1815: AGED FORTY
'A WONDERFUL YEAR' AND A TURNERIAN LOVE-LETTER
Eighteen hundred and fifteen was a wonderful year in the history of
Europe, and it has also been called a wonderful year in the art history
of Turner. He sent eight pictures to the Royal Academy, and among them
were 'Crossing the Brook,' 'Dido Building Carthage, or the Rise of the
Carthaginian Empire,' and 'Bligh Sand near Sheerness.' Some consider
'Crossing the Brook' as the finest Turner, others regard it as rather
old-fashioned with its conventional trees and domestic foreground, but
all like its English character, the cool beauty of the colour, the
white clouds that curl in the grey-blue sky, the wooded hills that
rise from the Tamar, dividing Devon and Cornwall, and the miles of
faint, fair, distant country. 'Crossing the Brook' was a favourite of
Turner's, and so was the magnificent 'Dido Building Carthage.' This
classical triumph, a shout of colour, with 'The Sun Rising Through
Vapour' flank the two Claudes in the National Gallery, Turner's message
of rivalry from the grave. In life he would not part with 'Dido
Building Carthage.' Chantrey tried to buy the picture more than once,
but found the price rose higher each time.
'Why, what in the world, Turner, are you going to do with the picture?'
he asked.
'Be buried in it, to be sure,' growled Turner.
This year, too, we have the record of what has been described as
Turner's second attempt at marriage, which I do not think amounts to
much more than his first love-affair. At the end of the following
letter will be found the offer of marriage; the lady in question was a
relation of the Trimmers:--
Queen Anne Street, Tuesday, _August 1st,_ 1815.
'My Dear Sir,--I lament that all hope of the pleasure of seeing you or
getting to Heston must for the present probably vanish. My father told
me on Saturday last when I was as usual compelled to return to town
the same day, that you and Mrs. Trimmer would leave Heston for Suffolk
as to-morrow, Wednesday. In the first place I am glad to hear that her
health is so far established as to be equal to the journey, and to
give me your utmost hope for her benefiting by the sea air being fully
realised, 'twill give me great pleasure to hear, and the earlier the
better.
'After next Tuesday, if you have a moment's time to spare, a line
will reach me at Farnley Hall, near Otley, Yorkshire, and for some
time, as Mr. Fawkes talks of keeping me in the north by a trip to
the Lakes, and until November; therefore I suspect I am not to see
Sandycombe. Sandycombe sounds just now in my ears as an act of folly
when I reflect how little I have been able to be there this year and
less chance perhaps for the next. In looking forward to a continental
excursion, and poor Daddy seems as much plagued with weeds as I am
with disappointment--that if Miss----would but waive bashfulness, or
in other words make an offer instead of expecting one, the same might
change occupiers; but not to trouble you further allow me with most
sincere respect to Mrs. Trimmer and family, to consider myself.--Yours
most truly obliged,
'J. M. W. Turner.'
The reference to Miss----does not suggest the heart of a burning lover:
no, Turner's heart was in his work, and also, just now, in the prospect
of a 'continental excursion.'