CHAPTER IX

1802: AGED TWENTY-SEVEN

HE EXHIBITS GRANDILOQUENT 'JASON' AND A SIMPLE 'VIEW ON CLAPHAM COMMON'

Sometimes in early life Turner, one might say almost by chance, prefigures the golden visions of his maturity, as in 'Conway Castle,' in the possession of the Duke of Westminster, which dates from about this time. The foreground is awkward, and strewn with meaningless litter; but the castle stands up magnificently against the blue sky, darkening to orange at the horizon, and over all is a ripe golden glow. You see this picture across the gallery, as at the Japan-British exhibition, where it was shown. It calls: you are held by the dawning magnificence of Turner at twenty-seven; you realise that the magician has begun to work his spell.

The sketch-books of 1801 and 1802 are numerous and varied, showing his travels at home and abroad: the itinerary of his first tour on the Continent; the 'Calais Pier' Sketch-Book, with such drawings as 'Group of Figures on Pier watching Fishing-Boats at Sea,' one of the many studies he made for his great picture of 'Calais Pier'; and the curious and interesting 'Studies in the Louvre' Sketch-Book, in which we find this indefatigable young man of twenty-seven not only sitting at the feet of, but metaphorically throwing himself into the arms of, the Old Masters. He makes copies of many pictures, such as Titian's 'Entombment,' 'Mars and Venus' by Domenichino, Rembrandt's 'Good Samaritan,' and to some of the copies he appends long descriptive criticisms that often elude our efforts to find their meaning.

His comment on 'The Deluge' by Nicholas Poussin begins:--'

The colour of this picture impresses the subject more than the incidents, which are by no means fortunate either to place, position, or colour, as they are separate spots untoned by the ... (? dark) colour that pervades the whole.'

And here is his confused criticism of Rubens's 'Landscape with a Rainbow':--

'The Rainbow appears to me the most to be considered as a picture, not but this as well as the rest of his landscapes is defective as light and the ... (? profusion) of nature. The woman in blue strikes the eye and prevents it straying to the confused and ill-judged lines, but as to the figure (? figures) in Mid, which is light ... (? lit from) the opposite side, a proof that he wanted light on that side and either chose to commit an error than continue the light by means of the ground or (? to) where the sky is placed. Then it is lead by the yellow within the trees to the sky and thence to the Bow, which is hard and horny by the use of the vivid Blue in the distance, which is another instance of his distorting what he was ignorant of--natural effect.'

Among the pictures Turner exhibited this year are 'Jason in Search of the Golden Fleece,' the earliest of his dragon pictures, that sometimes seem rather grand, but usually merely grandiloquent. It was probably inspired by Salvator Rosa. Turner referred to 'Jason' in later years as 'an old favourite with some,' and Ruskin thought 'Jason' showed 'high imaginative faculty.' How Ruskin studied Turner! Listen to this from _Modern Painters--_:

'In very sunny days a keen-eyed spectator may discern, even where the picture hangs now, something in the middle of it like the arch of an ill-built drain. This is a coil of the dragon beginning to unroll himself.'

'Jason' is now well shown at the new Turner Gallery, but I, for one, infinitely prefer the bold study for this composition, hanging in an adjoining room. Sketch-Book LXI. is called the 'Jason' Sketch-Book.

To this period of his bolder experiments in oil belong such breezy works as 'Dutch Boats in a Gale' at Bridgewater House, and 'Fishing Boats in a Stiff Breeze,' both done in emulation of Van de Velde. Turner said that seeing a fine Van de Velde in a shop-window had made him a sea-painter.

In a letter from Andrew Caldwell to Bishop Percy, dated 14th June 1802, Turner is spoken of 'as beating Loutherbourg and every other artist all to nothing.'

It was not difficult for Turner to beat Van de Velde and de Loutherbourg all to nothing. We think so now, they thought so then, if Andrew Caldwell expressed the general opinion.

'A new artist has started up--one Turner. He had before exhibited stained drawings, but now paints landscapes in oil, beats Loutherbourg and every other artist all to nothing. A painter of my acquaintance and a good judge declares his painting is magic; that it is worth every landscape painter's while to make a pilgrimage to see and study his works. Loutherbourg, he used to think of so highly, appears now mediocre.'

But even in those days of rivalry with the so-called classical painters, Turner was already beginning to see for himself, and to express what his eyes saw. The 'View on Clapham Common,' probably painted in 1802, merely a study of sward and trees with men angling, is personal and all himself, although Ruskin thought that 'the somewhat affected rolling and loading of the colour in the sky is founded altogether on Morland.'

To me it is like a brief personal and sincere utterance at a political meeting where the speakers are all trying to say the effective thing in the effective manner. Even such a doughty critic as Meier Graefe recognises in this simple little picture a 'sincere surrender to the object.'

At the Tate Gallery we may see Turner, painted by himself, in the year that he took that walk on Clapham Common, a watchful, introspective face as of a soul trying to see through the veil, the eyes estimating and observant, the lips betokening something sensual, the other part of Turner.