1819: AGED FORTY-FOUR
TURNER'S FIRST VISIT TO ITALY, AND AN EXHIBITION IN GROSVENOR PLACE
The route of Turner's memorable first visit to Italy may be followed
in detail in the Sketch-Books, between No. CLXXI., called the 'Route
to Rome,' and No. CXCII., devoted to the 'Return from Italy.' His
divagations and pauses are recorded on innumerable pages of sketches,
studies, comments, and criticisms of pictures. Here are his cursory
notes on a copy he made of a sea-piece by Claude:--
'Date 1631 or 81 Roma--he died at 82. Raf. 1512.'
'Wonderful grey green,' 'arm in light,' 'The mast Red--all painted at
once with the colour.'
We find him at Venice, Rimini, Ancona, Naples, Paestum, Pompeii and
Sorrento--anywhere, everywhere. Turn the pages. Here he is in the
Vatican with a Sketch-Book labelled 'Vatican Fragments' containing
such comments as 'Christ by Guercino beautifully color'd,' 'A Hare by
Albert Dürer,' and 'Annunciation. The Angel very elegant.' On the way
from Ancona to Rome his hand tries to transcribe what his watchful eyes
note:--
'Loretto to Recanata. Colour of the hills Wilson Claude, the olives
the light ..., when the sun shone green, the ground reddish green grey
and apt to Purple, the Sea quite Blue, under the Sun a warm vapour,
from the Sun Blue relieving (?) the shadow of the olive Trees dark,
while the foliage light on the whole when in the shadow a quiet grey.
Beautiful dark green yet warm, the middle Trees, yet Bluish in parts,
the distance; the aqueduct reddish, the foreground light grey in
shadow.'
But that visit to Italy, the magic and colour of it, the pictures he
saw, the sunrises and the sunsets he studied, appear to have affected
his art unfavourably for a time, to have disturbed him with florid and
fantastic fancies. It was as if he became intoxicated with the art and
aspect of Italy.
There is no hint of Italy in the works he exhibited this year. I can
stand for a long time before 'The Meuse, Orange Merchant-men going to
Pieces on the Bar,' lost in admiration of the wonderful sky, trying to
avoid looking at the foolish fishermen, and remembering a phrase I have
read somewhere that 'with this picture he gave the _coup de grâce_ to
Van de Velde.'
Another work of 1819 was the huge, neat and amusing view of 'England,
Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent's Birthday,' now hanging in a place
of honour in the new Turner Gallery. It dominates the wall, whereas in
its old place above the line in the National Gallery one hardly noticed
the Prince Regent's Birthday, with its quotation from Thomson:--
'Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course?
The choice perplexes.'
'Richmond,' and 'Rome from the Vatican,' exhibited the following year,
are the largest pictures Turner painted.
In May and June, presumably after his return from Italy, Mr. Fawkes of
Farnley opened an exhibition of all the water-colours he possessed at
his house in Grosvenor Place. The first two rooms contained drawings
by Havell, Robson, Hedphy, Hills, Prout, Varley, Fielding, de Wint and
others; the third room was reserved to Turner. The exhibition was a
great success, and we are told that the public had an opportunity of
seeing Turner 'moving about the rooms, the principal figure in his own
triumph.' A contemporary critic seems, however, to have made up his
mind that Turner's visit, to Italy had done him temporarily no good. In
the _Annals of the Fine Arts_, of the year 1820, appeared the following
criticism of Turner's works in the exhibition held at Mr. Fawkes's
house in Grosvenor Place, which must have included some of the Italian
drawings:--
'Turner appears here in his original splendour and to his greatest
advantage. Those who only know the artist of late and from his
academical works will hardly believe the grandeur, simplicity and
beauty that pervade his best works in this collection.... The earlier
works of Turner before he visited Rome and those he has done since
for this collection are like works of a different artist. The former,
natural, simple and effective; the latter, artificial, glaring and
affected.'
Was the water-colour of the 'Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo,' made
in Rome in 1819, that now hangs, to our delight, in the new Turner
Gallery, one of the drawings shown at the exhibition in Grosvenor
Place? Hardly. For this beautiful drawing is 'natural, simple and
effective,' not 'artificial, glaring and affected.' Turner saw this
glowing church with his own eyes. Although in Italy, he was at home
with himself when he painted this quiet interlude, undisturbed by the
Roman art fever that heated and harassed his imagination.
A simpler simplicity, a purer and more mystical vision of colour was
eventually to come to him; but not yet. For the next few years the
Italianised Turner was to be finding his way, through the insistent
memories of Italy, to the real Turner.