1824: AGED FORTY-NINE
A GLANCE AT SOME OF 'THE RIVERS OF ENGLAND' AND 'HARBOURS OF ENGLAND'
WATER-COLOURS
In 1824 the British National Gallery was founded, and it was decided
by the Committee, which included Sir Robert Peel and Lord Harding, to
buy two of Turner's pictures, for presentation to the Gallery. The
works chosen were 'Dido Building Carthage' and' The Decline of the
Carthaginian Empire.' Five thousand pounds were to be offered for the
two. A memorial was drawn up, and Griffiths, Turner's old friend, was
instructed to present it to the painter.
Turner, we are told by Thornbury,
'was deeply moved, even to tears, for he was capable of intense
feeling. He expressed his pride and delight at such a noble offer from
such men. But his eye caught the word "Carthage" in the memorial,
and he exclaimed sternly: "No, no, they shall not have it"; and upon
Griffiths turning to go, he called out after him: "Oh, Griffiths! make
my compliments to the memorialists, and tell them 'Carthage' may some
day become the property of the nation."'
After this interview, it is said that he went about muttering to
himself--'A great triumph! A great triumph!'
In this year he is apparently fumbling towards lithography. In the
'Brighton and Arundel' Sketch-Book is the following note in his own
handwriting in pencil:--
'Lithography--the soap is ... dissolved by the aqua fortis, being
saturated to the utmost by pieces of Lith stone, then diluted with
water.
'Silicated potash makes gum a white flakey insoluable process (?).'
He had not forgotten his old rivals and masters, as on another page,
written against 'Views on Coast,' are these two words followed by a
note of interrogation--'Claude Morning (?).'
On the 'Academy Auditing' Sketch-Book, Ruskin has made this curious
endorsement: 'Kept as evidence of the failure of mind only.' This
Sketch-Book is devoted mainly to figures, probably Academy finance;
but Turner soon tires of sums, and turns to matters more congenial--to
sketches of a Sleeping Figure, a Running Figure, Nymph with Children,
Satyrs at Play, and A Falling Figure, against which he has scrawled the
words--'Fall of Satan?' On the wrapper of the 'Paris, Seine and Dieppe'
Sketch-Book, Ruskin wrote, 'Containing studies for, I believe, his own
house and furniture.' Having done his duty by these domestic details,
Turner treats himself to a sketch of a Vessel Sailing, to a design for
a Classical Composition, to a Boat with Figures, Cows, etc. And on a
later page is this information, written upon a sketch of the back view
of a man with a fishing-rod:--
'Provide yourself with plenty of gentles in the ... corner of your
jacket pocket. If the aforesaid be old, so much the better because
they [the maggots] will work through the same cleaning themselves
the while. Wade up to an inclination [?] of 45 or thereabouts in the
stream and you are sure to have fish before and behind.'
Turner was never particularly careful about his attire, but to allow
maggots to clean themselves by working through the jacket pocket is
more than most fishermen would allow.
Turner did not exhibit at the Royal Academy this year. He was busy with
_The Rivers of England_, also called _River Scenery_ and its companion,
_The Ports of England_, afterwards re-published as _The Harbours of
England_, all of which were engraved in mezzotint. These beautiful
water-colours have suffered from exposure through many years at the
National Gallery. _The Rivers of England_ were published between 1823
and 1827, and the _Ports_ between 1826 and 1828. The latter series
ended abruptly: some of them were never issued.
Many of us have happy, very happy, memories of days spent among the
Turner water-colours in the National Gallery, where they seemed more
at home in those little rooms on the ground floor than in their august
abode at Millbank. It was an experience to turn (with 'Calais Pier'
and the other dark pictures fresh in the mind) to such lyrical moments
as the four sketches of 'Evening at Petworth Park,' to such wonders as
'Ehrenbreitstein,' 'Bellinzona,' 'The Bridge on Moselle at Coblenz,'
and the 'Rigi from Lucerne.' But I am again anticipating.
In _The Harbours of England_, the handling is still a little hard, and
he does not always escape from the thrall of convention; but there
is beauty in the white towers of 'Dover Castle,' rising up from the
golden sward; in the rainbow arching over 'The Medway'; in the splendid
theatricality of 'North Shields,' with a huge white moon riding in an
excited blue sky, and in the golden loveliness of 'Scarborough Castle.'
In 'Totnes on the Dart,' in _The Rivers of England_, he has almost
discarded the foreground muddle and allows himself merely one boat,
and a group of water birds. Magnificent, overpowering, is the rainbow
cutting the picture in 'Arundel Castle.' What a glory of space he
shows in 'Arundel Park,' and what a tumult of distant rain in 'More
Park.' The ruins of 'Kirkstall Abbey' have a foreground of red, brown
and white cattle, as decorative as a Brueghel. One of the simplest and
the most beautiful of them all is 'Brougham Castle': the ruin rises
from the meadow against a threatening grey-blue sky, cut at the left
by a rainbow; the trees are well observed and simply stated, and very
attractive is the foreground water with the streaming red and yellow
reflections of the castle.
At Cooke's Gallery, he exhibited a water-colour of Hastings, showing
the fish-market on the beach. Perhaps this formal 'Hastings' was the
parent of that most lovely Hastings, one of the 'unfinished' oils, the
Hastings with the red sail, and the flecks of gold and red in the sky.