1814. AGED THIRTY-NINE
HE PAINTS MORE CLASSICAL PICTURES, TURNS AUTHOR, AND IS HAPPY AT
SANDYCOMBE
More classical pictures with the annoying foregrounds, the dream
buildings reflected in the still water, and the beauty of the Turnerian
distance. You can take your choice between 'Dido and Æneas leaving
Carthage on the Morning of the Chase,' and 'Apuleia in search of
Apuleius,' which won the premium at the British Institution for the
best landscape of the year. Unblushingly Turner founded it on one of
Claude's sketches in his _Liber Veritatis._ Although he set himself to
rival Claude before all the world, sure of his own victory, he had not
the slightest hesitation in basing his prize picture on a sketch by
Claude.
But there is nothing classical or imitative about his 'Review at
Portsmouth' Sketch-Book of this year with its innumerable sketches of
shipping, and its usual stumbling scraps of verse such as--
'The floating bulwark lies
Above (?) the holy cross unfurled (?)
Blowing ... shows the saviour of the world
Hence gloomy evil infamy's.'
In 1814, as I have said in Chapter XIX., the first seven parts of _The
Southern Coast_ were published, and in this year Turner appears as an
author with ill-success. He had attempted to describe 'St. Michael's
Mount' for _The Southern Coast_, and Combe, the editor to whom Turner's
description had been sent, writes thus to Cooke, the publisher:--
_Friday afternoon._
My Dear Sir,--I am really concerned to be obliged to say that Mr.
T----'s account is the most extraordinary composition I have ever
read. It is impossible for me to correct it, for in some parts I do
not understand it. The punctuation is everywhere defective, and here
I have done what I could, and have sent the proof to Mr. Bulmer.
I think the revise should be sent to Mr. T----, to request his
attention to the whole, and particularly the part that I have marked
as unintelligible. In my private opinion, it is scarcely an admissible
article in its present state; but as he has signed his name to it, he
will be liable to the sole blame for its imperfections.--Your faithful
humble servant, W. C.'
Cooke suppressed Turner's composition; but Combe, evidently knowing his
man, told Cooke that unless he wished to drive Turner 'stark staring
mad' he must be sure to send him corrected sheets of the suppressed
article. The end was that Turner's contribution was cancelled. In
1827 all connection between Cooke and Turner was broken off. Turner
was clearly in the wrong. How could anybody work with this genius?
'His mind,' says Hamerton, 'was subject to confused changes and
irregularities about all transactions, owing to its want of method and
clearness.' The Freemasons' Hall affair between Turner and Cooke must
have been amusing to some, painful to others. 'It was,' says Thornbury,
'a dispute about the return of some drawings (I think of the _Annual
Tour_) that both claimed. Turner's red face grew white with the depth
of his rage, Cooke grew hot and red, and "must," "shan't," "shall,"
"rogue" flew about.'
In this year Turner bought Solus Lodge, later called Sandycombe Lodge,
on the road between Twickenham and Isleworth. There his old father used
to dig in the garden, and look after the household, and there Turner
spent probably some of the happiest days of his life. He was friendly
with the Trimmer family of Heston, four miles off, and the Vicar, the
Rev. Henry Scott Trimmer, tried to teach Turner Greek in return for
lessons in painting, but he could never overcome the difficulty of the
verbs, and finally had to renounce the attempt. 'I fear I must give
it up, Trimmer,' he said; 'you get on better with your painting than
I with my Greek.' The young Trimmers, who were living when Thornbury
wrote his _Life of Turner_, describe him as a slovenly old man (he was
still far off fifty), very sociable and wont to make them laugh. The
days must have passed pleasantly at Sandycombe, sketching in oils on
a large canvas in a boat, painting in the summer-house of the garden
which ran down to the Thames, fishing, and driving old 'Crop-ear'
about the country. The young Trimmers give a much pleasanter picture
of Turner than most of his friends and contemporaries, but then they
loved him. They describe Queen Anne Street as homely, and say that
when they visited him they were always welcome to what he had, and
that he would offer them cake and wine, and stuff the cake into their
pockets. And they show Turner in modest mood before the work of other
painters, telling how he spoke with rapture of a picture probably by
Poussin, 'Jonah cast on Shore,' describing it as wonderful; and how he
was enthusiastic about Gainsborough's execution, and Wilson's tone. And
how, one day, looking at a Van de Velde, Turner said, 'I can't paint
like him.'
But he could. Van de Velde is to-day in the trough of his own dark
seas, and Turner is on the crest of his own opalescent waves beneath a
sky flushed with his dreams of colour.