CHAPTER XXVI

1819: AGED FORTY-FOUR

TURNER'S FIRST VISIT TO ITALY, AND AN EXHIBITION IN GROSVENOR PLACE

The route of Turner's memorable first visit to Italy may be followed in detail in the Sketch-Books, between No. CLXXI., called the 'Route to Rome,' and No. CXCII., devoted to the 'Return from Italy.' His divagations and pauses are recorded on innumerable pages of sketches, studies, comments, and criticisms of pictures. Here are his cursory notes on a copy he made of a sea-piece by Claude:--

'Date 1631 or 81 Roma--he died at 82. Raf. 1512.'

'Wonderful grey green,' 'arm in light,' 'The mast Red--all painted at once with the colour.'

We find him at Venice, Rimini, Ancona, Naples, Paestum, Pompeii and Sorrento--anywhere, everywhere. Turn the pages. Here he is in the Vatican with a Sketch-Book labelled 'Vatican Fragments' containing such comments as 'Christ by Guercino beautifully color'd,' 'A Hare by Albert Dürer,' and 'Annunciation. The Angel very elegant.' On the way from Ancona to Rome his hand tries to transcribe what his watchful eyes note:--

'Loretto to Recanata. Colour of the hills Wilson Claude, the olives the light ..., when the sun shone green, the ground reddish green grey and apt to Purple, the Sea quite Blue, under the Sun a warm vapour, from the Sun Blue relieving (?) the shadow of the olive Trees dark, while the foliage light on the whole when in the shadow a quiet grey. Beautiful dark green yet warm, the middle Trees, yet Bluish in parts, the distance; the aqueduct reddish, the foreground light grey in shadow.'

But that visit to Italy, the magic and colour of it, the pictures he saw, the sunrises and the sunsets he studied, appear to have affected his art unfavourably for a time, to have disturbed him with florid and fantastic fancies. It was as if he became intoxicated with the art and aspect of Italy.

There is no hint of Italy in the works he exhibited this year. I can stand for a long time before 'The Meuse, Orange Merchant-men going to Pieces on the Bar,' lost in admiration of the wonderful sky, trying to avoid looking at the foolish fishermen, and remembering a phrase I have read somewhere that 'with this picture he gave the _coup de grâce_ to Van de Velde.'

Another work of 1819 was the huge, neat and amusing view of 'England, Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent's Birthday,' now hanging in a place of honour in the new Turner Gallery. It dominates the wall, whereas in its old place above the line in the National Gallery one hardly noticed the Prince Regent's Birthday, with its quotation from Thomson:--

'Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course? The choice perplexes.'

'Richmond,' and 'Rome from the Vatican,' exhibited the following year, are the largest pictures Turner painted.

In May and June, presumably after his return from Italy, Mr. Fawkes of Farnley opened an exhibition of all the water-colours he possessed at his house in Grosvenor Place. The first two rooms contained drawings by Havell, Robson, Hedphy, Hills, Prout, Varley, Fielding, de Wint and others; the third room was reserved to Turner. The exhibition was a great success, and we are told that the public had an opportunity of seeing Turner 'moving about the rooms, the principal figure in his own triumph.' A contemporary critic seems, however, to have made up his mind that Turner's visit, to Italy had done him temporarily no good. In the _Annals of the Fine Arts_, of the year 1820, appeared the following criticism of Turner's works in the exhibition held at Mr. Fawkes's house in Grosvenor Place, which must have included some of the Italian drawings:--

'Turner appears here in his original splendour and to his greatest advantage. Those who only know the artist of late and from his academical works will hardly believe the grandeur, simplicity and beauty that pervade his best works in this collection.... The earlier works of Turner before he visited Rome and those he has done since for this collection are like works of a different artist. The former, natural, simple and effective; the latter, artificial, glaring and affected.'

Was the water-colour of the 'Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo,' made in Rome in 1819, that now hangs, to our delight, in the new Turner Gallery, one of the drawings shown at the exhibition in Grosvenor Place? Hardly. For this beautiful drawing is 'natural, simple and effective,' not 'artificial, glaring and affected.' Turner saw this glowing church with his own eyes. Although in Italy, he was at home with himself when he painted this quiet interlude, undisturbed by the Roman art fever that heated and harassed his imagination.

A simpler simplicity, a purer and more mystical vision of colour was eventually to come to him; but not yet. For the next few years the Italianised Turner was to be finding his way, through the insistent memories of Italy, to the real Turner.