Part 3

In 1817 or 1818 Turner began the drawings which were to illustrate one of his most famous works, the sumptuous “History of Richmondshire,” which still admittedly remains the finest topographical book ever published. The subjects--which were chosen for Turner by a local committee of gentlemen--were all taken from that romantic district in the North Riding of Yorkshire, on the borders of Lancashire and Westmorland, of which the town of Richmond is the centre. The work was to be the _magnum opus_ of Dr. Whitaker whose earlier Histories of Whalley and Craven had also been illustrated by Turner, and his publishers, Messrs. Longman, spared neither pains nor expense in its production. Turner was paid twenty-five guineas each--then his usual price--for the drawings, which are now worth from one to three thousand guineas apiece. Although simple in style and in colouring as compared with the work of his later years, they have pre-eminently the charm of the ‘Yorkshire period’ already alluded to. The finest of the series, _The Crook of the Lune_, is, by the courtesy of its owner, the Rev. W. MacGregor, reproduced here (Plate XIII.). The necessary reduction in size makes it difficult fully to appreciate the great beauty of this drawing, which I regard as one of the most consummate works of Turner. Although it must have been, one would imagine, a most intricate and difficult subject for a painter, and notwithstanding that he has treated it with extraordinary minuteness of detail--you can find at least twenty different walks in it--yet all this wealth of exquisite detail is perfectly subordinated to the unity and harmony of the composition as a whole. The other “Richmondshire” drawings are scattered in various collections; many, alas, are sadly faded from constant exposure to light, notably the _Hornby Castle_, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has become a complete wreck.

May I be permitted here to draw attention to the fact--apparently little known, but none the less true--that, with the exception of some of the darker early works, _no Turner drawing can be continuously exposed unprotected to light, without its ruin being eventually only a question of time_. The more delicate--the more “Turneresque” it is--the quicker will that ruin be accomplished. Usually the fading is so gradual that it is unnoticed by the owner, but it is certain, and, it need not be added, the depreciation in value is equally certain. I would refer anyone who thinks this an over-statement to the Blue Book on the subject, published in 1888 (Report of the Science and Art Department on the Action of Light on Water-Colours. H.M. Stationery Office, 1888). Several striking object lessons of the effect of exposure may also be seen at the National Gallery in Turner drawings which have been returned after exhibition in provincial Galleries.

Up to about 1830, Turner’s finished drawings were mainly in transparent water-colour, but from a quite early period he employed body-colour in his sketches, especially whenever speed was necessary. “Body-colour,” it need hardly be said, is ordinary paint mixed with Chinese white or some other opaque white substance in place of water, and is frequently used on a grey or neutral coloured paper, by which means the work is much more rapid. He had recourse to that method on one memorable occasion. In 1817 he went for a three weeks’ tour in the Rhine district, and during that time produced no less than fifty drawings of fair size, _i.e._, at the rate of about three a day. He first stained the paper a uniform bluish-grey, which, although itself sombre in tone, effectively shows up the body-colour work, and must have effected an immense economy of time as compared with ordinary transparent colour. When he returned to England he took the drawings in a roll straight to Farnley Hall, and Mr. Fawkes, to his delight, bought them at once for £500. For a long time they remained in a portfolio unbroken, one of the treasures of the house, but a few years ago some were dispersed at Christie’s. One of these, _Goarhausen and Katz Castle_, is reproduced here (Plate X.).

In 1818 Turner went North to make drawings for “The Provincial Antiquities of Scotland,” an important illustrated work in which Sir Walter Scott, then in the height of his Waverley fame, was keenly interested, and for which he was gratuitously writing the letterpress. Sir Walter wished the illustrations to be given to a fellow Scotsman, the Rev. John Thomson, of Duddingston, an able landscape painter, but the publishers insisted that Turner’s was the name in vogue with the public, and the work was accordingly divided. The drawings, which are all highly finished and of fine quality, are entirely of Lowland scenery, including _Bothwell_, _Crichton_, and _Roslyn_ castles, three or four Edinburgh subjects--one, _Edinburgh from the Calton Hill_, very striking--and the seaside fortresses of _Tantallon_ and _Dunbar_. They were afterwards presented by the publishers to Sir Walter in recognition of his services in ensuring the success of the book, and they remained at Abbotsford until quite recent years.

In 1819 Turner paid his first visit to Rome, and remained there some time, going a good deal into English society at the Embassy and elsewhere. He painted a few oil pictures, but not many water-colours; among the most interesting is a fine series of studies in the Campagna, most of which are in the National Gallery. (The “Hakewill” drawings of Rome were probably all finished before he left England.)

His visit to Rome would appear on the whole to have unfavourably affected his art. His oil paintings especially, from this time began to be more and more fantastic in subject, florid in colour, and complicated in design. No doubt there are brilliant exceptions, such as _Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage_, and others, but the old simplicity and sobriety had gone. In the water-colours also the tendency to “foxiness” and florid colour is noticeable, although not so pronounced; it is visible in the Campagna sketches just alluded to. The change was soon recognised by his admirers. In 1820 (the year following), I find in the “Annals of the Fine Arts” the following discriminating criticism of an exhibition of his works which was held that year at the town house of Mr. Fawkes of Farnley:--

“Turner appears here in his original splendour and to his greatest advantage. Those who only know the artist of late and from his academical works will hardly believe the grandeur, simplicity and beauty that pervade his best works in this collection.... The earlier works of Turner before he visited Rome and those he has done since for this collection are like works of a different artist. The former, natural, simple and effective; the latter, artificial, glaring and affected.”

From 1820 until about 1840, apart from his sketches, Turner’s work in water-colour was almost entirely for engraving. This entailed a great demand on his time, as he invariably also supervised the execution of each engraving. Proof after proof had to be submitted to him, to be returned by him again and again, touched, scraped, and drawn upon for correction, before he would pass it. As he had an intimate knowledge of the engravers’ technical processes and always took pains to explain to them his _reasons_ for the alterations which he required, he gradually educated them to understand his aims and methods, and so stimulated their ambition, that the best of their plates mark probably the highest point which landscape engraving in line has ever touched. I refer especially to those of “The Southern Coast,” Rogers’s “Poems” and “Italy,” “Byron’s Works,” “Scott’s Poetical and Prose Works,” and “Picturesque Views in England and Wales.”

In 1824 we find Turner at work on the well-known “Rivers of England,” the drawings for which, along with its companion series “The Ports of England,” have for so many years--too many, alas, for their welfare--been exposed for long periods and daily copied at the National Gallery. These show a richer and more elaborate colour-scheme, as compared with the simpler work of the “Yorkshire” period. An example, the _Norham Castle_ (No. XIV.), is given here. Both series were well reproduced in mezzotint on steel, which metal had just begun to supersede copper for engraving.

In 1826 he commenced what was to have been his _magnum opus_ in line engraving--his “Picturesque Views in England and Wales.” In this ill-fated work, which was from first to last commercially a failure, he proposed to depict every feature of English and Welsh scenery--cathedral cities, country towns, ancient castles, ruined abbeys, rivers, mountains, moors, lakes and sea-coast; every hour of day--dawn, midday, sunset, twilight, moonlight; every kind of weather and atmosphere. The hundred or more drawings which he made for the work are mostly elaborately finished and of high character. Some are perhaps over-elaborated; in some the figures are carelessly and at times disagreeably drawn; but for imaginative, poetical treatment, masterly composition, and exquisite colour, the best are unsurpassed. I have ventured to say elsewhere, that in my opinion there are at least a dozen drawings in the “England and Wales” series any one of which would alone have been sufficient to have placed its author in the highest rank of landscape art. Two of the series are represented here--Mr. Schwann’s beautiful _Launceston_ (Plate XV.) is the earlier (1827); the striking and very attractive _Cowes_ (Plate XVIII.), belonging to Mr. Yates, is a few years later. Turner was paid at the rate of sixty to seventy guineas apiece--to-day they are worth from one thousand to two thousand five hundred guineas each.

A new phase in his water-colour art of 1830-1836 calls for notice, viz., his numerous small drawings for _vignette_ illustrations, the first and the most important of which were for the far-famed plates of Rogers’s “Poems” and “Italy.” The drawings for these are markedly different from any of his previous work, and many of them strike what I cannot but regard as an unpleasant note. Marvels of execution, delicate, highly imaginative, and poetical in feeling as they are, they are often strangely forced and extravagant in _colour_. And this applies to nearly all his drawings for _vignettes_. Probably his reason for thus falsifying his colour was connected with the form of engraving, as at the same time he was producing some of his finest and sanest work for the “England and Wales,” “Turner’s Annual Tours” (now better known as the “Rivers of France”) and other engravings of ordinary (not vignette) shape. Whatever may have been his motive, it appears to me that owing to this unnatural colouring, the exquisitely engraved vignettes themselves are in many cases finer than the drawings for them.

Many, however, of the small drawings of this time are superb, including several of those on grey paper. In the “Rivers of France” series, _Jumièges_, _Caudebec_, _Saint Denis_, _Rouen from St. Catherine’s Hill_, and _The Light Towers of the Hêve_ (all in the National Gallery), are masterpieces, as are also many of the illustrations to “Scott’s Poetical and Prose Works.” In Turner’s later years he frequently did not sell his drawings for engravings, but lent them to the publishers, charging usually five to seven guineas apiece. He kept many in his possession up to his death, as he did nearly the whole of his sketches. One day he brought the sixty drawings for the “Rivers of France” to Ruskin, rolled in dirty brown paper, offering them to him for twenty-five guineas apiece. To Ruskin’s grief he could not induce his father to spend the money. In later years he tells us he had to pay £1,000 for the seventeen which he gave to Oxford!

A long succession of books were illustrated by Turner between 1830 and 1836, containing in all nearly three hundred and fifty plates, mostly of small size. When it is remembered that he also closely supervised the smallest details in the engraving of each one, and that at the same time he was engaged on a number of oil pictures of the highest importance many of which were finished and exhibited, and others left in various stages of completion (including most of those recently added to the Tate Gallery), it may be doubted if such a volume of work was ever before produced in six years by any painter. With 1838, however, his work for the engravers practically came to an end. He was now a rich man and able to refuse tempting offers for the pictures which he had determined to leave to the nation; as for example his _Old Téméraire_, which a wealthy Midland manufacturer is said to have offered to cover with sovereigns.

From 1838 to 1845, when his health began to fail, he spent an increasing time each year on the Continent, and it was during this period that his water-colour art passed into what many regard as its highest, as it was its latest phase. I refer especially to the magnificent _Sketches_ of this time, the large majority of which are in the National Gallery. He revisited Venice, which had cast her enchantment on him in earlier years, and he returned again and again to the Lake of Lucerne, which, after Yorkshire, was probably, up to the last, of all places in the world the dearest to his heart. It would be difficult to say how many times he drew the town, the lake, the mountains, and especially the Righi. There are the _Red Righi_, the _Blue Righi_, the _Dark Righi_, the _Pale Righi_, and a hundred other versions--each different, each a ‘vision of delight.’ He made drawings also in many neighbouring parts of Switzerland, Piedmont, and Savoy.

The sketches and drawings of this period have all the old delicacy, combined with a greater breadth of treatment, and an amazing wealth and range of colour. Sixty years’ experience had given Turner’s hand--which up to the very last retained its extraordinary delicacy and certainty--a marvellous cunning. In many cases the drawings were swiftly painted, in others carefully stippled in details; usually with a dry brush worked over body-colour. Sir Hickman Bacon’s beautiful _Swiss Lake_ (Plate XXII.), _Lausanne_ (Plate XXV.), _The Seelisberg, Moonlight_ (Plate XXVIII.), Mr. Ralph Brocklebank’s highly finished _Schaffhausen_ (Plate XXIX.), and _Tell’s Chapel, Fluelen_ (Plate XXX.)--which Ruskin believed to be Turner’s last sketch on the Continent--along with most of the reproductions from the National Gallery, are examples of this time.

This last phase of Turner’s art was, however, at the time neither understood nor appreciated, probably owing largely to the new development which had recently taken place in his oil pictures. In these he had set himself, in his old age, the last and hardest tasks of his life--the painting of pure light, of swift movement, of the tumultuous, elemental forces of Nature. Some of the _Venice_ subjects, the marvellous _Snow Storm at Sea_, and the _Rain, Steam and Speed_, were entirely misunderstood and ridiculed. “Blackwood’s Magazine” led the attack, and “Punch” and Thackeray added their satire. No doubt several of his late oil pictures were far-fetched in subject, fantastic in treatment, and eccentric in colour. Probably, also, no one knew better than he that he had not reached the goal of his ambition; but he also knew that his critics understood his aims as little as they did the difficulties which he had to encounter in striving to reach them, and the old man felt the attacks keenly. Ruskin tells us that he came one evening to his father’s house in Denmark Hill, after an especially bitter onslaught on the _Snow Storm at Sea--Vessel in Distress off Harwich_, of 1842, which the critics had described as “soapsuds and whitewash.” Ruskin heard him, sitting in his chair by the fire, muttering to himself at intervals “Soapsuds and whitewash,” again and again and again. “At last,” he says, “I went to him asking, ‘Why he minded what they said?’ Then he burst out ‘Soapsuds and whitewash! What would they have? I wonder what they think the sea’s like. I wish they’d been in it.’” As a matter of fact, Turner had actually been on board the boat at the time lashed to the mast, at the risk of his life.

Nor has the work of his later years always been understood in our days. Not many years ago a distinguished German oculist read a paper at the Royal Institution which was afterwards published in which he endeavoured to prove that what he considered eccentricities of colour in Turner’s later oil pictures were due--not to his attempts to paint the unpaintable--but to a senile affection of his eyes, which caused an unnatural distortion of his vision to yellow in everything. But Professor Liebreich can hardly have been aware that although the oil pictures upon which he rested his theory, being mainly attempts to depict objects or scenery seen in full sunlight, necessarily tended towards yellow as their prevailing colour, yet at the very same time, and up to his death, Turner was daily producing the sanest, most delicate, most refined water-colour drawings in the palest as well as the deepest tones of every colour on his palette! All the Swiss, Venetian and other sketches of 1838 to 1845, which are the crowning glory of the Water-Colour Rooms in Trafalgar Square, were executed during the period when, according to Professor Liebreich, Turner’s sight was permanently and hopelessly affected! No doubt he recognised that water-colour was unsuited as a medium for his new aim at painting pure light, and confined himself accordingly, for such subjects, to oil painting.

The attacks of the critics, however, had had their effect on the public, and Turner in his later years began to find difficulty in selling even his drawings. Ruskin, in his “Notes on his Drawings Exhibited at the Fine Arts Society, 1878,” tells with inimitable charm and pathos how the old painter, returning in the winter of 1842 from a tour in Switzerland, brought back with him a series of important sketches, fourteen of which he placed, as was his custom, in the hands of Griffiths, his agent, with a view to the latter’s obtaining commissions for _finished_ drawings of each. Although the price asked for a large finished drawing was only eighty guineas, and notwithstanding the great beauty of the sketches, nine commissions only could be obtained. Ruskin, his father, Munro of Novar, and Bicknell of Herne Hill, all chose one or more, but other former patrons saw in them what they regarded as a new style, and declined them. Thirty years after, Ruskin--with pride for Turner’s sake, he tells us--sold his _Lucerne Town_ for a thousand guineas; it has since changed hands at two thousand. The _Lake of Constance_, which at the time no one would buy, was given to Griffiths in lieu of his commission; it fetched two thousand three hundred guineas at Christie’s in 1907! After 1845 Turner’s health gradually failed; he continued to work at his oil paintings up to his death in 1851, but, so far as is known, he executed comparatively few water-colour sketches or drawings during his last years.

Little has hitherto been said as to Turner’s _technique_ in water-colour although the subject is one of great interest, but, unfortunately, my point of view is solely that of a student, and _technique_ can only be adequately dealt with by an artist. Much valuable information, however, on the question will be found in Redgrave’s “Century of Painters,” Vol. I., and in Roget’s “History of the Old Water-Colour Society.” From the first he was a great innovator, choosing his materials and often inventing his methods without regard to custom, precedent, or anything but the attainment of the precise effect which he desired at the time. Signs of scraping, spongeing, the use of blotting-paper, etc., are constantly to be seen in his drawings. In some, including one in my own possession, the marks of his thumb are distinctly visible in places. But the result always justified the means employed! With his oil pictures, especially those painted after 1830, his experiments, as we know, were often disastrous in their ultimate effects, but it is extremely rare to find any of his water-colours which have suffered in the smallest degree when they have been properly kept. But alas, as has already been pointed out, only too many, and amongst those some of the finest, have been, and still are being, irretrievably damaged and changed by continual exposure to light, both in Public Galleries and on the walls of their owners.

* * * * *

In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to avoid adding to the already sufficient volume of ‘æsthetic criticism’ of Turner’s art, and I shall confine myself now to the briefest summary of what seem to me the distinctive features of his work in water-colour.

What first strikes one in his drawings, apart from their technical skill, is their _individuality_; they always stand out amongst the work of other artists, however great. The chief cause of this is hard to define, but I should say that it is that they almost invariably possess a certain quality of imaginativeness, of what is termed ‘poetry.’ No matter how simple was his subject, he instinctively saw it from its most beautiful, its most romantic side. If it had little or no beauty or romance of its own, he would still throw an indefinable charm round it by some gleam of light, some veiling mist, some far-away distance, some alluring sense of mystery, of ‘infinity.’ And Turner was a true poet, although he had little enough of the look or the manners of one. Throughout his life he was a reader and a voluminous writer of poetry, but his want of education debarred him from ever expressing himself coherently in verse. The same cause, together with his lack of a sense of humour, interfered also with the perfect expression of his art, especially in his classical and religious pictures, and prevented him from seeing what was incongruous or at times unpleasing in them. But only a poet deep-down could have won as he did from Nature her most intimate secrets; could so have caught and so inimitably have portrayed her every mood and charm.

And it is this impress of his deep love for the beauty and the grandeur of Nature--a love as strong as Wordsworth’s, as intense as Shelley’s--which is perhaps the greatest cause of the enduring attractiveness of Turner’s work. Without it, he would never have toiled as he did all his life, from dawn to dark, year in and year out, observing and recording in those nineteen thousand studies every kind of natural scenery, every changing contour of mist and cloud, every differing form and structure of tree, every movement or reflection in water, every transient effect of light, storm, wind or weather.