“The figures (in the Vandevelde) are made out and coloured without reference to the situation they are in; the sea is beautifully painted, and the foamy tops of the waves blown off by the wind with great observation of nature; nevertheless, the whole work looks little and defined compared with its great competitor. Turner’s boat is advancing towards the spectator with all sails set, and a similarity in both pictures is that the sails are prevented from being too cutting and harsh from their melting into and being softened by other sails of a similar shape and colour. A small boat is brought in contact in Turner’s, stowing away fish, which forms the principal light, if it may be so called, for there is no strong light in the picture; the lights are of a subdued grey tone even in the yeasty waves; the shape of the mass of light on the water is broad, and of a beautiful form; in Vandervelde’s (sic) picture it is spotty and devoid of union with the vessel. In Turner we see an obscure outlined form in everything, for though the warm tints of the masses of clouds serve to break down and diffuse the colour of the sails, their form is disturbed by the handling of his brush. In comparing the two pictures as works of art, Vandervelde’s must have the preference as far as priority of composition is concerned; but Turner has had the boldness to tell the same story, clothing it with all the grandeur and sublimity of natural representation. The light and shade is very excellent; the mass of dark sky, brought in contact with the sail of the advancing boat, is broad in the extreme.”

Of his other rivalries at this period, those with the Poussins and Titian are the most notable. The one produced the famous, and, in spite of its poorness of colour and conventionality, the magnificent, Goddess of Discord choosing the Apple of Contention in the Garden of Hesperides, exhibited at the British Institution in 1806, and now in the National Gallery; the other, the Venus and Adonis, still more wonderful by reason of the beauty of its colour, its composition, and the audacity of the attempt. This was bought by Mr. Munro of Novar, and was lately sold at Christie’s, on the dispersion of the Novar collection, for £1,942. It is, as far as we know, the only picture in which he attempted with success to draw the human form on a large scale, and is certainly one of the best efforts of the English school to rival the “old masters;” the figures, the dogs, and the glorious vine-clad bower in which they are set are all worthy of the subject, and make a picture which reminds one of Titian, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and Etty in about equal proportions.

It is strange that the great sea-pieces we have mentioned were not exhibited (except perhaps that at Petworth), but the occupation of his time by these magnificent works of emulation accounts for his doing so little for the engravers in these years, for they were all probably, except the Wreck of the Minotaur, painted before 1807, when he turned his attention to his greatest, and perhaps most successful work of the kind, the “Liber Studiorum.” And here we may remark, that emulation with Turner, though it may have been a mark of jealousy, was always a token of respect. Feelings crossed each other in Turner’s mind as colours did in his works; it is often difficult to know whether his feeling is to be called noble or base, and the same complexity may be noticed in his “artistic” motives. When imitating other masters he brought his knowledge of nature to bear strongly on his work to make it more natural; when painting a natural scene, he employed all his traditional study to make it more “artistic.”

By this time, however, he had learnt nearly all that was to be learnt from art, ancient or modern, in the landscape way, but it was different with nature. That was a book which he could not exhaust, though he was never tired of turning over fresh pages. It was almost his only book, and he began a new chapter about 1801 or 1802, when he made his first tour on the Continent. Previous to this he must have paid a visit to Scotland, for the Exhibition of 1802 contained three Scotch views, one of which was the Kilchurn already mentioned. In 1803 he exhibited no less than six foreign subjects, of which one was the Calais Pier, now in the National Gallery, another the Festival upon the opening of the Vintage of Macon, in the possession of Lord Yarborough; the others were Bonneville, Savoy, with Mont Blanc; Chateaux de Michael, Bonneville, Savoy; St. Hugh denouncing vengeance on the Shepherd of Courmayeur in the Valley of d’Aoust; and Glacier and Source of the Arvèron going up to the Mer de Glace, in the Valley of the Chamouni.[22] After this burst of foreign subjects he did not exhibit another scene from abroad for twelve years, except the Fall of the Rhine at Schaffhausen (1806), and content this time with simpler, safer, English, a View of the Castle of St. Michael, near Bonneville, Savoy (1812). During the next few years the most important picture, and one of the most beautiful he ever painted, was the famous Sun Rising through vapour: Fishermen cleaning and selling Fish, exchanged with Sir J. F. Leicester for The Shipwreck, and now in the National Gallery, together with The Shipwreck and Spithead: Boat’s Crew recovering an Anchor, another fine picture of the Vandevelde class.

In all these years, during which he kept up this constant rivalry with so many artists, living and dead—and we have not exhausted the list of them—he was continuing his unresting severe study of nature. For many more years this was to continue, this double artistic life, the strife for fame by grand pictures, of which emulation was the motive, the patient development of his knowledge and power by the close study of nature. Few who watched his pictures from year to year could have guessed what a store of beautiful studies of the Alps, about Chamouni, Grenoble, and the Grande Chartreuse he had lying in his portfolios; few could imagine that with materials for landscapes of a truthfulness and an original power never before known, he should prefer to paint pictures in rivalry with the fames of dead men. Possibly he thought that it was the nearest way to fame to show the public that he could beat Vandevelde, Poussin, and the rest of them on their own ground; possibly he may have been diffident of his power to dispense with their aid in composition. However this may have been, he chose to ground his fame so. Even in his “Liber,” he in three years gave only three foreign subjects out of twenty plates: Basle, Mount St. Gothard, and the Lake of Thun.

CHAPTER V.
THE LIBER STUDIORUM—HIS POETRY AND DRAGONS.

IHE 1807 Turner commenced his most serious rivalry, “The Liber Studiorum,” a rivalry which not only exceeded in force but differed in quality from his others. Previously he had pitted his skill only against that of the artist rivalled, adopting the style of his rival, but in these engravings he pitted not only his skill, but also his style and range of art against Claude’s. There are indeed only a few of the “Liber” prints which are in Claude’s style, and most of the best are in his own. Lovely as are Woman Playing Tambourine, and Hindoo Devotions, they seem to us far lower in value than Mount St. Gothard and Hind Head Hill. There is the usual mixture of feeling in the motives with which Turner undertook this work, the same dependence on others for the starting impulse which we see throughout his art-life, the same originality, industry, and confusion of thought in carrying out his design. The idea of the “Liber” did not originate with him, but with his friend Mr. W. F. Wells. The idea was noble in so far as it attempted to extend the bounds of landscape art beyond previous limits, to break down the Claude worship which blinded the eyes of the public to the merit that existed in contemporary work, and prevented them, and artists also, from looking to nature as the source of landscape art.