EARLY ENGLISH WATER-COLOUR
DRAWINGS BY THE GREAT MASTERS
EARLY ENGLISH
WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS
BY THE GREAT MASTERS
WITH ARTICLES BY A. J. FINBERG
1919
EDITED BY GEOFFREY HOLME
“THE STUDIO,” Lᵀᴰ^{.,} LONDON PARIS, NEW YORK
CONTENTS
ARTICLES BY A. J. FINBERG
PAGE
Introduction 1
The Turners 4
Turner’s Predecessors 22
Turner’s Contemporaries 26
Descriptive Catalogue of the Exhibition of Selected Water-Colour
Drawings by Artists of the Early English School held
at Messrs. Thomas Agnew & Sons’ Galleries, London, March-April
1919 33
ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOURS
After J. S. Cotman PLATE
_Rouen_ (3) xxxv
After J. R. Cozens
_A Swiss Valley_ (43) xxvii
_Villa Negroni, Rome_ (42) xxix
After J. M. W. Turner, R.A.
_Castle of Chillon_ (18) vii
_Saumur_ (23) x
_Richmond Bridge--Play_ (20) xi
_Worcester_ (25) xii
_The Longships Lighthouse, Land’s End_ (27) xiii
_Lake Nemi_ (26) xv
_The Rigi at Sunrise--Lake of Lucerne (“The Blue Rigi”)_ (28) xvii
_Lake of Lucerne: Brunnen in the Distance_ (130) xx
_Mouth of the Grand Canal_ (127) xxiii
ILLUSTRATIONS IN MONOTONE
After T. Collier
_Beeston Castle_ (82) xliv
After J. S. Cotman
_Bridge over River near a Town_ (78) xxxiii
_Gormire Lake, Yorkshire_ (74) xxxiv
After J. S. Cotman
_A Lake Scene_ (1) xxxvi
_Church in Normandy_ (9) xxxvii
After J. R. Cozens
_In the Farnesina Gardens, Rome_ (41) xxviii
_Lake Nemi_ (45) xxx
After Edward Dayes
_Norwich Cathedral_ (144) xxvi
After Copley Fielding
_The Pilot Boat_ (70) xlii
After Thomas Girtin
_Kenilworth_ (146) xxxi
_Lincoln_ (7) xxxii
After Samuel Prout
_Folkestone_ (86) xxxix
After David Roberts, R.A.
_Granada_ (88) xliii
After G. Robson
_Ben Venue, from Lanrick_ (66) xli
After Paul Sandby, R.A.
_The Swan Inn, Edmonton_ (64) xxv
After J. M. W. Turner, R.A.
_Old Abbey, Evesham_ (139) i
_Malmesbury Abbey_ (53) ii
_Water Mill_ (147) iii
_A Mountain Stream_ (152) iv
_Cassiobury: The House seen across the Park_ (16) v
_Lake of Thun_ (34) vi
_Patterdale Old Church_ (21) viii
_Rolandswerth Nunnery and Drachenfels_ (35) ix
_Valley of the Washburne, near Farnley_ (153) xiv
_Florence, from near San Miniato_ (29) xvi
_Steeton Manor, near Farnley_ (136) xviii
_Wilderness of Sinai_ (132) xix
_Saltash_ (30) xxi
_Prudhoe Castle_ (22) xxii
_A Gorge_ (115) xxiv
After William Turner of Oxford
_Kingley Vale, with Chichester Cathedral in the Distance_ (77) xl
After John Varley
_Leyton, Essex_ (1830) (122) xxxviii
THE EDITOR DESIRES TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE VALUABLE ASSISTANCE RENDERED HIM
IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS VOLUME BY MESSRS. THOMAS AGNEW & SONS; AND
TO THANK MR. C. MORLAND AGNEW, MR. W. J. H. JONES, AND MR. R. W. LLOYD
FOR KINDLY ALLOWING THEIR DRAWINGS TO BE REPRODUCED
INTRODUCTION
Turner was one of the greatest artists this country has produced, and
much of his best work--and nearly all the work by which he has endeared
himself to his fellow-countrymen, was done in water-colour; yet
water-colour painting, though it has played almost as important a part
as oil painting in the history of British art, is not yet recognized
by our authorities as an independent branch of art. That Turner the
water-colour painter is represented at all in our National Gallery
is purely an accident. The bulk of his water-colours are in private
collections, and it is only on rare occasions that the public can get
an opportunity of seeing them.
It is for these reasons that Messrs. Thomas Agnew and Sons’ annual
exhibitions of English water-colours, though the outcome of the energy
and enterprise of a private firm, have become artistic events of
great public importance. The chief feature of these exhibitions has
always been a generous supply of Turner’s finished water-colours. They
have, therefore, become a regular source of instruction and pleasure
to that section of the public which really cares for British art.
They open the doors, at any rate for a time, to the chief private
collections of Turner’s water-colours; they give students of his work
valuable opportunities of enlarging their experience and increasing
their knowledge; and they do much to spread and stimulate an adequate
appreciation of the achievements not only of Turner but of the other
great water-colour painters of this country.
The exhibition which was opened in March of this year (1919) was
neither superior nor inferior to those which had gone before, but
it attracted a quite unusual amount of interest and attention. This
was due, I imagine, at least in part to circumstances connected with
the war--to the closing of the public galleries and museums, and
to the almost incredible folly of the Government in not reopening
them immediately the armistice was signed. After the long-drawn-out
agony of the war there was a part of the public which was disposed
to turn naturally to the comfort and refreshment which art can give.
But though the armistice was signed in November last year, Messrs.
Agnew’s exhibition was the first opportunity offered to the public of
seeing, under favourable conditions, a fine selection of some of the
most beautiful work of our great artists of the past. The public was
evidently grateful for such an opportunity and took full advantage of
it. This was only another instance of our national good luck in finding
that private enterprise and initiative so often step in and perform
work of public importance which our Government is too stupid or too
supine to perform.
I have said that this exhibition was neither superior nor inferior to
its immediate predecessors, but to say that it was not inferior was
to give it very high praise. The exhibition, indeed, was one which
would have done credit to any of our public galleries. The array of
Turner’s masterpieces on the long south wall of the gallery produced an
overpowering sense of his incomparable technical skill, his boundless
energy, and the infinite variety of his mind. In the centre of the
wall, in a place of honour, was enthroned the regal _Lake Nemi_
(Plate XV), resplendent with something brighter than the sunshine of
Italy, a gorgeous and intoxicating dream of sensuous beauty. Beneath
it hung the awe-inspiring _Longships Lighthouse_ (Plate XIII),
and on the right the beautiful and pathetic “_Blue Rigi_” (Plate
XVII), tender and wistful, in which the helplessness and restlessness
of old age only made more manifest the sorrows and regrets with which
the painter’s heart was filled. Grouped round these great masterpieces
of his full strength and waning powers were works of his early manhood,
like the _Cassiobury_ (Plate V), with its horses and dogs, a
robust jovial scene, the _Lake of Thun_ (Plate VI), the restrained
and elegant _Castle of Chillon_ (Plate VII), the dainty,
coquettish _Scarborough_, several of the Rhine drawings of 1817,
and many of his proudest and most exultant drawings, like the Byronic
_Florence, from near San Miniato_ (Plate XVI), the _Saumur_
(Plate X), and the _Saltash_ (Plate XXI), _Prudhoe_
(Plate XXII), _Richmond Bridge_ (Plate XI), _Windsor Castle,
Coventry_, and the somewhat operatic _Worcester_ (Plate XII),
of the “England and Wales” series; nor must I forget the impressive
_Lowestoft_, a grey and gloomy tragedy as grim and moving even as
the _Longships_.
And as no man stands alone--not even the greatest of geniuses--the
educational value of this array of masterpieces was increased by a
fine display of the works of those English water-colour painters who
had been born and had worked before Turner, and of his contemporaries.
The early topographical draughtsmen whom Turner first set out to
imitate and rival, were represented by Paul Sandby’s _The Swan
Inn, Edmonton_ (Plate XXV), Thomas Hearne’s _Thaxted Church,
Essex_, Thomas Malton Junior’s two quaint views of Bath, and many
other drawings, mostly in the “stained” manner, by Wheatley, J. I.
Richards, Ibbetson, William Payne, Dayes and others. Richard Wilson,
the chief influence in directing Turner’s genius to imaginative design,
was perforce unrepresented, as he does not seem to have worked in
water-colour; but Gainsborough was represented by one of his charming
drawings in chalk, and there was a noble group of nine of John R.
Cozens’s austerely beautiful drawings, among them the large _Lake
Albano_, and the charming _Villa Negroni_ (Plate XXIX).
Turner’s contemporaries were well represented by over seventy drawings,
which included three of his friend Girtin’s early works, and at least
one fine example of his robust maturity--a masterly view of the ruined
Lady Chapel of _Fountains Abbey_. Cotman had two fine early
Girtinesque drawings, _Gormire Lake, Yorkshire_ (Plate XXXIV),
and _Bridge over River_ (Plate XXXIII), a nobly designed _Lake
Scene_ (Plate XXXVI), in monochrome, and a brilliantly coloured
view of _Rouen_ (Plate XXXV). There were also two of Copley
Fielding’s most ambitious sea-pieces--_The Pilot Boat_ (Plate
XLII) and _Seaford from Newhaven Pier_, and a number of admirable
drawings by De Wint, David Cox, Varley and Prout.
After being got together with much labour and thought, and having
served its purpose for a month or two, this exhibition seemed destined
to suffer the usual fate of such undertakings, which is to be speedily
dispersed and soon forgotten. It occurred, however, to the Editor of
THE STUDIO that a permanent record of it would make a strong
appeal to many of those who had seen and enjoyed the exhibition, and
would enable a large number of those lovers of British water-colours
who had not been able to visit Messrs. Agnew’s gallery to realize
something of its interest and beauty.
Such is the origin, such is the purpose of the present volume. It was
naturally gratifying to me to be invited to supply the text for such
a work. But the value of a book like this depends very little on its
letterpress, and much on its illustrations. The colour processes have
in recent years made extraordinary progress and the reproductions of
the wonderful drawings collected by Messrs. Agnew will be sure of a
very hearty and a very wide welcome.
THE TURNERS
As Turner’s drawings formed the chief feature of the exhibition I will
begin my comments with them. The best way to arrange my notes seems
to be to take the drawings in their chronological order, disregarding
the sequence in which they were hung in the exhibition. By beginning
in this way, with the earlier drawings, we shall be able to study the
gradual development of Turner’s mind and skill.
[A] 128. _Church of St. Lawrence, Evesham, as seen through Tower
Gateway_, 1793.
139. _Old Abbey, Evesham_, 1793 (Plate I).
These two subjects were sketched during the summer of 1792, when Turner
was seventeen years of age. He was then a student at the Royal Academy
schools, where he attended the life class diligently during the winter
and spring months. In the early part of the summer of 1792, he went
to Bristol to visit his uncle’s friends, the Narraways, and went from
there to South Wales, Hereford, Great Malvern, Worcester, Evesham,
Tewkesbury and Gloucester. Several of the pencil drawings made during
this tour were exhibited some years ago at Mr. Walker’s gallery in Bond
Street.
These two highly finished and accomplished water-colours are good
examples of the work of the industrious apprentice. One searches them
in vain for signs of originality, for some promise of a new way of
thinking or feeling, a new vision, or a new form of expression. Their
aims are conventional, and their modest triumphs are triumphs of the
commonplace virtues--intelligence, docility, and above all, industry
working upon a foundation of natural talent. In them Turner was trying
to do exactly what the successful topographical and antiquarian
draughtsmen of the day were doing,--Sandby, Rooker, Hearne and
Dayes--and the precocious boy has already succeeded in doing such work
nearly as well as it can be done.
53. _Malmesbury Abbey_, 1794 (Plate II).
Though a year later in execution than the Evesham drawings, this was
based on sketches which had been made in 1791. These are now
in the National Gallery (Turner Bequest, VII C. and D.)
One is inscribed in Turner’s handwriting, “The Ruins of the Tower at
the West End of Malmesbury Abbey, taken from the Friars Walk, 1791.”
It is carefully worked in water-colour with brown ink outlines. The
other drawing is similarly worked and represents the same tower from a
point of view a little more to the left and lower down. The picturesque
features of these two views have been cunningly combined in the
finished drawing.
Turner exhibited a drawing of Malmesbury Abbey at the Royal Academy
in 1792. I was once misled by other writers into thinking that this
drawing might be the one which was then exhibited. The date, 1794,
disproves this. The present drawing is probably a reduced replica of
the exhibited work.
156. _Willesden Church_, circa 1796.
I believe this is the drawing which was described as “Kilburn Church”
in the J. E. Taylor sale. It is worked in blue and grey washes. It is
connected, I think, with Turner’s activities as a teacher of drawing.
147. _Water Mill_, 1797-1798 (Plate III).
152. _A Mountain Stream_, 1798 (Plate IV).
159. _Mountainous Landscape_, 1798.
These drawings are separated from the views of Evesham by an interval
of five or six years. Turner was now twenty-three years of age. His
exhibits at the Royal Academy in 1796 and 1797 had proved him to be
the most accomplished topographical and antiquarian draughtsman which
this country had produced, but the limitations of such work were too
narrow to satisfy either his ambitions or his powers of expression.
He had made up his mind by this time to be an artist and not merely a
draughtsman. He had felt the glamour of Richard Wilson’s paintings,
and their rich and sombre harmonies of colour were haunting his
imagination. There is a small pocket-book, bound in green leather,
in the National Gallery, labelled by Turner on the back, “Studies
for Pictures. Copies of Wilson,” which contains many colour sketches
done from memory of pictures by Wilson which he had seen in public
exhibitions or private collections. All the drawings and sketches from
nature Turner made at this time show the influence of Wilson’s work.
He was trying hard to see nature as Wilson had seen it, and he had
evidently taken a strong dislike to the neat “bit-by-bit” style of
painting of the “Evesham” and “Malmesbury Abbey” period. He had also
begun painting in oil on rather a large scale; another influence which
made for breadth of style.
In the _Water Mill_ (Plate III) the results of his early training
in topographical and antiquarian work are evident in the treatment
of all the quaint details of the old mill. The irregularity of its
structure, the effects of age and weather on the shapes of the roofs,
and the colouring of the tiles, bricks and woodwork are rendered with
intense sympathy and the most delicate and accurate observation. This
delight in the irregularity and picturesqueness of old buildings, and
the effects of weather, use and decay reminds one of Prout’s drawings;
yet there are no traces of Prout’s mannerisms and shortcomings in this
beautiful work of the young master, and there is a breadth and ease
in Turner’s drawing which we look for in vain in Prout’s numerous
productions.
In the first volume of “Modern Painters” Mr. Ruskin wrote: “we owe to
Prout, I believe, the first perception, and certainly the only existing
expression of that feeling which results from the influence among the
noble lines of architecture, of the rent and the rust, the fissure, the
lichen, and the weed, and from the writing upon the pages of ancient
walls of the confused hieroglyphics of human history.” The _Water
Mill_ shows that Turner forestalled Prout by a good many years. If
it were my business to point out to people the qualities of sight,
brain-power and manual dexterity which distinguish the works of great
artists from those of inferior ones, I should choose the best drawing
of Prout I could secure and ask my students to compare it carefully
with the _Water Mill_. Such comparison would show that Turner did
everything that Prout did, and did it better; every picturesque detail
is rendered with the same affectionate interest and fidelity; but while
Prout seems to be working with a certain stiffness and rigidity, as
though practising a formula, Turner’s rendering is delicate, supple,
and without any self-consciousness or display.
In _A Mountain Stream_ (Plate IV) Turner has got completely away
from his early “bit-by-bit” manner of working. The scene is grasped
as a whole, and every detail and part is subordinated to the general
effect. This is a fine example of the early development of Turner’s
executive mastery. Every touch is inspired by the general conception.
Turner spent the summer of 1798, when this drawing was made, in North
Wales, visiting Kilgerran, Harlech, Conway and Carnarvon castles, and
the neighbourhood of Snowdon. In the “Hereford Court” Sketch Book
(Turner Bequest, XXXVIII) there are several Wilsonesque water-colours
similar to this.
The _Mountainous Landscape_ is probably a leaf of the “North
Wales” Sketch Book, a smaller book in use at the same time as the
“Hereford Court” Sketch Book. It is slighter and more summary than the
_Mountain Stream_, being worked with a few simple washes put on at
once with unerring skill and knowledge. This masterly little sketch was
erroneously ascribed to Alexander Cozens in the catalogue; though why,
I cannot imagine, as it does not bear the faintest resemblance to that
artist’s style. But the mistake was productive of an incident which
caused considerable amusement amongst students of Turner’s works. The
art critic of one of the leading London papers happens to be a superior
person who finds Turner too “vulgar” for his refined taste. This
delightful critic dismissed the whole collection of Turner’s wonderful
drawings in the exhibition as mere “works of commerce,” and singled
out this _Mountainous Landscape_, because he was told it was by
Alexander Cozens, as one of the finest things in the exhibition. Yet
there are still people who ask “What’s in a name?” Probably if Turner’s
“_Blue Rigi_” had been described in the catalogue as by Alexander
Cozens this amusing critic, who seems to judge pictures rather by what
he is told than by what he sees, might have found that it possessed
some artistic merits.
158. _Crosses and Brasses, Whalley Abbey_, circa 1799.
This was done to be engraved in Whitaker’s “History of the Parish of
Whalley,” and is therefore a mere “work of commerce.” I suppose some
people must think an artist lowers himself somehow if he sells his
work or accepts an order to make a drawing. Work done under these
conditions, they seem to think, must be done carelessly, hastily,
and half-heartedly, otherwise there would be no point in the sneer.
This is a curious example of modern ways of thinking. Work has become
low, plebeian; only the groundlings work; the really superior person
has a private income (or his wife has) and devotes himself to doing
things which will benefit humanity at large in the dim and distant
future. Some of this muddle-headedness, so far as art is concerned,
is probably due to the current cant about “utterance,” emotion and
self-expression, though some of it may be due to a genuine though vague
and unpractical desire for the general good. I will merely remark that
Turner was emphatically not a superior person of this kind. He looked
upon himself always as a workman. He retained even late in life, as Mr.
Ruskin once happily remarked, “some little English sense and practical
understanding.” He believed in work, and he was prouder of his enormous
powers of work than of his genius, his success, or even his money. But
he expected to be paid for his work, and he grumbled vigorously when
any of his works failed to sell. On the other hand, he never scamped
his job, or offered an employer work which was not done as well as he
could do it.
How unsparing of his time and labour he was is proved by this drawing
of the Whalley crosses and brasses. The subject gave him no chance of
using those of his gifts which gave him most pleasure to use. It gave
him no opportunities of what our modern sentimentalists call emotion or
“utterance.” As the subject called only for sheer plodding labour, he
gave that, and he gave it in full measure. The drawing once belonged to
Mr. Ruskin.
145. _Norbury Park_, circa 1797.
This is a study of natural colouring and effect; a note of the autumn
tints on a charming stretch of country. Wilson is quite forgotten for
the moment. The young artist is content to put down on the paper, as
neatly and swiftly as possible, a faithful record of what he sees.
This drawing was probably made in September 1797, when Turner was at
Norbury Park. He exhibited at the Royal Academy in the following year
_A Study in September of the Fern House, Mr. Lock’s Park, Mickleham,
Surrey_. It would be interesting to know what has become of this
drawing. I can find no trace of it in Christie’s records or elsewhere.
16. _Cassiobury: The House seen across the Park_, circa 1800
(Plate V).
Another example of Turner’s “commercial work,” and like the Whalley
brasses done as well as he could do it. This is one of the numerous
drawings and paintings he made for the noblemen and gentlemen of
England of their houses and grounds. It was done for George, 5th Earl
of Essex, who was one of Turner’s earliest patrons. As Viscount Malden,
before he succeeded to the earldom, he had employed Turner in 1795 to
make views of the house and grounds at Hampton Court, Herefordshire.
The drawing of _A Waterfall_, now in the Victoria and Albert
Museum (1682-’71) is a view of the cascade in those grounds.
The introduction of the huntsmen, horses and dogs in the foreground
of the Cassiobury drawing gives it a sporting and jovial character
which is thoroughly in harmony with the spirit of the place. Turner
was quick in noting characteristic details of this kind and used them
with propriety and effect. Yet the drawing has a fine spaciousness
and stateliness which the artist’s noble patron would appreciate. I
believe this water-colour must have been lower in tone and darker in
colour when it was first done than it is now. The pencil drawing from
nature of the mansion from which the water-colour was painted is in the
“Fonthill” Sketch Book, p. 41. The curious will find it reproduced in
my book on “Turner’s Sketches and Drawings.”
34. _Lake of Thun_, 1809 (Plate VI).
Fortunately this drawing is dated, otherwise one would be tempted to
consider it as having been painted some years earlier. It was sketched
during Turner’s first tour in Switzerland, in 1802, and may have
been begun soon afterwards. It is Wilsonian in colour, but a certain
massiveness and heaviness in the design suggest that he was thinking
rather too much of the composition of Poussin and the old masters. It
is in an excellent state of preservation.
18. _Castle of Chillon_, 1810 (Plate VII).
Another fruit of the 1802 tour in Switzerland, and, like the preceding
drawing, painted for Sir J. E. Swinburne. It is more beautiful than
the _Lake of Thun_. The colour is a lovely harmony of deep blues,
russet browns and dull crimsons. There is no formalism or heaviness in
the design. I hope the fortunate owner of this exquisite drawing will
keep it carefully from undue exposure to a strong light, as the blues
in it are very sensitive to such influences. When once they have faded
they can never be coaxed back. So many of Turner’s drawings of this
kind have been ruined by exposure to the light that one cannot but be
anxious that this, one of the most beautiful of them all, should be
preserved for the delight of the coming generations.
Turner seems to have repeated this subject, as I remember another
version of it in Mrs. Stern’s possession which was sold at Christie’s
in 1908. Doubtless there are some slight differences in the two
drawings, but the design and general effect were similar. Mrs. Stern’s
drawing had the same restraint and elegance as this one.
21. _Patterdale Old Church_, circa 1810 (Plate VIII).
Another well-preserved drawing. The indigo and other blues are unfaded.
When this drawing was exhibited at the Royal Academy (Old Masters) in
1886, it was described in the catalogue as the original of an engraving
of this subject which was published in Mawman’s “Excursion in the
Highlands,” 1805. This must be incorrect. The “P.P.” (Professor of
Perspective) at the end of Turner’s signature proves it to be a later
drawing, as Turner was not elected Professor of Perspective till 1807.
36. _Vale of Pevensey, from Rosehill Park_, circa 1816.
One of a series of views of Rosehill, Sussex, (now known as Brightling
Park) and of places in the neighbourhood, made for Mr. John Fuller,
M.P., about 1816. These drawings were inherited by Sir Alexander
Acland-Hood, who sold them at Christie’s in 1908. The present drawing
has suffered from exposure to a strong light. The indigo having
disappeared the general effect is lighter and the colour warmer than
when it was first painted. Yet in spite of this, how fine the drawing
is! Its complexion, one might say, has changed, but all its native
nobility of character remains. How splendidly the subject is conceived,
what a glorious composition it makes, yet how truthful and sympathetic
the drawing is as a representation of the rolling downs of Sussex, its
lusty and happy trees, its exhilarating vistas of the distant sea and
rugged coast-line. The elaborate and beautifully drawn pencil study
from which this picture was painted is in the National Gallery, in the
“Views in Sussex” Sketch Book (Turner Bequest, CXXXVIII, p. 19). The
drawing was engraved in aquatint by J. C. Stadler (the same size as the
original) for Mr. Fuller, printed in colours, and finished by hand.
These prints, Mr. Rawlinson tells us, are excessively rare.
17. _Mayence and Kastel_, 1817.
19. _Lurleiberg: the Bend of the River_, 1817.
35. _Rolandswerth Nunnery and Drachenfels_, 1817 (Plate IX).
37. _Mayence_, 1817.
These are four out of the fifty-one Rhine drawings which Turner made
for Mr. Walter Fawkes in the summer and autumn of 1817. Thornbury
dates these drawings 1819, which is a mistake, and says that they were
done “at the prodigious rate of three a day.” But no man, not even
Turner, marvellously rapid worker as he was, could have produced these
fifty-one drawings at such a rate. What really happened was this: the
sketches for these drawings were actually made in twelve days, between
August 18 and 30, 1817; the fifty-one water-colours were then painted
from these pencil sketches between the end of August and November 13
(the day Turner handed the complete series “in a slovenly roll” to
Mr. Fawkes at Farnley Hall). We do not know exactly where the work
was done, but it was probably partly at inns, for Turner could work
anywhere and under any conditions, and partly when staying with Lord
Darlington at Raby Castle, or with Lord Strathmore at Hylton Castle
or Gibside. The documentary evidence which has enabled me to correct
Thornbury’s statements is given in detail in my account of “Turner’s
Water-Colours at Farnley Hall” (THE STUDIO office).
The drawings of this series are not hurried sketches from nature,
they are carefully pondered and perfectly elaborated works of art.
The painting of the dark cloud crossing the sun in the _Mayence
and Kastel_ is a striking instance of Turner’s technical mastery.
It must have been floated on while the paper was wet and allowed--or
rather made--to run into just the right shapes. Its evanescent effect,
its melting, imperceptible gradations, could have been got in no other
way.
The broad calm river, the spacious design, and the beautifully drawn
rocks in the _Rolandswerth Nunnery and Drachenfels_ (Plate IX)
make it a delightful drawing. This view must have been taken from near
Oberwinter, looking north, in the direction of Bonn.
Nearly all the drawings in this series were painted over a grey
preparation, put on over the white paper before the work was begun.
By wiping out or scraping away this preparation the white paper was
laid bare and Turner was thus enabled to get his high lights and his
general effect of light and dark very rapidly. But the presence of
the grey preparation forces the drawings into a low key and makes
grey the predominant note in the colour scheme. The colour harmonies
are, therefore, generally silver rather than golden. The drawing of
_Mayence_ is, however, an exception to the rule, as it is painted
direct upon the white paper without any grey preparation. It therefore
stands out from its companions as being more limpid in workmanship and
more luminous in effect than they are.
129. _Florence from Fiesole_, circa 1817.
134. _Turin, from the Church of the Superga_, do.
137. _Lake of Nemi_, do.
These three drawings were made as illustrations to James Hakewill’s
“Picturesque Tour of Italy,” and they were worked from Hakewill’s
sketches, as Turner at that time had never visited Italy. They formed
part of Mr. Ruskin’s collection and were exhibited at the Fine Art
Society’s galleries in 1878. It is stated in the text of Hakewill’s
book that the view of _Florence from Fiesole_ was “taken from
the garden of the Franciscan convent at Fiesole,” but Mr. Ruskin has
pointed out that the little bend of wall within which some monks are
standing in the foreground on the left is not really a part of the
Franciscan garden, but is one of the turns of the road in the ascent to
Fiesole.
Mr. Ruskin regarded the _Turin, from the Superga_ as one of his
“very chiefly valued possessions.” And well he might. It is indeed a
most exquisite and delightful piece of work. Each time I see it, it
gives me a fresh thrill of pleasure; its colour is so cheerful and
happy, the subject-matter is so well chosen--the contrast between the
distant snow-clad mountains and the comfortable sheltered existence of
the people of the city--and the design is so daring, so original, and
carried out with such consummate skill and resource.
Mr. Ruskin tells us that the inlaid diamond-shaped mosaics in the
pavement, which complete the perspective of the distance, are Turner’s
own invention. “The portico is in reality paved with square slabs of
marble only.” Perhaps Turner mistook some indications in Hakewill’s
sketch for these insertions, or perhaps he felt that the bare space in
the foreground wanted variety and calmly invented this artifice for the
purpose. I notice that though these diamond-shaped mosaics look quite
plausible and satisfactory in the drawing, Turner has altered them in
the engraving, reducing the width of the black band and introducing
another lozenge within the white centre.
The _Lake of Nemi_ is, as Mr. Ruskin said, “consummate in all
ways.” He goes on to point out how the light trees on the right have
been left while the distant lake and crags were being finished; and
that the towers and buildings of the Capuchin’s Convent high up on the
right were painted before the sea horizon, “which is laid in afterwards
with a wash that stops before touching the houses.” The town beyond the
convent is Gensano, and the distant mountain on the Mediterranean is
Monte Circello.
153. _Valley of the Washburne, near Farnley_, circa 1818 (Plate
XIV).
136. _Steeton Manor, near Farnley_, do. (Plate XVIII).
32. _Scarborough_, 1818.[B]
Between 1812 and 1818, Turner made a series of nearly fifty drawings
of views of Farnley Hall, inside and outside, and of places of
interest in the grounds and in the neighbourhood. The _Valley of the
Washburne_ (Plate XIV) shows us the first stages through which most
of these drawings passed. The whole subject is drawn very carefully in
chalk on brown paper. A few touches of body-colour in the foreground
and a slight wash over part of the sky begin the later stages, but then
the drawing was for some reason carried no further. Yet one cannot
regret this, for there is such a freshness, such overflowing vigour
and happiness in what has been done that the most exigeant criticism
can demand no more. This is a good example of what I have noticed
repeatedly, that Turner’s drawings were always delightful at each stage
of their development; and from the commencement they had a certain
completeness and finality. They never suggest “work.” They always look
as though the artist were just enjoying himself by putting down on
the paper, without any effort whatever, the thoughts which had taken
possession of his mind.
I do not know why this drawing was not “carried on,” as Turner
would have expressed it. There is a superb and completely finished
water-colour of a very similar view of the banks of the Washburne in
the Farnley Hall collection, so perhaps Mr. Fawkes did not want another
drawing of quite the same subject.
When I was at Farnley a few years before the war, I went to the
Washburne intending to make a sketch of this picturesque view. But I
found the banks covered with such a dense overgrowth of trees that the
little river was entirely shut out from sight. The rocky crest of the
Chevin was, however, still unaltered, and there was Caley Park on the
slopes very much as when Turner had drawn it; and there was Leathley
Church with its square tower, the Farnley place of worship, where the
late owner of Farnley, the Rev. Ayscough Fawkes, was for many years
incumbent.
_Steeton Manor House_ (Plate XVIII) is near Skipton. This drawing
is on a smaller scale than most of the series.
The Fawkeses, in Turner’s time, were fond of Scarborough, and Turner
was sometimes there in their company. Mr. Fawkes bought Turner’s large
drawing of Scarborough which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1811
(there is a repetition of this drawing in the Wallace Collection). But
by 1818, when Mr. Morland Agnew’s lovely drawing was made, Turner’s
style had changed. The earlier “Scarborough” is reserved and stately
in design, but its breadth verges on emptiness. It is as though the
artist was a little afraid of nature and was determined to keep her
at arm’s length, for fear of offending the shades of Poussin, Claude
and the other great old masters. But by 1818 he had got over his
shyness. He had by then taken nature to his bosom. He delights in
the sheer loveliness and infinite variety of English scenery. His
manner of painting has become more sensitive and refined, to enable
him to render the subtle qualities of form and atmosphere. Our
modern theorists tell us that if an artist is in love with what he
sees and bent on reproducing it, he ceases to “express himself” and
becomes a mere mechanic. But this is because they fail to understand
that healthy and imaginative artists do not sit at home in the dark
anxiously feeling their pulse and worrying about their emotions and
their moods. When Turner painted this lovely drawing of Scarborough he
was as passionately absorbed in the variety and ever-changing beauty
of physical nature as a poet like Wordsworth. The eye was the organ of
his mind and spirit. He not only looked at nature, but he understood
her, and loved her with intense and self-forgetting devotion. A drawing
like this proves--what nobody should ever doubt--that an artist may be
a realist and also a poet.
The late Mr. Francis Bullard has drawn attention (in a privately
printed catalogue of some of Turner’s engravings which he generously
presented to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts) to some valuable remarks
by Mr. Santayana on the subject of naturalism in poetry which apply
with so much force to Turner’s realism that I will venture to quote
them. After pointing out that our interest in nature need not
necessarily be shallow and egotistical, Mr. Santayana writes: “Our
emotion may be ingenuous; it may be concerned with what nature really
is and does, has been and will do for ever. It need not arise from a
selfish preoccupation with what these immense realities involve for our
own persons, or may be used to suggest to our self-indulgent fancy. No,
the poetry of nature may be discerned merely by the power of intuition
which it awakens and the understanding which it employs. These
faculties, more, I should say, than our moodiness or stuffy dreams,
draw taut the strings of the soul, and bring out her full vitality and
music. Naturalism is a philosophy of observation, and of an imagination
that extends the observable; all the sights and sounds of nature
enter into it, and lend it their directness, pungency, and coercive
stress. At the same time, naturalism is an intellectual philosophy;
it divines substance behind appearance, continuity behind change, law
behind fortune. It therefore attaches all those sights and sounds to
a hidden background that connects and explains them. So understood,
nature has depth as well as surface, force and necessity as well as
sensuous variety. Before the sublimity of this insight, all forms of
the pathetic fallacy seem cheap and artificial. Mythology, that to a
childish mind is the only possible poetry, sounds like bad rhetoric in
comparison. The naturalistic poet abandons fairyland, because he has
discovered nature, history, the actual passions of man. His imagination
has reached maturity.”
By the time the _Valley of the Washburne_ and _Scarborough_
drawings were made Turner’s imagination had reached its maturity. In
much of his work done after this period one misses something of the
earlier freshness, spontaneity, and what, for want of a better word, I
must call “integrity.”
These shortcomings are most noticeable in his large oil paintings. The
Wordsworthian calm and absolute sincerity of the earlier paintings,
like _The Frosty Morning_, Lord Essex’s _Walton Bridges_,
the _Windsor_ and the _Abingdon_, give place to the Byronic
_Bay of Baiæ_ (1823), the two _Mortlakes_ (1826-27), _Dido
Directing the Equipment of the Fleet_ (1828) and the _Ulysses and
Polyphemus_ (1829). Instead of the profoundly imaginative realism
of the earlier works, we get the unrest of romanticism, with its vague
and empty pomp, its cloying self-indulgence, its warm, voluptuous
atmosphere. Yet even in the rush of romantic intoxication Turner could
often touch the deepest chords of our imagination, especially in his
water-colours, with works of the most intense sincerity and sublime
insight. We have two examples of such works in the present exhibition,
_The Longships Lighthouse_ and the _Lowestoft_.
But before coming to these drawings, which form part of the “England
and Wales” series, I must refer to the following subjects:--
29. _Florence, from near San Miniato_, circa 1825 (Plate XVI).
23. _Saumur_, circa 1829 (Plate X).
132. _Wilderness of Sinai_, circa 1832-34 (Plate XIX).
This view of Florence is the earliest example in the exhibition of an
Italian scene painted from Turner’s own impressions. Yet in spite of
this it seems to me to miss something of the charm of the drawings made
from Hakewill’s sketches. It is richer in colour and more gorgeous in
effect than they; yet it suggests, at least to my mind, more of the
opera than of reality. It might have been painted as an illustration
to Byron’s “Childe Harold.” It has been stated that this drawing
was engraved in “The Keepsake” for 1828, and Mr. Rawlinson says (in
his valuable book on “The Engraved Work of Turner”) “there are two
apparently identical drawings of this subject, one in the possession
of Lord Northbourne, the other in the possession of Mr. J. Beecham.”
But the foreground and figures in this drawing (which was once in Sir
Joseph Beecham’s collection) are different from those in the engraving.
I think therefore that Lord Northbourne’s version, which I do not
remember to have seen, must be the original from which “The Keepsake”
engraving was made.
_Saumur_ (Plate X), on the other hand, was engraved for “The
Keepsake” for 1831, and it was republished in Heath’s “Gallery of
British Engravings.” It has a magnificent sky, full of the moving
pageantry of the heavens, and it is superbly designed. Another and
different view of this subject was engraved in the “Rivers of France.”
One would hardly recognize the chateau of the Queen of Sicily, on the
rock by the bridge, as the same building in the two engravings.
The _Wilderness of Sinai_ (Plate XIX), like the Hakewill drawings,
was done from the sketch of an amateur, a Major Felix. Turner always
lavished more than his usual care and labour on such work. For sheer
delicacy and cunning of hand it would be hard to find its equal. The
engraving was published in Finden’s “Landscape Illustrations of the
Bible” (1836). The rock in the foreground is said by the Arabs to be
the one which Moses struck when the Israelites were athirst. The alert
figures in the foreground and the two mounted men beyond show how well
Turner could draw such things when he wanted to.
We have now to turn our attention to the “England and Wales” series,
the most ambitious of Turner’s publications, which occupied much of
his time between 1825 and 1838. The scheme as originally planned
was to include one-hundred-and-twenty drawings, but the venture was
financially unsuccessful and it was abandoned after about a hundred
drawings had been made and engraved. Posterity has not endorsed the
contemporary indifference to this series. The plates are probably the
best known and most widely appreciated of all Turner’s engravings, and
the original drawings are certainly the most popular and most eagerly
sought after by collectors of his water-colours. They are eminently
characteristic of the artist; full to overflowing of evidence of
his extraordinary knowledge, powers of observation and incomparable
technical skill, and they display freely all his faults of mind and
character. Parts of his work are like Shakespeare’s, incorrect,
capricious and wanton. Like Shakespeare his imagination was crowded
with a tumultuary confusion of images. He had all Shakespeare’s
reckless and unquestioning confidence in himself and in his own powers,
so that his work often seems vehement and negligent. But if he had
Shakespeare’s faults he had also much of Shakespeare’s greatness. We
have only to change the word poet to painter to apply Dryden’s encomium
of Shakespeare to him. “All the images of nature were still present to
him, and he drew them not laboriously, but luckily. When he describes
any thing, you more than see it, you feel it too.... I cannot say he
is every where alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare
him with the greatest of mankind.... But he is always great, when some
great occasion is presented to him. No man can say, he ever had a fit
subject for his wit, and did not then raise himself as high above the
rest of poets,
Quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi.”
The “England and Wales” series was represented in Messrs. Agnew’s
exhibition by eight beautiful drawings:--
30. _Saltash_, 1825 (Plate XXI).
22. _Prudhoe Castle_, circa 1826 (Plate XXII).
24. _Windsor Castle_, circa 1829.
20. _Richmond Bridge--Play_, circa 1830 (Plate XI).
33. _Coventry_, circa 1832.
25. _Worcester_, circa 1833 (Plate XII).
27. _The Longships Lighthouse, Land’s End_, circa 1834 (Plate
XIII).
31. _Lowestoft_, circa 1835.
The most glorious in colour of these drawings is, I think,
the _Windsor Castle_, but the _Richmond Bridge_ (Plate XI)
runs it very close. The latter subject is interesting because it
was the first water-colour by Turner which Mr. Ruskin acquired; “my
father buying it for me,” he tells us, “thinking I should not ask
for another--we both then agreeing that it had nearly everything
_characteristic_ of Turner in it, and more especially the gay
figures!” Mr. Ruskin was naturally very much attached to this drawing
and he was never tired of trying to analyse it; but “after thirty
years’ endeavour, I finally surrender that hope--with all similar hopes
of ever analysing true inventive or creative work.” He drew attention,
however, as an instructive piece of composition, to the way the
parasols in the foreground repeat and reverse the arches of the bridge,
and the feather head-dresses of the ladies repeat the plumy tossing of
the foliage. These are merely Turner’s habitual tricks of composition.
We find these habits of design in most of his earlier and later work,
but the results are not always equally fortunate. One of the most
exquisite and perfect examples of this practice of placing and grouping
the figures and objects so as to repeat or emphasize the most salient
features of a landscape, is afforded in my opinion by the large oil
painting of _Walton Bridges_, which was painted in 1809 for the
Earl of Essex. In some of the later drawings and paintings the results
are not always so happy.
The execution of the _Richmond Bridge_ is unequal. The group of
figures in the foreground on the right is imperfectly imagined and
fumbling in touch, but the smaller figures on the left are vivid and
alert; the big group of trees on the right, with the sunlight striking
athwart them, is dashed in with extraordinary vigour and certainty. The
drawing is in splendid condition, and the general effect is breezy,
reckless, gorgeous--and, I cannot help thinking, a trifle vulgar,
probably on account of the gay foreground figures. It certainly has
everything “characteristic” of Turner, the beauties and the defects.
In the _Coventry_ and _Worcester_ (Plate XII) there is some
flagging of Turner’s power--hints of weariness and a sense of effort.
There is some “swelling into bombast” in them. But the _Longships
Lighthouse_ (Plate XIII) is one of the most wonderful and flawless
drawings ever made by Turner, or any other artist. Turner must have
been nearly sixty years of age when he made it, but there are no signs
of human weakness in it. It is all pure gold and immortal work. For
once Turner had found a subject exactly suited to his genius, “a fit
subject for his wit.”
It is of course impossible to do justice in words to the grandeur
and terrible beauty of this wonderful drawing, but Mr. Ruskin has so
nearly succeeded in this impossible task that I will venture to quote
his words. “In the _Longships Lighthouse, Land’s End_, we have
clouds without rain--at twilight--enveloping the cliffs of the coast,
but concealing nothing, every outline being visible through their
gloom; and not only the outline--for it is easy to do this--but the
_surface_. The bank of rocky coast approaches the spectator inch
by inch, felt clearer and clearer as it withdraws from the garment of
cloud--not by edges more and more refined, but by a surface more and
more unveiled. We have thus the painting, not of a mere transparent
veil, but of a solid body of cloud, every inch of whose increasing
distance is marked and felt. But the great wonder of the picture is
the intensity of gloom which is attained in warm grey, without either
blackness or blueness. It is a gloom, dependent rather on the enormous
space and depth indicated, than on actual pitch of colour, distant
by real drawing, without a grain of blue, dark by real substance,
without a stroke of blackness; and with all this, it is not formless,
but full of indications of character, wild, irregular, shattered,
and indefinite--full of the energy of storm, fiery in haste, and
yet flinging back out of its motion the fitful swirls of bounding
drift, of tortured vapour tossed up like men’s hands, as in defiance
of the tempest, the jets of resulting whirlwind, hurled back from
the rocks into the face of the coming darkness; which, beyond all
other characters, mark the raised passion of the elements. It is this
untraceable, unconnected, yet perpetual form--this fulness of character
absorbed in the universal energy--which distinguishes Nature and Turner
from all their imitators. To roll a volume of smoke before the wind,
to indicate motion or violence by monotonous similarity of line and
direction, is for the multitude; but to mark the independent passion,
the tumultuous separate existence of every wreath of writhing vapour,
yet swept away and overpowered by one omnipotence of storm, and thus to
bid us