1828: AGED FIFTY-THREE
THE YEAR WHEN CONSTABLE DESCRIBED TURNER'S VISIONS AS 'GOLDEN,
GLORIOUS, AND BEAUTIFUL'
In 1828 Turner was again in Rome. 'The foreign artists,' says
Thornbury, 'who went to see his pictures could make nothing of them.
Turner's economy and ingenuity were apparent in his mode of framing
those pictures. He nailed a rope round the edges of each and painted it
with yellow ochre in tempera.'
The _Inventory_ shows his travels of this year and the next--'Orléans
to Marseilles'; 'Lyons to Marseilles'; 'Marseilles to Genoa'; 'Coast
of Genoa'; 'Genoa and Florence '; and then the 'Roman and French'
Sketch-Book. On page 26 of the 'Florence to Orvieto' Sketch-Book he
wrote this as if the event had significance: 'Thursday Orvieto.'
One day he made Turnerian poetry:--
'Farewell a second time the Land of all bliss
That cradled liberty could wish and hope
Ere the fell Saxon and Norman band
Flouted her ... on the shore
Why go then? No gentle traveller
Cross thy path save the ...
The yellow, winding Tiber,' etc.
From Rome he wrote several letters. Here is the beginning of one to
George Jones, R.A., showing the manner of Turner's correspondence:--
'Rome, _October 3th,_1828.
'Dear Jones,--Two months nearly in getting to this _terra pictura
and at work_; but the length of time is my own fault. I must see the
South of France, which almost knocked me up, the heat was so intense,
particularly at Nismes and Avignon; and until I got a plunge into the
sea at Marseilles I felt so weak that nothing but the change of scene
kept me onwards to my distant point. Genoa and all the sea-coast from
Nice to Spezzia is remarkably rugged and fine; so is Massa. Tell that
fat fellow Chantrey that I did think of him _then_ (but not the first
or the last time), of the thousands he had made out of those marble
craigs which only afforded me a sour bottle of wine and a sketch; but
he deserves everything which is good though he did give me a fit of
the spleen at Carrara.'
And here is the beginning of a letter to Chantrey:--
'No. 12 Piazza Mignanelli, Rome, _NOV. 6th,_ 1828.
'My Dear Chantrey,--I intended long before this (but you will say
"Fudge!") to have written; but even now very little information have
I to give you in matters of Art, for I have confined myself to the
painting department at Corso; and having finished _one_ am about the
second, and getting on with Lord E.'s, which I began the very first
touch at Rome; but as the folk here talked that I would show them
_not_, I finished a small 3 feet four inches to stop their gabbling. So
now to business....'
The small 3 feet by 4 was the 'View of Orvieto' exhibited in 1830,
referred to with much affection in the opening chapters of this book.
The pictures shown by Turner at the Royal Academy this year evoked from
Constable the generous and beautiful appreciation that I have already
quoted. It bears repetition: 'Turner has some golden visions, glorious
and beautiful. They are only visions, but still they are art, and one
could live and die with such pictures.' What were the works that called
forth this tribute of admiration from his great contemporary? They
were:--
'Dido Directing the Equipment of the Fleet, or the Morning of the
Carthaginian Empire.'
'East Cowes Castle, the seat of J. Nash, Esq. The Regatta beating to
windward.'
'East Cowes Castle, the seat of J. Nash, Esq. The Regatta Starting for
their Moorings.'
'Boccaccio relating the Tale of the Bird-cage.'
Hardly the finest examples of Turner's golden visions; but Constable
found them glorious and beautiful. What did Constable think of the
Turner exhibited next year, that magnificent riot of the imagination,
'Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus'?
It was probably during his second visit to Italy that he made the
slight and lovely 'Sketch of an Italian Town,' now in the Victoria and
Albert Museum. This, like the 'Orvieto,' is essential Italy. Rarely
has the feeling of an Italian hill town been given with such intimacy
of observation, just as it looks, a moment snatched and recorded,
artlessly, but with great art.