Part 1

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.