CHAPTER XXIV
1817: AGED FORTY-TWO
HE SELLS FIFTY WATER-COLOURS TO MR. FAWKES OF FARNLEY HALL
The 'Rhine Tour' Sketch-Book of 1817 suggests that Turner was in the mood to be careful about his material necessities, one can hardly call them comforts. Written inside the covers are the words:--
'Boots, Pouch, Fever Medicine, Bark, Pencils, Colours,' followed by, '_Vier ist myn Simmer_--Where is my chamber?' On a later page I find the following list:--
'3 Shirts, 1 Night ditto, A Razor, a Ferrell for Umbrella, a Pair of Stockings, a waistcoat, 1/2 dozen of Pencils, 6 Cravats, 1 large ditto, 1 Box of Colours'--and then, on the next leaf, the inevitable 'Study of a Sky.'
On a page of the 'Dort' Sketch-Book is this note of a 'thing seen' that he may have thought of painting:--
'Float of Timber--1000 feet long at least, lashed into two pieces and guided by the cross piece of timber which hauls either part of the float or buoy in two lines--and drawn by 3 Horses down the Canal.'
During this three weeks' tour in the Rhine district Turner produced no fewer than fifty drawings at the rate of about three a day. He first, says Mr. Rawlinson, 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. Returning to England he took the roll of drawings straight to Farnley Hall, and Mr. Fawkes bought them for five hundred pounds. For a long time they remained in a portfolio, but a few years ago some of them were sold at Christie's. Mr. Rawlinson possesses one of them, the delicate and romantic 'Goarhausen and Katz Castle.'
Other drawings of this period are the rich and forceful 'Bonneville, Savoy' in the Salting collection at the British Museum, a majestic water-colour; that vision of yellow foliage, blue water, and outstretched yellowy-blue country, 'The Lake of Nemi,' and the more academic 'Turin from the Church of the Superga,' the foreground with its artless groups not very attractive, but the distant glimpse of the snow mountains, and the white fleecy clouds seen against the blue sky, as lovely as Turner could make them,' and that is saying much.
Probably in this year he began the glorious illustrations to Dr. Whitaker's _History of Richmondshire_, which contains some of his finest water-colours. The first plate was published in 1819, the last in 1822. Turner was paid twenty-five guineas a drawing, and the magnificent enterprise cost the publishers, Messrs Longman, ten thousand pounds. 'The Crook of the Lune' is one of the finest of the series. '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.' Another of the Richmondshire drawings is the 'Hornby Castle' in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which, through constant exposure to light, is a wreck of its former beauty.
His chief Royal Academy picture of 1817 was 'The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire.' It has disappeared from the National Gallery, loaned, I suppose, to some provincial museum, where a Turner, even a bad Turner, is a Turner. I will quote from the catalogue of 1817 its full title, and tag of verse by Turner, and say no more about 'The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire.'
'EXHIBITION XLIX 1817
'J. M. W. Turner, R.A. Professor of Perspective, Sandycombe Lodge, Twickenham, and Queen Anne Street West.
'The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire. Rome, being determined on the overthrow of her hated rival, demanded from her such terms as might either force her into war, or ruin her by compliance; the enervated Carthaginians, in their anxiety for peace, consented to give up even their arms and their children.
"At Hope's delusive smile, The Chieftain's safety and the mother's pride, Were to the insidious conqueror's grasp resign'd; While o'er the western wave th' ensanguined sun, In gathering haze, a stormy signal spread, And set portentous."'
Behold a mystery! The eyes that saw and the hand that produced the simple splendour of 'Richmond Castle,' and the spacious beauty of 'The Crook of the Lune' could also see in fancy and produce in reality 'The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire.'