1813: AGED THIRTY-EIGHT
HOAR FROST AT SUNRISE THAT HAS VANISHED FROM 'A FROSTY MORNING'
Turner was anxious about his health this year, if we may judge from an
entry in the 'Chemistry and Apuleia' Sketch-Book detailing the symptoms
of the Maltese plague, and the cure. A 'receipt for covering Linen to
make it impenetrable to water, etc.,' follows, then 'Study of Sky,'
'River with Hills on Either Side,' notes as to varnishes and sketches
of nymphs dancing, showing that his anxiety about the symptoms of the
Maltese plague had passed away.
In this year he exhibited the attractive and popular 'A Frosty Morning:
Sunrise,' with a quotation from Thomson's _Seasons_: 'The rigid
hoar-frost melts before his beam'; also 'The Deluge' with some lines
from _Paradise Lost_:--
'... down rush'd the rain
Impetuous, and continued till the earth
No more was seen.'
These subjects indicate Turner's versatility and determination to
impress the public with one thing, if not with another. 'A Frosty
Morning: Sunrise' is infinitely nearer to the real Turner than 'The
Deluge.' It is a pleasant picture, simple and direct, a true transcript
of nature; but where is the hoar-frost which made such a sensation
when the picture was exhibited? It is gone like the bloom on the
Impressionist pictures in the Caillebotte Collection in the Luxembourg
Gallery. The form of 'A Frosty Morning' remains, and it still suggests
the chill of a winter sunrise, but gone is the sparkling hoar-frost.
Archdeacon Fisher writing to Constable about one of his landscapes
said: 'I have heard your great picture spoken of here by no inferior
judge as one of the best in the Exhibition. I only like one better and
that is a picture of pictures, the 'Frost' by Turner. But then you need
not repine at this decision of mine; you are a great man and, like
Bonaparte, are only to be beaten by a frost.'
That is something; to have one's Academy contribution described
as 'a picture of pictures,' and by one whose allegiance was given
whole-heartedly to a rival painter. It would be interesting to
know what Constable thought of Turner's 'Frosty Morning: Sunrise.'
Already you perceive that Turner is forsaking his rivalries, and
'finding himself with nothing between his vision and a Sunrise.
There is a personal note in this picture. The horses were studied
from the friendly steed 'Crop-ear,' somewhat stiff in the fore-legs,
which Turner used to drive about the country when he was staying at
Sandycombe. The young Trimmers said that Turner painted faster than he
drove, and Thornbury remarked that he could never draw a horse; but
I am sure that he could paint a hoar-frost at sunrise. And if this
picture had been happily rolled up and kept in the cellars of the
National Gallery with the other sunrise pictures, we might to-day still
be enjoying Turner's sparkling vision of hoar-frost.