1830: AGED FIFTY-FIVE
HE PAINTS THE 'INTERIOR AT PETWORTH' AND MOURNS THE DEATH OF HIS
FATHER, AND OF SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE
Two events mark this year: one sad, the death of his father which
affected his whole after life; the other, an epoch in his development
as artist, the painting of the 'Interior at Petworth.' But first a few
words about other matters.
As I have remarked before, critics are occasionally hard upon Turner,
and sometimes they disagree as to what is fine, and what is poor in his
work. Ruskin labelled a parcel of vignette beginnings as 'worthless.'
Mr. Rawlinson, referring to the numerous small drawings for vignette
illustrations, such as Rogers's _Italy_ of 1830, and the _Poems_ of
1834, while calling them 'marvels of execution,' also sees in them 'an
unpleasant note,' often a strangely forced and extravagant colour.
Monkhouse considered that it would be difficult to find in the whole
range of his works two really greater (though so small in size)
than the vignettes of 'Alps at Daybreak,' and 'Datur hora quieti.'
Personally, I must confess to a feeling of lukewarmness in regard to
the vignettes. 'The Burning of the Houses of Parliament' in Sir Edward
Tennant's collection is tight and harsh in colour compared with the
loose luxuriance of the oil picture.
Some one has said that Turner must on the whole have been an agreeable
person to have in a house--if the house were big enough. His visits to
Lord Egremont at Petworth were on much the same footing of intimacy
as his visits to Walter Fawkes at Farnley. Turner had his own private
studio at Petworth, and nobody but Lord Egremont was allowed admission.
Even he, who has been described as 'the rough, cunning, honest old
noble-man,' had to give a peculiar knock on the door before entering.
It is said that Chantrey, when staying at Petworth, imitated Lord
Egremont's peculiar knock, and to Turner's anger entered the room
and saw him at work. This pair of eccentrics, Turner and Egremont,
foregathered happily, and the friendship was severed only in 1837 by
Lord Egremont's death.
The _Inventory_ shows that Turner was at Petworth in 1830. One of the
books contains a sketch for that quaint, attractive 'View in Petworth
Park with Tillington Church in the Distance,' of which an unfinished
version is in the National Collection. The finished oil is in the
possession of Lord Leconfield. Most of the Petworth sketches are in
brilliant tints of opaque colour on grey-blue paper: they resulted one
merry day in that startling, delightful oil picture in the National
Collection called 'Interior at Petworth.' Here is Turner working
entirely for his own pleasure, absolutely indifferent to the forms of
things, seeing the havoc through a mist of sunlight with brilliant rays
shining down into the octagonal sculpture gallery beyond, and reflected
through the Venetian blinds of a window in an alcove to the right.
How the room came to be in this state we do not know. The pugs and
spaniels are evidently enjoying the upturned table and the disarranged
furniture: they caper delightedly over a lady's orange cloak and
feathered bonnet.
I must find room for an extract from a curious and interesting
article upon 'Turner's Path from Nature to Art,' by Professor Josef
Strzygowski, that appeared in the _Burlington Magazine._ The learned
professor devotes his pen to 'The Frosty Morning' and the 'Interior
at Petworth,' which he considers represent the two poles: Nature and
Art. After remarking that in the days when the 'Interior at Petworth'
was painted no sketch was regarded as a picture, and so Turner never
exhibited the Petworth 'Interior' which 'looks almost like an actual
palette, and a palette, moreover, on which the colours have been
thoroughly daubed together, dashes of colour from the paint-brush and
the palette-knife left as they are, without the least intention of
hiding the technique'--Professor Strzygowski proceeds:--
'We do not know what is represented; it seems as if the picture
might just as well hang upside down. And when we have realised that
we are looking upon an interior, where are the separate shapes
expressed? We recognise a large sofa on the right, statues on the
left, in front a little dog. But these three shapes, and all the
others, are so confused, that no one can define their appearance.
But what, then, does the picture really mean? asks the layman.
That is the real discovery of modern times. Sketches in which an
artist gives nothing more than his momentary impression, _i.e._,
lets himself go subjectively, leaving the object, both as regards
its meaning and its appearance, quite in the background, are now
admitted to be finished works of art. The "Interior at Petworth" is
not in Mr. Bell's catalogue. Turner, as we now know, reserved this
work, with so many others, as a private confession of faith.... For
him the shape no longer exists; he sees only light and colour, and
even those transform themselves in a peculiar way. He does not see a
fragment of nature through the medium of his temperament; but gives us
rather, on the contrary, his own temperament seen through a fragment
of nature. Nature is wholly subordinated to his impetuous need for
self-expression.... The representation, the "Interior" in itself,
has no value for him, except in so far as its space can be exhibited
as the recipient of tone and colour: the pictorial symbol, as the
medium of his need for expression, is everything to him; the object,
the thing and its shape, are nothing. Thus the cautious painter of
"The Frosty Morning" becomes an artist; thus the thing he paints is
transformed into spiritual significance, its shape becomes pictorial
symbol; and the technique, which before was carefully veiled, changes
to the boldest impressionism.... Art like this is for epicures.'
Saner and very beautiful is the water-colour, 'On the Lake at Petworth,
Evening,' in the National Collection, although I am bound to say that
this golden and blue impression is equally beautiful if you look at it
upside down.
In the 'Brighton and Arundel' Sketch-Books (1830), we find the
following in Turner's handwriting on 'A View Looking Out to Sea with a
Sailing Boat':--
'Beautiful effect of----,' 'Green Top' (_e._ to waves), 'foam grey in
shade'--'reflections of the Boat ... in water,' 'Reflection of the Boy
[?] on the Sail,' 'The warmth of the Tan Sail,' etc.
Perhaps from these notes he painted the luminous and peaceful 'Old
Chain Pier, Brighton,' with the sun low in a yellow haze gilding
the sail, and the reflections of boat and sail in the still water.
Certainly from this 'study' he composed the finished Brighton picture
in the collection of Lord Leconfield. 'A Ship Aground,' which appears
to be a pendant to 'The Old Chain Pier, Brighton,' is equally luminous
and peaceful, in spite of the ground swell, and the movement of the
small craft about the disabled ship.
In the 'Dieppe and Rouen and Paris' Sketch-Book, we find sketches of
three pictures, probably Claudes or Poussins, with long descriptions in
Turner's handwriting, of which the following are samples:--
'The trees are grey and dull green and the whole foreground cold,
the earth particularly cold with a few touches of warm red, but
the _ground_ in the picture never protrudes itself or through the
_Colours_' ... 'The sky is very blue at the top with some small white
clouds with grey shadows, but at the Hor. [horizon] yellow, so that
the distant mountains are relieved and Blue.'
In another Sketch-Book are a number of water-colours on blue paper,
probably connected with _The Rivers of France_ series, published
between 1833 and 1835.
Turner suffered a great blow this year in the death of his father,
for whom he had a deep affection. 'Dad' had been of great use to his
famous son, helping in the preparation of his canvases, attending to
the gallery of unsold pictures, and so forth. When they were staying at
Twickenham, he would travel to town every morning to open the gallery,
riding with the market gardeners, who conveyed him to London for a
glass of gin a day (his own arrangement). 'Dad' was as careful of money
as was his son, who was wont to chuckle, 'Dad taught me nothing except
to save halfpence.'
Turner was never again the same man after the death of his father.
In this year Sir Thomas Lawrence also died. The Turner Collection at
Millbank contains a sketch of the funeral, looking like a double-page
in an illustrated weekly. The following letter shows how the death of
Lawrence affected him:--
'Dear Jones,--I delayed answering yours until the chance of this
finding you in Rome, to give you some account of the dismal prospect
of Academic affairs, and of the last sad ceremonies paid yesterday to
departed talent gone to that bourn from whence no traveller returns.
Alas! only two short months Sir Thomas followed the coffin of Dawe to
the same place. We then were his pall-bearers. Who will do the like
for me, or when, God only knows how soon! However, it is something
to feel that gifted talent can be acknowledged by the many who
yesterday waded up to their knees in snow and muck to see the funeral
pomp swelled up by the carriages of the great, _without the persons
themselves.'_
Turner's father was buried in the parish church of St. Paul's, Covent
Garden, where the painter had been baptized. The plain epitaph was
written by Turner; it bears no scriptural text.