to have kingly patrons. Charles V. visited Bologna, and, seeing
Titian's great work, wanted him to paint his portrait. So the artist
went to Bologna and painted the portrait of the king, clothed in
armour, but without any head-covering, making Charles V. look so fine
a personage, that he was delighted. Charles said he had always been
painted to look so much uglier than he really was that when people who
had seen his portraits, actually saw himself they were pleasantly
disappointed. While Titian was painting his picture, Lombardi, the
sculptor, wished above all things to see Charles, so Titian said: "You
come with me to the sittings, and act as if you were some apprentice,
carrying my colours and brushes, and then you can watch the king as
easily as possible." Lombardi did as Titian suggested, but he hid in
his big and baggy sleeve a tablet of wax, on which to make a relief
picture of Charles. One day the king surprised the sculptor and
demanded to be shown what he was doing. Thereupon he was so much
pleased that he commissioned Lombardi to make the model in
marble. While the king was sitting for two portraits to Titian, the
artist one day dropped his brush. The king looked at the courtiers who
were lounging about watching the work, but none of them picked it up,
so the king himself did so. Titian was distressed over this and
apologised to the king. "There may be many kings," said Charles, "but
there will never be more than one Titian--and he deserves to be served
by Caesar himself." After that he would allow no other artist to paint
his portrait, declaring that Titian alone could do it properly, and
for the two pictures Titian received two thousand scudi in gold, was
made a Count of the Lateran Palace, of the Aulic Council and of the
Consistory; with the title of Count Palatine and all the advantages
attached to those dignities. His children were thereby raised to the
rank of nobles of the empire, with all the honours appertaining to
families with four generations of ancestors. He was also made Knight
of the Golden Spur, with the right of entrance to court. This was
great return for two portraits of a king, but it shows what a king
could do if he chose.
Titian had a brother who also became an artist, less famous than
himself, and it was that brother, who, when their father died in the
Cadore home, went back to care for the old place and to keep it in
readiness so that the famous Titian might return to it for rest and
peace. Foreign sovereigns had invited Titian to end his days with
them, but they could not tempt him from that vale of Cadore nor his
country home in Venice.
All this time he had been neglecting the work upon the hall of
council, and at last, the councillors gave the work to another, took
away Titian's "brokerage" and told him he must return to Venice all
the moneys they had given him for twenty years back. This finally
cured him of his neglect, and he went to work in earnest painting so
rapidly that he finished the work in two years.
Before he died Titian went to Rome, where he painted Pope Paul's
portrait, and the story is told that when the portrait was set to dry
upon the terrace--which it probably was not,--the people who passed
took off their hats to it, thinking it was the pope himself.
Besides his bad son and his good one, Titian had a beautiful daughter
whom he painted again and again. He went to Augsburg once more to
paint King Charles, who for that work added a pension of five hundred
scudi to what he had already done for him. This made the artist "as
rich as a prince, instead of poor as a painter." King Philip II. loved
art as his father had, and he took a painting of Titian's with him to
the convent of Yuste, where he went to die, wishing to have it near to
console him. In those days art had become a religion for high and
low. Great personages still went to Casa Grande, Titian's Venetian
home, where he entertained like a prince. No one knew better than he
how princes behaved, and when a cardinal came to dine with him, he
threw his purse to his servant, crying: "Prepare a feast, for all the
world is dining with me!" Henry III. of France visited Titian and
ordered sent to him every picture of which he had asked the price.
His friends stood by him all his life, but in his old age his
beautiful daughter, Lavinia, died, leaving behind her six children for
him to love as his own. The brother had died before that, in the old
home at Cadore, and at more than eighty years of age Titian was still
painting from morning till night. About this time he sent to King
Philip "The Last Supper," which was to be hung in the Escorial. The
monks found it too high to fill the space, and though the artist in
charge, Navarrette, begged them to let it be, they cut a piece off the
top, that it might be hung where they wanted it. Titian had so far had
to pay no taxes, but at that time an account of his property was
demanded and this is what he owned: "Several houses, pieces of land,
sawmills, and the like," and he was blamed because he did not state
the full value of his possessions. At ninety-one he painted a picture
which became the guide of Rubens and his brother artists, so wonderful
was it. Again, at ninety-nine he began a picture, which was to be
given to the monks of the Frari in return for a burial place for the
artist within the convent walls, but he never finished it. He died
during the time of the plague, but of old age alone, though his son,
Orzio, died of the disease. The alarm of the people was so great that
a law had been passed to bury all who died at that time, instantly and
without ceremony, but that law was waived for the painter. Titian, in
the midst of a nation's tragedy was borne to the convent of the Frari,
with honours. Two centuries later the Austrian Emperor commanded the
great sculptor, Canova, to make a mausoleum above the tomb.
It was said that shortly before he died Titian began to be less sure
in his use of colours, and would often daub on great masses, but his
students came in the night and rubbed them off, so that the master
never felt his failing.
As King Charles had said, there was never but one such artist in the
world.
Titian prepared his canvas by painting upon it a solid colour to serve
for the bed upon which the picture itself was to be painted. To quote
more exactly from a good description--some of these foundation colours
were laid on with resolute strokes of his brush which was heavily
laden with colour, while the half-tints were made with pure red earth,
the lights with pure white, softened into the rest of the foundation
painting with touches of the same brush dipped into red, black, and
yellow. In this way he could give the "promise" of a figure in four
strokes. After laying this foundation, he turned his picture toward
the wall and left it there for months at a time, frequently turning it
around that he might criticise it. If, during this time of waiting, he
thought any part of the work already done was poor, he made it right,
changing the shape of an arm, adding flesh where he thought it was
needed, reducing flesh where it seemed to him out of proportion, and
then he would again turn the canvas face to the wall. After months of
self-criticism and retouching he would have the first layer of flesh
painted upon his figures, and a good beginning made. "It was contrary
to his habit to finish at one painting, and he used to say that a poet
who improvises cannot hope to form pure verses." He would often
produce a half-light with a rub of his finger, "or with a touch of the
thumb he would dab a spot of dark pigment into some corner to
strengthen it; or throw in a reddish stroke--a tear of blood so to
speak--to break the parts ... in fact when finishing he painted more
with his fingers than with his brush." He used to say, "White, red,
and black, these are all the colours that a painter needs, but one
must know how to use them."
PLATE--THE ARTIST'S DAUGHTER, LAVINIA.
Previous to the time of Titian, it had been the custom to paint
portraits of beautiful ladies merely to their waists, just far enough
to show their hands. He went further, and produced "knee portraits,"
which gave him an opportunity to paint their gorgeous gowns as
well. He has done so in making this picture of his daughter Lavinia,
probably just before her marriage to Cornelio Sarcinelli which took
place in 1555. She is attired in gold-coloured brocade with pearls
about her neck. Her dress, combined with the dish of fruit she holds
so high, gives Titian the colour effects he always sought. A yellow
lemon is specially striking, and the red curtain to the left
harmonises with the whole. The uplift of the arms and the turn of the
head give the desired amount of action. It is not Titian's customary
style of work; he seldom did anything so intimate and personal, and
the picture is the more interesting on that account. It is in the
Berlin Gallery.
Some of Titian's famous pictures are: his own portrait; "Flora," "Holy
Family and St. Bridget," "The Last Judgment," "The Entombment," "The
Magdalene," "Bacchanal," "St. Sebastian," "Bacchus and Ariadne," and
"The Sleeping Venus."
XXXIX
JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER
_English_
1775-1851
_Pupil of the Royal Academy_
If the occupation of a shepherd produced a poet, no less did an artist
of the first water come out of a barber shop. Turner's father was a
jolly little fellow who dressed hair for English dandies and did all
of those things which in those days fell to men of his profession. It
was in this little shop that the great artist grew up. Father Turner
was ambitious for his son, who was anxious to study art. The less said
of the artist's mother the better, for she was a termagant and finally
went crazy, so that the father and his little boy were soon left
alone, to plan and work and strive to make each other happy. The pair
were never apart.
Turner's art beginning was at six years of age, on the occasion of a
visit his father paid to a goldsmith of whose hair curling and
peruquing he had charge. Perched upon a chair too high for a little
boy's comfort, and feeling that it took his father very long indeed to
satisfy the customer, Joseph's eye lighted upon a silver lion which
ornamented a silver tray. He studied every detail of that lion while
waiting for his father, and finally when they got home, he sat down
and drew it from memory. By tea time he had a lion in full action upon
the paper. This delighted his father above everything, and it was
settled then and there that the little fellow should have a chance to
learn art.
The father could not give much time to his upbringing, but he taught
him to be honest and kind-hearted and to save his money. His
playground was generally the bank of the Thames, and under London
Bridge where, roving with the sailors, he learned to love the ships,
the setting-suns and evening waters from a daily study of them.
He did not do much at school, because the other pupils at New
Brentford, learning that he could draw wonderful things upon the
schoolroom walls, used to do his "sums" for him, while he sketched for
them. After a while father Turner began to hang up some of his son's
sketches upon the walls of the barber shop, among the wigs and curls
and _toupées_, and he put little tags upon them, telling the
price. The extraordinary work of his little boy began to attract the
attention of the jolly barber's patrons, and by the time he was twelve
years old the child had a picture upon the walls of the Royal
Academy--a far-cry from barber shop to Academy!
One authority says that this first exhibition occurred in his
fourteenth year, but by that time he was a pupil of the Academy, and
it is not unlikely that he had shown his mettle before.
He now began to earn his own living, but he still dwelt in the barber
shop with his father. While in the Academy he coloured prints, made
backgrounds for other painters, drew architect's plans, and in that
way made money. He had been sent to a drawing master to study "the art
of perspective," but having no mathematical knowledge he had been
unable to learn it, and the teacher had advised his father to put
little Turner to cobbling or making clothes. However, William was to
learn perspective, and even to be made master of that branch of art in
the Academy itself.
In after years, when he had become a great artist, someone spoke
pityingly of the drudgery he had had to do to make money as a young
boy--referring to his painting of backgrounds and the like. "Well! and
what could be better practice?" Turner answered cheerfully.
He used to go to the house of Dr. Munro, who lived in fine style on
the Strand. This gentleman owned Rembrandts, Rubenses, Titians, and
other great masterpieces, and in that house the "little barber" had a
chance to see the best of art, and also to copy it. This was a great
opportunity for him and he made the most of it. Besides the chance for
study, he earned about half a crown an evening and his supper, for his
copying.
Turner was the first painter to make "warm moonlight." All other
artists had given cold, silvery effects to a moonlit atmosphere, but
Turner had seen a mellow, sympathetic moon, and he first showed it to
others. About this time he went travelling; for an engraver of the
_Copper Plate Magazine_ had engaged the young boy to go into Wales and
make sketches for his work. Turner set off on a pony which a friend
had lent him, with his baggage done up in a bundle--it did not make a
very big one--and thus he voyaged. It was a fine experience, and he
came home with many beautiful scenes on paper, which he in after years
made into complete pictures. Next he made the acquaintance of Thomas
Girtin, the first in his country of a fine school of water-colour
painters, and this acquaintance grew into a close friendship. The two
were devoted to each other and worked together at any sort of
mechanical art work that would bring them a living. When Girtin died
Turner said: "Had Tim Girtin lived, I should have starved," showing
how highly he valued Girtin's work.
Turner is said to have been "a stout, clumsy little fellow, who never
cared how he looked. He wore an ill-fitting suit, and his luggage tied
up in a handkerchief was slung over his shoulder on a cane. Sometimes
he carried a small valise and an old umbrella, the handle of which he
converted into a fishing rod, for Turner dearly loved both hunting and
fishing."
The hero travelled a great deal, because above every thing he loved
the fields and streams, and to tramp alone. It is said that it was his
habit to walk twenty-five miles a day, seeing everything on the way,
letting no peculiarity of nature escape him. His sketchbook was a
curiosity, because he not only made sketches in it, but jotted down
his travelling expenses, what he thought about things that he saw, and
all the gossip he heard in the towns through which he passed. Because
he liked best to travel alone he was called "the Great Hermit of
Nature."
One memorable day--of which he thought but little at the time--he
stopped on the road to make a sketch of Norham Castle. Later he
completed the picture, and it became famous, so successful that from
that hour he had all the work he could do. Years afterward, when
passing that way again in company with a friend, he was seen to take
off his hat to the castle.
"Why are you doing that?" his friend asked, in amazement.
"Well, that castle laid the foundation of my success," he answered,
"and I am pleased to salute it."
During his young manhood Turner had fallen in love with a girl, and
planned to marry, but after he returned from one of his country trips
he found she had married another, and from that moment the artist was
a changed man. He had been generous and gay before, now he began to
save his money, so that people thought him miserly--but he was
forgiven when it became known what he finally did with his
fortune. After the young woman deserted him he wandered more than
ever, and one of his fancies was to keep boys from robbing birds'
nests. He looked after the little birds so carefully that the boys
named him "old Blackbirdy." He had already begun those wonderful
pictures of ships and seas, and his house was ornamented with
full-rigged little ships and water plants, which he carefully raised
to put into his pictures. By that time he had bought a home of his own
in the country, and his father the barber went to live with him. The
old man's trade had fallen off, because the fashions had changed, wigs
were less worn, and hair was not so elaborately dressed. In the
country home the old man took charge of all the household affairs,
prepared his son's canvases for him, and after the pictures were
painted it was the ex-barber who varnished them, so that Turner said,
"Father begins and finishes all my pictures." There the father and son
lived, in perfect peace and affection, till Turner decided to sell the
place and move into town, "because," said he, "Dad is always working
in the garden and catching cold."
Meanwhile he had been made master of perspective in the Academy, and
it was expected that he would lecture to the students, but he was not
cut out for a lecturer. He was not elegant in his manners, nor
impressive in his speech. On one occasion, when he had risen to
deliver a speech, he looked helplessly about him and finally blurted
out: "Gentlemen! I've been and left my lecture in the hackney coach!"
During these years he had tried to establish a studio like other
masters and to have pupils and apprentices about him; but the stupid
ones he could not endure, having no patience with them, and he treated
all the fashionable ones so bluntly they would not stay; so the idea
had to be given up.
He became a visitor at Farnley Hall in Yorkshire, where a friend,
Mr. Hawksworth Fawkes lived, and in the course of his lifetime Fawkes
put fifty thousand dollars worth of Turner's pictures upon his
walls. The Fawkes family described Turner as a most delightful man:
"The fun, frolic, and shooting we enjoyed together, and which,
whatever may be said by others of his temper and disposition, have
proved to me that he was, in his hours of distraction from his
professional labours as kindly hearted a man and as capable of
enjoyment and fun of all kinds as any I ever knew."
Another friend writes: "Of all light-hearted, merry creatures I ever
knew, Turner was the most so; and the laughter and fun that abounded
when he was an inmate of our cottage was inconceivable, particularly
with the juvenile members of our family."
The story of his disappointment in marriage is an interesting one. It
is said that the young lady whom he loved was the sister of a
schoolmate. They had been engaged for some time, but while he was on
one of his travels his letters were stolen and kept from the young
woman. She believed he had forgotten her, and her stepmother, who had
taken the letters, persuaded the girl to engage herself to
another. Turner returned just a week before her marriage and tried to
win her back, but although she loved him, she felt herself then bound
to her new suitor and therefore married him. Her marriage was very
unhappy and her misery, as well as his own, distressed the artist till
his death. Almost all his life, in spite of his seeming gaiety, he
worked like a slave, rising at four o'clock in the morning and working
while light lasted. When remonstrated with about this he would sadly
say: "There are no holidays for me."
All his ways were honest and simple, and his election to the Academy
was very exceptional in the way it came about. Most Academicians had
graces and airs and good fellowship to commend them, as well as their
works, but Turner had none of these things. He had given no dinners,
nor played a social part in order to get the membership. When the news
was brought him that he was elected, some one advised him to go and
thank his fellow Academicians for the honour, as that was the custom;
but Turner saw no reason in it. "Since I am elected, it must have been
because they thought my pictures made me worthy. Why, then should I
thank them? Why thank a man for performing a simple duty." In half a
century Turner was absent only three times from the Academy
exhibitions, and his membership was of very great value to him.
At this time Turner had an idea for an art publication to be called
_Liber Studiorum_. He meant to issue this in dark blue covers and to
include in each number five plates. There was to be a series of five
hundred plates altogether, and these were to be divided, according to
subject, into historical, landscape, pastoral, mountainous, marine,
and architectural studies. After seventy plates had been, published,
the enterprise fell through, because no one bought the periodical, and
there was no money to keep it going. The engraver of the plates,
Charles Turner, became so disgusted with the failure that he even used
the proofs of these wonderful studies to kindle the fire with. Many
years later, a great print-dealer, Colnaghi, made Turner, the
engraver, hunt up all the proofs that he had not used for kindling
paper, and these he bought for £1,500.
"Good God!" cried Charles Turner, "I have been burning banknotes all
my life."
Some years later still £3,000 was paid for a single copy of the _Liber
Studiorum_.
Turner was a most conscientious man, and many stories are told of his
manner of teaching. He could not talk eloquently nor give very clear
instructions, talking not being his forte, but he would lean over a
student's shoulder, point out the defects in his work, and then on a
paper beside him make a few marks to illustrate what he had said. If
the artist had genius enough then to imitate him, well and good; if
not, Turner simply went away and left him. His own ways of working
were remarkable. He often painted with a sponge and used his thumbnail
to "tear up a sea." It mattered little to him how he produced his
effects so long as he did it. His impressionistic style confused many
of his critics, and it is told how a fine lord once looked at a
picture be had made, and snorted: "Nothing but daubs, nothing but
daubs!" Then catching the inspiration, he leaned close to the canvas,
and said: "No! Painting! so it is!"
"I find, Mr. Turner," said a lady, "that in copying your pictures,
touches of red, blue and yellow appear all through the work."
"Well, madam, don't you see that yourself, in nature? Because if you
don't, heaven help you!" was the reply.
"Once, after painting a summer evening, he thought that the picture
needed a dark spot in front by way of contrast; so he cut out a dog
from black paper and stuck it on. That dog still appears in the
picture."
Another time he painted "A Snow-storm at Sea," which some critics
called "Soap-suds and Whitewash." Turner, who had been for hours
lashed to the mast of a ship in order to catch the proper effect, was
naturally much hurt by the criticism. "What would they have!" he
exclaimed. "I wonder what they think a storm is like. I wish they'd
been in it."
Turner was conscientiously fond of his work, and when he sold a
picture he said that he had lost one of his children.
He grew rich, but he never was knighted, because his manners were not
fine enough to suit the king. He wished to become President of the
Royal Academy, but that was impossible because he was not polished
enough to carry the honour gracefully.
After selling his place in the country Turner bought a house in Harley
Street, where he lived a strange and lonely life. A gentleman has
written about this incident, which shows us his manner of living:
"Two ladies called upon Turner while he lived in Harley Street. On
sending in their names, after having ascertained that he was at home,
they were politely requested to walk in, and were shown into a large
sitting-room without a fire. This was in the depth of winter; and
lying about in various places were several cats without tails. In a
short time our talented friend made his appearance, asking the ladies
if they felt cold. The youngest replied in the negative; her
companion, more curious, wished she had stated otherwise, as she hoped
they might have been shown into his sanctum or studio. After a little
conversation he offered them biscuits, which they partook of for the
novelty--such an event being almost unprecedented in his house. One of
the ladies bestowing some notice upon the cats, he was induced to
remark that he had seven, and that they came from the Isle of Man."
Thus we learn that Turner's desolate house was full of Manx cats, and
of many other pets. When he had moved elsewhere--to 47 Queen Anne
Street--one of the pictures he cared most for, "Bligh Shore," was put
up as a covering to the window and a cat wishing to come in, scratched
it hopelessly. The housekeeper started to punish it for this but
Turner said indulgently, "Oh, never mind!" and saved the cat from
chastisement.
The place he lived in, where his "dad was always working in the garden
and catching cold," he called Solus Lodge, because he wished his
acquaintances to understand that he wanted to be alone. One picture
painted by him to order, was to have brought him $2,500; but when it
was finished the man was disappointed with it and would not take
it. Later, Turner was offered $8,000 for it, but would not sell it.