CHAPTER II

THE TOPOGRAPHICAL DRAUGHTSMAN--1793-1796

Welsh tour of 1793--‘St. Anselm’s Chapel’--Turner’s topographical rivals--Midland tour of 1794--Topographical and antiquarian draughtsmanship--Its main interest is not embodied in the work--The marvellous _petit-maítre_--The ‘Cottage Interior’--Light and shade as a means of expression--The sketch-books of 1795 and their contents--‘High Force of Tees’ or ‘Fall of Melincourt’?

Among the five drawings by which Turner was represented in the exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1794, one was a view of the Devil’s Bridge, Cardiganshire. This was doubtless one of the first results of the sketching tour in Wales made in 1793. We can readily believe that Turner’s imagination was powerfully impressed by the wild and gloomy scenery of the country and its romantic ruins, but his efforts to embody his impressions were not at first very successful. For the moment his powers as an architectural draughtsman were more in evidence than his powers of expressing grand and gloomy ideas. The romantic turn of his mind had to be more fully developed before it could command public support, and for the time being this phase of his art seemed swamped in the flood of topographical employment which the immediate success of his less ambitious drawings in the 1794 exhibition brought him.

In a contemporary press notice, preserved among the Anderdon collection of catalogues in the Print Room of the British Museum, Turner’s drawings of ‘Christchurch Gate, Canterbury,’ and the ‘Porch of Great Malvern Abbey, Worcestershire,’ are said to be ‘amongst the best in the present exhibition. They are the productions,’ the writer continues, ‘of a very young artist, and give strong indications of first-rate ability; the character of Gothic architecture is most happily preserved, and its profusion of minute parts massed with judgment and tinctured with truth and fidelity. This young artist should beware of contemporary imitations. His present effort evinces an eye for nature, which should scorn to look to any other source.’

The first of the drawings which called forth this praise is now in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Ruskin Bequest), the other is probably the ‘Malvern’ now in the Manchester Whitworth Institute (No. 73). The critic’s remark about the danger of ‘contemporary imitations,’ which I take to mean the danger of Turner imitating the works of contemporary artists, may probably account for his neglect to mention another drawing exhibited at the same time, which strikes the present-day observer as a more accomplished and remarkable effort than either the ‘Malvern’ or ‘Christchurch Gate.’ I allude to the drawing described in the R.A. catalogue as ‘St. Anselm’s Chapel with part of Thomas à Becket’s Crown--Canterbury Cathedral,’ which I take to be the drawing now in the Manchester Whitworth Institute (No. 272). This is a work of infinite patience and wary skill, a remarkable combination of far-sighted knowledge of ultimate effects united with the utmost delicacy, firmness, and patience of execution. These qualities do not seem to me so clearly marked either in the Christchurch Gate or Malvern drawings, but very likely to the contemporary observer, especially to one avid of originality, the drawing of ‘St. Anselm’s Chapel’ may have appeared more ordinary or conventional.[6]

The success of these drawings established Turner’s position as one of the foremost architectural and topographical draughtsmen of the day. But we must not make the mistake of supposing that Turner’s success was the result of an absence of serious rivals. De Loutherbourg, Dayes, Hearne, Wheatley, Sandby and Rooker were by no means unworthy rivals. Nor must we jump to the conclusion that Turner, at the age of nineteen, had outstripped such competitors in any but the purely topographical branches of their profession. The best of the older men were artists of wide sympathies and ambitions, who could not rest satisfied within the narrow limits of purely topographical work. They looked upon such work as a kind of necessary drudgery, useful from a pecuniary point of view, but not calling for the whole-hearted exercise of all their talents and enthusiasm. Dayes, to whom Girtin was apprenticed, and from whom Turner had learnt a great deal, seems to have detested topographical work, in spite of the skill and delicate charm with which he treated it. All his enthusiasm was reserved for figure subjects in the grand manner, for which there was no market. In this 1794 exhibition he had four illustrations for Dr. Aitken’s _Environs of Manchester_, which have the perfunctory look of work done against the grain, and a ‘View of Keswick Lake,’ which may possibly have been the slight and charming drawing of this subject now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, too small and fragile a thing to attract much attention. The versatile and brilliant De Loutherbourg did not exhibit this year; Hearne also was absent. Rooker had five of his delicately-accomplished but rather prosaic drawings. Paul Sandby had two views of Rochester Castle, and ‘A View of Vintners at Boxley, Kent, with Mr. Whatman’s Turkey Paper Mills,’ where the excellent paper upon which almost all Turner’s drawings were made was manufactured. Wheatley sent no landscapes this year, and Girtin, Turner’s senior and rival, had a single exhibit, a ‘View of Ely Minster,’ the first drawing he had had accepted by the Academy. The result of this state of things was that Turner’s architectural and topographical work was pitted against only the perfunctory or tired work of his older rivals. For the moment all his indefatigable patience and amazing energy and skill were concentrated on this one point of attack, with immediately decisive results.

Turner had now achieved an honourable footing in his profession. Dr. Monro bought his ‘Anselm’s Chapel’ and gave him commissions for many other drawings. Booksellers found his name an attraction. With publishers ready to buy his drawings, though at prices that would merely excite the derision of a modern artist, and with patrons like Dr. Monro ready to encourage his more ambitious efforts, his opportunities of travel were greatly enlarged.

Turner spent the summer of 1794 making a tour of the midland counties of England. Northampton, Birmingham, Lichfield, Shrewsbury, Wrexham, Chester, Matlock, Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln, Peterborough, Cambridge and Waltham were among the places he visited. The views published in the _Copper Plate Magazine_ during the next three years of Nottingham, Bridgenorth, Matlock, Birmingham, Chester, Peterborough and Flint were made from sketches taken on this journey, as were also those of King’s College, Cambridge, Flint, and Northampton, published in the _Pocket Magazine_ during 1795. But these were the least important results of the tour. The work into which Turner threw all his enthusiasm and ambition was sent to the exhibition of the Royal Academy of 1795, which contained no less than eight of his important and highly-finished drawings. The best known of these are the ‘Peterborough Cathedral; West Entrance,’ which was included in Messrs. Agnews’ 1908 annual exhibition of water-colours--it had suffered somewhat from the light and had been restored, but was still an impressive work; the ‘Welsh Bridge, Shrewsbury,’ now No. 276 in the Manchester Whitworth Institute, a carefully wrought and exquisitely accomplished drawing; and the ‘Cathedral Church at Lincoln’ (Plate V.) now in the Print Room. This elaborately finished drawing, I am inclined to think, played an important part in Turner’s development. It is almost the only drawing I know from his hand which has a papery and unconvincing general effect, which is monotonous and insensitive in its textures, and hard and metallic in its details. For once in a way Turner seems to have deferred to the ideals of elaboration of the ordinary connoisseur, who likes to see every detail in every part of a work pushed to its highest point of finish. For these reasons the drawing must have been very generally admired when it was first exhibited, but Turner could not have been satisfied at all with his own work, for he promptly abandoned the style. This is the most ‘mappy’ of all Turner’s drawings, and we know that for the rest of his life he had the greatest horror of this quality.

When we examine the pencil drawings made from nature on this tour we find them all severely governed by the ends they were intended to serve. The sketches for the publishers’ work

are generally made in a small note-book (about 4½ × 6¾ inches in size). They are invariably in pure outline, without the slightest suggestion of light and shade--nothing but the scaffolding of the more important shapes upon which the final designs were to be elaborated. On such a small scale the ease and grace of Turner’s touch are not much in evidence. The sketches are severely business-like, and done as quickly and with as little effort as possible. There is more effort and feeling in the casual studies with which the leaves of this sketch-book are interspersed. The accompanying sketch (Plate VII.) of a pony standing ready saddled gives a good idea of the mature wisdom of Turner’s style of sketching at this period, its determination to grasp the larger truths of form and structure, as well as the quickness, readiness, and versatility of his powers of perception.

The drawings for the more ambitious subjects are generally made on larger and separate pieces of paper about 8 × 10½ inches in size. On this scale the delicate play of the artist’s wrist becomes appreciable. The dominant impression left by a glance through these drawings is one of excessive orderliness and methodical neatness. There is no hurry, no scamped or perfunctory work, still less are there any signs of dilatoriness or even slowness. The artist’s respect for relevant fact is equalled by his appreciation of the value of time. His calm objective outlook, his steady, unwavering grasp of general principles enable him at every point to economise his labours, to store up the record of the greatest possible amount of material facts (i.e. of facts material to his purpose) with the utmost celerity, clearness, and the least possible expenditure of manual effort. This is particularly noticeable in the treatment of the towers in the Lincoln Cathedral drawing (Plate VI.), where every advantage has been taken of the repetition of forms. A possible, though not a very satisfactory, way of doing justice to the predominance of conceptual over purely visual elements in this work, would be to say that the artist has here drawn with his head rather than his eye, that he puts down not so much what he sees as what he understands.

I am tempted to linger for a moment over the placid and self-contained air of this phase of Turner’s work, because we shall so soon get into an altogether different atmosphere, and because we shall understand Turner’s after work all the better the more clearly we grasp the character of the work we are now examining. The self-contained air to which I allude is connected in my mind with the character and limitations of topographical work. Now the essential character of topographical and purely antiquarian work is that it does not aim primarily at expressing the imaginative or emotional effects of the objects it represents. It takes these imaginative or emotional interests for granted, relying indeed on them for the ultimate justification of its work; but the work, as topographical and antiquarian, aims directly only at an adequate representation of the particular scenes or buildings with which it is concerned. There is, as it were, a tacit division of labour; the artist being called upon to record accurately and vividly a certain scene or building, merely as a scene or building, while the spectator is expected to supply the requisite mental associations and emotional colouring. The artist draws a castle, we will say, as a mere object of sight, while the spectator is supposed to remember that the castle was built by such and such a king, and that certain moving events took place in it or near it. This division of labour simplifies the work of the topographical artist, reducing his business to a clear-cut affair of definite visual facts. Hence the Oriental stolidity of Turner’s topographical work, its Oriental patience, neatness, and precision. In a drawing like the ‘Lincoln Cathedral’ Turner is as wholly immersed in the succession of particular material facts as a Japanese or Chinese artist. As with the Japanese and Chinese artists the material facts are not there entirely for their own sakes; in Turner’s case they imply an antiquarian interest, as the Eastern artists’ work implies an added religious or poetical significance. But the point to which I desire to draw attention is, that this added significance is not embodied in the work itself. It is something extraneous and fortuitous, and the work itself falls apart into something dependent. It is in fact an accessory, a work of mere illustration, not an independent work of art.

We shall have to return to this subject in our next chapter, when we find Turner wrenching himself free from the trammels of topography and antiquarianism to soar into the regions of

artistic freedom. In the meantime we will turn our attention to the topographical drawings which Turner sent to the exhibition of 1796.

Of the eleven drawings by which Turner was represented at the Royal Academy this year, nine were apparently of a topographical character. I have only been able to examine two of these recently--the ‘Transept and Choir of Ely Minster,’ in the late Mr. R. F. Holt’s collection, and the ‘Llandaff Cathedral,’ in the National Gallery (Exhibited Drawings No. 795). If we may judge from the rather cold impression these two drawings make upon us, it is probable that they owe their existence rather to the artist’s professional diligence than to any overmastering impulse towards artistic expression. But the work, if not particularly enthusiastic, is distinguished by its thoroughness and workman-like spirit. Every mechanical difficulty is fairly faced and mastered with imperturbable coolness, patience, and dexterity. So palpably is the artist’s attention fixed upon the executive side of his art, especially in the ‘Llandaff Cathedral,’ that a contemporary prophet might well have been excused if he had seen in it only the promise of the making of a marvellous _petit-maître_, and had declared that its author could not be possessed of a spark of native genius.

Perhaps if we could see either of the two other drawings which, to judge from their titles, were neither topographical nor antiquarian in subject, we might find evidence which would induce us to modify this dominant impression of intellectual coldness and unruffled placidity. In particular, the title ‘Fishermen at Sea’ seems to suggest possibilities of romantic expressiveness, especially when we know that the subject was treated by the same hand that was to give us in a few years’ time the ‘Calais Pier,’ Lord Iveagh’s ‘Fishermen on a Lee-Shore,’ and the ‘Shipwreck.’ But this drawing has not been traced, and the second drawing, the ‘Internal (or interior) of a Cottage,’ has apparently shared the same fate.

There is, however, a slight possibility that the latter subject may be correctly identified with the small drawing in the National Gallery, exhibited under the title of ‘Cottage Interior’ (406 N.G.). This drawing has been, somewhat rashly, supposed to represent the underground kitchen beneath the barber’s shop in Maiden Lane. There are absolutely no grounds for such an assumption, and a moderately careful examination of the drawing shows that it does not represent an underground kitchen or room of any kind. It is clearly a room on the ground-floor, but the lower part of the window has been curtained off, with the object of getting a picturesque arrangement of light and shade, and this fact may have lent some plausibility to the suggestion that the light was falling through a grating above. If I am right in identifying this drawing with the 1796 exhibit the study was made at Ely, as the catalogue informs us.

But whether this drawing was exhibited at the Academy or not, it clearly belongs from internal evidence to the latter part of 1795 or the beginning of 1796. It therefore offers us an interesting connecting link in the development of Turner’s art, showing the line of study which turned the youthful topographer into the romantic artist.

Yet there is little of the romantic spirit on the face of this drawing. A poor interior bathed in gloom, with a narrow stream of light falling on an old woman sitting beside a copper and surrounded by an array of pots and pans. But it is significant, because it bears witness to the direction of Turner’s mind to the study of light and shade as a separate vehicle of expression. In the topographical drawings proper, light and shade is not used for its emotional effect, but simply as a means of representation, that is to say, to bring out the shapes and details. In the ‘Interior’ we see Turner beginning to isolate the system of light and shade, to study and grasp its possibilities as a separate factor of artistic expressiveness.

But if we turn to the sketch-books containing the record of Turner’s summer wanderings in 1795, we find no lack of evidence of the essentially artistic cast of his mind, and of his wide sympathies with nature. His journeys this year were mainly confined to portions of the coast-line, to the Isle of Wight, and the south coast of Wales from Chepstow to Pembroke Bay. It was not by any means the first time he had seen the sea, but he was then able to study it more closely than before, and under its wilder aspects and conditions.

The outward appearance of the two principal sketch-books used this year bears clear indication of bright professional prospects. These handsome calf-bound volumes, each with four brass clasps, put forward solid claims to respect--claims which a young artist standing alone without a backing of influential patrons would shrink from advancing. Opening the book devoted to the Isle of Wight subjects, we find the first page headed in ink with the words ‘Order’d Drawings,’ and underneath a record of subjects and sizes of drawings to be made for Sir Richard Colt Hoare and Mr. Charles Landseer, the engraver. In the South Wales book we find the record of further commissions from these two patrons, and others from Viscount Maiden, Dr. Mathews, Mr. Laurie, Mr. Lambert, Mr. Mitchell and Mr. Kershaw. These indications suggest that the drawings in these volumes were not made entirely for the artist’s own use and enjoyment. They are certainly for use, as their neat and careful array of details proves, but they were also destined to bear the scrutiny of possible patrons, and excite, if possible, a desire in their breasts to see them carried out in a more elaborate medium. This may account for a certain smugness or primness in much of the work itself, for its faint suggestion of youthful conceit and a priggish air of conscious rectitude.

The sketching tour opens at Winchester, and we can follow the artist to Salisbury and Southampton. We then find him suddenly at Newport, in the Isle of Wight. The remainder of the book is devoted to this island. At Newport Turner was chiefly interested in Carisbrook Castle. We can then trace his footsteps southward to Ventnor and along the South-West coast to the Needles; thence back to Newport, with a visit to Brading, where he made a delightful drawing, partly finished in water-colour, of Bembridge Mill.

The workmanship throughout is admirably deft, graceful and accomplished. It is not, however, till the artist gets to the open sea round the Needles that his imagination seems stirred at all. In the centre of the drawing on page 39 stands the blunt face of the chalk cliffs; on the left, the incoming waves play round a few broken stumps of rock. Between the cliffs and the spectator there is a small bay in which some fishermen’s boats ride on the rising tide. The waves play prettily with the boats, but these are carefully tethered fore and aft, thus showing that their owners have learnt to mistrust the gracefully advancing waters. In the distance the cold dark volume of sea seems to justify these suspicions. Gradually a sense of the sternness of the eternal conflict between the sea and the dry land impresses itself on our minds. The whole coast seems in the clutch of a ruthless and never-resting foe. In some scenes the high cliffs seem to stand proudly and defiantly in the water; here they are in full retreat, the havoc of the foreground proving that the soft chalk is crumbling at the touch of its pitiless enemy.

And now we can see the usefulness of the discipline and training of topographical draughtsmanship. Confronted with a scene like this, which powerfully stirs his emotions, the artist is not forced to remain dumb; he has an organ of expression ready to his hand. The supple pencil-point hurries its suggestive outlines over the paper. There is yet time to add some record of the more delicate passages of modelling, and to suggest something of the colour of the water and cliffs. The artist’s brush is as docile as his pencil. There is no experimental blotting and splashing; every touch is expressive, and the pressure of haste only adds greater certainty to the swift touches. The artist has to stop before he has tinted half his paper, but he has torn out the heart of his subject.

Leaving the Isle of Wight, Turner made his way to South Wales, passing through Wells. The scenery of South Wales is of a wilder description than that of the Isle of Wight, and it must have touched his imagination profoundly. But thanks to his ready science, his hand never falters; all the ruined castles and abbeys, the water-mills and water-falls, the details of the rocky coast-line, the white-crested waves and tangled forests, are bundled with celerity into neat little outlines and stored ready for future use. Among the subjects are the castles of Kidwelly, Carew, Laugharne, Llanstephen and Goodrich, and they are drawn as they had never before been drawn or will be again. One of the views of Carew Castle will serve the artist thirty years later when he comes to treat this subject for his ‘England and Wales’ series. But to me the most significant drawing in

the book is the waterfall on page 8. The whole subject is drawn in with the pencil as usual, and then just the most important part is finished in water-colour. This piece of water-colour work is an admirable example of Turner’s sensitiveness to impressions, his quickness and readiness, and the adaptability of his methods. The rocks and the crystalline facets of the water at the top of the fall are painted in with sharp staccato touches, while the skilful dragging of the dry brush suggests the dissolving of the water into spray with extraordinary vivacity.

This drawing forms our eighth illustration, though no reproduction can do justice to it. Mr. Ruskin admired the work warmly, and it formed part of the selection he made for the Oxford Loan Collection. He named the drawing the ‘High Force of Tees,’ but I believe this description to be incorrect. In the sketch-book the leaf on which the drawing is made follows immediately a drawing of the water-mill at Aberdulâs, and a note made on the fly-leaf of the book, written by Turner for his own guidance on the tour, mentions that the ‘Rocks and Water-fall’ near Aberdulâs were ‘well worth attention.’ The nearest waterfall to Aberdulâs is the cascade formed by the river Clydach, known as the Fall of Melincourt. I have therefore ventured to substitute this title for Mr. Ruskin’s ‘High Force of Tees.’

An artist so sensitive to the subtlety and mystery of natural scenery, as these sketch-books show Turner to have been, and one so unusually gifted to express these qualities, could not long be confined within the prosaic limits of topographical and antiquarian work.