CHAPTER XXXIV
1828: AGED FIFTY-THREE
THE YEAR WHEN CONSTABLE DESCRIBED TURNER'S VISIONS AS 'GOLDEN, GLORIOUS, AND BEAUTIFUL'
In 1828 Turner was again in Rome. 'The foreign artists,' says Thornbury, 'who went to see his pictures could make nothing of them. Turner's economy and ingenuity were apparent in his mode of framing those pictures. He nailed a rope round the edges of each and painted it with yellow ochre in tempera.'
The _Inventory_ shows his travels of this year and the next--'Orléans to Marseilles'; 'Lyons to Marseilles'; 'Marseilles to Genoa'; 'Coast of Genoa'; 'Genoa and Florence '; and then the 'Roman and French' Sketch-Book. On page 26 of the 'Florence to Orvieto' Sketch-Book he wrote this as if the event had significance: 'Thursday Orvieto.'
One day he made Turnerian poetry:--
'Farewell a second time the Land of all bliss That cradled liberty could wish and hope Ere the fell Saxon and Norman band Flouted her ... on the shore Why go then? No gentle traveller Cross thy path save the ... The yellow, winding Tiber,' etc.
From Rome he wrote several letters. Here is the beginning of one to George Jones, R.A., showing the manner of Turner's correspondence:--
'Rome, _October 3th,_1828.
'Dear Jones,--Two months nearly in getting to this _terra pictura and at work_; but the length of time is my own fault. I must see the South of France, which almost knocked me up, the heat was so intense, particularly at Nismes and Avignon; and until I got a plunge into the sea at Marseilles I felt so weak that nothing but the change of scene kept me onwards to my distant point. Genoa and all the sea-coast from Nice to Spezzia is remarkably rugged and fine; so is Massa. Tell that fat fellow Chantrey that I did think of him _then_ (but not the first or the last time), of the thousands he had made out of those marble craigs which only afforded me a sour bottle of wine and a sketch; but he deserves everything which is good though he did give me a fit of the spleen at Carrara.'
And here is the beginning of a letter to Chantrey:--
'No. 12 Piazza Mignanelli, Rome, _NOV. 6th,_ 1828.
'My Dear Chantrey,--I intended long before this (but you will say "Fudge!") to have written; but even now very little information have I to give you in matters of Art, for I have confined myself to the painting department at Corso; and having finished _one_ am about the second, and getting on with Lord E.'s, which I began the very first touch at Rome; but as the folk here talked that I would show them _not_, I finished a small 3 feet four inches to stop their gabbling. So now to business....'
The small 3 feet by 4 was the 'View of Orvieto' exhibited in 1830, referred to with much affection in the opening chapters of this book.
The pictures shown by Turner at the Royal Academy this year evoked from Constable the generous and beautiful appreciation that I have already quoted. It bears repetition: 'Turner has some golden visions, glorious and beautiful. They are only visions, but still they are art, and one could live and die with such pictures.' What were the works that called forth this tribute of admiration from his great contemporary? They were:--
'Dido Directing the Equipment of the Fleet, or the Morning of the Carthaginian Empire.'
'East Cowes Castle, the seat of J. Nash, Esq. The Regatta beating to windward.'
'East Cowes Castle, the seat of J. Nash, Esq. The Regatta Starting for their Moorings.'
'Boccaccio relating the Tale of the Bird-cage.'
Hardly the finest examples of Turner's golden visions; but Constable found them glorious and beautiful. What did Constable think of the Turner exhibited next year, that magnificent riot of the imagination, 'Ulysses Deriding Polyphemus'?
It was probably during his second visit to Italy that he made the slight and lovely 'Sketch of an Italian Town,' now in the Victoria and Albert Museum. This, like the 'Orvieto,' is essential Italy. Rarely has the feeling of an Italian hill town been given with such intimacy of observation, just as it looks, a moment snatched and recorded, artlessly, but with great art.