TURNER’S SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS
[Illustration: THE PASS OF FAÏDO, ST. GOTHARD
WATER COLOUR, 1844.]
TURNER’S SKETCHES
AND DRAWINGS
By
A. J. FINBERG
WITH 100 ILLUSTRATIONS
SECOND EDITION
METHUEN & CO. LTD
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
_First Published . . . July 21st 1910_
_Second Edition . . . 1911_
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN.
CONTENTS
PAGE
LIST OF PLATES, ix
INTRODUCTORY, 1
The nature of our subject-matter, 1
The raw material of art, 2
The character of our subject-matter, as embryonic forms of artistic
expression, prescribes our method of study, 2
Our difficulties of description and analysis, 3
The separation of Art-criticism from Aesthetic, 3
Eight aspects of Turner’s genius, 4
CHAPTER
I. SEVEN YEARS’ APPRENTICESHIP--1787-1793, 6
Turner’s first drawings, 6
‘St. Vincent’s Tower,’ 6
Copies and imitations, 8
His debt to art, 10
Work with Mr. Hardwick, 10
Oxford sketches, 11
‘Radley Hall,’ 12
Working from the Antique, 14
The Bristol sketch-book, 14
End of the apprenticeship, 16
II. THE TOPOGRAPHICAL DRAUGHTSMAN--1793-1796, 17
Welsh tour of 1793, 17
‘St. Anselm’s Chapel,’ 18
Turner’s topographical rivals, 18
Midland tour of 1794, 20
Limitations of topographical and antiquarian art, 22
‘Interior of a Cottage,’ 23
Light and Shade as a means of expression, 24
The sketch-books of 1795 and their contents, 25
‘High Force of Tees’ or ‘Fall of Melincourt’? 27
III. THE SUBLIME--1797-1802, 29
Change from pure outline to light and shade, 29
‘Ewenny Priory,’ 30
Contrast between ‘Ewenny’ (1797) and ‘Llandaff Cathedral’ (1796), 30
Transition from Objectivity to Subjectivity, 31
Growth of taste for the Sublime, 31
There are no sublime objects, but only objects of sublime feeling, 32
Therefore no guidance but from Art, 32
The Wilson tradition, 33
The two currents in Turner’s work at this period--
(_a_) Study of Nature;
(_b_) Study of the Wilson tradition, 33
In the 1797 sketches these two currents are kept distinct, 34
The North of England tour (1797) and its record, 34
‘Studies for Pictures: Copies of Wilson,’ 36
The two currents begin to coalesce, 37
The origin of ‘Jason,’ 38
Scotch tour (1801), 38
Swiss tour (1802), 39
IV. THE SEA PAINTER--1802-1809, 41
Contrast between Marine painting and the Sublime, 41
Turner’s first sea-pieces, 42
The ‘Bridgewater Sea-piece,’ 42
‘Meeting of the Thames and Medway,’ 46
‘Our landing at Calais--nearly swampt,’ 48
‘Fishermen upon a Lee Shore,’ 48
The Dunbar and Guisborough Shore sketch-book, 48
‘The Shipwreck,’ 49
The mouth of the Thames, 51
‘Sheerness’ and the ‘Death of Nelson,’ 53
V. ‘SIMPLE NATURE’--1808-1813, 55
The works of this period an important yet generally neglected
aspect of Turner’s art, 55
Turner’s classification of ‘Pastoral’ as distinguished from ‘Elegant
Pastoral,’ 56
The Arcadian idyll of the mid-eighteenth century, 57
The first ‘Pastoral’ subjects in ‘Liber,’ 57
The ‘Windmill and Lock,’ 57
Events connected with the development of Turner’s deeper and
more solemn conception of the poetry of rural life, 58
An attempt to define the mood of pictures like the ‘Frosty
Morning,’ 64
The work of art is nothing less than its full significance, 67
Distinction between mood and character, 68
VI. THE ‘LIBER STUDIORUM,’ 72
Object of this chapter, 72
The first ‘Liber’ drawings were made at W. F. Wells’s cottage
at Knockholt, Kent, 73
‘Bridge and Cows,’ 73
Development of the so-called ‘Flint Castle,’ 75
‘Basle,’ 78
‘Little Devil’s Bridge, 80
‘London from Greenwich,’ 80
‘Kirkstall Crypt,’ 81
Etchings of the so-called ‘Raglan Castle’ and ‘Source of the
Arveron,’ 82
Suggestion for the better exhibition of the ‘Liber Studiorum’
drawings, 83
VII. THE SPLENDOUR OF SUCCESS, OR ‘WHAT YOU WILL’--1813-1830, 84
Survey of the ground we have covered, 84
The training of Turner’s sympathies by the Poets, 85
The limits of artistic beauty, 86
The predominantly sensuous bent of Turner’s genius, 86
The parting of the ways, 87
The influence of the Academy and society, 88
Turner’s first visit to Italy, 89
The Naturalistic fallacy, 95
Turner’s work for the engraver, 97
VIII. MENTAL AND PHYSICAL DECAY, AND THE ORIGIN OF
IMPRESSIONISM--1830-1845, 116
Mental Characteristics of the 1815-1830 period, 116
Their influence on form and colour, 117
Colour enrichment a general characteristic of Romantic art, 118
What further development is required to give the transition to
Impressionism? 118
Turner’s first Impressionistic work, 119
Vagueness as a means of expression, 119
Two ways of painting one’s impressions. Turner’s earlier way
contrasted with the modern Impressionistic way, 119
The change after 1830 is it a change in terms of sight or of
thought--visual or mental? 120
The content of Turner’s later work, 120
Relation of Turner’s later work to Impressionism defined, 121
The historical development of Turner’s later manner, 126
The Petworth sketches, 126
Discovery of the artistic value of the Indeterminate, 128
‘Rivers of France,’ 129
Venetian sketches, 131
Swiss and Rhine sketches, 134
The end, 135
IX. CONCLUSION, 136
The distinction between Art-criticism and Aesthetic, 136
The aim of this chapter, 137
Art and physical fact, 137
The ‘common-sense’ conception of landscape art as evidence of fact, 137
Mr. Ruskin’s treatment of the relation of Art and Nature, 138
His confusion of Nature and Mind, 140
Art as a form of communication implies that the dualism of Nature
and Mind is overcome, 143
What does Art represent? 144
An individualised psychical content present to the mind of the
artist, 145
Classification of Turner’s sketches and studies from the point of
view of their logical content, 146
The assertions in a work of art do not directly qualify the
ordinary real world, but an imaginary world specially constructed
for the artist’s purpose, 150
The ideal of complete definition, 151
Yet the content must determine the form, 151
Plea for a dynamic study of Artistic form, 153
INDEX, 155
LIST OF PLATES
All the Drawings are in the National Gallery, unless otherwise
specified.
(The numbers, etc., in brackets refer to the position of the Drawings in
the Official Inventory.)
The Pass of Faïdo, St. Gothard,....._Frontispiece_
Water Colour. 1844. (CCCLXIV. 209.)
PLATE.....PAGES
I. St. Vincent’s Tower, Naples,....._Between_ 6-7
Water-Colour. About 1787. (I.E.)
II. Central Portion of an Aquatint by Paul Sandby, after
Fabris, entitled ‘Part of Naples, with the Ruin’d Tower of
St. Vincent.’ Published 1st Jan. 1778,....._Between_ 6-7
III. Radley Hall: South Front, ....._Facing_ 11
Water-Colour. About 1789. (III. D).
IV. View on the Avon, from Cook’s Folly,....._Facing_ 14
Water-Colour and Ink. About 1791. (VI. 24).
V. Lincoln Cathedral,....._Between_ 20-21
Water Colour, exhibited at Royal Academy, 1795.
In Print Room, British Museum.
VI. Lincoln Cathedral, from the South-west,....._Between_ 20-21
Pencil. 1794. (XXI. 0).
VII. Pony and Wheelbarrow,....._Facing_ 23
Pencil. 1794. (XXI. 27a).
VIII. Melincourt Fall, Vale of Neath,....._Facing_ 26
Pencil, part in Water-Colour. 1795. (XXVI. 8).
IX. Interior of Ripon Cathedral: North Transept,....._Facing_ 28
Pencil. 1797. (XXXV. 6).
X. Conway Falls, near Bettws-y-Coed,....._Facing_ 30
Water-Colour. About 1798. (XXXVIII. 71.)
XI. Conway Castle,....._Facing_ 32
Pencil. About 1798. (XXXVIII. 50a).
XII. Ruined Castle on Hill,....._Facing_ 34
Water-Colour. About 1798. (L. K.).
XIII. Study of Fallen Trees,....._Facing_ 36
Water-Colour. About 1798. (XLII. 18-19.)
XIV. Caernarvon Castle,....._Facing_ 37
Pencil. 1799. (XLVI. 51.)
XV. Cassiobury: North-west View,....._Facing_ 38
Pencil. About 1800. (XLVII. 41.)
XVI. Blair’s Hut on the Montanvert and Mer de Glace.
Sketch for the Water-Colour in the Farnley Collection,....._Facing_ 39
Water-Colour. 1802. (LXXV. 22.)
XVII. Study for the ‘Bridgewater Sea-piece,’....._Facing_ 42
Pen and ink, wash, and white chalk on blue paper. About 1801.
(LXXXI. 122-123.)
XVIII. Study of a Barge with Sails Set,....._Facing_ 43
Pen and ink, wash, and white chalk on blue paper. About 1802.
(LXXXI. 138-139.)
XIX. Fishermen launching Boat in a rough Sea,....._Facing_ 44
Pen and ink and wash. About 1802. (LXVIII. 3.)
XX. Study for ‘Sun rising through Vapour,’....._Facing_ 45
Black and white chalk on blue paper. About 1804. (LXXXI. 40.)
XXI. Study for ‘The Shipwreck,’....._Facing_ 47
Pen and ink and wash. About 1805. (LXXXVII. 16.)
XXII. Men-of-War’s Boats fetching Provisions (1),....._Facing_ 49
Pencil. About 1808. (XCIX. 18.)
XXIII. Men-of-War’s Boats fetching Provisions (2),....._Facing_ 50
Pencil. About 1808. (XCIX. 22.)
XXIV. ‘The Inscrutable,’....._Facing_ 52
Pencil. About 1808. (CI. 18.)
XXV. Sketch for ‘Hedging and Ditching,’....._Between_ 56-57
Pencil. About 1807. (C. 47.)
XXVI. ‘Hedging and Ditching,’....._Between_ 56-57
Wash drawing in Sepia for ‘Liber Studiorum.’ About
1808. (CXVII. W.)
XXVII. (_a_) Mill on the Grand Junction Canal, near Hanwell, _Facing_ 61
Pencil. About 1809. (CXIV. 72a-73)......_Facing_ 61
....._Facing_ 61
(_b_) ‘Windmill and Lock,’....._Facing_ 61
Engraving published in ‘Liber Studiorum,’ 1st June, 1811......_Facing_ 61
(R. 27)......_Facing_ 61
XXVIII. Whalley Bridge and Village,....._Facing_ 62
Pencil. About 1808. (CIII. 8).
XXIX. Whalley Bridge. Sketch for the Picture exhibited at
the Royal Academy. 1811. (Now in Lady Wantage’s
Collection),....._Facing_ 63
Pencil. About 1808. (CIII. 6.)
XXX. London, from Greenwich Park,....._Facing_ 64
Pencil. About 1809. (CXX. H.)
XXXI. Petworth House, from the Lake,....._Facing_ 65
Pencil. About 1809. (CIX. 4.)
XXXII. Petworth House, from the Park,....._Facing_ 66
Pencil. About 1809. (CIX. 5.)
XXXIII. Cockermouth Castle,....._Facing_ 67
Pencil. About 1809. (CIX. 15.)
XXXIV. Landscape near Plymouth,....._Facing_ 68
Pencil. About 1812. (CXXXI. 96.)
XXXV. (_a_) Sandycombe Lodge and Grounds,....._Facing_ 69
Pen and Ink. About 1811. (CXIV. 73a-74.)....._Facing_ 69
(_b_) Plan of Garden: Sandycombe Lodge,....._Facing_ 69
Pen and Ink. About 1812. (CXXVII. 21a.)....._Facing_ 69
XXXVI. Scene on the French Coast,....._Between_ 74-75
Sepia. About 1806. (CXVI. C.)
XXXVII. Scene on the French Coast. Generally known as ‘Flint
Castle: Smugglers,’....._Between_ 74-75
Print of etching, washed with Sepia. About 1807. (CXVI. D.)
XXXVIII. Juvenile Tricks,....._Facing_ 78
Sepia. About 1808. (CXVI. Z.)
XXXIX. Berry Pomeroy Castle. Generally known as ‘Raglan
Castle,’....._Facing_ 79
Sepia. About 1813. (CXVIII. E.)
XL. The Alcove, Isleworth. Generally known as ‘Twickenham--Pope’s
Villa,’ etc.,....._Facing_ 8O
Sepia. About 1816. (CXVIII. I.)
XLI. Sheep-Washing, Windsor,....._Facing_ 81
Sepia. About 1818. (CXVIII. Q.)
XLII. View of a River, from a Terrace. Sometimes called
‘Macon,’....._Facing_ 82
Sepia. About 1818. (CXVIII. Y.)
XLIII. Crowhurst, Sussex,....._Facing_ 83
Sepia. About 1818. (CXVIII. R.)
XLIV. Kirkby Lonsdale Bridge,....._Facing_ 84
Pencil. About 1816. (CXLVIII. 4c-5.)
XLV. Raby Castle,....._Facing_ 85
Pencil. About 1817. (CLVI. 16a-17.)
XLVI. Raby Castle,....._Facing_ 86
Pencil. About 1817. (CLVI. 19a-20.)
XLVII. Raby Castle,....._Facing_ 87
Pencil. About 1817. (CLVI. 18a-19.)
XLVIII. Looking up the Grand Canal, Venice, from near the
Accademia di Belle Arti,....._Facing_ 90
Pencil. 1819. (CLXXV. 70a-71.)
XLIX. St. Mark’s, Venice, with part of the Ducal Palace,....._Facing_ 91
Pencil. 1819. (CLXXV. 45.)
L. The Piazzetta, Venice, looking towards Isola di S. Giorgio
Maggiore,....._Facing_ 92
Pencil. 1819. (CLXXV. 46a.)
LI. Rome, from Monte Mario,....._Facing_ 93
Pencil and Water-Colour. 1819. (CLXXXIX. 33.)
LII. Rome, from the Vatican,....._Facing_ 94
Pen and ink and Chinese white on grey. 1819. (CLXXXIX. 41.)
LIII. Trajan’s Column, in the Forum of Trajan,....._Facing_ 95
Pencil. 1819. (CLXXXVIII. 48.)
LIV. Study of Plants, Weeds, etc.,....._Facing_ 96
Pencil. About 1823. (CCV. 1a.)
LV. (_a_) Watchet, Somersetshire, }
Pencil. About 1811. (CXXIII. 170a.) }
(_b_) Watchet, Somersetshire, }....._Facing_ 100
Engraving published in ‘The Southern Coast’, 1st April, }
1820. }
LVI. (_a_) Boscastle, Cornwall, }
Pencil. About 1811. (CXXIII. 182.) }
(_b_) Boscastle, Cornwall, } _Facing_ 101
Engraving published in ‘The Southern Coast,’ 10th March, }
1825. }
LVII. Hornby Castle, from Tatham Church,....._Between_ 102-103
Pencil. About 1816. (CXLVII. 41a-42.)
LVIII. Hornby Castle, from Tatham Church,....._Between_ 102-103
Engraving, from the Water-Colour in the Victoria and Albert
Museum, published in Whitaker’s ‘Richmondshire,’ June, 1822.
LIX. (_a_) Heysham, with Black Combe, Coniston Old Man, }
Helvellyn, etc., in the distance, }
}
Pencil. About 1816. (CXLVII. 40a-41). }
} _Facing_ 104
(_b_) Heysham and Cumberland Mountains, }
}
Engraving published in Whitaker’s ‘Richmondshire,’ 22nd }
August, 1822. }
LX. (_a_) Edinburgh, from Calton Hill, }
}
Pencil. 1818. (CLXVII. 39a.) }
}
(_b_) Edinburgh, from the Calton Hill, }
}
Engraving published in Scott’s ‘Provincial Antiquities }
of Scotland,’ 1st November, 1820. } _Between_
} 106-107
(_c_) Edinburgh, from Calton Hill, }
}
Pencil. 1818. (CLXVII. 40.) }
}
(_d_) Figures on Calton Hill, }
}
Pencil. 1818. (CLXVII. 40a.) }
LXI. (_a_) Borthwick Castle, }
}
Pencil. 1818. (CLXVII. 76.) }
}
(_b_) Borthwick Castle, } _Facing_ 107
}
Engraving published in Scott’s ‘Provincial Antiquities of }
Scotland,’ 2nd April, 1819. }
LXII. (_a_) Rochester, }
}
Pencil. About 1821. (CXCIX. 18.) }
} _Between_
(_b_) Rochester, } 108-109
}
Pencil. About 1821. (CXCIX. 21.) }
LXIII. Rochester on the River Medway,....._Between_ 108-109
Water-Colour. About 1822. (CCVIII. W.)
LXIV. Bolton Abbey,....._Between_ 110-111
Pencil. About 1815. (CXXXIV. 81-82.)
LXV. Bolton Abbey,....._Between_ 110-111
Engraving published in ‘Picturesque Views in England and
Wales,’ 1827.
LXVI. (_a_) Colchester, }
}
Pencil. About 1824. (CCIX. 6a.) }
} _Between_
(_b_) Colchester, } 110-111
}
Pencil. About 1824. (CCIX. 7a.) }
LXVII. Colchester, Essex,....._Between_ 110-111
Engraving, published in ‘Picturesque Views in England and
Wales,’ 1827.
LXVIII. Stamford, Lincolnshire,....._Between_ 112-113
Pencil. 1797. (XXXIV. 86.)
LXIX. Stamford, Lincolnshire,....._Between_ 112-113
Engraving published in ‘Picturesque Views in England and
Wales,’ 1830.
LXX. (_a_) Tynemouth Priory, }
}
Pencil, with part in Water-Colour, 1797. (XXXIV. 35.) }
}
(_b_) Tynemouth, Northumberland, } _Facing_ 113
}
Engraving, published in ‘Picturesque Views in England }
and Wales,’ 1831. }
LXXI. Bemerside Tower,....._Between_ 118-119
Pencil. About 1831. (CCLXVII. 82a.)
LXXII. Bemerside Tower,....._Between_ 111-118
Engraving published in Scott’s ‘Poetical Works’ (Cadell),
1834.
LXXIII. Men chatting round Fireplace: Petworth House,....._Facing_ 122
Water-Colour. About 1830. (CCXLIV. 82.)
LXXIV. Teasing the Donkey: Petworth,....._Facing_ 123
Water-Colour. About 1830. (CCXLIV. 97.)
LXXV. Honfleur,....._Facing_ 126
Water-Colour. About 1830. (CCLIX. 15.)
LXXVI. Country Town on Stream,....._Facing_ 127
Water-Colour. About 1830. (CCLIX. 16.)
LXXVII. Sheep in the Trench,....._Facing_ 128
Water-Colour. About 1830. (CCLIX. 17.)
LXXVIII. Shipping on the Riva degli Schiavone,....._Facing_ 129
Water-Colour. About 1839. (CCCXVI. 20.)
LXXIX. The Approach to Venice: Sunset,....._Facing_ 132
Water-Colour. About 1839. (CCCXVI. 16.)
LXXX. Riva degli Schiavone, from near the Public Gardens,....._Facing_ 133
Water-Colour. About 1839. (CCCXVI. 21.)
LXXXI. Freiburg: The Descent from the Hôtel de Ville,....._Facing_ 134
Water-Colour. About 1841. (CCCXXXV. 14.)
LXXXII. Ruined Castle on Rock,....._Facing_ 135
Water-Colour. About 1841. (CCCXXXIX. 5.)
LXXXIII. Village and Castle on the Rhine,....._Facing_ 140
Water-Colour. About 1844. (CCCXLIX. 22.)
LXXXIV. The Via Mala,....._Facing_ 141
Water-Colour. About 1844. (CCCLXIV. 362.)
LXXXV. On the Rhine,....._Facing_ 148
Water-Colour. 1844. (CCCXLIX. 20.)
LXXXVI. Baden, looking North,....._Facing_ 149
Water-Colour. 1844. (CCCXLIX. 14.)
LXXXVII. Lucerne: Evening,....._Facing_ 152
Water-Colour. 1844. (CCCXLIV. 324.)
TURNER’S SKETCHES AND DRAWINGS
INTRODUCTORY
The nature of our subject-matter--The difference between sketches
and finished works--The character of our subject-matter, as
embryonic forms of artistic expression, prescribes the method of
study we must adopt--Our method is broadly chronological--But to
follow Turner’s work year by year in detail would carry us beyond
the limits of our present undertaking--I have, therefore, broken up
Turner’s career into eight stages or phases of development.
The object of the following pages is to re-study the character of
Turner’s art in the light of his sketch-books and drawings from nature.
During Turner’s lifetime his rooted objection to part with any of his
sketches, studies, or notes often formed the subject of ill-natured
comment. Yet we owe it to this peculiarity that the drawings and
sketches included in the Turner Bequest at the National Gallery comprise
practically the whole of the great landscape painter’s work done direct
from nature. The collection is, therefore, of very great psychological
interest. It shows clearly upon what basis of immediately presentative
elements the airy splendour of Turner’s richly imaginative art was
built: and amongst the twenty odd thousand sheets of drawings in all
stages of elaboration, the embryonic forms of most of the painter’s
masterpieces can be easily traced.
A careful examination of the drawings shows that Turner’s objection to
part with his sketches and notes was not the outcome of a blind and
deeply ingrained passion for accumulation, but that it was the
necessary result of the painter’s clearly defined conception of the
radical difference between the raw material of the painter’s art, and
its fully articulated products--the difference between mere sketches and
studies and fugitive memoranda, and the fully elaborated works of art to
which such preliminaries are subservient, but with which they should
never be confused. From Turner’s point of view the properly finished
pictures were all that the public had a right to see or possess; the
notes and studies were meant only for his own eye. Even in his later
years, when he consented to exhibit what he expressly called a ‘record’
of a scene he had witnessed, he grumbled when it was admired and treated
as a picture, although in this case the ‘record’ was not a hurried
memorandum, but a fully elaborated attempt ‘to show what such a scene
was like.’[1]
The method of our study must be determined by the general character of
our subject-matter. Our main business is with fragmentary records,
hurried memoranda, half-formed thoughts, and tentative designs. We must
not and cannot treat these dependent and embryonic fragments as
independent entities; we cannot pick and choose amongst them, or love or
dislike them entirely for their own sakes, as we can with complete works
of art which contain within themselves the grounds of their own
justification or insufficiency. To grasp the significance of our
sketches and studies we must study the goal towards which they are
striving. We must not be content to admire even the most beautiful of
these sketches entirely for its own sake, but must study them for the
sake of their connection with the works which they were instrumental in
producing.
These considerations have also weighed with me in the selection of the
numerous illustrations with which the publishers have generously
enriched this volume. On the whole I have chosen the illustrations
rather for the light they throw on Turner’s conception of art and
methods of work than for their own individual attractiveness; but the
glamour of execution is so invariably present in all that came from
Turner’s hand, that few of these drawings will be found which do not
possess a very powerful aesthetic appeal of their own.
In dealing with Turner’s work from the point of view I have indicated,
we are forced to touch upon problems which the prudent art critic is apt
to avoid. In studying the relation between the preliminary sketches and
studies and the finished works into which they were developed, we find
ourselves plunged into the midst of some of the most baffling
difficulties of psychology and aesthetic. In attempting even to describe
the relation between the more rudimentary and the more fully articulated
processes of artistic expression, we are forced, whether we like it or
not, to face the problems of the relation between form and content,
between treatment and subject, between portrayal and portrayed; and we
cannot go far without finding ourselves obliged to reconsider the
common-sense ideas of Truth, Nature, and Art. We cannot avoid such
problems if we would. If I face them, therefore, instead of emulating
the discretion of my elders, it is, I am sure, from no ingrained love of
abstractions, but rather from an overpowering interest in all the
concrete forms of pictorial art.
The separation of aesthetic from art-criticism which is so much favoured
at present, though it eases the labour of thought both to the art-critic
and to his readers, seems to me otherwise inexcusable and fraught with
serious artistic and intellectual dangers. Art-criticism cut adrift from
general principles cannot help degenerating into a blatant form of
self-assertion or an immoral form of practical casuistry--a finding of
good reasons for anything you have a mind to; and aesthetic, divorced
from all living contact with the concrete phenomena of art, is one of
the dullest as well as the most useless of studies. But this is not the
place to set forth in detail or defend my conception of the function and
methods of art-criticism. I will merely say that I regard it as a form
of rational investigation of the phenomena of pictorial art; it has no
immediate practical aim; and it does not propose to prolong or intensify
the enjoyment which works of art provide.
We find then that we cannot study Turner’s sketches in isolation from
his finished works. But to follow his completed work year by year in
detail would obviously carry us beyond the limits of our present
undertaking. I have, therefore, broken up Turner’s career into eight
facets or aspects. In the first chapter I deal with his seven years’
apprenticeship, from 1787 to 1793, using his sketches to throw light on
his youthful aims and methods. The second chapter, covering the years
1793 to 1797, deals with the work of the topographical draughtsman. I
then study the gloomy and romantic side of Turner’s art, when he was
mainly under the influence of Richard Wilson and of the churchyard and
charnel-house sentiment of Edward Young and Joseph Warton. The fourth
chapter is devoted to Turner’s early sea-pieces, and the next to his
work as a painter of what his contemporaries called ‘Simple Nature.’
This phase of Turner’s art is difficult to describe in a few words. One
way would be to call it a phase of Wordsworthian naturalism, but it must
be remembered that it was not an echo or a by-product of Wordsworth’s
poetry, but an independent and simultaneous embodiment in another form
of art of sentiments common both to Wordsworth and to Turner. Pictures
like Turner’s ‘Frosty Morning’ and ‘Windsor’ were as new, as
unprecedented, as Wordsworth’s most characteristic poems. This side of
Turner’s art shows him as the founder of a genuinely national school of
homely realism, as the head of the Norwich school and the master of
David Cox, De Wint, Callcott, and the rest.
The sixth chapter deals with the designs engraved in the _Liber
Studiorum_, and the sketches on which they were based. The seventh is
devoted mainly to the work engraved in the _Southern Coast_,
_Richmondshire_, Scott’s _Antiquities_, the _Rivers_ and _Ports_, and
the _England and Wales_ series, the work by which the artist is perhaps
best known. My eighth chapter treats of the period when signs of mental
decay began to be apparent. These years saw the production of what have
been called the first Impressionistic pictures. Then, by way of bringing
to a head some of the observations on the nature of artistic expression
which our investigations have forced upon our notice, I have added a
final chapter dealing mainly with the relation between Art and Nature.
The subject-matter of this chapter is not so attractive as that of the
others, but I do not think it right to omit it.
This selection of the facets of Turner’s dazzling and complex genius is
necessarily arbitrary and incomplete. The aspects I have chosen to
throw into relief can make no pretence to be exhaustive. They must be
taken as a poor but necessary device for the introduction of a kind of
superficial order into our present task--as a concession to the weakness
and limitations of the powers of the student, rather than as a
successful summary of the multifarious forms into which one of the most
prolific and many-sided creative activities of modern art has poured
itself. And the threads of this living activity which I have sought to
isolate, never existed in isolation. Turner was not at one period of his
life a romantic and at another a pseudo-classic or Academic painter, a
sea-painter at one time, and a painter of ‘simple Nature’ at another.
Turner was always a sea-painter and a topographer, a romantic, a
pseudo-classic, and an impressionist, as well as a master of homely
realism. While he was painting ‘Hannibal Crossing the Alps’ he had the
‘View of High Street, Oxford’ on his easel; the ‘Abingdon’ and the
‘Apollo’ were painted at the same time as were the ‘Frosty Morning’ and
the ‘Dido and Aeneas.’ He could paint a huge dull empty canvas like
‘Thomson’s Lyre’ when his muse was putting forth its lustiest and most
vigorous shoots; he could give us ‘The Fighting Téméraire’ when his
powers seemed stifled amid the fumes of early Victorian sentimentality.
His genius is hot and cold like Love itself, a fine and subtle spirit
that eludes the snares of our plodding faculties. But unless we desire
merely to bedazzle and intoxicate our senses, we cannot afford to
dispense with the poor crutches upon which our pedestrian intellect must
stumble.
CHAPTER I
SEVEN YEARS’ APPRENTICESHIP--1787-1793
Turner’s first drawings--‘St. Vincent’s Tower’--Turner’s copies and
imitations--His debt to Art--Work with Mr. Hardwick--Oxford
sketches--‘Radley Hall’--Drawings from the Antique--The Bristol
sketch-book--End of the apprenticeship.
The legend runs that Turner’s first drawings were exhibited in his
father’s shop-window, ticketed for sale at prices ranging from one to
three shillings.
There is nothing improbable in this story, though the drawings referred
to by Thornbury,[2] as having been bought by a Mr. Crowle under these
conditions, do not happen to have been made by Turner. I have not,
indeed, been able to discover any drawing which can confidently be said
to have been purchased from the barber’s shop in Maiden Lane, but there
are some in the National Gallery which show us exactly what kind of work
Turner was capable of producing at the time when he might have resorted
to this rough and ready method of attracting patronage.
A typical drawing of this kind is the brightly-coloured view of St.
Vincent’s Tower, Naples, reproduced on Plate I. of the present volume.
It is oval in shape, measuring about 8 × 10 inches, and has evidently
been cut out without mechanical assistance, as the curves of the oval
are somewhat erratic. As the youthful artist had not visited Italy at
this period, I thought it probable that this drawing was based upon the
work of some other artist, and I was fortunate enough to be able to
trace it to
[Illustration: _PLATE I_
ST. VINCENT’S TOWER, NAPLES
WATER COLOUR. ABOUT 1787]
[Illustration: _PLATE II_
CENTRAL PORTION OF AN AQUATINT BY PAUL SANDBY, AFTER FABRIS
PUBLISHED 1 JAN., 1778]
its source. It is copied and adapted from an aquatint by Paul Sandby,
after Fabris, published on 1st January 1778, entitled ‘Part of Naples,
with the Ruin’d Tower of St. Vincent.’ Sandby’s engraving is a large one
(about 13¼ × 20 inches), and comprises an extensive view of the harbour
and bay of Naples, with the Castel dell’ Uovo in the middle distance,
and St. Elmo crowning the buildings on the right. Turner has picked out
as it were the pictorial plum of this mass of topographical information.
He has set the ruined tower boldly in the centre of his design, and has
used only just so much of the surrounding buildings and scenery as was
necessary to make an appropriate background or setting for it. He has
reduced the Castle of the Egg to insignificance, and closed up his
distance with appropriate but imaginary mountains. In the engraving a
passing boat with figures divides our interest with the tower. Turner
has suppressed it. He has also reduced the size of the quay upon which
the tower stands, thus increasing the apparent height of the tower. The
few meagre weeds clinging to the battlements in the engraving have
developed luxuriantly in Turner’s drawing, thus adding considerably to
its picturesqueness. The foreground figures seem to have been adapted
from those in the engraving.
It is probable that these slight differences between the engraving and
the water-colour were made involuntarily, for it is evident that Turner
did not have the engraving under his eyes while he was making the
drawing. He had probably seen the engraving in some shop-window, and had
made a hasty pencil sketch of the part that interested him. That he was
working from a somewhat perfunctory sketch and not direct from the
original is proved by the fact that he has introduced three arches into
the building on the quay immediately at the foot of the tower, instead
of the two in Sandby’s engraving. But in the engraving there is a small
rounded turret on the battlements of the quay which comes just in front
of the place where Turner has introduced his third arch. It is clear
that he mistook the indication of this turret in his rough sketch for a
third arch in the building beyond.
It would, of course, be imprudent to suppose that Turner chose to work
in this way partly from memory, with the deliberate intention of giving
his imagination freer play; he was probably forced to do so by the
material exigencies of his position. But certainly this way of working
was admirably calculated to strengthen his memory and call into play his
innate powers of arrangement and adaptation.
The colour scheme, which is probably the artist’s own invention, is
light and pleasing. The golden rays of the setting (? rising) sun are
painted with evident enjoyment. The warm yellow light of the sun is
transfused over the whole of the sky, turning the distant clouds into
crimson. The keynote of the colour is thus orange yellow, passing
through pink to burnt sienna. In spite of the lightness of the colour
the drawing was worked over a black and white foundation, light washes
of Indian ink having been used to establish the broad divisions of light
and shade in the design. These washes afterwards formed the ground-work
of the greys and cooler colours, being warmed in parts (as in the tower)
with washes or touches of pink and burnt sienna, or worked up into more
positive hues by subsequent washes of blue and yellow.
The handling of the drawing--the sharp decided touches, the neatness and
dexterity of its washes, and the rapid march of the whole work--shows
what a hold the idea of a unified work of art had already obtained over
Turner’s mind. The clear, determined workmanship shows that he must have
been thinking of the whole from the beginning, and not of the
representation of a number of separate natural objects.
This childish effort seems to me of great interest as marking with
extraordinary clearness the point of departure of Turner’s art. From the
beginning he sees things pictorially, as elements in a conceptual whole,
not as isolated and independent objects. His sense of design--both as
the faculty of expression as well as of formal arrangement--is thus
developed, while the merely representative qualities of art are ignored
or at least subordinated. This early grasp of the idea of pictorial
unity is obviously the result of Turner’s study of works of art, and not
of his study of nature. Since Mr. Ruskin’s labours it will not be
possible for any student to overlook the enormous profit which Turner
derived in his subsequent work from his unwearied observation of the
phenomena of nature; it is well, therefore, to be careful not to
overlook the prior debt which Turner had contracted to art, and the
extraordinary advantage his early grasp of pictorial unity gave him in
appropriating the multifarious variety of natural shapes and colours.
The other drawings of this period in the National Gallery only serve to
emphasise Turner’s indebtedness to art. Some of these are plain
straightforward copies. The most elaborate of these is the copy of
‘Folly Bridge and Bacon’s Tower’ which has long been exhibited in the
Turner Water Colour rooms (No. 613, N.G.). This is copied from an
engraving by J. Basire published in the _Oxford Almanack_ for the year
1780. The colouring, however, is original. This copy is signed and
dated, ‘W. Turner, 1787.’ Among the other copies is a pencil outline of
the Old Kitchen, Stanton Harcourt, from the engraving in Grose’s
_Antiquities_. There is also a coloured drawing, somewhat similar in
size and shape to that of St. Vincent’s Tower, of Dacre Castle,
Cumberland. I am unable to say from what engraving this is copied or
adapted.[3] It may have been a slightly earlier effort than the
Neapolitan subject, as the Indian ink underpainting is less skilfully
done and the general effect is heavier and more monotonous.
These drawings, made, I believe, between Turner’s twelfth and fourteenth
years, show the youthful artist in the act of acquiring the rudiments of
that pictorial language which he was to use in after years with such
mastery and ease. We see him acquiring this language by intercourse with
his fellows who use it, not, as is the modern way, through the course of
a random study of nature. He is learning from tradition, and the thought
of the artistic community as expressed in the current pictorial language
is gradually forming and moulding his ideas. He is imitating those
around him, as a child imitates the words of its nurse and mother.
On the present occasion, I need do no more than call attention in
passing to the immense advantage Turner enjoyed in being initiated thus
early and in this easy and natural way into the sphere of art. He was
thus saved from those years of futile and heart-breaking experiment to
which the modern system of nature study dooms all those students whose
native powers are not entirely deadened by its influence. The habit thus
early forced upon him of regarding himself as an actual producer, _i.e._
as a maker of articles with a definite market value, must also have been
beneficial to him. The existence of a class of real patrons, whose
tastes had to be consulted and whose pockets contained actually
exchangeable coin of the realm, must have placed some insistence upon
the social aspect of art, and have helped to prevent the boy from making
the mistake which so many subsequent artists have made, of considering
their work merely as a means of self-expression, instead of as a means
of super-individual or universal communication. Another important result
of these early employments was the facility and mastery in the use of
his material which they gave him. Between the water-colours of different
periods of Turner’s career there are the most astonishing contrasts of
subject-matter and sentiment, but in all of them one finds the same
inimitable grace, strength, and dexterity of workmanship, the same
unequalled technical mastery over the medium; and this purely executive
address--this ‘genius of mechanical excellence,’ to use Reynolds’s
expression--could have been attained only as the result of an early
familiarity with this particular form of artistic expression.
About his fourteenth year (1789) Turner was placed with an architect,
Mr. P. Hardwick. It seems to me doubtful whether he was regularly
apprenticed, or was intended to take up the study of architecture from a
practical point of view. The evidence upon this point is extremely
limited, but what little there is points to his employment upon purely
pictorial tasks, such as the dressing out of projects or views of
buildings with a plausible arrangement of light and shade and a pleasing
setting of landscape background. We know that Mr. Hardwick built the New
Church at Wanstead,[4] and that Turner made for his master a
water-colour drawing both of the old church which was pulled down and
the new one that took its place. I have not been fortunate enough to
trace the
[Illustration: _PLATE III_
RADLEY HALL: SOUTH FRONT
WATER COLOUR. ABOUT 1789]
present owner of these drawings, but the water-colour of the old church
was exhibited at the Old Masters (R.A.) in 1887. There is, however, in
the National Gallery a pencil outline of the new church, squared for
enlargement, which shows no signs of training in the practical work of
the architect’s profession.
The earliest of Turner’s sketch-books now in the National Gallery was in
use during the period of this connection with Mr. Hardwick. A pencil
sketch of a church by the river, easily recognisable as Isleworth Old
Church, with barges moored beside the bank, is probably the note from
which the water-colour was made which Mr. Hardwick’s grandson lent to
the Old Masters in 1887. Most of the other drawings, however, appear to
have been made during a stay near Oxford. There are sketches of Clifton
Nuneham (then Nuneham Courtenay), near Abingdon; of Radley Hall, between
Abingdon and Oxford; of a distant view of Oxford; a sketch of a ruined
tower which may represent Pope’s Tower in the ruins of the Harcourts’
house at Stanton Harcourt, and two drawings of Sunningwell Church, a
village about two miles from Radley and three from Abingdon. As Turner’s
uncle, Joseph Mallord William Marshall, his mother’s elder brother,
after whom he was named, was then living at Sunningwell, it is probable
that these drawings were the result of a summer holiday spent with his
relative.
These drawings represent Turner’s first attempts to draw from nature.
They are characterised by an absence of blundering and a sense of
pictorial logic and requirements which could only belong to a beginner
whose eye and hand had already been disciplined in the production of
works of art. One cannot but feel that the mould into which the
immediate experiences of the artist were to be cast had already been
firmly set before his pencil was placed upon the paper, nay, before the
particular sights in question were actually seen. In other words, the
pictorial formula into which the material gathered from nature was to be
worked up had been clearly determined before the artist set out to
gather such material for himself. Turner’s confidence in the unbounded
felicity of immediate contact with nature was not commensurate with that
of modern artistic theorists. He does indeed entrust himself to the open
fields, but it is not until he has armed himself with a stout though
flexible panoply of artistic convention.
But though the draughtsmanship is conventional, I do not think it can
fairly be called mannered. The actual statements made are made with the
utmost simplicity and directness. In the drawings of Sunningwell Church
(on p. 12 of the sketch-book), of Radley Hall (pp. 9 and 14), and of
Isleworth Old Church (p. 22), the general proportions and main facts of
the buildings are noted with deliberate and methodical care. The artist
knows what facts he will want when he comes to make his finished
water-colours, and he takes those facts and calmly ignores all the
particular effects of light and shade, colour and accident which his
experience of other artists’ work had shown him would not be useful to
him. Thus there is a strongly marked selective activity at work, which
gives what I think can be more correctly described as style than as
manner. Yet I should not be surprised to find the term mannerism applied
to the curiously monotonous calligraphic scribbles which stand for trees
and clouds in these drawings. That they are conventional and singularly
indefinite I readily admit, yet they are not deliberately learnt ‘ways
of doing trees’ like those, for instance, which a student of J. D.
Harding’s teaching might adopt. They are as they are because their
immediate function is clearly determined by their ultimate purpose. In
making his finished water-colour drawing at home the trees and clouds,
as well as the whole system of light and shade, were merely the docile
instruments of pictorial effectiveness. The exact shape of each tree and
cloud in his drawing, and even their exact positions, were determined as
the work progressed by purely pictorial requirements. A detailed
statement of the exact shape of any particular tree or cloud in the
actual scene from which the sketch was made would therefore have been
not only of no use to the artist, but a positive hindrance, as it would
have complicated the problem of formal arrangement before the artist,
even if it did not actively hinder its solution. In these sketches from
nature Turner therefore takes his skies and foliage for granted as much
as possible, merely hinting at their general existence in a loose and
tentative way.
But if the charge of mannerism cannot be fairly brought against the
sketches made face to face with nature, it is otherwise with the
water-colours which were afterwards elaborated from them. Drawings like
the view of ‘Radley Hall,’ reproduced on Plate III., and the ‘View of
the City of Oxford’ might almost be said to consist of little else than
mannerisms. The manner of doing trees and skies and of arranging the
planes of the scene is taken over directly from Paul Sandby, as are also
the method of working in transparent washes and the gamut of colours
used. The ‘View of Oxford’ is indeed nothing but a feeble echo of some
of Sandby’s fine drawings; it tells us little of Turner himself, beyond
an indication of a certain liking for scenes of this kind. Perhaps the
most noteworthy point in the drawing is the demonstration it affords of
the superior development of his sense of tone to his sense of form; the
buildings sway to and fro in the wind, the foliage is childish and
ridiculous, but the difference between the broad expanses of ground and
sky is clearly marked, and the limpid sky gives an undeniable charm to
it all.
There is perhaps a little more of himself in the view of ‘Radley Hall.’
The way the tree-trunks seem to blow themselves out, and toss themselves
this way and that, while their branches explode in the wildest and most
fantastic contortions,--all this is given with such keen and frank
enjoyment, that it points to something more than a mere passive
reproduction of a purely technical recipe. The trees in those drawings
of Sandby which Turner had studied do indeed behave in this way, but
Turner identifies himself so closely with the inner meaning of these
forms that they become his own legitimate property. The sense of
exuberant freedom in the trees is intensified by contrast with the rigid
restraint of the building in the middle distance. It is as though the
boy’s imagination was glad to get away from the realm of necessity and
disport itself in aimless gambols through space, free from the
encumbrance of inert matter and of the laws of gravitation. It is this
habit of getting at the inner emotional content of the pictorial
conventions he adopts, that stamps Turner’s whole career of imitation
and appropriation with its peculiar character, making him invariably
richer for all his borrowings, and more original for all his imitations.
These two drawings were made in 1789, during the artist’s fourteenth
year. About the beginning of 1790 he joined the schools of the Royal
Academy, acting, it is said, upon the advice of Mr. Hardwick. During
part of 1790 and for the next two or three years he worked in what was
then called the ‘Plaister Academy,’ _i.e._ from casts taken from the
antique. Laborious chalk and stump drawings of the Apollo and Antinoüs
of the Belvedere, the Venus de’ Medici, and the Vatican Meleager, as
well as of the more robust forms of the Diskobolos and Dying Gaul, are
still in existence to demonstrate the diligence with which he pursued
these uncongenial studies. Such work must have given his masters a
singularly poor and misleading opinion of his talents. In June, 1792, he
was admitted to the Life Class, while still continuing to attend the
Antique. This academic training, however, must have been useful as an
antidote, or at least as a supplement, to the topographical work to
which all his spare time was devoted.
He seems to have spent his holidays in 1791 partly with his uncle at
Sunningwell and partly with some friends of the family, the Narraways,
at Bristol. The sketch-book in use at this time is now in the National
Gallery. The volume was never a handsome one,--it was probably stitched
and bound by the artist himself--but its present appearance is
deplorable; the cardboard covers are broken, the rough and ready backing
is almost undone, a number of the leaves have been cut or torn out, and
the remainder are in a generally dirty and dilapidated condition. In
spite of these disadvantages it gives us a valuable glimpse of Turner’s
interests and acquirements at the age of sixteen.
Our first impression is that his year’s work drawing from the cast has
produced hardly any perceptible effect. The drawings of buildings are in
some cases even more perfunctory than those in the ‘Oxford’ Sketch-Book.
The sketch of Bath Abbey Church (on page 14 of the book), for example,
is not a very creditable performance for an ambitious Royal Academy
student. Its carelessness, however, may have been due to limited
opportunities, but we must remember that this hasty scrawl, with the
assistance of a few written notes and diagrams, was sufficient to enable
the artist to produce afterwards an elaborate water-colour of the
subject. A still more elaborately wrought and
[Illustration: _PLATE IV_
VIEW ON THE AVON, FROM COOK’S FOLLY
WATER COLOUR AND INK. ABOUT 1791]
carefully considered water-colour was the result of another sketch (on
the reverse of page 16) in this book, a view of ‘Stoke, near Bristol,
the seat of Sir H. Lippencote,’ now in the possession of Mrs. Thomas.
This pencil sketch is quite as perfunctory as that of Bath Abbey. It is
evident that nature ‘put him out’ or that the artist’s youthful
impatience induced him to hurry over the first stages of his work. These
sketches from nature were merely means to an end, and so long as they
contained sufficient hints to set his subsequent work going he was
perfectly satisfied. However, in some of the drawings where the first
sketch from nature has been worked over subsequently (as in the
water-colour of Captain Fowler’s seat on Durdham Downs [on pp. 17a and
18]), we can trace an increased delicacy of hand, an added capacity for
dealing with complex and irregular forms, and greater knowledge of the
natural forms of trees.
But it is evident that the wild and romantic scenery of the Avon gorge
made a deeper impression on the young artist’s imagination than the
spick and span seats of the gentry. The ruins of Malmesbury Abbey are
sketched from every available point of view, and there are hurried and
clumsy sketches of ‘The Ruins of a Chapel standing on an Island in the
Severn,’ ‘A View of the Welsh Coast from Cook’s Folly,’ and others of
‘Blaze Castle and the Deney and Welsh Coast,’[5] and the ‘Old Passage.’
The drawing described as a ‘View from Cook’s Folley (_sic_), looking up
the River Avon with Wallis Wall and the Hot Wells’ (reproduced on Plate
IV.), shows clearly the bent of Turner’s mind towards the wildness and
freedom of nature, as well as his strong love of ships.
If it were our intention to follow Turner’s work year by year, we should
have to study in detail the drawings of Oxford, Windsor, Hereford and
Worcester, and especially the Welsh and Monmouthshire sketches which
belong to the years 1792 and 1793. As it is, it is sufficient for our
purpose to notice that the work of these two years shows a gradual
increase of power in making sketches from nature. The young artist
slowly gathers confidence in himself. Nature ceases to ‘put him out,’ to
fluster him with her multitudinous details and ever-varying effects. He
begins to treat nature as a conquered enemy, and there is just a
suspicion of youthful impertinence in the cool and methodical way in
which he gathers up the kind of facts he wants, and ignores everything
that does not come within the scope of his pictorial formulas. But by
this time it is evident that his period of apprenticeship is at an end,
and that we must turn our attention to the work of the brilliant young
topographical draughtsman.