1816: AGED FORTY-ONE
SKIES! SKIES! SKIES!
The Sketch-Books of the period are full of Yorkshire and Farnley
subjects, and one of them contains a fragment of a letter from Mr.
Walter Fawkes concluding: 'Everybody is delighted with your "Mill." I
sit for a long time before it every day.' The 'Mill' which delighted
Mr. Fawkes may be the 'View of Otley Mills with the River Wharfe and
Mill Weir,' sold at Christie's in 1890.
I do not suppose that anybody has ever sat for a long time every day,
or any day, before Turner's two contributions to the Academy of this
year, 'The Temple of Jupiter Panellenius Restored,' and the 'View of
the Temple of Jupiter Panellenius.' I turn from them to the Sketch-Book
labelled simply 'Skies.' Inside one of the covers there is a sketch in
pencil of a sky with the following in Turner's handwriting: 'Yellow
Light. Blue Shadows. Red Crimson Light.' Following this there are sixty
leaves and on each leaf is a study of a sky. How far they seem removed
from the Temple of Jupiter Panellenius. Skies! Skies! Skies! And on the
last leaf of this sketch-book is a pencil drawing showing 'An Interior
with open doors leading to a garden,' as if, in this year of sky
watching, he must, even when within doors, be looking out towards the
light.