Turner: Five letters and a postscript.

When I think of Turner it is the later water-colours that flash before me. The oils are magnificent, tremendous, wrought in rivalry and for fame: the water-colours, lyrical impr...

Once in our walk from Exeter Cathedral to the river you paused and asked what kind of a man was this amalgam of poet-artist and suspicious tradesman. And I, who had been so long...

Yes: I remember that morning at Exeter when I surprised you making a drawing of the west porch of the cathedral. Timidly were the unrestored figures of angels, apostles, prophet...

When we visit the National Gallery I will place you with your back to the dark "Calais Pier" and "Shipwreck" wall, and waving my hand across to that glorious trio, the "Ulysses,...

There is a small, neglected room in the National Gallery where certain beginnings and failures in art are entombed. If you were to stroll into that sepulchre on a dark day, I fe...