CHAPTER XIV

1807: AGED THIRTY-TWO

HE BEGINS THE 'LIBER STUDIORUM' AND EXHIBITS 'THE SUN RISING THROUGH VAPOUR'

On January 20, 1807, the first part, containing five plates, of the _Liber Studiorum_ was published. It would need a book to give an adequate account of the history of this great work of Turner's, begun in emulation of Claude Lorrain's _Liber Veritatis_ and continued until 1819, when, being a financial failure, it ceased to appear. The original scheme of the _Liber_ was for one hundred plates, of which seventy only and the frontispiece were published, leaving thirty to make up the number, twenty of which were in various stages of etching and mezzotinting when the work ceased in 1819. These have passed through many vicissitudes. Mr. Frank Short has in recent years brought his accomplished art to the engraving of sixteen of them.

Turner made the first drawings for the _Liber_ when on a visit to Mr. Wells at Knoekholt in Kent, who persuaded him to undertake the work. He required 'much and long-continued spurring.' At last, after he had been well goaded, one morning, half in a pet he said: 'Zounds, Gaffer, there will be no peace with you till I begin--well, give me a sheet of paper there, rule the size for me, tell me what I shall take.' Then he began, and the first five subjects 'were completed and arranged for publication.'

Mr. W. G. Rawlinson's volume is the authority on the _Liber_, wherein Turner sought to 'display in engraved form the whole range of his powers, and to rival on their own ground his predecessors --Claude, Poussin, Rembrandt, Backhuysen, Cuyp, Van de Velde, Wilson, Gainsborough, as well as the painters of his day.' Turner made a hundred or more sepia drawings for the work, eighty-four of which are in the Turner Collection at Millbank. He etched with his own hand the foundation outline on the copper plate, which was then handed over to the professional engravers in mezzotint, who worked under his supervision, and a hard taskmaster he proved.

To one who is enamoured of the lovely and luminous colour of Turner in his supreme period, it is a fresh revelation of his power to see a room hung with first states--rich, velvety, profound--of the _Liber_, and to find how great is his spell even in monochrome. I know two such rooms, and never does the spell fail to work. The original sepia drawings have not this power in equal degree with the engravings, which simply shows how well Turner knew his business. On this subject Ruskin wrote the following letter to a correspondent, which was published in the _Literary Gazette_ for November 13, 1858:--

'You object that the drawings for the _Liber Studiorum_ are not included in my catalogue. They are not so, because I did not consider them as, in a true sense, drawings at all. They are merely washes of colour, laid roughly to guide the mezzotint engraver in his first process; the drawing properly so-called, was all put in by Turner when he etched the plates, or superadded by repeated touchings on the proofs. These brown guides, for they are nothing more, are entirely unlike the painter's usual work, and in every way inferior to it; so that students wishing to understand the composition of the _Liber_ must always work from the plates, and not from these first indications of purpose.'

Little did Turner care that Claude's rough sketches in the _Liber Veritatis_ were mere memoranda of his pictures for the purpose of identification. Turner put his whole heart and soul into the _Liber_, and also into the business arrangements with the engravers, and with the public; but that was the heart and soul of a tradesman, not of an artist. Yet the artist is very evident in his corrections on the proofs of the _Liber_, as of all his engraved work. His way may have been rough, ungenerous and grasping, but his corrections were always towards perfection.

Men love the _Liber_, men whom the modern movement in art does not intrigue. One I know counts 'The Straw Yard' the most desirable of his possessions; another has consoled himself for the rigours of life by acquiring 'Norham Castle,' 'Raglan Castle,' 'Calais Harbour,' 'Aesacus and Hesperie' (engraved by Turner himself), 'The Source of the Arveron,' 'Ben Arthur,' 'The Peat Bog,' 'The Junction of the Wye and the Severn,' and some of the plates that Mr. Frank Short has engraved so beautifully.

At Christie's in the spring of 1910 I saw a private collector acquire a complete set of the seventy-one published plates, all in the first state except the 'Aesacus and Hesperie.' He paid but three hundred and seventy guineas for the set, as the margins were hidden by mounts and frames. Had the engravings been in portfolios, plain to the eye as whole and uncut, he would probably have had to pay double that price.

'The meaning of the entire book,' says Ruskin, 'was symbolised in the frontispiece, which he engraved with his own hand--"Tyre at Sunset, with the Rape of Europa," indicating the symbolism of the decay of Europe by that of Tyre, its beauty passing away into terror and judgment (Europa being the mother of Minos and Rhadamathus).'

Turner's advertisement was simpler:--

'Intended as an illustration of Landscape Composition, classed as follows: Historical, Mountainous, Pastoral, Marine, and Architectural.'

The letters on the seventy published plates indicate the class to which they belong. Thus E. P. on the 'Woman with Tambourine,' one of the five forming the first part, signifies Elegant Pastoral. The proportions were as follows, Pastoral 14, Elegant Pastoral 14, Mountainous 12, Architectural 11, Marine 11, Historical 8.

This year, in spite of the anxiety and interest of issuing the _Liber_, Turner had the energy to tilt at Wilkie.

In the Academy of the previous year high praise had been awarded to Wilkie's 'Politicians'; so in 1807 Turner produced 'The Blacksmith's Shop' of which the original title was 'A Country Blacksmith Disputing upon the price of Iron and the price charged to the Butcher for Shoeing his Pony.' Turner never lost faith in his own works. Twenty years later he repurchased 'The Blacksmith' at Lord de Tabley's sale.

The other picture of this year was that glowing and characteristic Turner, with the sun nearly in the centre of the picture, where Claude was wont to place it, now called 'The Sun Rising Through Vapour,' but formerly catalogued as 'The Sun Rising in a Mist,' one of the first of his large pictures of light and atmosphere. Some of his gold he outspreads for us, but he is still under the domination of the crowded, littered foreground. 'It is curious,' says Mr. Wyllie, 'that in this picture, a work that the painter thought worthy to be bequeathed to the nation, the figures of the fishermen should be taken almost exactly from a picture by Teniers, and the men-of-war are the snub-nosed high-pooped ships of Van de Velde's time, with sprit topmast at the bowsprit end and lateen mizzens.'

This picture and the 'Dido Building Carthage,' exhibited in 1815, were bequeathed by Turner to the nation on the condition that they should be hung between Claude's 'Marriage Festival of Isaac and Rebecca' and the 'Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba.' These four noble works are now the feature of the small Turner room at the National Gallery which represents the painter since the removal of the bulk of his pictures to the Tate Gallery. The Claudes hang between the Turners, the precise condition contained in the will having been cancelled by order of the Court of Chancery. I do not think, as I have already stated, that Claude suffers from the challenge.

Turner to-day, in the year of his triumph, has those who adore him; but he also has his Laodiceans, and even those who dislike his work and confess their dislike. So it has always been. Morris Moore, when asked by the Lord Elcho of his day if he considered Turner a distinguished artist, answered:--' No! Turner's early works certainly indicate a good feeling for colour, but he is absurdly overrated. The hanging of two such pictures as "The Sun Rising Through Vapour," and the "Dido Building Carthage" in the immediate vicinity of the finest Claudes and other noble works of the National Gallery is a disgrace to the country.'

The country has survived many disgraces, and we can manage to survive this one. All great men have had their detractors, and sometimes the detractor who comes to curse remains to bless. Such was the case of the Japanese artist, Yoshio Markino. On page 140 of his book, _A Japanese Artist in London_, he says:--

'Although I am myself such a great admirer of Turner now, I was not so until Hara [a compatriot] came. In fact, I hated Turner. Just a few days after Hara arrived in London, he and I went to the National Gallery and sat down on the seats in the Turner room.

'I said to him, "The greatest heroes in this world were generally the greatest deceivers. Don't you think Turner was one of the greatest heroes and deceivers?"

'"Why?"

'"Why! come and look at this picture of 'Trafalgar Battle.' Look at these figures! Look at Nelson! What an awful drawing! I think even a ten years' old child could draw better figures. Oh, Turner was such a speculator!"'

Hara made no reply. Hara waited. Later he conducted Markino to the Tate Gallery, where the 'unfinished Turners' were exposed. Markino continues:--

'I watched one picture more than twenty minutes, then I went back to some certain pictures again. Those wonderful atmospheric effects! The colours were breathing! The tones were moving! I had quite forgotten myself until the closing time came.'

Later he returned to the National Gallery and the Turners 'looked to him quite different.' He became a Turnerite. On page 144 he announces that his blind eyes are opened, that he can now see 'the wonderful arts of Turner.'