1833: AGED FIFTY-EIGHT
HE PAINTS HIS FIRST 'VENICE' PICTURE AND RE-PURCHASES SOME OF HIS OWN
DRAWINGS AT AUCTION
Venice, 'the last home of his imagination,' if we exclude the mountains
of Switzerland, and the Thames of England, where he found his final
solace, begins to inspire his brush, but not the visionary Venice that
he was to evolve later, visions of colour and light which seem to be
floating from sight even as we look at them. First the spade work--that
was Turner's way. As he began painting the sea from the pictures of Van
de Velde, so he began painting Venice from the pictures of Canaletto,
and in this first interpretation, or rather illustration, of Venice, he
introduced, in his quaint, admiring way, his hero for the moment, at
work. 'The Bridge of Sighs, Ducal Palace and Custom House, Canaletto
Painting,' is a sober topographical performance compared with his
later pictures of the bride of the Adriatic. Indeed the quotation from
Rogers's _Italy_ gives more of a lilt to the imagination than the
picture:--
'There is a glorious city in the sea,
The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets,
Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed
Clings to the marble of her palaces.'
No fewer than twenty-seven pictures of Venice by Turner have been
catalogued.
Between 1833 and 1835 were published the beautiful series of _The
Rivers of France_ known as _Turner's Annual Tour._ The letterpress was
by Leitch Ritchie, but they did not travel together 'as their tastes
were dissimilar.' Ritchie gives the following description of the
artist's methods:--
'His exaggerations, when it suited his purpose, were wonderful;
lifting up, for instance, by two or three stories, the steeple, or
rather the stunted cone of a village church. I never failed to roast
him on the habit. He took my remarks in very good part, sometimes
indeed in great glee, never attempting to defend himself otherwise
than by rolling back the war into the enemy's camp. In my account of
the famous Gilles de Retz, I had attempted to identify that prototype
of "Blue Beard" with the hero of the nursery story, by absurdly
insisting that his beard was so intensely black that it seemed to have
a shade of blue. This tickled the great painter hugely; and his only
reply to my bantering was, his little sharp eyes glistening the while,
"Blue Beard! Blue Beard! Black Beard!"'
There were sixty drawings in this wonderful series, most of which are
in the Turner Gallery. He did not sell these water-colours, preferring
to lend them to the publishers for engraving purposes for which he
charged from five to seven guineas each. Ruskin tells how one day
Turner brought to him the sixty drawings for _The Rivers of France_
rolled in dirty brown paper, offering them for twenty-five guineas
each. Ruskin, to his grief, could not persuade his father to spend the
money. In later years he had to pay a thousand pounds for the seventeen
which he gave to Oxford. To look through this series is to be again
impressed by the range of Turner's genius. Which is the most beautiful?
I know not. Sometimes one, sometimes another--the blue mystery of 'The
Light Towers of Hève,' the huddled splendour of 'Sunset in the Port of
Havre,' the wild translucent sweep of the tidal wave in 'Quellebœuf,'
the quiet splendour, infinity on a few inches of paper, of 'The Seine
between Tancarville and Quellebœuf,' the poetry of 'Caudebec,' the
fantasy of 'Jumiéges,' the charm of 'The Post Road from Vernon to
Nantes,' the mystery of 'St. Denis.' Invited to pick one, I should
hardly know which to choose. What a parcel of dreams for Turner to
bring to Ruskin rolled in dirty brown paper. And while Turner the poet
was preparing to realise these dreams, Turner the man was casting his
acquisitive eye on former works of his own that came into the market.
When Dr. Munro died in 1833, Turner attended the sale of his pictures,
and acquired a great many of his own early works; no doubt he bought
others too, as among the doubtful drawings catalogued at the end of
the _Inventory_, are many by different hands. Turner informed the
auctioneer that some of the drawings attributed to him were not his.
That must have been an interesting spectacle. For Turner, when he had a
grievance, did not conceal it.