The difficulty the vulgar have experienced in comprehending that kings
and queens, and generally persons high in authority, are simply men and
women after all--their ordinary appearance, dress, manners, and habits
not greatly different from those of the rest of mankind--has been a
frequent subject of remark and ridicule. Years back, at the American
theatres, spectators in the pit were often gravely asking each other,
whether the sovereign of England was really accustomed to appear in the
London streets, wearing a similar wonderful costume to that in which Mr.
Lucius Junius Booth was then strutting and ranting as Richard the Third;
the fact of the Drury Lane copies of the dresses worn at the coronation
of George IV. having been taken to the other side of the Atlantic, and
_The Coronation_ performed at most of the chief cities, supplying,
perhaps, an apology for the reasoning which prompted the inquiry. But
the popular notion, that a monarch habitually walks about carrying on
his head a jewelled crown of enormous value and weight, finds a
reflection in higher stages of culture and intelligence. An analogous
delusion is traceable amongst people occupying very reputable rounds
upon the social ladder. A state of confusion between a man and his
office, or his works, is by no means confined to those whom it is the
fashion to designate as 'the masses.' Are we not continually meeting
ladies and gentlemen, of otherwise commendable intellectual endowments,
bent upon bewildering themselves with the notion, that the sentimental
novelist is necessarily a creature of sentiment--that the comic actor,
out of his part and off his stage, is still laughable and amusing--that
the writer of poetry, as a consequence, lives poetry, and the career of
the painter is inevitably picturesque?
How mistaken is this kind of opinion we have hardly need to point out.
How prosaic may be a poet's life our readers will probably not care to
question. And if any doubt haloed the artist with an unreal interest and
charm, the biography of the late Mr. Turner[23] will pretty well
disperse anything of the kind. A statement of the plain facts of the
matter clears away all mirage of fancy and romance, and,--as in cruelly
restored pictures, the beautiful glazing well scoured off,--we come then
to the mere raw paint, and coarse canvas, unattractiveness, even
ugliness.
[23] In 1861 was published _The Life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A._, founded on
letters and papers furnished by his friends and Fellow Academicians; by
Walter Thornbury. In a more recent work, _Haunted London_ (1865), Mr.
Thornbury has himself passed judgment upon his _Life of Turner_,
pronouncing it to be 'a careless book, but still containing much
curious, authentic, and original anecdote.'
In truth, the sunshine pictures of Turner were evolved from a life as
dingy and uncomely as could well be. It is difficult to conceive any
correspondence, any _rapport_ between workmanship so exquisite, and a
workman in every way so unattractive, so little estimable. But just as
from the small dusky insect in the hedges at night proceeds a
phosphorescent flame of great power and beauty--just as from a
miserable-looking, coarse, common flint are emitted sparks of superb
brilliance,--so from the hands of this strange, sordid, shambling man
came art-achievements almost without precedent in the history of
painting.
Joseph Mallord William Turner was born on the 23d April (St. George's
day) 1775, in a house (recently pulled down and reconstructed) opposite
what used to be called the Cider Cellars in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden.
Through a narrow arched passage, closed by an iron gate, was formerly
obtained, by a narrow door on the left-hand side, access to the small
but respectable shop of William Turner, barber, the father of the
painter. The trade could hardly have been an unprosperous one in those
days of perukes and powder and pomatumed edifices of hair, and when,
moreover, 'the Garden' was a not unfashionable locality. The new-born
was baptized on the 14th May following, in the parish church of St.
Paul's, where also, it may be said, his father had been married (by
license) to Mary Marshall, also of the same parish, on the 29th August
1773. The registers recording these important events are still extant.
The barber's position was plebeian, though there are no indications of
its having been one of poverty. He came originally from Devonshire.
Inquiry as to the descent of the artist's mother is balked by the widely
differing stories that present themselves. From one account we learn
that she was a native of Islington; from another that she came of a good
Nottinghamshire family living at Shelford Manor-house, while yet we
learn in another direction that her brother was a butcher at Brentford.
We are involved in doubt at last as to whether, after all, her name was
not _Mallord_ rather than Marshall, and hence the second Christian name
of her son, which else there seems no way of accounting for. All this is
obscure enough. Certainly, in the latter part of her life, the poor
woman was insane and in confinement. Turner was uncommunicative upon
most subjects; but in regard to his mother and her family he preserved a
reticence of unusual severity.
Mr. Ruskin has amused himself with a fanciful contrast between the
boyhood of Giorgione at Venice, and of Turner in Covent Garden. There is
no reason to believe that any disadvantage accrued to Turner from his
somewhat uncheerful birthplace. It is hardly the Venetians who are the
most alive to the beauties of Venice. But Mr. Ruskin is fond of mounting
a richly-caparisoned charger of the imagination, and caracoling round a
crotchety circus; and his feats in this respect are so elegantly and
admirably fantastic, that we almost forbear to smile, out of deference
to so perfect a non-perception of humour, when we find him tracing the
painter back to _Covent Garden Market_ in all his paintings. Mr. Ruskin
detects in the corners of Turner's foregrounds 'always a succulent
cluster or two of green-grocery!' The artist's _Hesperides_ gleam with
Covent Garden oranges; in his _Shipwrecks_ chests of them are flung upon
the waters; and in his _St. Gothard_ a litter of stones reflects Covent
Garden wreck after the market! What wonder Mr. Turner was tempted to
exclaim now and then about his arch-critic--'He knows a great deal more
about my pictures than I do. He puts things into my head, and points out
meanings in them that I never intended.'
A silver salver, engraved with heraldic devices, seen at the house of
Mr. Tomkisson, the famous piano-forte-maker, is said to have first
inspired the boy Turner with a love for art. He commenced to imitate the
drawing of a certain rampant lion that especially took his fancy. Very
soon after this the father announced that his son William was going to
be a painter. The reader will note that the early ambitions of the boy
were at once humoured. There would seem to have been no attempt usual
with poor parents anxious for the commercial success of a child, to
thrust the boy into a trade or employment which, though distasteful,
would have been profitable to him. Old Mr. Turner probably knew little
enough of art, and could have had but a poor opinion, in a pecuniary
sense, of the profession to which his son was desirous of attaching
himself. But no obstacles were thrown in his path; he was soon placed
with Mr. Thomas Malton, a perspective draughtsman, who kept a school in
Longacre, and was the son of the author of a practical book on _Geometry
and Perspective_. Certainly his poverty and low birth in no way hindered
the painter; had he been born to rank and wealth, he could only have had
his will: and he had it without these.
The little education he ever received was obtained at a school at
Brentford; but he could never write or spell correctly. It is probable
that his passion for art absorbed his every thought. Not that he
succeeded with his perspective studies, however, for Mr. Malton brought
the boy back to his father as a pupil quite beyond all hope. Yet the
real talent of the young painter was already developing itself. Some of
his drawings exhibited in the Maiden Lane shop found purchasers among
his father's customers. An engraver employed him to colour prints. Two
or three architects engaged him to fill in skies and backgrounds to
their plans. Soon he had entered the office of Mr. Hardwick, the
architect, who regularly employed him.
It is curious to learn that, later in life, Turner, pointing admiringly
to a green mezzotinto of a Vandevelde--a large vessel bearing up against
the waves--would exclaim, '_That_ made me a painter!' Yet he stood
before the work of one of those 'Van-somethings and Back-somethings,'
who, Mr. Ruskin tells us, have 'more especially and malignantly libelled
the sea.' 'I feel utterly hopeless in addressing the admirers of these
men, because I do not know what it is in their works which is supposed
to be like nature.' It seems that Turner was more catholic in his tastes
than his panegyrist.
In 1789, following the advice of Mr. Hardwick, Turner became a student
of the Royal Academy. In the same year Reynolds ceased to paint, owing
to the failure of his sight. That Turner, who had been admitted to the
President's studio to copy portraits, was present when the great painter
laid aside his brush with the solemn words, 'I know all things on earth
must come to an end, and now I am come to mine,' is one of those
suppositions in which biographers are prone to indulge, but which few
readers will be found to credit. In these days Turner's drawing was in
advance of his colour: an order of things which was afterwards reversed.
In 1790 he first exhibited at Somerset House: the picture being 'Lambeth
Palace.' From that time, down to 1850 inclusive, hardly a season being
missed, Turner's name appears in the catalogues of the Academy. In all,
two hundred and fifty-seven pictures by Turner were hung on the walls
of the Academy exhibitions, while nearly twenty more were to be seen at
the British Institution. He relinquished all idea of becoming a
portrait-painter about the time of the death of Reynolds. His own
portrait in the National Gallery was painted when he was seventeen. It
is executed with skill, although without any charm of colour. It
represents a young man of large heavy features, but of a not
unattractive appearance altogether.
Upon a story of a love affair in the painter's early life, we are
inclined to lay no great stress. There is no evidence that it affected
his after-life, or that any excuse can be found in it for the faults of
his character. Speaking of his own love of money, he would sometimes say
apologetically, 'Dad never praised me for anything but saving a
halfpenny.' A disappointment in love is more likely to make a man a
profligate than a miser; if it affects him at all seriously, it will
more likely produce a reckless waste than a sordid passion for
money-making. The painter was prospering. He taught in schools, first
charging five shillings a lesson, then raising his terms to ten
shillings, next charging a guinea. What system of painting did he teach,
this suspicious jealous man, who always worked with locked doors--who
would never permit another even to see him draw--who seemed to hold (but
it was a then prevalent belief with his profession) that art was
producible by some occult process--was a mystery and a secret, like a
conjurer's trick? He founded his style very much on that of his friend
and contemporary Girtin, the water-colour painter. Both delighted in a
golden yellowness of tone which it is probable Girtin had originated.
Turner's regard and reverence for him and his works seem to have been
very great. He always spoke kindly of him as 'poor Tom!' Of one of his
drawings in the British Museum, Turner said, 'I never in my whole life
could make a drawing like that; I would at any time have given one of my
little fingers to have made such a one.' At another time he said, 'If
Tom Girtin had lived, I should have starved!' Girtin died in 1802; in
the same year Turner was made a Royal Academician; he had been two years
before admitted to the honours of Associateship. The influence of Girtin
upon English art has hardly been sufficiently recognised. Mr. Ruskin has
had too little to say on behalf of one to whom it is evident that Turner
owed very much.
Turner's rapid advance in his profession may be traced in his frequent
change of residence. In 1796 he had quitted his father's house in Hand
Court, to occupy rooms at No. 26 Maiden Lane. In 1800 he was at No. 64
Harley Street. The following year he had moved to No. 75 Norton Street.
In 1804 he was back again in Harley Street. In 1808 he was Professor of
Perspective, of Harley Street, and of West End, Upper Mall, Hammersmith.
He moved to Queen Anne Street in 1812, and that continued to be his
address in the Academy catalogues up to the time of his death. But from
the year 1814 to 1826 he was also the tenant of a house at Twickenham,
which he first called 'Solus,' and afterwards 'Sandycombe' Lodge. He
died in December 1851, at a small house near Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea.
This he first tenanted probably about the year 1845.
A few continental visits, and tours in England, Scotland, and Wales, all
undertaken apparently with professional objects,--incessant squabblings
with his engravers, the most wearisome haggling with picture-dealers,
genuine hard work, and the production of very perfect specimens of
landscape art, and the outlines of Turner's life seem to be fairly
sketched. His passion for his profession was intense, yet with it was
the keenest love of its emoluments. His industry was beyond all praise,
his energy indefatigable; he seemed to live perpetually before his
easel, or with his sketch-book in his hands, and yet he had a broker's
view as to the worth of everything he did; he appraised his every
pencil-stroke, with the full determination of having his price for it.
There is hardly a story of his ever giving away a drawing. A lady, in
whose house he was residing, playfully asked him to make a sketch of her
favourite spaniel. 'My dear madam,' said the painter, astounded and
indignant, 'you don't know what you ask!' He once gave three sketches to
aid an amateur artist, and most intimate friend and patron, who had
brought his painting into an embarrassed condition; the sketches showed
him the way out of his difficulty. Undoubtedly this action was very
kind; but in the end the miser prevailed over the gentleman. Turner
growlingly asked for his sketches back again!
The details of his life are not agreeable, and not of much more interest
than the outlines. Mr. Ruskin fixes the following as the main
characteristics of Turner--_uprightness, generosity, tenderness of
heart_ (extreme), _sensuality, obstinacy_ (extreme), _irritability,
infidelity_.' By the light of all these 'Seven Lamps,' few people will
have seen Turner besides Mr. Ruskin. Of the last four characteristics
the painter will be generally found guilty; the first three remain as
yet, at best, not proven. We are not tempted, just now, to account
highly the uprightness of a man who could, and did, defraud the public
by the sale of 'sham proofs' of the engravings of his pictures--of the
generosity which made provision for his own memorial in stone in St.
Paul's, yet left without bread his surviving 'housekeepers' and natural
children--of the tenderness of heart which permitted that his father,
moved from the shop, should play a servant's part in the gallery in
Queen Anne Street, straining canvases, varnishing pictures, and showing
in visitors, with a suspicion that he cooked the dinner even if he did
not take the shillings at the door. 'Look'ee here,' said the poor old
man, who, it is right to state, saw no humiliation in acting lackey to
his prosperous son, 'I have found out a way at last of coming up cheap
from Twickenham, to open my son's gallery. I found out the inn where the
market-gardeners baited their horses; I made friends with one on 'em,
and now, for a glass of gin a day, he brings me up in his cart on the
top of the vegetables!' As a set-off to all this, we have now and then a
spasmodic act of kindness: he rebukes Wilkie for talking about the fine
effect of the snow falling while poor Lawrence's coffin was being
lowered into the grave in the crypt of St. Paul's: he drives away the
boys who injure his blackbirds: he sometimes gives half-a-crown when
others would only offer a penny: and there is a story (very vague
indeed) of his once lending £20,000 without security. But these are but
the halfpennyworth of bread compared to the vast quantity of sack. The
matter seems fairly summed up in the story of the man who said, 'Turner
is not ungenerous; _he once paid the toll over Waterloo Bridge for me_!'
Mr. Ruskin charges Turner's faults upon his contemporaries and the
public who failed to appreciate his genius. But is this for a moment
sustainable? _Was_ he unappreciated? His rise could hardly have been
more rapid. He was a Royal Academician when he was twenty-seven. His
merits were recognised almost immediately upon his becoming an
exhibitor. Anthony Pasquin (Williams), who did not speak well of every
one, loudly commends Turner's genius, and judgment, and originality, in
1797.[24] He was quite early a favourite with the public and the
critics. His prices were always high. Mr. Ruskin has declared in his
_Economy of Art_, that more than one hundred pounds should never be
given for a water-colour drawing, nor more than five hundred for an
oil-painting. But the sums Turner received were greatly in excess of
these limits. For the 'Rise and Fall of Carthage' he was offered £5000.
There is no evidence of his complaining of want of recognition by the
public. He was dissatisfied, it is true, at the time of Shee's death,
that he had not been made President; but this, as he well knew, was a
matter that rested entirely with the Academy. 'What has the Academy done
for me?' he would ask petulantly; 'they knighted Calcott, why don't they
knight me?' This involved no charge against his critics. He was passed
over for the same reason that Paley was neglected; because, as the
courtly phrase went, he was not a 'producible man.' In fine, though he
began with nothing, a barber's son in Hand Court, Maiden Lane, he died
worth £140,000, and was buried in St. Paul's! This hardly looks like
want of appreciation.
[24] It may be noted, however, that in 'The Georgian Era' (1834) occurs
the following passage:--'Some have gone the length of saying that in
marine views Turner has wrested the palm from all competitors; but with
this, few, surely, will agree who have seen the sea pieces of Powell, an
artist who, though but recently deceased, has had no biographer to
commemorate his poverty or his genius.' The works of Powell, however
admirable, are not likely now to be preferred to Turner's. 'The Georgian
Era' is not a work of much repute.
It has been the fashion to talk as though Mr. Ruskin had _discovered_
Turner. Nothing can be further from the fact. Turner had been an
exhibitor for more than fifty years when Mr. Ruskin commenced to write
about his pictures. He had reached the _Rock Limpet_ stage of his
career. He could then produce little beyond frantic whirls of colour,
and there was a not unnatural tendency to smile at these achievements in
the galleries, and the Hanging Committee were often puzzled to know
whether they had or not hung the pictures upside down. All that Mr.
Ruskin could do, and he did it superbly, was to bring people to think
less of what Turner then was, and more of what he had been. It is all
very well to denounce severely those who smiled at, or the critics who
said they could not comprehend, the later Turners. It is presumable that
pictures are sent to exhibitions to be applauded or condemned, as the
world may judge. Mr. Thackeray may be rated for his confession, in a
magazine article of the day, that he did not understand the _Rock
Limpet_, though he added a kindly longing 'for the old day, before Mr.
Turner had lighted on the "Fallacies," and could see like other
people.'[25] But was Mr. Ruskin in any better plight? Was _he_ any
nearer the painter's meaning? Hear his own story:--
'He (Turner) tried hard one day, for a quarter of an hour, to make me
guess what he was doing in the picture of "Napoleon" before it had been
exhibited, giving me hint after hint in a rough way. But I could not
guess, and he wouldn't tell me!' It is hard after this to censure so
amiable a jester as the late Mr. a'Beckett, for burlesquing the strange
picture called 'Hurrah for the whaler _Erebus_--another fish!' in the
words proposed to be substituted--'Hallo, there--the oil and
vinegar--another lobster salad!'[26]
[25] 'What can I say of the Napoleon of Mr. Turner? called (with
frightful satire) "The Exile and the _Rock Limpet_." He stands in the
midst of a scarlet tornado looking at least forty feet high. "Ah!" says
the mysterious poet from whom Mr. Turner loves to quote--
"Ah! thy tent-formed shell is like
The soldier's nightly bivouac, alone
Amidst a sea of blood.......
......_but you can join your comrades!_"