CHAPTER XX

1813: AGED THIRTY-EIGHT

HOAR FROST AT SUNRISE THAT HAS VANISHED FROM 'A FROSTY MORNING'

Turner was anxious about his health this year, if we may judge from an entry in the 'Chemistry and Apuleia' Sketch-Book detailing the symptoms of the Maltese plague, and the cure. A 'receipt for covering Linen to make it impenetrable to water, etc.,' follows, then 'Study of Sky,' 'River with Hills on Either Side,' notes as to varnishes and sketches of nymphs dancing, showing that his anxiety about the symptoms of the Maltese plague had passed away.

In this year he exhibited the attractive and popular 'A Frosty Morning: Sunrise,' with a quotation from Thomson's _Seasons_: 'The rigid hoar-frost melts before his beam'; also 'The Deluge' with some lines from _Paradise Lost_:--

'... down rush'd the rain Impetuous, and continued till the earth No more was seen.'

These subjects indicate Turner's versatility and determination to impress the public with one thing, if not with another. 'A Frosty Morning: Sunrise' is infinitely nearer to the real Turner than 'The Deluge.' It is a pleasant picture, simple and direct, a true transcript of nature; but where is the hoar-frost which made such a sensation when the picture was exhibited? It is gone like the bloom on the Impressionist pictures in the Caillebotte Collection in the Luxembourg Gallery. The form of 'A Frosty Morning' remains, and it still suggests the chill of a winter sunrise, but gone is the sparkling hoar-frost.

Archdeacon Fisher writing to Constable about one of his landscapes said: 'I have heard your great picture spoken of here by no inferior judge as one of the best in the Exhibition. I only like one better and that is a picture of pictures, the 'Frost' by Turner. But then you need not repine at this decision of mine; you are a great man and, like Bonaparte, are only to be beaten by a frost.'

That is something; to have one's Academy contribution described as 'a picture of pictures,' and by one whose allegiance was given whole-heartedly to a rival painter. It would be interesting to know what Constable thought of Turner's 'Frosty Morning: Sunrise.' Already you perceive that Turner is forsaking his rivalries, and 'finding himself with nothing between his vision and a Sunrise. There is a personal note in this picture. The horses were studied from the friendly steed 'Crop-ear,' somewhat stiff in the fore-legs, which Turner used to drive about the country when he was staying at Sandycombe. The young Trimmers said that Turner painted faster than he drove, and Thornbury remarked that he could never draw a horse; but I am sure that he could paint a hoar-frost at sunrise. And if this picture had been happily rolled up and kept in the cellars of the National Gallery with the other sunrise pictures, we might to-day still be enjoying Turner's sparkling vision of hoar-frost.