Part 2

The year 1817 saw the addition of a very important series of fifty drawings to Mr. Walter Fawkes’s already large collection. These were the famous Rhine drawings. The date of their execution is given incorrectly in Thornbury, but the newly-discovered evidence of the sketch-books and an entry in Mrs. Fawkes’s diary enable us to correct Thornbury’s inaccuracies. Thornbury says these drawings “were done at the prodigious rate of three a day,” and in support of this statement he adds that Turner was away only for a fortnight, and that “after landing at Hull he came straight to Farnley, where, even before taking off his great-coat, he produced the drawings, in a slovenly roll from his breast pocket; and Mr. Fawkes bought the lot for some £500, doubtless to Turner’s delight, for he could not bear that any series of his should be broken.” But a kind of rough diary of Turner’s movements in the “Itinerary Rhine Tour Sketch-Book” (CLIX, Turner Bequest) says that the artist “left London” on Sunday, 10th August, was “off Margate” on Monday, 11th, and reached Brussels Thursday evening, on the 14th. He spent Saturday, visiting the Field of Waterloo, and, taking the diligence on Sunday, passed through Liège and Aix-la-Chapelle, reaching Cologne on the 18th. On Tuesday he walked to Bonn, and on the following day to Remagen. He was at Coblenz on Thursday and Friday, the 21st and 22nd, at St. Goar on the next two days, and at Mayence on the 25th and 26th. He returned to St. Goar on the 27th, and, passing through Coblenz on the 28th, he reached Cologne on the 29th, and left it the next day, returning through Aix and Liège. He was at Antwerp on the 2nd and 3rd of September, and at Rotterdam on the 4th and 5th, from whence he made his way to The Hague and Amsterdam. The notes against the dates to the 15th September are too elliptical and undecipherable to convey any information, but even if the artist did take the boat from Holland to Hull (the most probable route of his return) immediately on or after this date, it is clear that he did not go straight from there to Farnley. He had some work to do in Durham before he could go there--sketches to make of Gibside and Hylton Castle, the seats of the Earl of Strathmore, and of Raby Castle, the seat of the Earl of Darlington, to illustrate Surtees’ “History of the County of Durham.” He had also a commission to paint a large oil picture of the latter castle for its owner, a picture which duly appeared on the walls of the Royal Academy in the following year. A passage in a letter to Mr. Holworthy, written on the 21st November, 1817, says that “Lord Strathmore call’d at Raby and took me away to the North,” thus keeping him in Durham longer than he had expected. In this way Turner did not reach Farnley till the middle of November. Mrs. Fawkes’s diary tells us that she and her husband “went to Thorp Ash” on Thursday, 13th November, and on the 15th the entry runs, “Heavy rain. Returned home. Found Mr. Turner and Greaves here.” It is evident that Turner stayed there for about a week, as the letter of the 21st November is dated from Farnley Hall, but it is probable that he did not remain much longer, as he was clearly anxious to get back home and to work, for he says in this letter, “The season is far spent, the night of winter near at hand, and Barry’s words are always ringing in my ears--‘Get home and light your lamp.’”

The object of Thornbury’s statements about Turner being away only for a fortnight, and going straight to Farnley after landing at Hull, is evidently to corroborate his assertion that the fifty drawings were done “at the prodigious rate of three a day.” No one who has studied these beautiful drawings at all carefully could believe such a statement. But the evidence of Turner’s own memoranda proves that he only spent twelve days visiting the places on the Rhine which he has represented. He occupied from the 18th of August to the 30th sketching between Cologne and Mayence. So if we look at the matter from Thornbury’s point of view we are entitled to say that the fifty water-colours were done, not at the prodigious rate of three a day, but at the prodigious rate of more than four a day. But such a conclusion clearly overlooks the important difference between a sketch from nature and a finished drawing. In the twelve days Turner spent on the Rhine he certainly made the sketches for the fifty drawings Mr. Fawkes bought; and, in addition, he also made the sketches--numbering something between a hundred and fifty and two hundred--which we find in the three sketch-books, “Itinerary Rhine Tour,” “Waterloo and Rhine,” and “The Rhine” (CLIX, CLX, CLXI, Turner Bequest), preserved in the National Gallery. But it is evident the Farnley water-colours were not painted from nature. They were elaborated from pencil sketches somewhere between the end of August and the 13th November, possibly at inns--for Turner could work anywhere and under any conditions--or possibly when staying with Lord Darlington at Raby Castle, or with Lord Strathmore at Hylton Castle or Gibside. Such drawings as _Johannesberg_, _Sonneck and Baccharach_, _Mayence and Cassel_, and the rest, are not hurried sketches from nature, but carefully pondered and perfectly elaborated works of art. In some few cases parts of the sky or distance may have been painted from nature, but they all owe much of their charm and beauty to the consummately skilful labour which the artist lavished upon them in the intervals of travel, during the two months which elapsed between his departure from Cologne and his arrival at Farnley Hall near the beginning of November.

When Turner wrote to Mr. Holworthy from Farnley Hall, “The season is far spent, the night of winter near at hand, and Barry’s words are always ringing in my ears--‘Get home and light your lamp,’” his mind was evidently full of ideas of pictures he was anxious to carry out. The subject-matter of three important oil paintings--the large view of _Raby Castle_ for the Earl of Darlington, the serenely beautiful evening effect of _The Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam becalmed_, which he painted for Mr. Fawkes (and which is shown hanging over the fireplace, in the position it still occupies to-day, in the water-colour of _The Drawing-room at Farnley_, which was reproduced and published in the March number of THE STUDIO), and the imaginative composition of _The Field of Waterloo_, showing the ground

“Covered thick with other clay Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent Rider and horse, friend, foe, in one red burial blent.”

--was seething in his mind and crying out for definite embodiment. These pictures were ready for exhibition at the Royal Academy in May 1818. In June Mr. Fawkes and his wife were in London. Two of Mr. Fawkes’s sons by his first marriage were at Eton, so we find the following entry in Mrs. Fawkes’s diary on the 4th of June: “Went to Eton to see the boat-race. Dined and slept at Salt Hill. Little Turner came with us.” That “little” Turner’s thoughts were not taken up entirely with the boat-race and the social pleasures of the visit is proved by the lovely sepia drawing of _Windsor Castle from Salt Hill_, which was admirably engraved by Charles Turner for the “Liber Studiorum,” though it was never published. Soon after this visit to Eton Turner went to Scotland to make sketches to illustrate “The Provincial Antiquities of Scotland,” for which Sir Walter Scott (then plain Mr. Scott) had agreed to furnish the letterpress. Scott would have preferred the employment of his friend the Rev. John Thomson, of Duddingston, as the illustrator of this work, but Lockhart and the publishers stood out for Turner. Scott finally gave way and wrote that he “supposed he must acquiesce” in the selection of Turner, “because he was all the fashion.” Turner’s subjects were chosen for him and the work proved remarkably successful. Turner’s exquisite water-colours were presented by the publishers to Sir Walter Scott, who had them all framed together (in a very unsuitable way, it must be confessed) and kept them hung in his study at Abbotsford until his death.

There is no mention in the diary of any visit of Turner to Farnley Hall in 1818, but it is probable that he called there on his way back from Scotland. The water-colour of _A First Rater taking in Stores_, which is said to have been painted at Farnley Hall, is dated 1818. The water-colour drawing of _The Drawing-room at Farnley_, to which I have already referred, must also have been painted that year, as the picture of _Dort_ could not have been in its place before then, and the drawing was included in the exhibition of Turner’s works which Mr. Fawkes held in April 1819.

To appreciate fully the importance of this exhibition it will be necessary for us to glance for a moment at the conditions of artistic patronage in this country during the earlier years of the nineteenth century. As we had no National Gallery then, opportunities for becoming familiar with the works of the great European painters of the past were extremely limited. With a view to educating the taste of the public, some of the artists made the suggestion that the nobility and gentry, who owned collections of works by the old masters, should admit the public to their galleries or houses on a certain day in each week during the fashionable season. The Marquess of Stafford and Earl Grosvenor acted upon this suggestion. But after a time complaints were made that the taste for the old masters was prejudicial to the claims for recognition of the living native artists of the day. To redress the balance Lord de Tabley, who had formed a fine collection of exclusively British paintings, decided to throw open his gallery to the public. Many of his friends tried to dissuade him from doing this, as they thought that the British School could not emerge with credit from the inevitable comparisons which would be made with the more famous Schools of the Continent. But he invited and allowed the public to visit his gallery on one day in the week during the season of 1818. His experiment was so successful that it was repeated the following year. William Carey, a dealer who had assisted Lord de Tabley in forming his collection, tells us that “the splendour of the British School produced a favourable conviction on the minds of foreign visitors. The effect was indescribable. It increased on each year of the exhibition, and the periodical press, in bearing testimony to the general enthusiasm which seized all the upper classes, rapidly spread the fame of the British School through the Empire” (“Some Memoirs of the Patronage and Progress of the Fine Arts,” &c., published in 1826). The success of Lord de Tabley’s bold experiment seems to have suggested to Mr. Walter Fawkes the idea of admitting the public to see the large collection of English water-colours he had formed. The writer referred to above tells us that he “had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Fawkes mention his intended exhibition to a small circle of amateurs, with a doubt whether the public would approve of paintings in water-colours without any pictures in oil. Some gentlemen replied hesitatingly; but the approbation of His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester, who was present, determined the question. Lord de Tabley gave the plan his instant and warm concurrence. Mr. Thomas Lister Parker, of Browsholme Hall, was equally prompt in his assent. The drawings were first displayed in an evening when the apartments were judicially illuminated. Mr. Fawkes issued cards of invitation for the private view only, and, notwithstanding that he was particularly select, the spacious suite of rooms was too small to receive the company. The effect was very striking. It was generally remarked that Grosvenor Place never before beheld such a blaze of beauty of fashion, or such a splendid assemblage of distinguished public characters, as on that evening, and on the subsequent days of exhibition.”

The first and second rooms of the suite were filled with drawings by De Wint, J. C. Ibbetson, T. Heaphy, Glover, Havell, Robson, Hills, Prout, Atkinson, and Warwick Smith. The principal apartment, the largest in size and the last to be entered, was hung entirely with drawings by Turner. I will not venture to quote Carey’s rhapsodical description of these drawings. It is every whit as rapturous and enthusiastic as any of the purple patches penned by “A Graduate of Oxford” some fourteen or fifteen years later, but it has nothing of Ruskin’s eloquence or felicity of literary expression. Still the following remarks, from Carey’s useful book, are, I think, worth quoting: “Turner the enchanter, whose magic pencil had created the chief wonders of this temple, was frequently there. Nature, in endowing his mind, appears to have been indifferent to his person; but his brow is a page on which the traits of his high calling are stamped in capital letters, and his dark eyes sparkle with the fires of inspiration. He generally came alone; and while he leaned on the centre table in the great room, or slowly worked his rough way through the mass, he attracted every eye in the brilliant crowd, and seemed to me like a victorious Roman General, the principal figure in his own triumph. Perhaps no British artist ever retired from an exhibition of his works, with so much reason for unmixed satisfaction, or more genuine proofs of well-deserved admiration from the public.” Carey adds, “It is more than seven years since I saw this extraordinary exhibition; and even now the remembrance affects me....” And after a page or two of rather turgid bombast he winds up with the naïve remark, “I own I am an enthusiastic worshipper of Turner’s genius.”

The references to Turner in Mrs. Fawkes’s diary for this time are extremely limited. We learn from it that the family came to the house in Grosvenor Place in March. On Sunday, 7th March, the entry runs: “Went with girls to Belgrave Chapel. Mr. Parker, Alston, Turner, and Mr. Miller dined with us.” The entry on Tuesday, 13th April, is: “Very wet day, Gallery opened in Grosvenor Place. 1st day.” During the next few weeks a number of dinner parties are recorded, but no names of the guests are mentioned. We may take it for granted that Turner was frequently present on these occasions.

After the exhibition Mr. Fawkes had a catalogue published of the drawings included in the show. The catalogue was dedicated “To J. M. W. Turner, Esq., R.A., P.P.,” in the following graceful letter:--

“My dear Sir,

“The unbought and spontaneous expression of the public opinion respecting my collection of water-colour drawings decidedly points out to whom this little catalogue should be inscribed. To you, therefore, I dedicate it: first, as an act of duty, and secondly, as an Offering of Friendship: for be assured I never can look at it without intensely feeling the delight I have experienced during the greater part of my life from the exercise of your talent, and the pleasure of your society.

“That you may year after year reap an accession of fame and fortune is the anxious wish of

“Your sincere friend,

W. FAWKES.”

“London, June, 1819.

The family copy of this catalogue was illustrated with a frontispiece and two water-colours by Turner, one a view of _London from the Windows of 45, Grosvenor Place_, the other a view of the _Drawing-room of 45, Grosvenor Place_.

To understand properly the importance of this exhibition to Turner’s reputation as a water-colour painter, we must bear in mind that since his election as a member of the Royal Academy he had been known to the public primarily as an oil painter; and he had held aloof from the newly-established Water-Colour Society, and had, therefore, no regular opportunities for submitting his water-colour drawings to the public. Mr. Fawkes’s friendly exhibition, held under the most fortunate social conditions, firmly established Turner’s position as the foremost water-colour painter of his time, and enabled him to produce, during the next twenty years, those marvellous series of drawings which are so eagerly sought after by collectors of the present day, and so warmly appreciated and enjoyed by all who care for the higher achievements of the Fine Arts.

In the summer of 1819 Turner paid his first visit to Italy. He went from Calais to Paris, followed the usual coach route to Turin, and, having explored the north Italian lakes, he reached Venice by way of Milan and Brescia. He must have spent some time in Venice to judge from the large number of sketches he made there. Making his way along the coast of the Adriatic he turned inland at Ancona, and following the high post road through Recanati and Macerata, entered the Via Flaminia at Foligno, and saw Rome for the first time, probably some time in September or October. From Rome he explored Frascati and Tivoli, and made a tour to Naples, Pompeii and Herculaneum. He left Rome in December, visited Florence, and re-crossed the Alps on the 24th January 1820. He returned through Piedmont and France, and we find him dining at Grosvenor Place with the Fawkses on Saturday, 12th February. During the next few months he must have been frequently in the society of his friends, as his name constantly recurs in the entries of Mrs. Fawkes’s diary. The following extracts will speak for themselves:--

“Monday, 14th Feb., 1820. Went a large party to see the Panorama of Lausanne. Turner and Mr. Lomax dined with us.

Sunday, 27th Feb. B. King, E. Parker, Turner, Mr. Lomax and W. Beaumont dined with us.

Sunday, 9th April. Drove out with Walter to Whitly and Turner’s Garden. E. Parker dined with us.

Sunday, 30th April. Mr. Swinburne, Parker, Turner dined with us.

Sunday, 7th May. Walter out in Phaeton. Mr. Swinburne, Parker, Turner and Alston and Mills dined with us.

Sunday, 21st May. Lord Belmore came to pay a visit. Maria and I went to Warwick St. Chapel. Turner and Swinburne dined with us.

Monday, 5th June. Walter, two of the girls, and I went to Salt Hill. Saw the Boat Race. Young Knight fell from his horse. Broke his arm. Fine day. Wet afternoon. Mr. Swinburne and Turner.

Tuesday, 4th July. To Greenwich. Traceys, Mr. and Mrs. Alston, Turner, Sir Francis D. Kinnaird. All the party drank tea in Grosvenor Place. Fine day, not hot.”

Turner’s visit to Italy did not have a very beneficial effect upon his art. He came back with a mass of material and then seems to have been puzzled to know what to do with it all. The _Bay of Baiæ_, the first important oil painting which he produced after this visit, is overloaded with detail, and the design possesses no organic unity. The best artistic results of the journey were a few water-colours painted for Mr. Fawkes. The _Rialto, Venice_, a brilliant drawing, though overcrowded with facts, is interesting as Turner’s first Venetian picture done from his own sketches--the drawing of the same subject engraved in Hakewill’s “Italy” having been made from camera-obscura tracings furnished by Hakewill. The _Interior of St. Peter’s, Rome_, is a wonderful drawing, remarkable for the sense of height and space obtained by taking deliberate liberties with the laws of perspective. The view of _The Colosseum, Rome_, is exquisite in colour and effect. The best inspired of all the drawings produced this year (1820) is, however, _The Passage of Mont Cenis_, in which the contrast between the frightened passengers in the diligence, with its wildly plunging horses, and the gleaming peaks of the frozen mountains, is emphasized with extraordinary skill and eloquence.

These drawings practically completed the Farnley Hall collection. Turner’s friendship with Mr. Fawkes continued unabated till the latter’s death in 1825, but the only drawings added to the collection after 1820 are interesting rather on private and personal grounds than for their artistic importance. They are mere records of relics of the Civil War preserved at Farnley, or vignette illustrations, the poetical or historical compilations with which members of the Fawkes family amused their leisure.

I do not think I can better conclude this account of Turner’s personal relations with Mr. Walter Fawkes than by placing on record the remaining entries in Mrs. Fawkes’s diary in which the artist is either directly or indirectly referred to.

In 1821 the family came to Mr. Fawkes’s London house on Wednesday, 21st March, “at 4 o’clock.” The next day, Thursday, “Turner and Parker dined with us.” On Thursday, 21st June, the entry runs: “Went to Eton with Walter, the girls, Mr. Swinburne and Turner.” The family left London on 23rd July, and Turner does not seem to have seen them till he went up to Farnley to spend Christmas with them. “Mr. Turner came” is entered against Sunday, 23rd December, but the date of his departure is not given.

In 1822 the family arrived at Grosvenor Place on 10th April. On Sunday, the 14th, “Mr. Alston, Turner and G. Wentworth dined with us.” The 20th of June was a great day for the family. On that day Miss Anne Fawkes, the youngest of Mr. Fawkes’s daughters by his first marriage, was married to Mr. Godfrey Wentworth, of Woolley Park, co. York. There were twenty-three guests present at the dinner given in honour of this event, among them several Lords and Ladies and “Mr. Turner.” The entry in the diary on this day is brief but eloquent. It runs: “Anne and Godfrey married. A very long day. Had a large party to dinner. All tipsey.”

Turner’s name does not appear in the diary during the whole of 1823, nor in 1824 till the end of the year, when he went to Farnley for nearly a month. The following entries speak for themselves:--

“Friday, 19 Nov. 1824. Turner came.

Tuesday, 14 Dec. ” Mr. Turner went away.

Monday, 3 Jan. 1825. Left Farnley for Baker Street.

Thursday, 6 ” ” Arrived in London.

Saturday, 8 ” ” Mr. Parker and Turner came to dinner.

Sunday, 9 ” ” Foggy, nasty day. Mr. Turner dined with us.

Sunday, 16 ” ” Mr. Turner dined with us.

Sunday, 30 ” ” Walked to Hanover Square to see the Wentworths. Mr. Turner dined with us.

Monday, 31 ” ” Mr. Sapio came to teach Eliza. Hawksworth went to Windsor. Turner and Mr. Woodhouse dined with us. H.’s birthday.

Sunday, 6 Feb. ” Turner dined with us.