, or failing in an undertaken trust. His sense of justice was strangely acute; it was like his sense of balance in color, and shone continually in little crotchets of arrangement of price, or other advantages, among the buyers of his pictures. For instance, one of my friends had long desired to possess a picture which Turner would not sell. It had been painted with a companion; which was sold, but this reserved. After a considerable number of years had passed, Turner consented to part with it. The price of canvases of its size having, in the meantime, doubled, question arose as to what was then to be its price. “Well,” said Turner, “Mr. —— had the companion for so much. You must be on the same footing.” This was in no desire to do my friend a favor; but in mere instinct of equity. Had the price of his pictures fallen, instead of risen in the meantime, Turner would have said, “Mr. —— paid so much, and so must you.”
But the best proof to which I can refer in this character of his mind is in the wonderful series of diagrams executed by him for his lectures on perspective at the Royal Academy. I had heard it said that these lectures were inefficient. Barely intelligible in expression they might be; but the zealous care with which Turner endeavored to do his duty, is proved by a series of large drawings, exquisitely tinted, and often completely colored, all by his own hand, of the most difficult perspective subjects; illustrating not only directions of line, but effects of light, with a care and completion which would put the work of any ordinary teacher to utter shame. In teaching generally, he would neither waste his time nor spare it; he would look over a student’s drawing, at the academy,—point to a defective part, make a scratch on the paper at the side, saying nothing; if the student saw what was wanted, and did it, Turner was delighted, and would go on with him, giving hint after hint; but if the student could not follow, Turner left him. Such experience as I have had in teaching, leads me more and more to perceive that he was right. Explanations are wasted time. A man who can see, understands a touch; a man who cannot, misunderstands an oration.
One of the points in Turner which increased the general falseness of impression respecting him was a curious dislike he had to appear kind. Drawing, with one of his best friends, at the bridge of St. Martin’s, the friend got into great difficulty over a colored sketch. Turner looked over him a little while, then said, in a grumbling way—“I haven’t got any paper I like; let me try yours.” Receiving a block book, he disappeared for an hour and a half. Returning, he threw the book down, with a growl, saying—“I can’t make anything of your paper.” There were three sketches on it, in three distinct states of progress, showing the process of coloring from beginning to end, and clearing up every difficulty which his friend had got into. When he gave advice, also, it was apt to come in the form of a keen question, or a quotation of some one else’s opinion, rarely a statement of his own. To the same person producing a sketch, which had no special character: “What are you in search of?” Note this expression. Turner knew that passionate seeking only leads to passionate finding. Sometimes, however, the advice would come with a startling distinctness. A church spire having been left out in a sketch of a town—“Why did you not put that in?” “I hadn’t time.” “Then you should take a subject more suited to your capacity.”
Many people would have gone away considering this an insult, whereas it was only a sudden flash from Turner’s earnest requirement of wholeness or perfectness of conception. “Whatever you do, large or small, do it wholly; take a slight subject if you will, but don’t leave things out.” But the principal reason for Turner’s having got the reputation of always refusing advice was, that artists came to him in a state of mind in which he knew they could not receive it. Virtually, the entire conviction of the artists of his time respecting him was, that he had got a secret, which he could tell, if he liked, that would make them all Turners. They came to him with this general formula of request clearly in their hearts, if not definitely on their lips: “You know, Mr. Turner, we are all of us quite as clever as you are, and could do all that very well, and we should really like to do a little of it occasionally, only we haven’t quite your trick; there’s something in it, of course, which you only found out by accident, and it is very ill-natured and unkind of you not to tell us how the thing is done; what do you rub your colors over with, and where ought we to put in the black patches?” This was the practical meaning of the artistical questioning of his day, to which Turner very resolvedly made no answer. On the contrary, he took great care that any tricks of execution he actually did use should not be known.
His practical answer to their questioning being as follows:—“You are indeed, many of you, as clever as I am; but this, which you think a secret, is only the result of sincerity and toil. If you have not sense enough to see this without asking me, you have not sense enough to believe me, if I tell you. True, I know some odd methods of coloring. I have found them out for myself, and they suit me. They would not suit you. They would do you no real good; and it would do me much harm to have you mimicking my ways of work, without knowledge of their meaning. If you want methods fit for you, find them out for yourselves. If you cannot discover them, neither could you use them.”
[3] It is strange that the last words Turner ever attached to a picture should have been these:—
“The priest held the poisoned cup.”
Compare the words of 1798 with those of 1850.
[4] Compare Matt. xxiv. 30.
[5] Ps. xlviii. 2.—This joy it is to receive and to give, because its officers (governors of its acts) are to be Peace, and its exactors (governors of its dealings), Righteousness.—Is. lx. 17.