LU-UiiiU 
 
 HH^^^^ 
 
 "'" """" 
 

 
THE LIFE OF J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. 
 
THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 J. M.W.TURNER, R.A. 
 
 BY 
 
 PHILIP GILBERT. HAMERTON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "etching AND ETCHERS," "THOUGHTS ABOUT ART," "tHB INTBLLECTUAL 
 
 UFE," "a painter's camp," ''MODERN FRENCHMEN," " THE SYLVAN YEAR," 
 
 "round my HOUSE," "the UNKNOWN RIVER," ETC., ETC. 
 
 " II serait inutile d'etre un excellent esprit et un grand peintre, si I'on ne raettait 
 dans son oeuvre quelque chose que la r^alit^ n'a pas. Oest en quoi I'homme est 
 plus intelligent que le soleil, et j'en remercie Dieu." 
 
 — Fromentin. 
 
 WITH NINE ILLUSTRATIONS, ETCHED 8Y A. BRUNET-OEBAINE3. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, 
 
 1879. 
 
CAMBRIDGE : 
 PRESSWORK BY JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 THE 
 
 ■ 
 
 USEUM LIBRARY 
 
151.0. 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE been the more willing to write a biography of 
 Turner that it is impossible to study him without en- 
 countering the greatest of all problems in art criticism, 
 the relation of art to nature. Of all landscape-painters 
 he is at once the most comprehensive in his study of 
 nature and the most independent of nature, the most 
 observant of truth and also, in a certain sense, the most 
 untrue. This double life of Turner, as observer and 
 artist, compels us to distinguish between art and mere 
 observation from the very beginning, under peril of fall- 
 ing into snares which the subject itself has laid for us. 
 We must understand that art and nature are not the 
 same world, but two worlds which only resemble each 
 other and have many things in common. Turner, with 
 the instinct of genius, understood this from the first. 
 
 Turner is a most instructive subject for the student of 
 art, because he is always and above all things the artist. 
 With all his study of objects and effects, he was never a 
 naturalist. The real motive of every one of his compo- 
 sitions is to realize some purely artistic conception, not 
 
 M 510 
 
VI 
 
 Preface. 
 
 to copy what he saw ; consequently he lived in a state of 
 mental activity and feeling, which cannot be in the least 
 understood until we know what the artistic intelligence 
 is, and what are its necessities, its purposes, and its 
 aspirations. If Turner went frequently to nature for 
 material, he went to the works of great artists who had 
 preceded him that he might profit by their example, and 
 though he had so much originality as to astonish the 
 public of his time, the painter never lived who was more 
 thoroughly imbued with the great artistic traditions. He 
 educated himself not by copying the famous masters, 
 but by a series of experimental pictures in which he 
 purposely worked under their successive influences, and 
 when he passed from these exercises to experiments for 
 which there was no precedent, these new experiments 
 were not undertaken for the imitation of nature, but for 
 the extension of the possibilities of art. If there is any 
 reader to whom this distinction is not sufficiently clear, I 
 may make it a little clearer by observing that the essen- 
 tially artistic elements of a picture may be comprised 
 under the two heads of feeling and composition, neither 
 of which is to be found in external nature, though it 
 suggests both to the human spirit. Composition includes 
 all color arrangement, all combinations of light and 
 shade, all groupings and contrasts of selected and modi- 
 fled forms. Feeling, in art, expresses itself always by 
 the alteration of nature, by exaggerating and diminish- 
 ing, by selecting and rejecting, by emphasis and accent. 
 The art of a man of genius like Turner has much more 
 in common with music than with photography. Even 
 
Preface. 
 
 Vll 
 
 the enemies of painting, those who are hostile to it be- 
 cause they cannot understand it, do at least understand 
 so much of it as this, that it is intensely artificial, that it 
 is not nature. 
 
 " I know nothing of painting," wrote Byron to Murray 
 from the city of Titian and Giorgione, " and I detest it, 
 unless it reminds me of something I have seen, or think 
 it possible to see, for which reason I spit upon and abhor 
 all the saints and subjects of one half the impostures I 
 see in the churches and palaces ; and when in Flanders I 
 never was so disgusted in my life as with Rubens and his 
 eternal wives and infernal glare of colors, as they appeared 
 to me, and in Spain I did not think much of Murillo and 
 Velasquez. Depend upon it, of all the arts it is the most 
 artificial and unnatiiral, and that by which the innocence 
 of mankind is most imposed upon. I never yet saw the 
 picture or the statue which came a league within my 
 conception or expectation." 
 
 Now, although Byron had much genius and some 
 literary education, he was, as regarded the plastic and 
 graphic arts, a thorough British barbarian, who detested, 
 abhorred, and spat upon (the expressions are his own) 
 the refinements which were beyond the limits of his 
 comprehension, so that when he speaks of painting he 
 speaks with the animosity of an enemy and the contempt 
 of a man of rank and reputation who cannot imagine 
 that anything may possibly be above him. But with 
 all his coarseness and violence, with all his blindness to 
 the beauty of painting, he sees one thing which its 
 warmest admirers too frequently fail to see — he sees 
 
viii Preface. 
 
 that it is intensely artificial, that it is something widely 
 different from nature. He makes no blundering con- 
 fusion between art and nature, but sets himself on the 
 side of nature against art, and in the next sentences of 
 the letter just quoted alludes to mountains, seas, rivers, 
 horses, a lion, a tiger, and two or three women that went 
 as far beyond his expectation as pictures and statues 
 fell short of it. We may safely follow Byron in keeping 
 this distinction clear. 
 
 Another matter which we ought to understand before 
 entering upon such a study as this is the proper function 
 of the writer upon art. In my view, it is first to inform 
 himself as well as he can, and then to say what he thinks 
 with the most fearless candor, but without- the slightest 
 pretension to authority. I should be sorry to see English 
 criticism, on any side of an artistic question, arrive at that 
 cowardly condition too often visible on the Continent, 
 when writers dare not venture to say what they think 
 about artists of established reputation for fear of imperil- 
 ing their own, and when the whole ingenuity of a writer 
 on art is devoted to a search for new excellencies in the 
 consecrated masters, even in their most trifling works, or 
 in doubtful works attributed to them, and in the weakest 
 and worst passages of those works. But whilst claiming 
 the right to say what I think, without any diminution of 
 strength of expression from deference to the opinion of 
 others, I repudiate all intention of speaking ex cathedrd 
 with any affectation of infallibility, because in matters of 
 art criticism authority has little foundation beyond simple 
 self-assertion. You can prove scientific matters posi- 
 
Preface. 
 
 IX 
 
 tively, but the scientific element is not the soul of art, and 
 when you come to consider the really artistic element 
 which is the soul of art, you will find that it perpetually 
 eludes the measuring-tapes of positivism. What, for 
 example, are the artistic merits of Turner ? Truth of 
 form ? Certainly not ; his merits were in fine arrange- 
 ments of forms and colors, blended into those admirable 
 unities which constitute his pictures. 
 
 But who in the world can prove that he was a fine com- 
 poser, or a fine colorist .'' that his arrangements were 
 good .'' that his pictures are admirable unities .'' Nobody 
 can demonstrate these things, which in their very nature 
 are as incapable of demonstration as the beauty of an air 
 in music ; and yet these things are the very essence of 
 art. The writer on art can therefore never speak with the 
 authority which belongs to the teacher of science, who 
 announces what he can prove, and what the hearer can 
 verify for himself. But if a prudent writer on art re- 
 nounces the claim to authority, he may still hope to 
 deserve the credit which belongs to utility. His opinions, 
 if expressed candidly, may be of some value as a contri- 
 bution to that general enlightenment which constitutes 
 public opinion. The march of Humanity is like a proces- 
 sion by torchlight, in which men see their way by the 
 light given by others and also hold up torches of their 
 own. This is especially necessary in artistic matters, 
 where so much is artificial, and where natural truth, even 
 when it is perfectly ascertainable, is such an insufficient 
 guide. 
 
 I owe much to my predecessor Mr. Thornbury, whose 
 
X Preface. 
 
 life of Turner, though hastily written, is full of interesting 
 material. I have not thought it right to take all the 
 plums out of Mr. Thornbury's book, which will still be 
 consulted by those who are interested in Turner, but I 
 thought there was room for another biography executed 
 more at leisure. I have taken my time about this, and 
 brought it gradually to its present form, believing that it 
 omits nothing of essential importance. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin's enthusiasm for Turner has also been a 
 valuable help to me ; perhaps all the more valuable that 
 I do not fully share it. I do not, like Mr. Ruskin, con- 
 sider Turner a being of unequalled intellect and the 
 greatest -painter of all time ; I consider him a man of 
 genius who may be ranked along with other men of 
 genius, but no more. Comparisons, in these matters, are 
 seldom profitable or appropriate ; but the intelligent 
 reader will not misunderstand me when I place Turner 
 side by side with Shelley. They were two of the most 
 poetical, the most learned, and least material of poets, 
 each in his own sphere. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Genius and eccentricity. — The birthplace of a landscape-painter. — Tur- 
 ner's birth and circumstances. — Condition of landscape art. — Early 
 educational influences. — Turner at school. — Paternal encouragement. 
 — Beginnings in art. — Early study of architecture. — Academic train- 
 ing. — Early practice in portrait-painting. — A professional commence- 
 ment. — Turner's luck in life 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 The young artist. — Dr. Munro. — Girtin and Cozens. — Turner's early 
 work in oil. — Love and disappointment. — Absence of female influ- 
 ence. — A dual life. — Turner a drawing-master 
 
 33 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Turner comes of age. — First northern tour. — Dr. Whitaker. — Turner 
 elected A.R.A. — His diploma picture. — New and Old Gothic. — Pro- 
 fessional position in 1800 50 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Kilchurn Castle. — Topography. — Turner's dream pictures. — The topog- 
 raphy of poets 66 
 
Xll 
 
 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Turner elected R.A. — First continental excursion. — Turner and his 
 father. — Pictures of 1806 and 1807. — Turner takes to etching. — Tur- 
 ner as an engraver in mezzotint. — The Liber Studiorum . 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Turner a professor of perspective. — The Trafalgar picture. — First visit 
 to Petworth, 1809. — Pictures of 181 1. — Turner as a writer on art and 
 nature. — Turner as an observer and critic ... . . 
 
 118 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 He removes to Queen Anne Street, 181 2. — Excursion to Devonshire, 
 1812. — Turner's poetry. — Turner's prose 131 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 Turner at Twickenham. — English coast scenery. — Crossing the Brook. 
 — Distances in elder art. — The fascination of the remote. — A second 
 possibility of marriage, 181 5. — Dido building Carthage. — Other class- 
 ical pictures. — Turner and Scott. — Oil pictures of 1818. — Pictures of 
 1819. — Rome from the Vatican. — Whitaker's History of Richmond- 
 shire 148 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Transition to color. — Turner as a traveller. — His system of study . 176 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Rivalry with Wilson. — The Bay of Baiae. — The Rivers of England. — 
 Provincial Antiquities. — England and Wales. — The Ports of Eng- 
 land. — The " Cologne." — Works from sketches by others. — Separate 
 plates. — Transactions with Cooke. — Pictures exhibited in 1827 . . 197 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Journey to Italy, 1828. — The Polyphemus. — Death of Turner's father. 
 — The illustrations to Rogers. — Scotland revisited, 1830 . 
 
Contents. 
 
 xiu 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Rivers of France. — Turner's architecture. — Inaccuracy of other 
 artists. — The Rivers of France — color. — The Rivers of France — Tur- 
 nerian charm 239 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. — Turner's technical carelessness. — The 
 Golden Bough. — The Venice pictures. — An American criticism. — 
 French enthusiasm. — Illustrations to Milton. — Mercury and Argus. — 
 The Phryne. — Turner and Mr. Bohn. — Switzerland and Italy. — The 
 Agrippina. — Illustrations to " The Epicurean " 
 
 260 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Temeraire. — The Bacchus and Ariadne. — The Snow-storm. — The 
 Slave-Ship. — Latter years of Turner. — Pictures of 1842. — Tendency 
 to the formless. — Dregs of life. — Last excursion on the Continent. — 
 Disabled. — Turner's death. — Funeral at St. Paul's. — Turner's care 
 for his own fame. — Rivalry with Claude 286 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Celebration by Mr. Ruskin. — Ruskin's " Modern Painters." — Mr. Rus- 
 kin's literary powers. — Mr. Ruskin and the English public. — Mr. 
 Ruskin not the discoverer of Turner. — Criticism and art in words. — 
 The love of effect. — Circumstances of Turner's death. — Mr. Ruskin's 
 estimate of Turner. — Turner and Pre-Raphaelitism. — The criterion 
 of truth. — Distinction between nature and art. — Turner's position in 
 art. — Mystery. — Turner's color. — Turner's imagination. — Taste. — Re- 
 sume. — Danger of Turner-worship. — Past and future of landscape- 
 painting 
 
 316 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Turner's character and habits. — Turner's manners. — Religion and 
 morality. — Temperance and intemperance. — Turner's generosity. — 
 Turner's will. — Works of art left to the nation. — Conclusion . . 364 
 
 Note. — Mr. Ruskin's Teaching 397 
 
 General Index 399 
 
 Index to Turner's Works alluded to 402 
 
3E 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS FROM TURNER'S SKETCHES. 
 
 Pa«e 
 
 In an Alpine Valley 94 
 
 Houses on a Southern Shore 179 
 
 Ruined Castle 185 
 
 Boats at Sea in a Breeze 205 
 
 Rome, Church and Convent of the Quattro Coronati . 222 
 
 City on one of the Rivers of France 239 
 
 French Boats near Shore, with a Lowering Sky ... 243 
 
 Old Town on the Loire 257 
 
 Venice 269 
 
THE LIFE OF J. M. W.TURNER, R.A. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Genius and Eccentricity. — The Birthplace of a Landscape-Painter. — Tur- 
 ner's Birth and Circumstances. — Condition of I^andscape Art. — Early 
 Educational Influences. — Turner at School. — Paternal Encouragement. 
 — Beginnings in Art.; — Early Study of Architecture. — Academic Training. 
 — Early Practice in Portrait-Painting. — A Professional Commencement. — 
 Turner's Luck in Life. 
 
 'TpHE curiosity which desires to know all that can be 
 known about great poets who have enchanted the 
 world for us, is often doomed to two very different kinds 
 of disappointment. Either there is very little to be ascer- 
 tained about the poet which the admirer of his genius 
 would greatly care to know, or else the personal character 
 and history of the poet himself seem inferior to the ideal 
 of him which is suggested by the noble beauty of his 
 works. We are unreasonable in our expectations of 
 general perfection in those who have much delighted us, 
 and enlarged our experience of sublime or sweet emotion. 
 We forget too easily that what seems to us so admirable 
 and wonderful in them, the divine creative power, is 
 often a very costly gift to the mortal who has received it 
 at his birth ; that it tyrannizes over him until most of his 
 
2 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 faculties are absorbed in it, and that it entirely destroys 
 that happy equilibrium which enables men to do, under 
 all circumstances, what public opinion would decide to 
 be precisely reasonable and becoming. The old popular 
 belief in the eccentricity of genius, which sometimes took 
 the form of unsympathizing sarcasm or half-contemp- 
 tuous banter, and sometimes, in kinder souls, was the 
 origin of an especial indulgence for many errors and 
 shortcomings, had deeper foundations in the constitution 
 of human nature than certain unimaginative persons of 
 our own generation appear willing to admit. The opinion 
 which tends to prevail at the present day is a reaction 
 from the opinion of our forefathers. They believed that 
 genius implied, if it did not authorize, an independence of 
 common rules which society would be little disposed to 
 tolerate in people of ordinary endowment. We, on the 
 contrary, like our men of genius to be exactly like other 
 respectable people, both in education and in habits of 
 life, and we like it to be supposed that they can readily 
 conform in all respects to the exigencies of established 
 usage. It is quite true that they do not declare war against 
 Society with the fierce disdain of Byron or the indignant 
 revolt of Shelley, nor do they generally affect any pecul- 
 iarity of costume ; and yet the greatest of them still 
 cherish, though in unobtrusive ways, the independence 
 dear to their kind. It is needless to mention names, but 
 if the reader will think over the short list of men of real 
 genius in the present age, he will at once perceive that 
 their conformity to usage is only external ; that their 
 contact with the ordinary world is, as Stuart Mill said. 
 
 
Genius and Eccentricity. 3 
 
 slight and at long intervals, and that there are lives as 
 quietly devoted to high pursuits as that which was led 
 on the mount which reflects itself in the little mere of 
 Rydal. 
 
 The life of Turner, which I am now to relate, is the 
 life of a man of genius ; and it so happens that certain 
 influences, more or less obvious or subtle, conspired 
 together to push this man outside the ordinary round t)f 
 English existence, and to make him what is called 
 eccentric. It would be well, perhaps, if we knew exactly 
 what we mean by eccentricity, when we apply it to such 
 a life as his. Do we mean that the eccentric man has no 
 centre, or that his centre does not happen to coincide 
 with ours .'' If we mean the first we imply censure, for 
 every man's efforts ought to be centred on a chief pur- 
 pose and limited by the circumference of a conscious 
 self-restraint ; but if, in calling any one eccentric, we 
 mean only that his centre does not happen precisely to 
 coincide with ours, then we simply state a fact which 
 implies no more moral condemnation than if we said 
 that the circle of his horizon was not what we see from 
 our own windows. The existence of Turner had two 
 centres, like an ellipse, and to these he remained true to 
 the end of his days. He had the passion for art — that 
 is, for expressing himself in art — and he had the far 
 commoner passion for accumulating money. Round 
 these two centres his existence moved with the regu- 
 larity of the " unhasting, unresting " stars. The ultimate 
 results were a great fame and a great fortune, and such 
 a colossal " oeuvre " as no other landscape-painter ever left 
 
4 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 behind him, if both quantity and quality are considered. 
 The celebrity of the great artist is still increasing steadily. 
 Every year adds to the number of those who are culti- 
 vated enough to understand him, and who can, at least 
 in some degree, measure the breadth of the abyss which 
 separates such performance as his from commonplace 
 work in art. 
 
 The Muse of Painting, if we may imagine such a 
 sister amongst the immortal nine, would scarcely, per- 
 haps, if the matter had been left to her own wisdom, 
 unaided by the counsels of Minerva, have chosen for j 
 the birthplace of the prince of landscape-painters the ; 
 street where he first saw light. She might have chosen 
 rather, if only partially wise, some beautiful city, had 
 there been any such in the eighteenth century upon the j 
 earth, whose fair palaces of marble rose in purest per- ; 
 fection above groves of the oriental plane, on the last 
 wave of green land between the purple mountains and 
 the cerulean southern sea. In such a birthplace the 
 marvelous child might have inhaled beauty like the air, 
 and as he grew from infancy to youth, from youth to 
 manhood, might have accumulated in his memory a 
 great store of wonderful unpainted pictures, to be realized 
 by him afterwards in his art, when the skill in it came 
 to him with time. Or, again, had the Muse been utterly 
 unwise and left to her own unwisdom, she might have 
 placed the .child far away from all cities whatever, in the 
 heart of some lovely land in the happiest of climates, 
 where, day by day, the warm sun awakened a sparse 
 Arcadian population, nestling here and there in the 
 
The Birth of a Landscape-Painter. 
 
 5 
 
 windings of their sweet vales. A foolish Muse might 
 have fancied that the lovelier the land round about the 
 child, the fairer would be his performance ; that if his 
 eyes were saturated with beauty through every sunny 
 day and every moonlight night, he would produce beauty 
 by necessity, as a barrel will yield you wine if it has 
 been filled with it after the vintage. 
 
 But however Providence acts with us, whether it be by 
 determining specially where a child is to be born, or simply 
 by so arranging matters that there is a certain proportion 
 of babies of genius, whose faculties will be developed if 
 circumstances happen to be propitious, and will remain 
 for ever undeveloped if circumstances are unfavorable, the 
 plain fact is that Turner was born in a situation really 
 much better for him than those which we have just been 
 imagining, or than any other which we should have been 
 likely to imagine. It is, I know, a common error to con- 
 clude that circumstances have been favorable when men 
 have achieved their success by vigorously contending 
 against them, but in this instance there is little danger of 
 our falling into that mistake. Landscape-painting is the 
 most recent of the fine arts, yet it is already old enough 
 for us to have ascertained the social conditions which pro- 
 duce it. We know, for example, quite positively that 
 uneducated persons who live in the midst of beautiful 
 scenery are entirely insensible to its beauty. If we try to 
 find out, by talking with them, what their impressions 
 and sentiments really are, the result is always the same : 
 they always show that what they mean by a beautiful 
 country is a country where the l^nd is productive, and 
 
6 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 that an ugly country, in their language, means simply a 
 poor one. In those exceptional cases, where the rustic 
 mind may have some dim, unuttered sentiment of natural 
 beauty, it remains satisfied with the sight of the natural 
 objects themselves, and never attempts to express its 
 feeling about them in works of art. Theodore Rousseau 
 was one day painting a study of an oak-tree from nature, 
 when a peasant accosted him and asked, with the usual 
 disdain which rustics have for landscape-painters, what 
 was the use of making an " image " of the tree, since he 
 could look at the tree itself if he cared to see it } This 
 is exactly the rustic opinion about the uselessness of 
 landscape art, when by accident the bucolic mind be- 
 comes aware that such an art exists. We may conclude, 
 therefore, at once, that a landscape-painter must either 
 be born in a town or else under the influences of a town. 
 The next question is, whether it will be an advantage to 
 him, as a landscape-painter, that he should see much 
 human or architectural beauty in the town, such as was 
 visible in the most glorious cities of Greece or Italy 
 when men's bodies and surroundings looked their best, 
 when beautiful costumes were often to be seen, and yet 
 more beautiful nakedness, and when the poor man might 
 lounge in the sunshine, and feast his eyes with the glory 
 of palaces and temples, and radiant, god-like images, on 
 which no soot-specks fell .-• Here, again, the true answer 
 to the question is not the answer which would naturally 
 first occur. When the beauty of cities and of human 
 life in them is sufficiently perfect to satisfy the taste of a 
 town-born artist, he will probably paint the figure, and 
 
Turner s Birth and Circumstances. 
 
 feel but little inducement to indulge the landscape 
 passion, if even it could become strong enough under 
 such circumstances to produce any conscious longing. 
 The city, then, where the landscape-painter is born, 
 ought not to be very beautiful ; it ought rather to be 
 decidedly unsatisfying to the artistic sense, and the 
 people in it ought not to be beautiful either. It would 
 be well, too, if it were vast, so that the young genius 
 should not escape from it too easily into the country, but 
 be tormented with that aching of the heart which is the 
 nostalgia of the lovers of Nature. Besides these con- 
 ditions there is one which is absolutely essential — the 
 child must be so situated that it will meet with the work 
 of some previous landscape-painter; for art is always in 
 great part a tradition, even when practised by the most 
 original geniuses. There has never been an instance of 
 a great artist suddenly arising in a community outside 
 of artistic tradition. We speak loosely of artists who 
 have lived in isolation, but the really isolated artist has 
 never existed. This is so true that it is true even of the 
 specialties of art. An accomplished landscape-painter 
 could never be formed where there had not been a pre- 
 vious gradual development of landscape-painting to pre- 
 pare the way for him, and educate him, even although 
 the community were rich in sculptors and figure-painters. 
 The early circumstances of Turner were apparently 
 unfavorable, but in reality most favorable, to his de- 
 velopment. He was the only son of a London barber, 
 and born in a narrow central street called Maiden Lane, 
 which many of my readers will no doubt have visited. 
 
8 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 for its connection with his name. The date of his birth 
 is the 23rd of April, 1775. 
 
 It was a great thing for him that the place of his birth 
 should be a city, and a large ugly English city, where 
 works of art might be seen occasionally, but where the 
 sense of beauty could never be satisfied by the aspect of 
 the streets and people. Equally favorable were the 
 social circumstd'nces of his birth. He was born exactly 
 in that rank of society where artistic genius had, at that 
 time, the best chance of opening, like a safely-sheltered 
 flower. To perceive the full truth of this, we have nothing 
 to do but imagine him born in any other than the humbler 
 middle class. If his father had been a little lower in the 
 world, the boy would have been fixed down to some kind 
 of humble labor from his childhood, and held down to 
 it afterwards by want ; this at least is so probable as to 
 be almost a certainty, for Turner's genius discovered 
 itself very gradually, and he had no explosive originality 
 at the beginning. But what is quite a certainty is, the 
 stifling of his gift in any English family of that time which 
 had the slightest pretension to aristocracy. If Turner had 
 been what is called a gentleman, he would have been 
 exposed to influences which are as deadly to artistic 
 genius as an unbreathable gas is to the animal organism. 
 Without any open discussion of the subject, without so 
 much as one act of rebellion on his part, he would have 
 known, by the subtle instinctive perception of youth, that 
 the pursuit of art involved a mysterious degradation, and 
 in some vague, undefinable way, was disapproved of with 
 wonderful unanimity by the public opinion of his class. 
 
 asi 
 
 Miiib 
 
 \MtM 
 
 
Condition of Landscape Art. 9 
 
 The gentry of that time were of two kinds, the educated 
 and the uneducated ; the latter in strong majority. But 
 it so happened that the education which was given to such 
 as knew anything at all, left them as ignorant of the fine 
 arts as their untaught, rustic brothers, whilst it gave them 
 in addition, the pride of classical learning, from the serene 
 height of which it seemed to them that the fine arts were 
 farther than ever beneath them. The calm conviction of 
 the classically educated gentleman that he knew every- 
 thing compatible with the noble life, and that all studies 
 but his own were degrading, was more deadly to artistic 
 genius in his class than the simple stupidity of a purely 
 animal existence. So effectually did the prejudices of the 
 age repress the artistic sympathies, that even its brightest 
 and clearest intelligences were unable to understand 
 painting. Byron scorned it utterly, as became a well- 
 educated nobleman ; Scott, having a kinder and less 
 scornful disposition, did not express any open contempt 
 for it, but there is not a trace of evidence in his volumin- 
 ous writings that the influences of painting had ever been 
 really felt by him, or had any share in his education. 
 The ideas about art and artists which prevailed in the 
 England of our grandfathers were simply these. It was 
 believed that painting had a' practical use in handing 
 down to posterity the likenesses of important people, and 
 artists were considered to be clever workmen who gave 
 proof of a certain utility to society in doing this. Besides 
 this appreciation of portraits, there existed a futile kind 
 of connoisseurship, which the higher intelligence of the 
 time despised without trying to substitute anything 
 
lO 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 better for it, and " Dutch drolleries " or " conversation 
 pieces" afforded some amusement in drawing-rooms. 
 Beyond these ideas the general mind of the age was a 
 perfect blank, so far as the art of painting was concerned, 
 and it was not possible that the gentry of that day should 
 think of it as a medium for the expression of noble 
 imagination, of rare knowledge, or great thoughts. 
 
 Perhaps the lower middle class, in which Turner was 
 born, had not any clearer understanding of the subject, 
 but at any rate it was not prevented from touching 
 brushes and color by the dread of losing its gentility. 
 William Turner, the artist's father, had used a soft 
 badger-brush for daily lathering of people's chins, and 
 did not see any reason why his son should not use a 
 tool not much unlike it upon canvas. The father had 
 earned his living by manual labor of a skilful descrip- 
 tion, and so, in another way, might the son. It was of 
 course impossible for Turner's father, or for any one else, 
 to foresee the future greatness of his child ; for he was 
 not precocious, as Landseer was, in the kind of art which 
 he afterwards pursued. The elder Turner probably 
 looked upon painting simply as a profession which 
 might turn out to be lucrative, if the youth came to be 
 skilful in portraiture. 
 
 The date of Turner's birth, as well as the locality of 
 it, was highly favorable to the career he had before him. 
 The whole art of landscape-painting had been prepared 
 for the arrival of a great genius, who, after mastering 
 all that had been done already, should extend its bound- 
 aries in the realm of nature ; and yet at the same time 
 
 MiMttMttttMM 
 
 rrrr 
 
Condition of La7idscape Art. 
 
 II 
 
 the art was still young enough to leave ample scope for 
 originality. Claude Lorrain had opened men's eyes to 
 the beauty of rich sylvan masses, to the poetry of far 
 faint distances, and to the glory of the summer light on 
 golden southern afternoons. He had shown, too, what 
 a charm might be given to landscape-painting by taste 
 and skill in composition, by" a musical sense of harmony 
 in forms and tones. But Claude, fortunately for his 
 successors, had never been an exhaustive genius, had 
 never been tormented by that restless spirit of discovery 
 which takes the freshness from so many fields. The 
 other well-known landscape-painters, Poussin and Sal- 
 vator, had opened other ranges of feeling than the 
 amenity of Claude, but they had contented themselves 
 with a very limited expression. It was much, however, 
 for a successor that the notion of a possible sublimity 
 in pure landscape should have been already exemplified 
 and received. When Turner began to work, the two 
 ideas that landscape might be beautiful, as in Claude^ or 
 sublime, as in Salvator Rosa, were so familiar to the 
 general mind that every tolerably educated person had 
 associated one of these names with the loveliness of 
 nature, and the other with its wild grandeur. If the 
 novelists of those days had to describe some rich and 
 pleasant scene under a mellow light, they said that it 
 was such a scene as Claude would have loved to depict; 
 and if they wanted to convey an appalling sense of 
 savageness when the story led them into a rocky country, 
 they invoked the name of Salvator. Besides these two 
 leading notes of beauty and sublimity, a third note had 
 
12 
 
 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 been already struck in the older landscape, that of 
 homely, rural peace. Cuyp had painted the quiet Dutch 
 meadow -lands in their own sunshine, and had proved 
 that no scenery is so humble as to be beneath the atten- 
 tion of an artist. A whole company of clever Dutchmen 
 had painted their muddy seas, flat shores, and more or 
 less picturesque shipping. All these men, true pioneers 
 of the free modern art which makes the whole visible 
 world its studio, had gone before Turner in their several 
 directions, and cleared his various paths. The technical 
 art of painting was also prepared by former experience, 
 so that he had simply to learn it, and was not called 
 upon to invent it. Hundreds of able men had used oil- 
 color soundly and well before the birth of Turner, who 
 indeed, never equalled the best of them in the handicraft 
 of their common art. In water-color his position was 
 more fortunate still, for his predecessors taught him the 
 safe beginnings of a good method, and led him just up 
 to that point in education from which a man of genius 
 can go forward by himself and brilliantly complete his 
 art. Paul Sandby and Cozens prepared his way, doing 
 all for him that was necessary at the time, and inducing 
 him to adopt simple methods and quiet coloring, more 
 favorable to ultimate mastery than the showy tricks and 
 glaring pigments which have since become so general. 
 
 The art of painting, when in its perfection, is always 
 composed of three elements. It is one of the forms of 
 poetry, but besides that it is a science and a handicraft. 
 The science is the knowledge of the appearance of 
 things, the handicraft is the workmanlike use of color. 
 
Early Educational Irifluences. 
 
 13 
 
 Turner was born with the poetic faculty, but this would 
 have been sterile without teachers who could help him in 
 Ins advance to skill and knowledge. The circumstances 
 of his education were in many ways strongly in his 
 favor, and when we know what he did in his maturity, 
 and how his youth was passed, we can easily trace the 
 influence of his different early studies and occupations 
 in the remarkable catholicity of his taste and the variety 
 of his performance. His mind was like a garden in 
 which many seeds were sown at the right time, some by 
 his father's care, but many others also by mere accident, 
 and as the soil was very fertile and rich, most of them 
 grew up vigorously in due season. There was not much 
 order in Turner's knowledge at first, but he endeavored 
 with partial success, to introduce some orderly arrange- 
 ment at a later period of his life. 
 
 The first influence is exercised by the father and 
 mother. In Turner's case that of the mother can only 
 have been hereditary, through the blood, for she became 
 insane and was removed from his father's house. Even 
 while she remained there the incipient evil declared 
 itself in her violent temper. It is said that she belonged 
 to a family of squires, the Marshalls of Shelford Manor, 
 Nottingham ; but she was born at Islington, and was 
 probably, even before her marriage, in a comparatively 
 humble rank of life, notwithstanding her descent from 
 Shelford. The question whether Turner's mother was, 
 or was not, what we mean in English by the word 
 "lady," has an interest for us with regard to him which 
 is quite independent of genealogy, though genealogy is 
 
14 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 interesting also. A lady is a woman who clearly under- 
 stands and consistently practises, the refinements of a 
 highly-civilized existence ; and the most real distinction 
 between a lady, and a woman who is not a lady, is 
 that one is more civilized than the other, and more 
 determined to preserve the habits of a high civilization, 
 both in her own person and in all those over whom she 
 has authority. These habits are not simply habits of 
 expense ; it is cheaper to remain sober than to get 
 drunk, and yet it is more ladylike to be sober. It does 
 not cost more money to speak good English than bad, 
 or to be gentle than rude ; yet a lady always, from pre- 
 ference, speaks correctly and has gentle manners. It so 
 happens by the force of circumstances that there are 
 more ladies in the upper classes than in the lower, and 
 that there is a severer public opinion in the upper classes 
 about most of the things which, taken together, consti- 
 tute civilization, because it is a fault in rich people (who 
 have such great facilities) not to be clean, and cultivated 
 and polite, when it may only be a misfortune in poor 
 ones. There is, then, really such a thing as ladyhood, 
 and it is one of the strongest of civilizing influences. 
 Turner, there is reason to believe, notwithstanding the 
 position of his mother's ancestry, never came under that 
 influence, and the want of it may have been the great 
 reast-a why he was never a perfectly civilized man. We 
 know really nothing about his mother, except that she 
 had a bad temper, that her home was an unhappy one, 
 that she became insane and was removed from it. Of 
 his father we know more. William Turner, the barber. 
 
Turner at School. 
 
 15 
 
 was a Devonshire man who had settled in London. His 
 great characteristics appear to have been the especial 
 virtues of the middle class, industry and economy. In 
 teaching his son these two things he helped him in the 
 artistic career itself, for without the most persistent 
 industry the painter would never have mastered his 
 art, and without the strictest economy in early years 
 he would never have been able to pursue it with 
 sufficient independence for the attainment of greatness. 
 Thus William Turner gave his son both a sword and 
 a shield for the battle of life, and if we were writing 
 an allegory we might say that on the sword was en- 
 graven the word Diligentia, and on the shield Parsi- 
 inonia. Few young men need these virtues so much as 
 a young painter, for his art bristles all over with diffi- 
 culties, and until fame is won he may at any time be 
 compelled to abandon it from sheer necessity, against 
 which there is no defence but thrift. Happily for 
 Turner his father cared also for his education, and sent 
 him to school at Brentford when he was ten vears old. 
 The boy went to school afterwards in London, and lastly 
 at Margate. What this school education did for him 
 may not appear much if we look at it as men of very 
 advanced culture look upon education, for it is certain 
 that Turner showed few signs of literary training. He 
 never, in after-life, knew any language at all. He did 
 not know any foreign language, and he never mastered 
 his native tongue. There is nothing surprising in this. 
 The whole class to which Turner belonged was then, and 
 is still, very imperfectly acquainted with the nobler half 
 
i6 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 of the English tongue. " The ignorance in this depart- 
 ment," says Professor Seeley, " of those who leave school 
 at fourteen or sixteen, is deplorable. It is far more than a 
 mere want of precision in the notions attached to words. 
 It is far more also than a mere ignorance of uncommon 
 and philosophical words. There is a large class of words 
 in the language, originally perhaps philosophical, but 
 which have passed so completely into the common parlance 
 of well-educated people that they cannot now be called 
 philosophical, but which remain to the class I speak of 
 perfectly obscure. The consequence is that such people, 
 in reading not merely abstruse books, but books in the 
 smallest degree speculative or generalizing, constantly 
 mistake the meaning of what they read. It is not that 
 they understand their author imperfectly ; they totally 
 misunderstand him, and suppose him to say something 
 which he does not say. It is no wonder that such per- 
 sons have no turn for reading." This is quite a true 
 account of the condition of literary culture in the class 
 which is educated as Turner was in those three schools 
 which he attended in his boyhood. English is not 
 really taught in such schools, and the boys have not the 
 time which would be necessary to the mastery of any 
 other language, so they leave without knowing any 
 language whatever. In a few very rare cases a taste 
 for literature stimulates them to learn English in after- 
 life ; but the true, strong phalanx of the class goes at 
 once energetically into business, and remains for ever 
 totally incapable either of using the higher English itself, 
 or of understanding it when used by others. And in 
 
Turner at School. 
 
 17 
 
 addition to the general unculture of his class Turner had 
 a personal difficulty, in his own mental idiosyncracy. He 
 might have been taught English by a very patient and 
 able master, entirely devoted to him, but the master 
 would have found the work of instruction a heavy 
 undertaking. The truth is that Turner was one of those 
 persons who seem born to be illiterate. He had not the 
 literary faculty. To the end of his life he was never 
 sure of getting safely to the end of a written sentence. 
 He never was able to spell. And still, notwithstanding 
 this candid admission of his deficiency, we think it 
 evident that his schooling must have established a wide 
 difference between him and a lad who has never been 
 taught anything at all, such as a Suffolk ploughboy 
 before the invention of School Boards. His years of 
 schooling did not make him a linguist, but it is highly 
 probable that they conveyed a good many facts to his 
 mind, and a certain quantity of legends and traditions,' 
 which, to a poetical temperament like his, are quite as 
 valuable as facts. Some of the great classical traditions 
 must have reached him in this way ; he must have heard 
 of Greece and Rome, and been brought nearer to antiquity 
 than those disinherited ones who live exclusively in the 
 present. He must have learned, too, that England is 
 not the world. It requires little knowledge of geography 
 to be aware that the Alps exist, that there are such lakes 
 as Como and Lucerne, such rivers as the Seine and the 
 Loire ; and yet this knowledge, inevitable as it seems to 
 all educated persons, is by no means universal, even now. 
 If Turner had never been sent to school at all, it is quite. 
 2 
 
1 8 The Life of J. M. IV. Tunier. 
 
 possible that he might have remained ignorant, that his 
 curiosity might never have been awakened. His father 
 came from South Molton, a Devonshire village. If he 
 had remained there, and not cared to educate the child, 
 the boyish imagination of Turner would never have 
 wandered over the noblest scenery in Europe. It is the 
 dreams of youth which become the realities of manhood. 
 Let us not, then, undervalue the schooling which opened 
 wide fields for dreaming to a boy of such an imaginative 
 temperament. 
 
 The future landscape-painter was fortunate in the 
 localities of two out of his three schools — Brentford, by 
 one of the richest parts of the Thames, then much less 
 populous than it is now, and Margate, on the sea -shore. 
 Think of the difference between two such places as these 
 and a place like Rugby, for example, where Dr. Arnold 
 could find absolutely nothing to gratify his instinct for 
 natural beauty ! I have no desire to attach an exag- 
 gerated importance to the circumstances of my hero's 
 youth, and should prefer, if possible, to steer clear of 
 that ancient error of biographers which prophesies after 
 the event, and shows how the kind gods watched over 
 the great man's infancy, and led him from strength to 
 strength. But without idealizing the story of a life, we 
 may and must attribute an enormous importance to the 
 influences which affected its earlier years. The power of 
 such influences depends on the inborn susceptibilities. 
 When the idiosyncrasy is keenly alive to external nature, 
 the scenes amidst which youth is passed leave their 
 impress to the close of life. Every reader of these pages] 
 
 ^ 
 
Paternal Encouragement. 
 
 19 
 
 who has the landscape instinct knows this by his own 
 experience. He remembers every hill and every hollow 
 in the land of his boyhood, and if, luckily, there was a 
 stream there, he remembers every sleepy pool and every 
 babbling shallow. Even the very stones are like friends 
 to him, and he pardons the hardness of their hearts. In 
 the case of Turner, we know quite certainly that he 
 became a great painter of sea and river, especially of the 
 sea -coast, and of stately and noble rivers, such as the 
 Seine and the Loire. It is, therefore, a probability 
 which closely approaches certainty, that the Thames at 
 Brentford, and the sea and coast at Margate, were not 
 without influence upon his destiny, in determining the 
 tendency of his affections. It is known, too, that he 
 began to draw by instinct in his school-days, and that he 
 tried to imitate what he saw. There is a story that his 
 first artistic attempt which attracted the notice of his 
 father was a copy of an heraldic lion, which he had 
 made from memory, having seen the original in the 
 house of one of his father's customers. This beginning 
 is interesting as a proof that, even in boyhood, he felt 
 some reliance upon the faculty which was the mainstay 
 of his future work, for without memory a painter of land- 
 cape effect is like a carpenter without wood. 
 
 The elder Turner at once perceived that there were 
 artistic faculties in his boy ; and instead of doing all he 
 could to thwart them, as is the usual habit of parents, he 
 determined to encourage them, and give his boy whatever 
 help might be attainable. Surely this circumstance, that 
 his father was a friend and not an enemy to his genius* 
 
20 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 counts for much amongst the many favorable powers 
 which led Turner to wealth and fame. The father was 
 relatively an enlightened person with regard to the fine 
 arts. It was a great thing at that time, when the English 
 school was so little encouraged, to know that Art was 
 alive in England, and to be at all hopeful about the future 
 career of a young man who dedicated himself to such a 
 pursuit. Even in our own day, when so much noise has 
 been made about modern art by picture -dealers and 
 writers in the newspapers, there are still millions of 
 people in the country who are either entirely ignorant of 
 its existence, or else consider you eccentric and unpracti- 
 cal if you take any interest in it. The older Turner, like 
 the Florentine barber in Romola, lived in a centre of cul- 
 ture, and though Maiden Lane is not in appearance more 
 beautiful or artistic than some street in Manchester or 
 Birmingham, it is even yet, and was far more decidedly 
 at that time, much closer to the artistic centre of England. 
 It is known positively that Stothard went to get his hair 
 cut by the barber in Maiden Lane, and that the barber 
 and his client talked together about art, for William Tur- 
 ner said to Stothard, " My son is going to be a painter." 
 The barber's shop was near Somerset House, and not very 
 far from the studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds. It is not un- 
 reasonable to suppose that, at a time when artists lived 
 much nearer to Covent Garden than they generally do at 
 the present day, the elder Turner would be brought into 
 contact with others besides Stothard. A contemporary 
 of the artist, whose name has not been preserved, said 
 that the boy began his professional career very early, by 
 
 J 
 
Beginnings in Art. 
 
 21 
 
 hanging little water-color drawings round the entrance to 
 his father's shop, the prices being duly marked upon 
 them, and not exceeding three shillings for each separate 
 work of art. Supposing this to be true, and it is quite 
 according to the character of both father and son, who 
 knew the value of three shillings, we consider that it was 
 an excellent thing for the young artist. It was certainly 
 a very humble kind of publicity, and yet sufficient for a 
 stimulus, and much more encouraging than being refused 
 at the Academy exhibition. Not all the Academicians 
 united had power enough to close that other little exhibi- 
 tion round the barber's door. If there were a few sales 
 they must have been an immense encouragement to a 
 poor boy — quite enough to keep up an ardent interest in 
 his work. 
 
 About this time he copied Paul Sandby, thus laying 
 the foundation of his own future excellence in water-color 
 much more securely than if he had tried to copy one of 
 our brilliant modern water-color men. He also began to 
 work seriously from nature, no longer as a schoolboy 
 amuses himself with sketching, but in the temper of an 
 incipient artist. A boyish friendship with Girtin, the 
 young genius who might have been a rival if he had lived 
 past early manhood, strengthened young Turner in his 
 artistic determinations, by preserving him from too much 
 solitude in his pursuit. Girtin and Turner worked 
 together at the trade of coloring prints : dull work, per- 
 haps, for two great geniuses as those boys really were, 
 and yet excellent practice for beginners in the technical 
 business of water-color. Neither of the two friends was 
 
22 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 likely so far to forget the culture of his own abilities as to 
 settle down permanently to the mechanical handicraft of 
 art without aspiring to higher things, so they both, in 
 times of comparative liberty, made simple landscapes in 
 the topographic fashion of those days. From the age of 
 thirteen, when Turner left the last of his three schools, 
 he pursued the practical work of art, in one way or an- 
 other, almost without intermission till old age. 
 
 The boy did not, at this time, remain exclusively in 
 London. He went to Bristol occasionally to visit a friend 
 of his father, a Mr. Harraway, for whom he drew^ his own 
 portrait. In London he was never without useful help, 
 both in instruction and employment. Porden, an archi- 
 tect, employed him to add water-color backgrounds to his 
 architectural designs. When these happened to be 
 country houses. Turner would have a certain limited scope 
 for the exercise of his talent in landscape, and we find 
 that he availed himself of such opportunities very will- 
 ingly, and was highly appreciated by Mr. Porden, who 
 offered to take him as an apprentice without the usual 
 premium. One of his educators was a perspective 
 draughtsman, Thomas Malton, who lived in Long Acre. 
 Turner afterwards said that he learned perspective from 
 Malton, "but Malton complained of his pupil's incapacity, 
 and took him back to his father's house as unteachable. 
 On a second trial Turner got on no better, and was again 
 returned upon his father's hands. There is nothing in 
 this which need surprise us in the least. The science of 
 perspective, as taught geometrically by Malton, lies quite 
 outside of the purely artistic powers, and Turner's genius 
 
 J 
 
Early Study of Architecture. 
 
 23 
 
 was essentially and exclusively artistic. Scientific per- 
 spective is a pursuit which may amuse or occupy a mathe- 
 matician, but the stronger the artistic faculty in l painter 
 the less he is likely to take to it, for it exercises other 
 faculties than his. Besides this, he feels instinctively that 
 he can do very well without it. He learns natural per- 
 spective mainly by the eye, and when he works from 
 imagination he simply sees the objects in his own mental 
 vision, and draws them as he sees them, very much as 
 they would appear to him in nature. * The failure of the 
 young Turner to learn scientific perspective is therefore 
 quite in harmony with what we know of his intellectual 
 constitution, and need not surprise us more than his life- 
 long difficulty about language. 
 
 The young artist at this time was brought into still 
 closer connection with architecture. He had already, as 
 we have seen, worked industriously upon architectural 
 drawings, by surrounding the buildings with sky and 
 landscape of his own, and in this he had given satisfaction 
 to his employers. A step further in the same direction 
 might make him an architectural draughtsman, and possi- 
 bly, in the future, an architect. His father decided that 
 this step should be taken, and the boy was placed, at the 
 age of fourteen or fifteen, in Mr. Hardwick's office. This 
 may be considered one of the most fortunate circum^ 
 stances of his life. The architectural labors, which he 
 went through with his usual diligence, must have been 
 useful to him afterwards when he introduced architecture 
 into his works, which he did very frequently ; but besides 
 this Mr. Hardwick had a lively appreciation of artistic 
 
24 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 talent, saw evidence of it in his young pupil, and said 
 that he ought to go and study at the Royal Academy. 
 There are differences of opinion amongst landscape- 
 painters about the utility of Academic training to an 
 artist who desires to pursue their branch of the profession. 
 Some landscape-painters say the Academic training is of 
 little use to them, or that it is certainly not so useful as 
 studies from landscape-nature out of doors ; others believe 
 that the work done in Academies, though it has so little 
 apparent connection with landscape, is a better prepara- 
 tion for the future work of a landscape-painter than the 
 premature study of trees, and hills, and water. There are 
 reasons in favor of the latter opinion which are not 
 obvious at first sight, but they are of a kind which the 
 most intelligent artists are the most likely to estimate 
 justly. There is an almost universal illusion that land- 
 scape-painting is comparatively easy, an illusion which is 
 based upon the truth that accurate drawing is not essen- 
 tial to a landscape-painter. There are, however, other 
 qualities than mere accuracy in good landscape-painting, 
 and other difficulties in the representation of nature than 
 a simple definition of its forms. The greatest difficulty of 
 this branch of art may be expressed in a single word — 
 complexity. The complexity of natural landscape is such 
 that it cannot be understood, and therefore cannot be 
 interpreted, without powers both of analysis and of 
 synthesis which a young student is not likely to have 
 acquired. A young student, in the presence of landscape- 
 nature, is bewildered by the intricacy and abundance of 
 the material before him ; he requires a simpler model to 
 
 ■ 
 
Academic Training. 
 
 25 
 
 begin with, for he ought to pass from the simple to the 
 complex; and besides simplicity in the model, he requires 
 permanence of effect. In a climate so changeable as that 
 of England, not only do the effects change from hour to 
 hour, and in distant scenery from minute to minute ; but 
 there is never any probability that if you go to a place on 
 three successive days, exactly at the same moment, you 
 will find your first effect again. Every one knows how 
 entirely different a place looks at different times, but the 
 landscape-painter alone feels this changeableness as an 
 inconvenience to his studies. To the mature and accom- 
 plished artist, who works from memory, aided by rapid 
 notes, the changeableness of nature is an additional 
 source of interest in his observations ; to the beginner, 
 it is one of the most serious hindrances which can be 
 imagined. Now the study of the human figure, as it is 
 pursued everywhere in Academies, avoids both these 
 difficulties of complexity and changeableness, whilst it 
 thoroughly educates the eye to the perception of line, 
 projection, and color. It does not educate the special 
 faculty of the landscape-painter, which is a peculiar kind 
 of memory, but it prepares him for his future work by a 
 steady training in the elementary business of art ; and 
 thus, by giving him the knowledge and power which all 
 painters must have in common (knowledge of objects and 
 power to represent them), leaves him free, in after-years, 
 to concentrate his attention more especially upon the 
 particular culture which will be needed for his own 
 career. This, I believe, is a fair statement of the advan- 
 tages of Academic study to a landscape-painter, so far 
 
26 
 
 The Life of J. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 as it goes ; yet it might be carried farther without 
 exaggeration. No one who is practically acquainted 
 with the subject will deny that a figure, placed in a cer- 
 tain light, is as much an object under an effect as a near 
 mountain in clear weather ; it is, therefore, an initiation 
 in the laws of effect as well as in those of form and 
 color. Still more decidedly may effect be studied in a 
 gallery of statues, which is sure to exhibit permanently 
 many of the most delicate phenomena of light and 
 shade. You have not, it is true, in living figures or 
 statues, those sudden and surprising revolutions of color, 
 which are produced in mountain scenery by changing 
 effects of light ; and it is better in the early study of 
 phenomena so difficult to account for, that the mind 
 should not find itself confronted, just at first, by almost 
 insoluble problems. What we maintain is, that Acade- 
 mic study is the best general initiation in the art of 
 painting, because it gives the best opportunities for a 
 rational advance in study, from the simple to the com- 
 plex, from what is permanent enough to be copied quietly 
 to what is so transient that it can only be rendered with 
 the help of the memory. To be a pupil of the Royal 
 Academy was, therefore, the best thing which could have 
 happened to Turner in his youth, even though he was 
 not to be a figure-painter in after-life. It may be regretted, 
 perhaps, that the Academy did not take more pains to 
 impress upon the minds of its pupils the necessity, or at 
 least the desirableness, of painting their pictures so as 
 to make them last : but neither Turner nor Reynolds 
 learned their suicidal habits in technical matters from 
 
Academic Training. 
 
 V 
 
 Academic tradition : it was their own fatal ingenuity in 
 after-life which led them to discover the arts by which a 
 picture may be so painted that it will become a ruin 
 during the lifetime of the artist. The Academic tradi- 
 tion of oil-painting is safe enough, so far as permanence 
 is concerned. A few well-known and very permanent 
 pigments are commonly used by students, most of them 
 being the cheap and durable earths ; nor is there anything 
 in the Academic manner of using them which necessarily 
 leads to the destruction of the work. But why need we 
 argue in generalities with reference to the technical educa- 
 tion of an artist whose works are here to bear testimony 
 themselves .-' Turner began by painting soundly in oil ; 
 his unsound work belongs to his full maturity. We know 
 on excellent authority — the authority of the owner — 
 that the portrait which Turner painted of himself, at the 
 age of seventeen, is still in a perfect state of preserva- 
 tion. The pigments used in that portrait, and the 
 manner of applying them, were alike in accordance with 
 the Academic tradition of the time. Another portrait of 
 himself, about the same age, in the National collection, is 
 also preserved. We believe, then, that although the 
 Academy neither did nor could do anything to develop 
 the wonderful poetic power which astonished the world 
 much later, it carried forward Turner's early education in 
 a practically safe way, and taught him more than he 
 would have learned by continuing to copy Paul Sandby, 
 or by making sketches of landscape-nature with no better 
 guidance than his own imperfect knowledge. 
 
 A very distinguished living landscape-painter, whose 
 
28 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 works have deservedly won public favor by their union 
 of a fine sentiment for wild northern scenery with un- 
 common executive skill, earnestly recommended one of 
 his less skilful brethren to make portraits frequently, in 
 order to gain more strength and facility in the representa- 
 tion of objects. The artist who gave this advice had 
 himself painted portraits exclusively for many years, and 
 attributed much of his skill in landscape to this early 
 practice in what may seem a totally different branch of 
 art. The advice was good for the reasons we have given 
 in favor of figure-study generally. The art of painting 
 combines two things, the representation of objects and 
 the representation of effects. A head is a good object to 
 study, because its forms are not accidental, but organic, 
 and because in hair, flesh, and eyes, it presents quite 
 different textures, besides whatever textures of dress 
 there may happen to be about and below the neck. A 
 head may also be well seen as the artist returns to his 
 work day after day, and it may be seen exactly under 
 the same effect of light. It is, at the same time, though 
 an organized object, free from the inconvenience of 
 intricacy. The structure of it, so far as it concerns an 
 artist, is simple and easily understood, after a little study 
 of anatomy. On the whole, a human head is the best 
 object to study which is readily accessible everywhere, 
 and this is the reason why it has been recommended, 
 even for the advancement of landscape-painters. 
 
 Turner, with his usual good fortune, which generally 
 led him to do the right thing at the right time, was 
 admitted to the house of Sir Joshua Reynolds, to paint 
 
A Professional Commencement. 
 
 29 
 
 there from that great master's works. At that time he 
 probably intended to be a portrait-painter, for portrait 
 was then the only really lucrative branch of art, and it is 
 very possible that if Reynolds had lived a few years 
 longer his great personal influence would have kept his 
 young pupil on the path which he himself had so suc- 
 cessfully followed. But it so happened that when Turner 
 entered the President's studio, Sir Joshua was approach- 
 ing the sad close of his labors and his life, so that his 
 personal influence was not continued long enough to 
 make Turner definitively a portrait-painter. 
 
 Another happy circumstance of Turner's early career 
 was that in those days a very young artist had some 
 chance of getting a picture into the Academy exhibition, 
 which is always an immense encouragement in itself, quite 
 independently of sale. The ninety years which have 
 elapsed since Turner's boyhood have multiplied the 
 number of artists in England so enormously, that few 
 young men in the present day can hope to see their 
 names in the Academy Catalogue. Turner's first picture 
 was exhibited in 1787, he being then twelve years old. 
 The subject of this picture was Dover Castle. After this 
 beginning he knew that the road to fame was open to 
 him, if he had genius and industry. Of genius there was 
 not as yet, nor for long afterwards, the slightest visible 
 evidence, but the habit of industry was already formed. 
 He kept to his early practice of washing in skies and back- 
 grounds for architects. After some years he began to 
 receive certain commissions for topographic drawings, or, 
 in other words, he began to get paid for doing exactly the 
 
30 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 kind of study which at that time of his life would be the 
 best preparation for his future work in landscape. This 
 topographic business took him to many interesting places, 
 and amongst others to Oxford. The natural vigor of 
 his constitution, one of the many blessings which were 
 favorable to his career, made him a pedestrian from the 
 very beginning, and led him into the habit of taking 
 memoranda as he walked. In this way he began quite 
 early in life to accumulate that prodigious mass of ob- 
 servations which provided the material for his artistic , 
 productiveness. His comparatively humble birth, and 
 the simple way of living to which he had always been 
 accustomed, made him contented with whatever accom- 
 modation he chanced to find upon the road. He had 
 never been spoiled by luxury, he had no gentility to 
 maintain ; wherever he went he carried with him the one 
 comfort money cannot procure, the regularity of healthy 
 sensation, the strength of his vigorous youth. There 
 are many situations in life apparently much more fortu- 
 nate than that of this poor young artist, but there are 
 few in reality so enviable. Entirely free from the time- 
 wasting obligations of people in the upper classes of 
 society, happy with small gains, receiving constant and 
 sufficient encouragement, the future lying before him 
 like the vast distances in the real world of his wanderings, 
 his whole heart in the study of his profession, this young 
 favorite of Nature and of Fortune began his great 
 career. 
 
 There are people stupid enough to wonder how a 
 poor barber's son could ever be a favorite of Fortune, 
 
Turner s Luck in Life. 
 
 31 
 
 as if the capricious goddess had no other gifts to bestow 
 than money and money's worth. Her gifts are only 
 good for their utility to the life and the work that has 
 to be done in it. With the wealth of Sir George Beau- 
 mont, Turner might have been an artist like Sir George 
 Beaumont, and gone on to the end of his days plotting 
 where to put his brown tree. Even a little learning 
 in Greek and Latin might have been the total destruc- 
 tion of his genius, by giving him the pride of scholarship 
 and closing his eyes to nature and to art. In this 
 case, then, both poverty and ignorance may have been 
 gracious gifts of Fortune. Nor was she really unkind 
 to him in giving for the residence of his soul that 
 uncomely face and body. Man is an intelligence served 
 by organs, and few intelligences have been better or 
 more regularly served in this way that that of Turner. 
 It is the simple truth that his legs were more useful 
 to him than a pair of horses. His eyes were so good 
 that when he painted he would throw a sketch on the 
 ground, or anywhere, and work easily from it if only 
 it happened to be the right side up. His nervous 
 system was so sound that he could work anywhere and 
 everywhere, and he was perfectly indifferent to those 
 arrangements for comfort which artists usually consider 
 essential, and which really are essential to them. His 
 small hand was so delicate that it could draw with a 
 degree of executive refinement which astonishes even 
 opticians, the most refined of all workmen in the pure 
 handicrafts. His arm was so steady that he habitually 
 painted on upright canvases without a mahl-stick, which 
 
32 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 all other painters find to be necessary. His constitutional 
 strength was such that he could work fifteen hours at a 
 stretch without weariness, and his digestion so vigorous 
 that all extremes of living were alike to him. It is true 
 that he was short and plain, but stature and beauty were 
 entirely unnecessary to his work. He was tall enough to 
 paint a large picture, and handsome enough to be himself 
 paintable in the freshness of his youth. Had he been 
 physically more attractive he might have been conscious _ 
 of the advantage, as he was afterwards conscious of his 
 disadvantage in this respect ; and he might have felt, like 
 other handsome men of genius, a desire to show himself 
 to people, and shine in society, which would probably 
 have been a great hindrance to his progress, if not abso- ; 
 lutely destructive to his originality. Such as Nature 
 m.ade him,, and as Fortune placed him, he was exactly so 
 constituted and so situated that his success in art, and 
 his happiness in it, became necessary consequences of 
 that harmony which has been considered the highest of 
 earthly felicities, the harmony between constitution and 
 conditions. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 The young artist. — Dr. Munro. — Girtin and Cozens. — Turner's early work 
 in oil. — Love and disappointment. — Absence of female influence. — A 
 dual life. — Turner a drawing-master. — He comes of age. — First northern 
 tour. — Dr. Whitaker. — Turner elected A. R. A. — His diploma picture. — 
 New and old Gothic. — Professional position in 1800. 
 
 "\T /"HEN as yet a mere boy, at an age when others are 
 preparing for some remotely future career, at an 
 age when many have not yet even made up their minds as 
 to the nature of their Hfe's occupation, Turner was 
 already actively engaged in his profession. At fifteen he 
 exhibited his view of the Archbishop's Palace at Lambeth, 
 and studied the same year at Eltham and Uxbridge 
 with a view to next year's exhibition. A year later, 
 with that readiness to seize upon an impression which 
 he retained to .the close of life, we find him draw- 
 ing the Pantheon after the fire, which was exhibited 
 in 1792, the artist being then seventeen years old ; and 
 it may be observed that in a study of his at Malmesbury 
 Abbey, for a drawing which was exhibited that year, he 
 had taken note of a shadow playing on tree-trunks in 
 the same spirit of observation which characterises the 
 memoranda of his fullest maturity. Another of Turner's 
 great permanent characteristics is visible at a very early 
 3 
 
34 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 period of his career. No landscape-painter was ever so 
 wide in range as he was. The exact opposite of Con- 
 stable, whose art was the expression of intense affection 
 for one locality, Turner took an interest in the whole 
 world of landscape, and, therefore, was of necessity a 
 traveller as well as a sketcher or maker of memoranda. 
 Now we have only to inquire into the occupations of his 
 earliest professional years to see at once that he got 
 into the habit of travelling, and had full opportunities for 
 indulging his instincts in that direction, ^t an age when 
 most young men are confined by school or apprenticeship. 
 He began by travelling in England and Wales, and had 
 studied a great variety of scenery before his twentieth 
 year. In 1793, being then eighteen, he was sent by one 
 of his employers. Walker, the publisher of the " Copper- 
 plate Magazine," to Kent, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, and 
 Cheshire. His drawings were engraved, even at that 
 early stage in his career — an immense encouragement to 
 a young artist, from the publicity which engraving gives, 
 and its consequent chances of fame. The exhibitions of ! 
 the Royal Academy were open to him from his boyhood, 
 and this encouraged him to work in color, and not to 
 confine himself to simple chiaroscuro drawing for the 
 engravers. Before he was twenty he had penetrated intc 
 Wales, very probably from Bristol, and had drawn the 
 river Monach, near the Devil's Bridge, in Cardiganshire ;1 
 he had also drawn at Tintern and Great Malvern. In 
 1794 he exhibited five works, but the next year he ex- 
 hibited eight, and the year following eleven. At twenty 
 he had drawn Lincoln, Peterborough, and Cambridge, 
 
Dr. Munro. 
 
 35 
 
 besides views in Denbighshire, Monmouthshire, and 
 Cardiganshire. At twenty-one he had visited the Isle of 
 Wight, besides Salisbury, Ely, and Llandaff. His first 
 Continental excursion did not take place until some years 
 later, but the Rhine and the Alps could be waited for 
 with patient hope by a youth who had England and 
 Wales for his sketching -ground, with all their rivers and 
 hills. 
 
 Every one who takes an interest in Turner knows that 
 when a young man he used to go with his friend Girtin to 
 sketch at Dr. Munro's house in the evenings, and that 
 the two young artists received as payment for their labors 
 the sum of half- a- crown each, and their suppers. This 
 may seem a small matter to us who think of Turner as an 
 artistic Croesus, but it was a pleasant help to him at that 
 time, not only for the half-crown, the value of which it is 
 certain that he fully appreciated, but for the kind encour- 
 agement given by Dr. Munro, for the pleasant fellowship 
 with Girtin, and for the frequent opportunities of studying 
 works by previous artists, of which Dr. Munro had been 
 an intelligent collector. There were several Gains-- 
 boroughs in the house, and many water -color drawings 
 by the early men, Paul Sandby and others, whom Turner 
 was destined to leave so far behind, that they seem to us 
 at this distance to belong almost to the pre.-historic ages 
 of the world. Dr. Munro had also a collection of draw- 
 ings by the old masters, including Canaletti, who may 
 even then have led young Turner's thoughts towards 
 Venice, which he illustrated much later with such magni- 
 ficent unreality. 3ut of all the works of art belonging to 
 
36 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Dr. Munro at this time, it is likely that the water -colors 
 of Cozens would influence both Girtin and Turner the 
 most decidedly, both because they were nearest to them 
 in the history of art, and because Cozens was an artist of 
 deep feeling, with a remarkably fine sense of what was 
 noble and large in landscape, and a seriousness, some- 
 times amounting to solemnity, which would inevitably 
 have great influence over two such minds as those of 
 Turner and Girtin. Even Constable, who was so differ- 
 ently constituted, and who chose a path in art so different 
 from the broad tranquillity of Cozens, admired him with 
 such enthusiasm that, as his friend Leslie tells us, he said 
 that his works were poetry, and his genius the greatest 
 which had ever applied itself to landscape. Leslie had 
 such admiration for Cozens that he said there could be no 
 improvement upon him "when at his best." Of the two 
 young men who studied Cozens together Girtin is most 
 generally regarded as his immediate successor, because he 
 died so early, and so did not come down to the quite 
 modern time, as Turner lived to do. Those evenings at 
 Dr. Munro's are, therefore, curiously historical, and espe- 
 cially interesting to all who care for water-color painting, 
 and its wonderful development in England. Cozens was 
 there, not in the flesh, but in the spirit, which expressed 
 itself with a poet's sweetness in his drawings ; Girtin was 
 there, in the delicate early bloom of his short life, destined 
 like Shelley and Keats to few years of labor in his art, 
 and yet to immortal fame. Turner was there in the 
 strength of his youth, having already well and vigorously 
 begun the most productive career in the history of 
 landscape art. 
 
Girtin and Cozens. 
 
 2,7 
 
 The writer of these pages well remembers that he first 
 heard of Girtin from Leslie, who possessed a few works 
 of his, and greatly valued them. In the " Handbook for 
 Young Painters," Leslie spoke of Girtin with his usual 
 appreciation, and gave a very beautiful engraving from a 
 poetical evening scene of his on one of the Highland 
 lakes. In the same work he gave a fine Italian subject 
 by Cozens — a wood, with stone-pines rising above it 
 against the evening light, and a vast, monotonous build> 
 ing, with many windows — a monastery, perhaps, or 
 convent. Both are evidently the works of poets, but as 
 we have been so much familiarized with lake scenery by 
 more recent artists, the Cozens seems the more original 
 of the two. If, however, we take the trouble to place 
 ourselves, by a little mental effort, as far back as Girtin's 
 time in the history of English art, setting aside all that 
 has since been done for the illustration of Highland 
 scenery, we shall at once perceive that it needed the 
 instincts of genius to see what he saw in it, and to 
 interpret it with a sentiment so exquisite. Leslie con- 
 sidered his style to be one of more equally sustained 
 excellence than that of Cozens, for though Girtin died 
 very early (at the age of twenty-seven), his mental health 
 remained good to the last, " and he continued to draw till 
 within a few days of his death, though he was so debilita- 
 ted that he could scarcely hold his pencil." He acquired 
 the power of a master very soon, and exercised it so much 
 that the quantity of good work he left behind him is 
 surprising to artists, especially when they know that some 
 of his valuable time was thrown away upon a panorama 
 
38 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 of London. " Sobered tints of exquisite truth," said 
 Leslie, " and broad chiaroscuro, are the prevailing charac- 
 teristics of Girtin." Turner had the deepest respect for 
 Girtin's genius, and an especial affection for some golden 
 effects of his ; he believed, too, that the premature death 
 of his gifted young friend had removed from his path the 
 most dangerous of all his rivals, though it is likely that if 
 the life or death of Girtin could have depended upon 
 Turner's decision, affection would have prevailed over 
 ambition, and they would have contended in friendly 
 rivalry for the suffrages of the public, without jealousy in 
 the heart of either. Notwithstanding Turner's warm 
 admiration for his friend, whom he sincerely believed to 
 be superior to himself in certain qualities, it may well be 
 doubted whether Girtin would ever have displayed such 
 various and great powers as Turner afterwards developed. 
 It seems much more probable that he would have ranked 
 with such an artist as David Cox (forcible in execution 
 and grand in sentiment, but of narrow intellectual range), 
 than with such an unprecedentedly comprehensive artistic 
 intellect as Turner's. 
 
 The two friends worked from nature together by the 
 Thames as early, it is believed, as the year 1789; and 
 they were companions at Mr. Henderson's, as well as at 
 Dr. Munro's, in pleasant evening work. They did not, 
 however, visit the Highlands together, though Leslie says 
 that Girtin was known to have paid a visit to the lakes of 
 Scotland, and Turner was drawn to them also, the year 
 before Girtin died. 
 
 Although Turner's professional business in early life 
 
Turner s Early Work in Oil. 
 
 39 
 
 was to draw topographic views for the publishers, he was, 
 as we have seen, an accepted exhibitor at the Royal 
 Academy, and this encouraged him to paint in oil. His 
 first oil -picture seems to have been done in 1795, from 
 one of his sketches of Rochester, taken two years before ; 
 but there is another account, which affirms that Turner's 
 first attempt in oil had for its subject a sunset on the 
 Thames, near Battersea, which had been seen by the 
 artist on the previous day, when Bell, the engraver, was 
 with him, and that Bell was also present when the attempt 
 in oil-painting was made. The two accounts fix the 
 beginning of Turner's career as an oil-painter in the same 
 year, 1795 ; and they may possibly be reconciled by sup- 
 posing that the sunset at Battersea was the first landscape 
 experiment in oil, and the Rochester the first picture. It 
 is evident, however, that neither of these is to be con- 
 sidered an absolutely first attempt in oil-painting, for 
 Turner was now twenty, and he had painted his own 
 portrait in oil, with considerable power, at the age of 
 seventeen — the portrait which we all know in the National 
 Gallery. We ought not to forget, either, that Turner had 
 been a pupil of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and had painted in 
 his studio at the age of fifteen. It is probable, also, 
 that his trainmg as an Academy student would include 
 some practice in oil, so that neither the Rochester nor 
 the Battersea sunset could be considered the work of a 
 novice, though the artist who painted them had hithertO' 
 done much more in water- color, and had not applied his 
 knowledge of oil-painting to landscape. The technical 
 history of Turner's youth may be told accurately in a few 
 
40 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 words. At the age of seventeen he was a fairly good 
 painter in oil, but in a heavy though safe manner, and had 
 overcome all the first difficulties in the career of a por- 
 trait-painter. When he abandoned the intention of 
 making portraiture his profession, and took to landscape, 
 he worked in water-color, in which he had acquired con- 
 siderable skill at an early age. At the age of twenty he 
 began to try to express in oil the knowledge of landscape 
 which he had acquired with pencil and water-color. At 
 the age of twenty-two he was able to paint landscape in 
 either of the two mediums, but remained for a long time 
 more addicted to water-color, and used it in preference 
 all his life for work intended to be engraved. In later 
 years he painted much in oil, but the influence of his 
 water-color practice is evident in nearly all his pictures ; j 
 in m.any of them it is even painfully evident, so that ' 
 Constable, not unjustly, called them "large water-colors." 
 What interests us for the present is that Turner's whole 
 career was foreshadowed in everything before the expira- 
 tion of his minority. Whilst yet a minor he was a painter 
 in water- colors, a painter in oils, a considerable traveller 
 within the limits of his native island, and his works were 
 already engraved. At twenty he was not preparing for 
 life, but really lived already, and had entered thoroughly 
 upon his career, not in a vague, general way, but in all its 
 several departments, except etching on copper and engrav- 
 ing in mezzotint, whilst even for these his early use of the 
 pen and the wash of neutral tint was the best of all 
 possible preparations. 
 
 Turner's destiny in another very important matter 
 
 J 
 
Love and Disappointment.^ 
 
 41 
 
 appears to have been settled for him at the very thresh- 
 old of manhood. It is a commonplace that marriage 
 affects the fate of a man more than anything else except 
 the circumstances of his birth ; but in the ordinary walks 
 of life the chances are generally that the consequences of 
 marriage will be favorable. A man is tied to his shop or 
 his office, and does not feel more fastened down to his 
 counter or desk because he has a wife to welcome him at 
 home when the slavery of the day is over. In ordinary 
 occupations the work to be done has a definite character, 
 and requires the simple application of ordinary abilities 
 and common industr}'-; it is not a succession of hazardous 
 enterprises, undertaken with the whole energy of extra- 
 ordinary faculties. The life of a painter like Turner is 
 really a succession of hazardous enterprises, in which he 
 risks his time and genius, just as a poet does when he 
 composes works without any certainty of sale. For these 
 great attempts, many of which were failures at the time 
 from the worldly point of view, he needed absolute 
 personal independence and the most perfect privacy. 
 His sense of the importance of this privacy was so 
 strong that he would admit nobody into his painting- 
 room, and he liked to be in places where nobody could 
 possibly find him. But, besides privacy, he valued 
 liberty ; the liberty of the artist, the liberty to make an 
 excursion when he felt it to be necessary or simply 
 helpful to his work. Marriage would have been perilous 
 to this kind of independence ; and if Turner had been 
 married early in life it is possible that he might have 
 contented himself with being happy, if he had found 
 
42 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 happiness, and abandoned the ambition to become great. 
 His fate was settled otherwise ; an early disappointment 
 made him give up all thoughts of marriage, and left all 
 his peculiarities, including the peculiarity of being a 
 genius, full liberty to develop themselves without re- 
 straint. 
 
 In those early days, when Turner's professional work 
 was that of a topographical draughtsman, who increased 
 his income by practising as a drawing-master, it is related 
 that he loved the sister of one of his old school-fellows, 
 and that they were engaged to be married ; but that the 
 marriage never took place because, during a long absence 
 of Turner's, his letters were intercepted by the young 
 lady's stepmother, who disliked the match. When Tur- 
 ner came back he found his betrothed engaged to another, 
 to a man for whom she had no affection, and yet she 
 would not break off this new engagement because the 
 wedding-day was very near at hand, and she believed 
 that matters had gone too far for her to retreat with 
 honor. Notwithstanding all that Turner could say or do 
 to prevent it, the sacrifice was consummated ; and he 
 remained single all his life in consequence of this bitter 
 disappointment. 
 
 The tradition is, that Turner's absence lasted two 
 whole years ; but it is difficult to believe this. We know 
 very little of the circumstances, for we do not even know 
 exactly what Turner was doing at the time, nor where he 
 was during his absence ; but it seems in the highest 
 degree improbable that, as a young lover, he would have 
 endured to be separated from his betrothed for two whole 
 
Love and Disappointment. 
 
 43 
 
 years, or anything like it : such a pedestrian as he was 
 then would have walked, rather, across the distance which 
 divided them. But this is one of those stories, half- 
 legendary already, which one cannot wholly believe nor 
 yet quite disbelieve. At the same time, from their very 
 lack of substance, such stories are difficult to criticise. 
 When there are dates, for example, the critic has some 
 ground to go upon, for he can ascertain from other 
 sources what the subject of the history was doing at the 
 time fixed ; but here we have no date, except a supposi- 
 tion that the event may have happened some time about 
 1796. Again, it is said that Turner went abroad to study 
 his art, and that this absence on the Continent was the 
 cause of the separation : but the catalogues of the exhibi- 
 tions mention no Continental work of Turner until the 
 year 1803, when he was twenty -eight years old. We 
 may, however, admit as highly probable that Turner may 
 have had a disappointment of this kind in his youth, 
 since few men remain confirmed old bachelors unless 
 they have had one or more such disappointments. And 
 although this legend is alike without names and without 
 dates it is circumstantial enough not to be wholly dis- 
 regarded, and is said to have come from the nameless 
 lady herself, through friends or relatives of hers. What 
 we positively know is, that Turner remained a bachelor, 
 and apparently in a more decided spirit than that of Etty, 
 who passed through a succession of unfortunate attach- 
 ments and disappointments. It is said that the girl 
 whom Turner loY,ed condemned herself to the life-long 
 misery of an ill-assorted union ; but we know that the 
 
44 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 painter entered upon half a century of celibacy — of 
 celibacy without chastity — a life in which he formed 
 indeed connections with the other sex, but connections 
 of a kind which could do nothing for the elevation of his 
 mind or for the removal of his defects. 
 
 Fortunate in so many things, Turner was lamentably 
 unfortunate in this ; that throughout his whole life he 
 never came under any ennobling or refining feminine 
 influence,. either in marriage or out of it. His mother 
 was bad-tempered, and finally even insane, having to be 
 separated from her husband, and placed in seclusion. 
 The best hope for him, after this first misfortune, lay in 
 a happy marriage with some cultivated lady, or at least 
 with some woman who had a delicate, feminine sense of 
 what was becoming. In early life, considering his own 
 humble position in society, he was not likely to make 
 what is called by worldly people " a good match," but he 
 might have met with a girl who had a natural good 
 taste and refinement, as many have who are not exactly 
 " ladies " in the conventional sense of the word. This 
 chance he lost for ever by his absolute renunciation of 
 all ideas of marriage. There still remained for him one 
 possibility. One of his mistresses might, by chance, 
 have been a superior person : this has happened occa- 
 sionally in such connections, though rarely : it happened, 
 for example, in the connection between Shelley and 
 Mary Godwin, which was not at first a marriage in any 
 sense but their own ; and it happened also in the case of 
 Byron and the Countess Guiccioli. Both these ladies, 
 though their conduct was not moral, were persons of 
 
Absence of Female Influence. 
 
 45 
 
 culture and refinement, who kept their lovers up to a 
 better and higher kind of life than they would probably 
 have followed without them. This is especially true of 
 the Countess Guiccioli, who partially reformed Byron 
 by making his life relatively decent and respectable in 
 comparison with what it had been before she knew him. 
 Mary Godwin did not reform Shelley, merely because 
 he did not need that kind oi reforming, but she gave 
 him intellectual companionship. Turner, as great a poet 
 as either of these two, though he expressed himself in a 
 different medium, never knew, during the whole course 
 of his life, what it was to have such companionship as 
 that with any woman. He had not even, so far as we 
 know, any intimate friendship with a lady able to 
 encourage and understand him — such a friendship, I 
 mean, as that which subsisted between the younger 
 Ampere and Madame Recamier. It is probable, how- 
 ever, that female influence of an elevating kind is of far 
 greater value to a writer than it could ever be to a 
 painter. The benefit of it is to stimulate the faculties by 
 a constant interchange of thought, and so to refine a 
 man's thinking on the subjects which occupy his mind 
 before he attempts to give them a direct literary ex- 
 pression ; so that, when he comes to write, his ideas have 
 already had the benefit of friendly discussion with an 
 intellect equal in rank, perhaps, to his own, but having 
 different perceptions, being of another sex. One of the 
 best known instances of this benefit to a writer is the 
 case of John Stuart Mill, who so warmly and candidly 
 acknowledged it. But now let us try to imagine how a 
 
46 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 similar feminine influence could operate upon the pro- 
 ducing faculties of a painter. Clearly as we see how 
 Shelley or Mill may have gained by it, we can only 
 obscurely perceive any poss-ible benefit to the work of a 
 painter like Turner from previous friendly discussion 
 with any lady, however cultivated. A painter's inten- 
 tions cannot be discussed until they are already in great 
 part realized, — we can criticise the finished picture, we 
 cannot criticise the intended picture, because we cannot 
 foresee the relative importance which its parts will have 
 when the whole work is finished. The criticism of un- 
 finished works is often so little applicable, that instead 
 of helping the artist it only irritates him. ' The coloring 
 of a picture in its early stages is often not merely 
 different from what it is intended to be ultimately, but 
 just the opposite, because a color is prevented from 
 looking crude when painted upon its complementary. 
 The only real help which a painter gains whilst a work 
 is in progress is from his brother-artists, and even they 
 are very likely to misunderstand his purposes. An 
 eminent contemporary, who greatly enjoyed and valued 
 the society of ladies, and lived in it willingly during his 
 hours of leisure, absolutely excluded them from his 
 painting room, even those of his own household. The 
 only use of feminine influence to a painter is a general 
 effect upon his mind — a refining effect, if the lady is 
 more refined than the artist with whom she lives. But 
 who in the world, masculine or feminine, had ever more 
 refined perception of landscape beauty than Turner had .■• 
 Could any refinement of feminine perception have added 
 
A Dual Life. 
 
 47 
 
 to his refinement ? No ; the gain which he might have 
 derived from marriage might have been an infinite gain 
 to himself in many ways, but it is not likely that it 
 would have been a gain to his art. It is highly improb- 
 able that he would have painted better if married, and 
 it is possible that the cares of a family might have pre- 
 vented him from executing those important works which 
 the public did not encourage, but which are now the 
 very corner-stones of the great edifice of his fame. 
 
 After his first attachment, and the bitterness of dis- 
 appointment which succeeded to it. Turner became two 
 men in one. There is nothing very unusual in a duality 
 of this kind, for many men find it a convenience to 
 separate themselves from themselves, and be at one time 
 the man of business, or the official, and at another the 
 private gentleman untrammelled by business or offi- 
 cialism. What is striking, however, in the case of 
 Turner, is the very strong contrast between the two 
 natures which dwelt together in him, and which were 
 alike just as much his own as two houses belonging to 
 the same proprietor, and used for alternate habitation. 
 We have plain proof in his works that his artist-nature 
 was one of ineffably exquisite refinement. It has been 
 said of him that his mind was as nearly as possible like 
 those of Keats and Dante intermingled : in such a com- 
 parison one might feel inclined to substitute Shelley for 
 Keats, but it may be quite safely asserted, that only 
 amongst the most etherial poets can we find a spirit of 
 such delicacy as his. At the same time he had another 
 nature, which was something between those of a common 
 
48 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 sailor and a costermonger : by which I mean, that he 
 was externally coarse, and had an appetite for low 
 pleasures, with a passion for small gains. The poet's 
 nature did not raise or refine the other, nor did the other 
 perceptibly degrade that of the poet. The combination 
 was not a mixture, and the central self of personality, 
 the conscious Ego, whatever that may be, passed from 
 one to the other quite easily down to the very close of 
 life ; as a pedestrian may take the road or the footpath 
 at will when both run parallel along the whole course 
 of his journey. The mystery of this is beyond all possible 
 explanation ; our nature is not sufficiently understood by 
 us for such things to be clear except as simple facts. 
 A character like Turner's would be rejected at once, in 
 fiction, as untrue, but as a real existence it is undeniable. 
 We shall have to recur to this subject towards the close 
 of our biography, for the present we leave it and continue 
 the story of the Life. 
 
 It is possible even, that if Turner had been pressed 
 hard by the necessities of providing for a family he 
 might have remained a drawing-master, for he had some 
 success in that capacity in early life, and was fairly well 
 paid for his lessons to amateurs and in schools. Little 
 is known of his methods of instruction, but we may pre- 
 sume that at the early age of twenty-one he would teach 
 more explicitly, and more graciously, than on the few 
 occasions in mature life when he conveyed any practical 
 instruction to others. It is evident that the kind of art 
 he practised in early life was much more traditional and 
 communicable than the extraordinary and unprecedented 
 
Turner a Drawinsr-Master. 
 
 49 
 
 manner which expressed the fulness of his genius. 
 When a young man, he did Httle more than repeat what 
 had been done before by other topographical draughts- 
 men, applying a traditional method to new subjects ; 
 and as the method had been taught to him, so it might 
 be to others after him. But he was not one of those 
 artists who are fitted by nature to make teaching the 
 business of their whole lives. Although, at a later 
 period, he became Professor of Perspective -to the Royal 
 Academy, and took great pains to fulfil the duties of his 
 office, he was not gifted for a professor's work. Art is 
 always difficult to explain, and Turner had not the kind 
 of intellect which analyzes things in such a way as to be 
 favorable to clear expression in words ; nor had he, at 
 any time, that command of language which is necessary 
 to lucid exposition. Besides this difficulty, which was a 
 part of his very peculiar idiosyncrasy, it happened with 
 Turner, as it has happened with many other artists, that 
 as soon as he began to feel his own power his art became 
 nothing but a series of experiments, often very audacious, 
 which it would have been injudicious to communicate to 
 pupils even if it had been possible. Hence, although 
 he began his career as a teacher, and seems, from the 
 increase of his charges, to have succeeded well in that 
 profession in early life, we learn without surprise that he 
 did not retain his hold upon it, and that more com- 
 municative teachers were preferred by the ladies and 
 gentlemen of his time. The absorption in his own art 
 unfitted him more and more for the business of the 
 drawinsf-master. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 Turner comes of age.— First northern tour. — Dr. Whitaker. — Turner 
 elected A. R. A. — His Diploma picture. — New and Old Gothic. — Pro- 
 fessional position in 1800. 
 
 TN 1796, when Turner was twenty-one years old, he went 
 to live in rooms of his own in the lane at the end of 
 Hand Court, for quietness. He exhibited much this year, 
 including subjects from Salisbury, Westminster, Stafford- 
 shire, Wales, the Isle of Wight, and the sea. From this 
 time it becomes more difficult to know with certainty from 
 his exhibited works where he had been the year previous, 
 .because he has already begun to accumulate memoranda, 
 and makes use of his earliest stores. Thus, in 1796 he 
 exhibits drawings of Salisbury and Ely Cathedrals, and of 
 fishermen at sea ; and the next year he exhibits other 
 drawings of the same cathedrals, and another drawing of 
 fishermen. This may have been merely a recurrence to 
 material already accumulated, but on the other hand, when 
 we meet with some place in his drawings which he has 
 not previously illustrated, we may conclude that in all 
 probability he had visited it the year before. Up "to the 
 exhibition of 1798 he shows nothing from Yorkshire, but 
 in that year he has several Yorkshire subjects ; therefore 
 
First Northern Tour. 
 
 51 
 
 we may conclude that he first visited that county, after- 
 wards so great a favorite of his, in the year 1797. In that 
 year he exhibited the little picture Moonlight, a study at 
 Millbank, which is now in the National Gallery, and is 
 interesting as being the first of his works in oil which 
 were exhibited at the Royal Academy. The picture is 
 dull and heavy, and shows not the least trace of genius, 
 yet it has always been rather a favorite with the writer of 
 this biography for its truth to nature in one thing. All 
 the ordinary manufacturers of moonlights — and moon- 
 lights have been manufactured in deplorably large quan- 
 tities for the market — represent the light of our satellite 
 as a blue and cold light, whereas in nature, especially in 
 the southern summer, it is often pleasantly rich and warm. 
 Turner did not follow the usual receipt, but had the cour- 
 age to make his moonlight warm, though he had not as 
 yet the skill to express the ineffably mellow softness of 
 the real warm moonlights in nature. 
 
 The year 1797 must have been one of the happiest of 
 Turner's early life. For the first time he got fairly into 
 the north of England, and became acquainted with a kind 
 of scenery which he loved for ever after. The catholicity 
 of his taste in the choice of subject was already one of the 
 marked characteristics of his mind ; yet although he could 
 find something to interest him anywhere, he found in 
 Yorkshire, in the closest proximity to each other, those 
 elements of interest which are often so widely apart that 
 even the audacity of an artist cannot venture to bring 
 them together. In the Highlands of Scotland we have 
 mountains but no architecture ; in Lincolnshire architec- 
 
52 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 ture but no mountains ; whilst through all the lovely- 
 reaches of the Thames you may seek in vain amongst its 
 richest meadows for monastic remains like those of Foun- 
 tains, Rivaulx, Kirkstall, or Bolton. There are castles on 
 the southern coast, but where on the chalk cliffs will you 
 find another Whitby ? There are hills in Surrey, but 
 what are the little southern heaths in comparison with the 
 bleak vastness of a Yorkshire moor, where no sound is to 
 be heard but the whistling of the wind and the whirr of 
 the heath-cock's wings ? In the close proximity of quite 
 different material, the hilly parts of Yorkshire are a para- 
 dise to an artist of such various taste as Turner's. In an 
 hour's walk he may pass there from the fertility of Arabia 
 Felix to the stony desolation of Arabia Petrsea ; the hills 
 are lofty enough to give him some foretaste of Highland 
 sublimities, and the vales are rich enough to remind him 
 of the old pastorals, if his feelings are still attached to 
 them by the ties of artistic tradition. 
 
 But not only did Turner visit Yorkshire in 1797. The 
 taste for travel was already too strong in him to be satis- 
 fied without seeing everything within his reach ; so as he 
 thought that the English lakes and the extreme north of 
 England were not very far out of his way, he determined 
 to see these also, and penetrated into Westmoreland, 
 Cumberland, and Northumberland. The results of this 
 excursion are partly visible in the next Academy Exhibi- 
 tion, to which the young artist sends monastic ruins and 
 valleys of Yorkshire, mountains and lakes from Cumber- 
 land and Westmoreland, and baronial castles from North- 
 umberland, still standing by sea or river. In the same 
 
First Northern Tour. 
 
 53 
 
 year, as if to show that his interest in quiet southern scenes 
 had not been diminished by any new-born enthusiasm 
 for the sublimities of the north, he sends to the Academy 
 A Study in September of the Fern-House, Mr. Lock's Park, 
 Micklehani, Surrey. Castles and abbeys he has seen in 
 all their grandeur, yet still thinks that the fern-house in 
 Mr. Lock's park is worth drawing and exhibiting also. 
 This is most characteristic of Turner, and we shall find 
 him throughout his career always ready to turn from great 
 things to little things, his power of taking an interest in 
 what he saw being always active, and neither deadened by 
 too much stimulus nor atrophied by the insufficiency 
 of it. 
 
 The year 1798 is not so rich in engravings from Tur- 
 ner's works as others before and after it. In that year 
 the plates of Sheffield and Wakefield appear in the " Itin- 
 erant," two towns which were less unpicturesque then 
 than now. Both of them have good scenery very near at 
 hand, but they have been spoiled for the painter by their 
 very prosperity during the last seventy-five years. It was 
 part of Turner's professional business at that time to 
 illustrate towns, and he had done a good deal in that line, 
 no doubt very conscientiously, but his tastes were already 
 too exclusive for him to settle down to a regular trade of 
 that kind. In 1799 the list of his exhibited works in- 
 cludes subjects from Wales and Northumberland, as well 
 as two from Salisbury, which he often recurred to in early 
 life ; but this year he is ambitious, and paints a marine 
 picture of the Battle of the Nile, mentioned in the cata- 
 logue with a quotation from " Paradise Lost," that well- 
 
54 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 known passage where the angels turn artillerymen, which 
 is usually considered one of the blemishes of the poem. 
 Turner seems to have been reading Milton at that time, 
 for he quotes him again, apropos of Harlech Castle, an 
 evening drawing of which is one of his contributions to 
 the Academy. The year before he quoted chiefly from 
 Thomson's " Seasons ; " this year he quotes them once, 
 apropos of Warkworth Castle, Northumberland. It may 
 be observed in this place that Turner's fancy for quoting 
 poetry varied greatly in different years. One year he 
 would quote rather extensively, and at another not at all. 
 For example, in 1799 ^^ enriches the Academy Catalogue 
 with no less than thirty-seven lines of poetry from various 
 authors, but in 1801 he does not quote a syllable. At a 
 later period he makes the fatal discovery that a painter 
 may compose his own bits of poetry and quote himself, 
 but of this peculiar development of the Turnerian genius 
 we shall have more to say in due time. 
 
 In 1799 Turner began the series of nine annual illus- 
 trations to the " Oxford Almanac," and it is probably in 
 this year that he made the acquaintance of Dr. Whitaker, 
 author of the "History of Whalley." Although Dr. 
 Whitaker's name is perfectly well known in the north of 
 England, and to readers in other parts of the island who 
 take an interest in the history and antiquities of Lanca- 
 shire and Yorkshire, we may explain for others who have 
 not been led to any special study of those counties that 
 the learned Doctor had a strong interest in the localities 
 which he knew best, which, happily for posterity, led him 
 to write three of the best local histories which have ever 
 
Dr. Whitaker. 
 
 55 
 
 proceeded from the affectionate industry, of an archaeolo- 
 gist. These three histories had for their subjects the 
 parish of Whalley, the district of Craven, and a part of 
 Yorkshire about Richmond, known to local antiquarians 
 as Richmondshire. Dr. Whitaker was Vicar of Whalley 
 at the time that he wrote the history of that remarkably 
 extensive and interesting parish, and it so happens that 
 his son, who is now about to publish a new edition of the 
 work, is also Vicar of Whalley, and to him I am indebted 
 for a few details about Turner. He believes, but is not 
 certain, that the young painter's first introduction to Dr. 
 Whitaker was through Mr. Edwards, the Halifax pub- 
 lisher, when the Doctor was approaching the close of his 
 labors as the historian of Whalley. Turner's new patron 
 employed him to make designs for several of the plates 
 which were to illustrate his work ; and the young artist 
 executed his task conscientiously, but with so little talent 
 of any obviously visible kind, that Dr. Whitaker's fidelity 
 to him, in subsequently commissioning the drawings for 
 the " History of Richmondshire," has always seemed to 
 me remarkable as an evidence of his perspicacity. Few 
 who had known Turner from such illustrations as his 
 Whalley Abbey, Clitheroe, and Browsholme, would have 
 entertained the slightest hope that he could ever produce 
 such designs as those in the " History of Richmond- 
 shire ; " but it is possible that Dr. Whitaker may have 
 watched Turner's development in other publications. 
 Between the "Whalley" and "Richmondshire" appeared 
 Dr. Whitaker's " History of Craven," and to this Turner 
 contributed an architectural subject. His connection 
 
56 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 with these historical works was of use to him, by making 
 him more intimately acquainted with places and people in 
 a very interesting part of the north of England. The old 
 mansion of the Whitakers, the Holme (familiar to the 
 present biographer from his infancy), is situated in one of 
 the most beautiful scenes of Lancashire which still remain 
 unspoiled by the manufactures. Near Burnley the vale is 
 broad, and is occupied by the noble demesne of Towneley, 
 which sweeps up the great waves of land before and 
 behind the Hall, and fills all the hollow between them 
 with rich meadows and a park full of Sylvan beauty ; but 
 as you go from Towneley to the Holme the valley rapidly 
 narrows, till at last it becomes a gorge or defile, with bold 
 steep slopes which end in rugged cliffs of perpendicular 
 rock, as high as the sea-cliffs on the wild Yorkshire coast. 
 On each side of the glen there are gullies or ravines 
 formed by the watercourses, and at the foot of one of 
 these ravines stands the old house yet, much altered and 
 enriched, but still preserving its main features. It is just 
 one of those regions which Turner would have illustrated 
 nobly in his maturity. 
 
 With his usual wonderful good luck, our hero was 
 elected Associate of the Royal Academy at the early age 
 of twenty-four. A landscape-painter in the present day, 
 aged twenty-four, and able to do just what Turner could 
 do then — that is, to paint his diploma picture of Dolbadern 
 Castle, North Wales — might possibly, no doubt, be elected 
 Associate ; but the chances are so much against him that 
 he would be just as likely to be made a Knight of the 
 Garter. The competitors of Turner were much weaker, 
 
His Diploma Picture. 
 
 57 
 
 no doubt, than the competitors of a young aspirant in the 
 present day, so that victory was easier for him ; but the 
 best part of his luck consisted in this, that in 1800 the 
 Academy had not yet become an exclusive club of figure- 
 painters, so that landscape had a fair chance of recogni- 
 tion. In the present day almost all th5 Academicians 
 and Associates are figure-painters, and their almost invari- 
 able custom is to elect men who follow their own branch 
 of the profession. There is no written rule against the 
 election of a landscape-painter, and at exceedingly rare, 
 and ever rarer intervals, a landscape-painter of extraordi- 
 nary merit, in his full maturity, is made an Associate, in 
 order to prove that the Academy is not absolutely 
 intolerant of such artists. But in our day a landscape- 
 painter has not the faintest chance of being elected an 
 A.R.A. to encourage him and help him whilst the difificul- 
 ties of his career loom still like mountainous steeps before 
 him. It was in this that Turner was so fortunate. The 
 right to a good and secure place on the Academy walls 
 was given to him when he was striving hard with all the 
 energy of youth ; the Associateship came like a fair wind 
 to a little boat that is fighting against the tide, and not 
 like a breeze to a ship in port. 
 
 The subject of Turner's diploma picture was Dolbadern 
 Castle, in North Wales. The castle is a simple round 
 tower by the shore of the smaller of the two lakes of 
 Llanberis, and within a short walk of Llanberis itself, at 
 the foot of Snowdon. Very likely many readers of these 
 pages may have seen the little castle, and sketched it, for 
 it is rather a popular subject for a sketch. Those who 
 
58 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 know the place will remember its marked and peculiar 
 geological character (blue slate), which no landscape- 
 painter before our generation would have recognized. 
 One of the most curious things in the history of landscape- 
 painting is the persistence with which the artists, and the 
 public who admired them, remained blind to the facts of 
 the earth's structure, even to the visible, obvious, most 
 striking and external facts, until there was a definite 
 science of geology, with a scientific nomenclature. 
 Turner's Dolbadern is merely a brown picture of the 
 Wilson class, with some feeling for the sublimity of an 
 isolated tower amidst mountain scenery, but no delight in, 
 nor observation of, the especial character of landscape 
 round Llanberis. It would indeed, in the last years of 
 the eighteenth century, have been a proof of almost 
 unimaginable audacity in a young artist to venture to 
 paint blue slate. Wilson, whose name so naturally 
 suggests itself to us in connection with Llanberis, which 
 is near the little estate that saved him from utter indi- 
 gence at last, never ventured to paint the real scenery of 
 Wales, though he loved it, and drew some consolation 
 from the solemnity of it at the close of life. It might 
 almost be supposed that the painters of those days foresaw 
 the artistic difficulties and dangers which were likely to 
 be, and which in fact have been, opened like pitfalls to 
 imprudent artists by the free access to the whole of na- 
 ture which is claimed by the modern spirit. Turner, at 
 Dolbadern, was still in the spirit of the elder artists, to 
 whom art seemed much more distinct from nature than it 
 seems now to their successors. They looked upon the 
 
 i 
 
New and Old Gothic. 
 
 59 
 
 painted world on canvas as a world in itself, and they 
 were cautious about introducing into the painted world 
 the material of the dangerously various reality. It may 
 have been a result of this early caution in accepting nature 
 as good material for art, that Turner, to the end of his 
 days, considered art and nature as two entirely distinct 
 things, or categories of things, in which he differed from 
 the modern English realists who succeeded him, and 
 whose main purpose was, in the most literal sense, to hold 
 the mirror up to nature. 
 
 About this time Turner's name became associated with 
 that of the famous author of " Vathek ; " for he went to 
 Fonthill in 1799, and made several sketches of the Gothic 
 Abbey there, which Mr. Beckford was then building, and 
 in which (as Scott did afterwards at Abbotsford) he made 
 the perilous experiment of a romance in stone and lime. 
 Beckford's stone romance included the wonderful tower, 
 of which the impossible ideal, with eleven thousand stairs, 
 existed already in his story of "Vathek;" but the tower 
 fell down long ago, and the Fonthill collections are 
 dispersed, and the fame of Beckford's heap of gold has 
 faded before the lustre of bigger heaps which have been 
 accumulated since his time. So passes the glory of the 
 world ! But when "England's wealthiest son" was build- 
 ing his tower by sunlight and by torchlight, gangs of 
 workmen succeeding each other without intermission — • 
 for there were no genii to add nightly cubits to this 
 edifice in the region of reality — the young artist who 
 quietly looked on was himself laying the foundations of a 
 more durable monument. 
 
6o 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 The year after his visit to Fonthill, Turner studied 
 Gothic of a more authentic character at York, a better 
 place for an artist at the beginning of this century than 
 (thanks to the improvements of philistine corporations) 
 it has since become. There he sketched the noble 
 Minster, which Etty afterwards loved more passionately 
 than ever building was loved before ; and before leaving 
 Yorkshire he sketched both Kirkstall and Bolton, which 
 he made good use of afterwards when his powers as an 
 artist were much more fully developed. Kirkstall is in 
 these days better in a drawing than in the reality, for the 
 modern industrial life of Leeds has come so very near it 
 that the visitor cannot exclude it and get back to the 
 tranquil old monastic life without an effort of the imagi- 
 nation of which few visitors are capable. Even in 
 Turner's day the modern world could not be entirely 
 excluded from the scene, though he acknowledged its 
 presence only by a single building on the other side of 
 the weir, carefully screened by massive trunks of trees. 
 Bolton Abbey is still so preserved from the too imme- 
 diate contact of manufacturing modernism that it is yet 
 possible to dream there of the past, though even Bolton 
 itself is now dangerously near to the factories, and you 
 may reach them from the inn there in a disquietingly 
 short time on horseback. Turner had ever afterwards 
 the most intense affection for Bolton Abbey and its 
 neighborhood, and for the river Wharfe, which flows 
 through the sweet meadows in the vale and makes a 
 beautiful curve round the site of the Abbey itself. Who 
 that has once followed the Wharfe from the narrow glen 
 
New and Old Gothic. 
 
 6i 
 
 I below Barden Tower, past the Strid, the Abbey, and the 
 \ bridge, and down for a few miles till it becomes broad and 
 sleepy above the weir at Burley, can wonder that an artist 
 like Turner should have loved it ? In later life all that 
 land became consecrated for him by one of the most 
 1 affectionate friendships that ever cheered the solitude of 
 a bachelor's existence. Farnley Hall is near the Wharfe, 
 and Mr. Fawkes of Farnley made Turner so happy there 
 that the place was dearer than home to him. He was a 
 hard worker, and, like all hard workers, capable of thor- 
 oughly forgetting work and heartily amusing himself. 
 His favorite recreation was fishing. The Wharfe is a 
 very good stream for the angler between Bolton Abbey 
 and Farnley Hall ; so that Turner may have had an 
 angler's attachment for it as well as a painter's. Besides 
 the Wharfe, and the sweet vale in which Bolton Priory 
 lies nestling, there was a strong attraction for a Lon- 
 doner in the hills whence the young stream flows. There 
 are many bold hills in Yorkshire, but few strike the eye 
 and awaken the imagination more than the heights about 
 Barden Tower, because their wildness is such a contrast 
 after the rich peace of the sacred vale. All Turner's 
 drawings of that land show how strongly its hill-forms 
 affected him. See the Bolton Abbey in Rogers, for exam- 
 ple, and the other illustration to " The Boy of Egremond," 
 the Strid, in which the steepness of the hills is well 
 remembered, whilst the true character of the stream at 
 that place is neglected or forgotten. 
 
 We may take note at this time of one or two changes 
 of London residence. The reader may remember that 
 
62 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 in 1796, when Turner was twenty-one years old, he went 
 to Hve in rooms of his own at the end of Handy Court, 
 Maiden Lane. In 1800 he went to hve in Harley Street, 
 and either in that year or the next, for there are different 
 accounts of this removal, he removed to 75, Norton 
 Street, Fitzroy Square. His flittings appear to have 
 been the consequences of professional promotion. At 
 every decided step in advance he took a different habi- 
 tation. This is rather curious, indicating, as it does, how 
 entirely he lived in his professional life. 
 
 It is not very easy for us, at this distance of time, to 
 realize to ourselves quite accurately the professional posi- 
 tion of Turner in 1800, for either we are likely to overrate 
 it (from the power of his name upon us now), or else we 
 may even under-estimate it from the contrast between the 
 sort of v/ork that he did then and the wonderful perform- 
 ance of his full maturity. Another difficulty is that there 
 is not a single artist now living in England, or in Europe, 
 who occupies exactly the same position which Turner 
 occupied at the very beginning of this century. He was 
 not -yet considered a great artist, and did not deserve to 
 be so considered ; but on the other hand, he was looked 
 upon as the best man for a certain class of illustrative 
 work which was in demand, and in much greater demand 
 than it is now. The English form of the spirit of the 
 classical Renaissance was just giving way to that first 
 interest in the work of the middle ages which found its 
 literary expression, later, in the romances of Sir Walter 
 Scott, and so strongly colored what is distinctively the 
 literature of the nineteenth century, that it is scarcely 
 
Professional Position in 1800. 
 
 63 
 
 possible to find an English author living in it, from Byron 
 downwards, whose works are not tinged, at least in parts, 
 with the light of the mediasval Renaissance. Turner was 
 not naturally a medisevalist ; his modes of thought, and 
 his early training, led him rather to the kind of classicism 
 which has prevailed in the education of modern painters. 
 These artists have been much withdrawn from mediaeval 
 influence by a very simple and intelligible cause. The 
 mediaeval artists could invent noble architecture and 
 beautiful decoration, but they could not draw the figure. 
 Painters went necessarily and inevitably to those prede- 
 cessors who understood the human form. The Greeks 
 understood it ; even the Romans understood it also ; the 
 whole of what we call the classical world understood it, 
 and the whole of what we call the mediaeval world re- 
 mained in ignorance of it. For this reason the culture 
 and tradition of modern art are a classical culture and 
 tradition. It may still be doubted whether Turner, had 
 he been left to follow his own instincts without reference 
 to the demands of publishers or purchasers, would ever 
 have painted Gothic architecture at all. Amongst the 
 pictures which he consciously intended to be his great 
 masterpieces, and which he undertook without reference 
 to the immediate demand, Gothic architecture does not 
 occur, whilst classical architecture is of frequent occur- 
 rence. But although Turner's tastes or instincts did not 
 lead him directly to Gothic architecture, he was brought 
 to it indirectly by his love of English landscape, and his 
 generally comprehensive interest in human work of all 
 kinds. When he sat down to sketch a scene with an 
 
64 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 ordinary house in it, he would not omit the house ; he 
 never omitted anything that had human interest ; much 
 less, then, would he omit an object so full of human 
 interest as a Gothic castle or abbey. He drew such 
 mediaeval remains in a painstaking and prosaic way at 
 the beginning (as at Whalley, for example), but as he im- 
 proved in the knowledge and treatment of landscape he 
 perceived more clearly how much might be done with 
 Gothic architecture as picturesque material, and he drew 
 it better, in combination with the surrounding landscape, 
 than any other artist of his time. In this way he came to 
 have a safe little professional speciality. Whenever a 
 publisher wanted a good drawing of an English abbey, or 
 castle, or cathedral, he knew that young Mr. Turner 
 would do it for him in a satisfactory way, with all its 
 landscape or street surroundings. But whilst Turner 
 could draw mediaeval architecture, he was not a mediae- 
 valist. He would study a "gentleman's seat" with as 
 much complacency, and as faithful care, as Salisbury 
 Cathedral or Fountains Abbey. He had none of those 
 intense repugnances which prevent many young artists 
 from earning their living, but would draw anything that 
 came in his way. This comprehensiveness, or tolerance, 
 gave him a safe position in the pecuniary sense, though 
 hi£ earnings were not great ; and we have seen that on the 
 artistic side his qualities, though far from brilliant as yet, 
 were sufficiently visible to procure him regular admission 
 to the Academy exhibition, and to get him elected Asso- 
 ciate at a remarkably early age. We have not in these 
 days any young artists in Turner's position, because his 
 
Professional Position in 1800. 
 
 65 
 
 trade of drawing mediaeval buildings has been almost an- 
 nihilated by photography. Yet it was the engravings 
 from these drawings which first made Turner known, and 
 which kept him safe from want at a time when his pictures 
 were not saleable. In 1800 his name was already strong 
 enough for a publisher to venture upon separate engrav- 
 ings from his works. The first were the Mau-solemn at 
 Brocklesby, and Dunster Castle from the south-west. From 
 that date single plates appeared at intervals till his death, 
 and after it. In the present day the print-publisher would 
 not invest capital in labored engravings from the works 
 of a landscape painter such as Turner was in his early 
 manhood. The pictures which the print-sellers of these 
 days cause to be engraved are almost exclusively incident 
 pictures, or pictures which appeal to deep-seated national 
 sentiments of loyalty or religion. 
 
 In the year 1800 Turner seems to have thought it 
 necessary, as an Associate of the Academy, to send some- 
 thing of a higher character than usual to its exhibition, so 
 he exhibited The Fifth Plague of Egypt, a tiresome brown 
 picture of a class which would soon become intolerable if 
 we were compelled to see many of them. The other 
 works exhibited by him that year were all from Fonthill, 
 except a view of Caernarvon Castle. About this time in 
 his life Turner seems to have thought it necessary to 
 send one ambitious Biblical picture to each exhibition, for 
 in 1 80 1 he attempts no less a subject than The Army of 
 the Medes destroyed in the Desert by a Whirlwind (from 
 Jeremiah), and in 1802 he paints The TeJith Plague of 
 Egypt. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Kilchurn Castle. — Topography. — Turner's dream pictures. — The topog- 
 raphy of poets. 
 
 TT was probably in the year 1801, Turner being then 
 twenty-six years old, that he went to Scotland for the 
 first time in his life ; saw Edinburgh, the Falls of Clyde, 
 and Loch Lomond, and penetrated into the Western 
 Highlands, where he made a study of Kilchurn Castle 
 and the mountains at the head of Loch Awe. The 
 picture of Kilchurn was exhibited in 1802, and enhanced 
 the artist's reputation; its chief interest for us just at 
 present is, that it marks more definitively than any other 
 work of that time his complete deliverance from topog- 
 raphy, and his artistic independence of the fact. Dol- 
 badern is inaccurate also, but it is so in quite a different 
 way. In the Dolbadern the artist works traditionally, : 
 and has the elder landscape-painters in his mind all the '\ 
 time that he is painting, but in the Kilchurn he is abso- 
 lutely delivered from tradition. He is delivered at the^ 
 same time, and quite as absolutely, from the topographic , 
 slavery of his youth. The Kilchurn is neither an imita- 
 tion of Wilson nor a copy of the actual scene in nature. 
 It is a Turner, and nothing but a Turner. 
 
Kilchurn Castle. 
 
 67 
 
 There is no scene in Europe more familiar to me than 
 the head of Loch Awe, where Kilchurn Castle is situated. 
 I have lived there for years, and know the topography 
 of the place quite thoroughly, with that minuteness which 
 is only possible to a resident who takes the keenest 
 interest in the neighborhood where he lives, and makes 
 landscape-painting his main occupation, and walking and 
 boating his amusements. This close intimacy with the 
 place permits me to appreciate the exact degree in which 
 Turner's topography is a deviation from the topography 
 of the actual world ; and the reader will perhaps think 
 it not too great a demand upon his patience if I make 
 the difference as clear as I can in this instance, for it is 
 of the very utmost importance to our understanding of 
 Turner's mature work, occurring as it does quite early in 
 his manhood, and fixing the date of his emancipation 
 from reality. Turner's view of Kilchurn is taken from 
 the shore of the river Orchay, at a little distance above 
 the castle, and it includes as material, ist, the river, with 
 its right and left banks ; 2nd, Kilchurn castle ; 3rd, a 
 glimpse of the lake; 4th, a great mass of mountain, 
 which Turner calls the Cruachan Ben Mountains ; 5th, a 
 mountainous distance. We will examine these parts of 
 the composition one after another. 
 
 I. The River. — The Orchay flows past Dalmally till 
 it comes to within a short distance of Kilchurn ; but it 
 does not go directly to the castle, it leaves Kilchurn on 
 the left and falls into Loch Awe above it. The Orchay, 
 when it gets into the neighborhood of Kilchurn, finds 
 itself in a genuine alluvial plain, not of great extent, yet 
 
68 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 having all the characteristics of such a plain. The 
 reader who understands the action of the river guesses at 
 once that in such a place the level of the water will be 
 two or three yards lower than that of the land, and that 
 on one side at least the bank will be perpendicular, and 
 more or less undermined by the water. In the Orchay 
 it so happens that the steep cutting is on the Kilchurn 
 side, where the river comes within sight of the castle. 
 This expression, " within sight," is somewhat inaccurate ; 
 for when you are in a boat on the river you cannot see 
 the castle at all, at the spot from which (according to 
 the perspective of the walls) Turner's view must neces- 
 sarily be taken. He, therefore, entirely altered the char- 
 acter of the river and foreground. He ignored thai 
 existence of the fiat plain through which the river cuts! 
 its way, and gave wavy land instead of it, without any 
 steeply -cut banks at all. By this sacrifice (a sacrifice, 
 please observe, not of some unimportant fact, but of 
 essential local character) he made the river artistically 
 mmiageable, which in nature it is not, and he contrived 
 so that it should lead the eye to the castle. Before 
 quitting the river, I may observe that Turner introduced 
 three boats, that the boats are managed by Highlanders 
 in kilts, and that two out of the three have sails. Now, 
 of course I cannot prove that no sails were used on 
 Loch Awe in Turner's day, but I do not believe that he 
 ever saw one there. When I lived there, nothing as- 
 tonished me so much as the entire absence of any 
 nautical instinct or knowledge in the inhabitants. The 
 oldest men told me that no one ever used a sail on Loch 
 
STRUCTURE OF KILCHURN CASTLE. THE REALITY 
 
Kilchurn Castle. 
 
 69 
 
 Awe, because of the violent gusts of wind, and I believe 
 that this extreme caution had come down to the people 
 from their ancestors. The simple explanation of the 
 sails in Turner's picture is, that he wanted them to cut 
 the base-line of his mountain, and throw the mountain 
 further back. 
 
 2. The Castle. — Turner's alterations in the castle seem 
 more difficult to explain than those in the structure of 
 the earth. Turner's Kilchurn is not the real Kilchurn at 
 all ; and the difference between them seems much more 
 due to simple carelessness than to any artistic craft. 
 The castle in the picture is certainly a much clumsier 
 and less interesting object than it is in the reality. 
 Few of the Highland castles have any architectural 
 interest ; but Kilchurn is one of the best of them, owing 
 to the happy disposition of its principal and minor 
 masses. There is a square keep, to begin with, at the 
 east angle (the angle nearest to the spectator in Turner's 
 picture), with round corner turrets, resting on well- 
 moulded corbels. Turner simply ignores the separate 
 existence of this keep, and merges it in the general 
 mass of the castle. As to the corbel-turrets, he omits 
 them altogether, though he must have been aware of 
 their importance to architecural character. At the 
 northern angle of the real castle there is a small round 
 tower, or turret, like the tourelles so common in French 
 chateaux. This was never as high as the keep, nor even 
 as the chimneys. Turner omits it altogether, or supposes 
 it, like the keep, merged in the common mass, and as 
 high as the keep itself. A very important characteristic 
 
70 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 of the Scottish castle and French chateau is the relative 
 importance of their chimneys. At Kilchurn there are 
 several chimneys still in good preservation, four of them 
 being very conspicuous, and three out of the four are 
 striking objects from the point of view chosen by Turner; 
 yet he gives nothing recognizable as a chimney in all 
 his building. To the left hand the artist draws a lower 
 or minor mass of building, and inserts a semi -circular 
 projection in the middle of it, like the semi -circular 
 towers in Roman city walls. There is nothing of this 
 kind in the reality. A very important picturesque char- 
 acteristic of Kilchurn Castle is the magnificent abundance 
 of ivy on the side of the ruins towards the lake. A 
 great mass of this is visible from the place where Turner 
 sketched, on the left hand corner of the building. There 
 is no ivy whatever on Turner's Kilchurn. It may be 
 objected that the ivy has grown since then, but the 
 thickness of its trunks, which are colossal, is evidence of 
 its great age. The reader will please to observe, that in 
 these deviations from the truth the artist has in every 
 instance sacrificed not only fact but character. Not 
 only does his castle fail to recall such details as the 
 placing of the windows — though even this affects char- 
 acter, for the regularity of the windows in Kilchurn, 
 which Turner has neglected, is an important architectural 
 characteristic — not only does the artist omit little details, 
 but he utterly despises the most important features of the 
 building, its great keep, its minor towers, its turrets, and 
 its chimneys. He is supposed, indeed, to have drawn a^ 
 certain building, but he draws it in such a manner as to 
 
Kilchum Castle. 
 
 71 
 
 mark his complete indifference to everything in it that 
 is interesting, either from the picturesque point of view 
 or the architectural. 
 
 3. The Motmtain. — It is not so easy to fix upon points 
 of comparison between a mountain drawing and the 
 reality, as it is to criticise a drawing of architecture ; but 
 there are certain features which can be fixed upon even 
 in a mountain. I may begin by saying quite plainly, 
 that from the point of view chosen by Turner, a point of 
 view definitively fixed for us by the perspective of the 
 castle walls (it is lucky that we have this pour nous 
 orienter), there is no mountain to be seen bearing the 
 most distant resemblance to that which he gives us. 
 That side of Loch Awe is separated from Loch Etive 
 by a chain of mountains terminating in Ben Cruachan. 
 You have I^en Cruachan, with its base in the pass of 
 Brandir, then Ben Vorich, then Ben Anea, and after that 
 the mountains of Glen Strae.* With these last we have 
 nothing to do now because Turner has his back to them. 
 A man drawing Kilchurn from Turner's place can see 
 Ben Anea easily by turning his head to the right. The 
 mountain before him, on the other side Kilchurn Castle, 
 is not Ben Cruachan but Ben Vorich. As for Cruachan, 
 he is completely hidden behind Vorich, and as much 
 
 * With regard to this bit of geography the reader is respectfully requested 
 not to go by the maps, unless he has the Ordnance Survey. The other 
 maps generally give the right situations of Scottish towns and villages, but 
 are utterly untrustworthy as to the physical geography of the country. I 
 have nevej seen a map of Scotland which put the mountains in their right 
 places, or which gave an accurate shore-line of the lakes. Ben Vorich is 
 not to be confounded with Ben Voirlich. 
 
72 
 
 The Life of y. M. W, Turner. 
 
 invisible as if he were in Greenland. The latter, then, 
 is the mountain (in nature) that we have to deal with 
 now. 
 
 Ben Vorich, as seen behind Kilchurn, slopes towards 
 the lake at an angle of thirty degrees near the water, and 
 of twenty degrees higher up the slope. It has no peak. 
 It is richly wooded up to a height of about one thousand 
 feet. 
 
 Turner's mountain slopes towards the lake at an angle 
 of seventy degrees near the water, and at an average 
 angle of thirty degrees higher up. It has a peak. It is 
 not wooded at all. 
 
 Ben Vorich does not, from that point, present a very 
 broken outline. It has some variety in it, but it is not 
 much broken. 
 
 The outline of Turner's mountain is wild and rugged 
 in the extreme, from the peak down to the precipice. 
 
 The conclusion to which this comparison forces us is 
 that Turner substituted some other mountain for that 
 which is really visible behind Kilchurn. If he drew 
 anything in nature, we may have to go some distance to 
 seek it. 
 
 There are only two mountains near Loch Awe which 
 could have offered even a distant suggestion of the 
 Turner mountain. One is Ben Anea, which from a 
 certain place on the Orchay appears by an effect of per- 
 spective to have a sort of pretension to a peak ; but 
 Ben Anea is hemmed in by other mountains, and does 
 not descend precipitously to the lake. Turner's moun- 
 tain is precipitous, and clear of others on the left-hand 
 
SKETCH or BEN CRUACHAN AFTER ^UR^JEB 
 
 BEN CKUACHAN.FROM A T0P06RAPHIC DRAWING. 
 
Kilchuni Castle. 
 
 71 
 
 side. Ben Cruachan has a real peak, and is isolated just 
 on that side. I conclude, therefore, that the mountain in 
 Turner's picture is suggested by Ben Cruachan. 
 
 Now, the nearest place from which the peak of Ben 
 Cruachan ceases to be eclipsed by the head of Ben 
 Vorich is nearly three miles from Kilchurn by water, 
 and a good deal further by land. Turner must, therefore, 
 have combined sketches taken at a distance of three 
 miles from each other in one picture. 
 
 When we arrive at the place where the peak is about 
 as much disengaged as it is in Turner's picture, we get a 
 view of Ben Cruachan, which has indeed some very slight 
 and distant resemblance to Turner's mountain ; but we 
 observe that the artist has no more cared to preserve 
 even the character of the mountain than he did that of 
 the castle. The real Ben Cruachan is not very rugged, 
 except just about the summit, and even there the rugged- 
 ness of it is much reduced by distance. There are a few 
 humps, or bosses, on its side, it is true, but by far the 
 most characteristic feature is the vast curving slope from 
 the shoulder down to the loch. The average inclination 
 of this is not so great as might be imagined, for it 
 does not exceed twenty degrees. It was neither striking 
 enough nor entertaining enough to suit Turner, who 
 broke it up into ruggedness above, and finished it with a 
 sheer precipice below. In the reality you cannot see 
 Ben Cruachan from this point without seeing Ben Vorich 
 also, and the latter interferes considerably with his 
 greater neighbor. Turner ignores Ben Vorich altogether, 
 giving him no separate individuality, though some of the 
 
74 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Ttmier. 
 
 mountainous masses to the right may be supposed, by 
 our charity, to belong to him. The reader will see from 
 my topographical drawing, that the mass of Ben Vorich 
 makes the peak of Cruachan look insignificant. 
 
 We may observe, lastly, that although the real Crua- 
 chan is wooded up to a certain height, say from 300 to 
 1000 feet. Turner's mountain is not wooded at all. 
 
 4. The Remote Distance. — It is difficult, of course, 
 with an artist who takes his materials wherever he likes, 
 to fix upon mountain outlines in nature and say that he 
 meant to draw those more than any others; but if Crua- 
 chan affords any indication, these distant hills must be 
 the moorland on and about Craiganunie. I need hardly 
 observe that they are pure invention. Craiganunie does 
 not, from any point of view, take those outlines, nor out- 
 lines of that character. 
 
 In order to make this distance visible from his point of 
 view near Kilchurn, Turner has entirely removed some 
 wooded land which would have hidden it. Nevertheless 
 that wooded land is very good for artists, with its grand 
 old Scotch firs and its rocky foregrounds, and it is one of 
 the most characteristic parts of the immediate neighbor- 
 hood of Kilchurn. 
 
 If the reader has had the patience to follow me atten- 
 tively through this analysis he will at least be quite 
 convinced of one thing, that so early as 1802, when 
 Turner was only twenty-seven years old, he had already 
 absolutely abandoned everything of the nature of topo- 
 graphic fidelity. The difference between his treatment 
 of landscape and faithful portraiture is not the difference 
 
 ^d 
 
Kilchuni Castle. 
 
 75 
 
 between one kind of topography and another ; it is the 
 difference between a certain kind of truthfulness and the 
 total abandonment of that particular kind of truthfulness. 
 It is as if a writer of travels were to say to himself, 
 " Hitherto I have endeavored to tell the truth about the 
 places which I have seen, but from this day forwards, 
 although remaining an honorable person in the ordinary 
 intercourse of life, I shall consider myself, whenever I sit 
 down to write my travels, at perfect liberty to say what is 
 not true, and to omit what is true, just as it may suit my 
 convenience and seem to me likely to astonish, or amuse, 
 or in any way charm or delight, my readers." Had there 
 been any endeavor, in Turner's case, to preserve some 
 particular kind of local truth — to preserve, for example, 
 the truth of local character merely, whilst abandoning 
 particular facts — the case would have been a change of 
 principle as to truth, but not an abandonment of principle. 
 What Turner really did, however, was not to emancipate 
 himself partially; he emancipated himself entirely; and 
 after having been in his youth a describer of what he had 
 seen, he became henceforth just as much an author of 
 fiction as a poet in words or a novelist. 
 
 The distinction between Turner's treatment of natural 
 material and that of the majority of landscape-painters 
 will better be understood by an example. As we have 
 been talking about Kilchurn, it will be a saving of trouble 
 to the reader if I describe another view of the same place. 
 In the Royal Collection at Osborne there is a picture of 
 it in water-color by Mr. G. H. Fripp, which was engraved 
 by Mr. Wallis for the Art journal. It appeared in that 
 
76 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 periodical for February, 1868. The view here is in a 
 different direction, but the treatment of the two artists 
 may be very closely compared. Mr. Fripp's picture 
 includes the castle, the alluvial plain of the Orchay, Ben 
 Anea, and the mountains of Glen Strae. It is not by any 
 means a strictly accurate piece of topography, Mr. Fripp 
 having used his liberty as an artist in various ways, which 
 we will indicate very shortly ; but he has been extremely 
 careful to preserve what seemed to him all the most 
 important truths of local character, so that any one who 
 loved the place might find in the picture at least all those 
 features which he would be likely to remember and to 
 recognize. The feelings of attachment to locality, which 
 are often so inextricably mingled with our admiration for 
 natural beauty, are hurt and wounded by Turner's indiffer- 
 ence to everything that we know and love ; but in Mr. 
 Fripp's work they find a succession of satisfactions. The 
 castle is not minutely accurate ; the nearest corbel-turret 
 is omitted, perhaps by the fault of the engraver, but we 
 find all the principal features — the keep, the gables, the 
 chimneys, the. staircase turret, the heavy masses of ivy, 
 the rock on which the castle stands. This is not simply 
 a castle quelconque ; it is Kilchurn Castle, and no other. 
 In the landscape we have the same degree of fidelity to 
 all the leading features. There is the alluvial plain, with 
 its stunted trees, scattered near the Orchay, but gathering 
 into a little wood behind Kilchurn itself. There is the 
 bay of Kilchurn between us and the castle ; and across 
 the lake, to the left, the Goose's Rock which projects into 
 the water, with the trees about it. Mr. Fripp has not 
 
 lEa 
 
Kilchum Castle. 
 
 77 
 
 omitted the solitary farm-house near the Goose's Rock 
 (see " Painter's Camp," p. 105, Am. edition), nor has he 
 forgotten the picturesque rocks and trees on his own side 
 of the lake, but has used them in his foreground. As I 
 wander into Mr. Fripp's distance up Glen Strae, I remem- 
 ber many a real wandering in that region, and feel grateful 
 to the artist for enabling me to live past days over again. 
 
 With so much local fidelity, what, then, is the artistic 
 liberty used by Mr. Fripp, of which we spoke a little time 
 since .-• In what does his manner of treatment differ from 
 the strict topographic truth .-' 
 
 It differs, first, in being more concentrated than the 
 natural scene. Interesting material, on the right hand 
 and on the left, is brought nearer together, so as to get it 
 into the picture. For example, the Goose's Rock, which 
 is interesting, is outside the picture to the left, but it is 
 brought in to add interest. Another alteration is that all 
 the mountains are made higher, and their lines steeper, 
 than in nature : the difference of steepness between a line 
 in the picture and the same line in nature is from fifteen 
 to twenty degrees. In all probability Mr. Fripp exagger- 
 ated height and steepness unconsciously, for artists do so 
 almost invariably in consequence of the vivacity of their 
 own impressions. The truth is, that although the 
 mountains at the head of Loch Awe strike the imagi- 
 nation very powerfully, they are not precipitously steep. 
 The angle of their outline in nature seldom exceeds thirty 
 degrees. In Mr. Fripp's picture it reaches about fifty 
 degrees. Another very decided difference between Mf. 
 Fripp's work and nature is, that he remarkably exagger- 
 
78 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 ates ruggedness. The slopes of Ben Anea are not, in 
 nature, very rugged ; on the contrary, that mountain is 
 somewhat remarkable for the fine rounding of its principal 
 parts. Mr, Fripp prefers ruggedness to roundness (think- 
 ing it more picturesque) and hews the surface of the 
 mountain into steps and precipices ; for which, indeed, 
 there is an excuse in nature, for the rock is often visible, 
 but no more. The other mountains are treated on the 
 same principle. The foreground is true to local character, 
 but is simply used as material, the rocks and trees being 
 put where they suit the artist's convenience. 
 
 Such is the exact degree in which Mr. Fripp will- 
 deviate from nature in his drawing, and in this degree of 
 deviation he resembles the majority of our more conscien- 
 tious artists. They alter nature in order to make their 
 work look more pictorial, but they do not, as a general 
 rule, abandon the endeavor to render local character to 
 the best of their ability. There are great differences in 
 their success, and differences in the license they allow 
 themselves : but the general feeling amongst artists is, 
 that when a picture is called by the name of a place, it 
 ought to bear some resemblance to that place. 
 
 One or two of the most earnest young English artists 
 have gone further than this, and attempted genuine por- 
 traiture, trying to draw things really and truly as they are. 
 They met with an unforeseen difficulty in the constitution 
 of the human mind. All men when they are struck by 
 anything in nature exaggerate it. I mean, that they see 
 the real thing in nature bigger and more important than 
 it really is. The consequence of this is, that a represen- 
 
Kilchurn Castle. 
 
 79 
 
 tation of the thing which only gives the true importance 
 of it relatively to other objects, is at once rejected as 
 inadequate. There is a wide distinction between the 
 really apparent size of objects and the size which we 
 imagine them to appear. The first can be measured 
 scientifically at any time with the utmost accuracy, and 
 precisely stated in terms of degrees and minutes, just as 
 we can measure the exact inclination of a mountain slope ; 
 the second is purely a mental impression.* We admit 
 then, and consider it a settled question, that pure topog- 
 raphy is not to be expected from an artist, and we will 
 even admit that such deviations as those of Mr. Fripp are 
 lawful ; because though he may not care for truth of 
 minute detail, he does evidently care for truth of charac- 
 ter, and try to preserve it. But what are we to say of 
 Turner.'' Is his system, or his absence of system, com- 
 patible with the degree of veracity we have a right to 
 expect from an artist .■' 
 
 There is certainly a moral question here which deserves 
 a little consideration. An artist sells a picture as being 
 representative of a certain place, and on examination it 
 turns out that the picture does not resemble the place, 
 and that it is a mere fancy of the painter's. If it were 
 perfectly understood that no resemblance was attempted, 
 there would be no deception. If you order a picture of 
 Adam and Eve in Paradise you know, without being told, 
 
 * The reader is referred to an article on this subject in the Portfolio for 
 1875, P^g^ 76- The reasons for the inadequacy of' pure topography have 
 also been explained in my " Thoughts about Art," in the chapters on 
 " Painting from Nature," " The Place of Landscape-painting amongst the 
 Fine Arts," and " The Observation of Nature." 
 
8o 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turtter. 
 
 that the figures are not partraits of Adam and Eve, but 
 that they are either pure inventions or studies from 
 Academy models ; but if the subject of the picture were 
 Prince Albert and Queen Victoria you would expect some 
 degree of likeness, and consider yourself unfairly treated 
 if they were not recognizable. There is a moral question, 
 also, about the naming of pictures after places. It is done 
 to profit by the interest which people take in places that 
 they have heard of or read about, and it is not strictly 
 honest to sell to them as portraits of places designs which 
 are all but imaginary. Turner was an excellent man of 
 business in his own way, and he knew that people liked to 
 fancy that they were looking at the portrait of some 
 definite place, and not at a mere "composition." The 
 temper of the public on this subject is well understood by 
 experienced artists. One successful old painter said to 
 me, " If I paint a landscape and call it a composition, 
 people are not satisfied and think it too artificial, because 
 they are aware that it is composed ; but if I call the same 
 picture by the name of some place that they can find on 
 the map, they are satisfied and look upon it with perfect 
 faith, as a true representation of nature." 
 
 There is, however, a certain remote relation between 
 such a work as Turner's Kilchiirn and the place it pro- 
 fesses to represent. It bears about the same relation to 
 reality that our dreams do when we dream of some place 
 that we have visited. We then see places oddly jumbled 
 together, and our memory, retentive enough of certain 
 things, entirely omits others of equal or still greater im- 
 portance. You may dream, for example, if you have been 
 
Kilchurn Castle. 
 
 8i 
 
 reading about Mount Blanc and St. Paul's Cathedral, that 
 you see St. Paul's in the valley of Chamouni with Mount 
 Blanc for a background, but that the Cathedral has neither 
 dome nor belfry, just as Turner's Kilc/mrn had neither 
 chimney nor turret ; and you may perhaps see in your 
 dream, without surprise, the waters of Lake Leman within 
 a mile of the Mer de Glace. If Turner had simply visited 
 Kilchurn without making a sketch, and afterwards made 
 this picture of it from memory, intending it to be accu- 
 rate, we should say that his memory was singularly defec- 
 tive. The experiments of M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 
 the " Education de la Memoire pittoresque " have pro- 
 duced results with which no effort of Turner's memory, of 
 which we have any evidence, will bear the slightest com- 
 parison.* This work of Turner's is not remembering, it 
 is dreaming, and drawing or painting the dream. 
 
 At length, then, after examining Turner's work and 
 comparing it with nature and with the work of another 
 
 * M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran was teacher of drawing at the ficole Im- 
 periale de Dessin in Paris in the time of Louis Napoleon, and he made a 
 remarkable series of experiments upon his pupils to ascertain how far the 
 artistic memory may be cultivated. His account of these experiments was 
 published in a pamphlet (Bauce, 13 Rue Bonaparte, 1862). They aston- 
 ished the most experienced artists, who saw them subjected to the most 
 rigorous proof, in which invention was allowed to take no liberties. In 
 Turner's work you never can disentangle memory and invention so that it 
 is really impossible to ascertain with precision whether his memory was 
 accurate or not. He may have remembered accurately and been unfaithful 
 to his accurate recollection as he was to the facts themselves when they lay 
 before him whilst he studied from nature. On the other hand, his memory 
 itself may have been treacherous. My own belief is that he was too imagin- 
 
 .tive to have an accurate memory. I believe that accuracy is compatible 
 with imagination only when the feelings are not concerned, and feeling is 
 
 Iways present in Turner's work. 
 
 6 
 
82 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 artist, we have arrived at this conclusion, that in the year 
 1802 he had begun to paint his dreams. This is worth 
 all the trouble we have taken about it, because the gene- 
 ral belief is that Turner did not become a dreamer till a 
 much later period. 
 
 And now let us ask, What are the nature and qualities 
 of the dream } Is it mere confusion, or is it orderly with 
 an order of its own, which is not the order of reality .? 
 The answer is, that the dream has great order and unity. 
 Even the treachery of the artist's memory has helped the 
 unity of the impression. A believer in the infinite perfec- 
 tion of Turner's mental faculties might affirm that he 
 remembered everything, but purposely rejected what he 
 did not consider necessary to his artistic intention. This 
 would be a simple assertion which can be made of any 
 one, and which, in the case of Turner, is without the 
 slightest evidence in its support. It is a theory which 
 may be eagerly accepted by those who have a blind faith 
 in the genius of the artist, but when you come to examine 
 his genius according to the methods of scientific criticism 
 you will not accept such a theory so easily ; certainly not 
 until 3'ou are convinced that there is strong evidence in 
 its favor. The real operation of Turner's intellect upon 
 his materials appears to have been a selection, both by 
 the fidelities of his memory and by what I have just called 
 its treacheries. I may illustrate this by a piece of advice 
 which was given to me by a distinguished critic of litera- 
 ture. "Take as many notes as you like," he said, "but 
 never refer to them, except by the memory, when you are 
 actually writing. Your memory will select for you those 
 
 wtm 
 
Turner s Dream Pictures. 
 
 83 
 
 which you ought to use, and reject for you, without any 
 conscious trouble on your part, those which would only 
 be an encumbrance to your work." Without stopping to 
 consider whether this was good or bad advice (it would 
 not be good in all cases), I may say that it describes very 
 accurately the operation of the imaginative intellect in 
 art. The imaginative memory retains what is necessary 
 to its work, and drops what is unnecessary. In the case 
 of the picture before us we must not allow ourselves to be 
 misled by the mere title. The artist calls his work Kil- 
 churti Castle to catch the public ; it is the tradesman, and 
 not the poet, who names the picture. Kilchurn had not 
 become so famous as Wordsworth and Scott made it 
 afterwards, but it had already a romantic interest from the 
 story of the " Bridal," and an interest of locality from its 
 fine situation in the Highlands, which a few English 
 tourists had already begun to explore. The real motive 
 of the picture was not Kilchurn, but the play of clouds 
 about the crest of a Highland mountain, which mountain 
 signified little. The mountain is any mountain you 
 please ; it resembles Ben Lomond nearly as much as Ben 
 Cruachan : the castle is any castle you please ; it resem- 
 bles Ardhonnel more closely than Kilchurn, though Tur- 
 ner probably never saw Ardhonnel. The clouds play 
 about the granite peak, a shower falling here from their 
 trailing fringes, a sunbeam flashing there on the toppling 
 silvery billows which are their everchanging summits, a 
 level wreath of white vapor clinging in the shelter of the 
 peak itself, great volumes rolling and surging in the abyss 
 of the deep corrie, and on the steep stony sides of the 
 
84 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 mountains the purple shadows fall, vast and swift, veiling 
 each of them its hundred acres of desolation. What has 
 all this to do with the presence, or the absence, of tower 
 or turret in the dismantled ruin below ? Who thinks of 
 man's work when he witnesses the majesty of the storms 
 on the everlasting mountains ? The clouds played so for 
 unnumbered centuries before the little feudal fortress was 
 built, and they will play just as merrily when every ves- 
 tige of it shall have utterly disappeared. 
 
 Let us think then of Turner henceforth simply as a 
 poet who is not to be bound down by topographic facts of 
 any kind. We shall find evidence, as we proceed, that he 
 did not pay deference, either, to the higher scientific con- 
 ditions of pictorial truth : but this is a part of our inquiry 
 which it is better to reserve until we are brought to it by 
 the story of his life. 
 
 He paid as much attention to truth of all kinds as 
 poets generally do. He lived in a world of dreams, and 
 the use of the world of reality, in his case, seems to 
 have been only to supply suggestions and materials for 
 the dreams. 
 
 Had he lived till these days and been acquainted with 
 our contemporary literature he might fairly have said, 
 " Why do literary men find fault with me for my free use 
 of the poetic license .'' They just take as great liberties 
 themselves. Talk of my Kilc/mrti, indeed ! what do 
 you say to Mr. Matthew Arnold's Church of Brou ! Mr. 
 Arnold tells us over and over again that the Church 
 of Brou is in the mountains, close to the pine-forests." 
 
The Topography of Poets. 
 
 " Clad in black, on her white palfrey, 
 Her old architect beside. 
 There they found her in the mountains, 
 Morn and noon and eventide. 
 
 " There she sate, and watched the builders 
 Till the church was roofed and done ; 
 Last of all, the builders reared her 
 In the nave a tomb of stone. 
 
 * * * « 
 
 " Upon the glistening leaden roof 
 
 Of the new pile, the sunlight shines. 
 The stream goes leaping by. 
 The hills are clothed with pines sun-proof, 
 'Mid bright green fields, below the pines, 
 Stands the church on high. 
 What church is this, from men aloof.'' 
 'Tis the Church of Brou. 
 
 " On Sundays, at the matin chime, 
 
 The Alpine peasants, two and three. 
 Climb up here to pray ; 
 Burghers and dames, at summer's prime. 
 Ride out to church from Chambery, 
 Dight with mantles gay. 
 But else it is a lonely time 
 Round the Church of Brou. 
 
 * * * * 
 
 So rest, for ever rest, O princely pair. 
 
 In your high church, 'mid the still mountain air." 
 
 85 
 
 The poem from which these extracts are made is very 
 beautiful, and I would not have it otherwise than as it 
 is ; yet what amazing topography, especially amazing in 
 dealing with a subject which is strictly historical and 
 strictly local ! The church of Brou is not in the moun- 
 tains at all, but in the low country, six miles from the 
 first rise of the Jura hills, and the scenery about it is 
 
86 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 that of the great plain of La Bresse. I know the church 
 well. There is no leaping stream near it, nor are there 
 any sun-proof pines. There is no climbing up to it, the 
 road is good and nearly level. The church does not 
 stand on high. The tomb of the Duchess Marguerite is 
 not "in the nave" at all, it is on the right-hand side of 
 the choir. So far from being aloof from men, the church 
 is within half -a -mile of an ancient town (Bourg en 
 Bresse), which has now ii,ooo inhabitants, with an old 
 church of its own ; and it so happens, that while that of 
 Brou was building there was a bishop of Bourg, and the 
 old church there was a cathedral. It is not probable that 
 the burghers and dames came from Chambery to service 
 at Brou, seeing that Chambery is more than a hundred 
 kilometres from Brou — too much for a Sunday morning's 
 ride. 
 
 This is but one instance of topographic inaccuracy in 
 poetry ; any habitual reader of the poets could find many 
 others. Why, then, do we exonerate the poet and blame 
 the landscape-painter } The reason is, that we have not 
 yet fully conceived how identical the two artists are. 
 
 So soon as Turner reaches perfect manhood he be- 
 comes the poet, as much as the necessity for earning a 
 living will allow him. He is not always quite so careless 
 of local truth as he was at Kilchurn ; he knows his public 
 and his employers, knows that they will expect the 
 Tower of London to be different from the dome of St. 
 Paul's, and makes his subjects just topographic enough 
 to pass for likenesses when the places are too well 
 known. But he hated being "mappy," as he called it in 
 
The Topography of Poets. 
 
 87 
 
 his rough, unliterary way, and left that industry to 
 others. It is certain that he would have abominated 
 the work of our severely literal school, if he had lived to 
 see it. 
 
 Most landscape-painters, as they advance in life, be 
 come more and more careless about portraiture of places ; 
 but what is surprising in Turner is, that he should have 
 made the choice between art and nature at so early a 
 period of his career. It is wonderful too, that a man shouH 
 love nature as he did, be continually observing her, really 
 know more about natural phenomena than any of his 
 predecessors, and yet coolly and deliberately prefer his 
 own dreams to the beautiful and interesting places which 
 he travelled so far to see ! It seems as if he travelled 
 because he could not do without the suggestion, the 
 stimulus, of fresh scenes and places ; but also as if his 
 mind, when once fecundated by the sight of nature, must 
 produce fruit of its own kind, and in its own way. It is 
 said that each mind lives in its own world ; how true this 
 is of Turner ! how true it is that every one of his pictures 
 or designs is chiefly interesting for us as a new glimpse 
 of that enchanted land which belonged to him and to him 
 only, into which we can only enter by his permission, 
 and with his guidance, out of which he himself could 
 never escape ! 
 
 * 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 Turner elected R.A. — First continental excursion. — Turner and his father. 
 — Pictures of 1806 and 1807. — Turner takes to etching. — Turner as an 
 engraver in mezzotint. — The Liber Studiorum. 
 
 "AT 7"HEN Turner exhibited his Kilchurn at the Royal 
 Academy his name, for the first time, appeared in 
 the glory of full capitals, with every syllable of his three 
 Christian names before it. In 1801 he had been plain 
 W.Turner, A.; in 1802 he became JOSEPH MAL- 
 LORD WILLIAM TURNER, R.A. 
 
 He was only twenty-seven years old, " a mere land- 
 scape-painter," as critics and historical painters used to 
 say, earning his living mainly by humble industry in the 
 business of illustration, and yet he became a full Acade- 
 mician at that early age. His election is the more re- 
 markable that he had done nothing whatever to bring it 
 about, except his fair hard work in his profession. He 
 was absolutely incapable of social courtiership in any of 
 its disguises. He gave no dinners, he paid no calls, he 
 did nothing to make the Academicians believe that he 
 would be a credit to their order in any social sense. 
 Even after his election he would not go to thank his 
 electors, in obedience to the established usage. " If they 
 had not been satisfied with my pictures," he said to 
 
Turner Elected R.A. 
 
 89 
 
 Stothard, " they would not have elected me. Why, then, 
 should I thank them ? Why thank a man for performing 
 a simple duty ? " His views on this subject were clearly 
 wrong ; for the rules of good manners very frequently 
 require us to thank people for performing simple duties, 
 and the Academicians were not under any obligation to 
 elect the young painter so soon : but how completely 
 Turner's conduct in this matter proves that he can only 
 have been elected on his merits ! It is unnecessary to 
 repeat what has been already said about Turner's good 
 fortune in living at a time when the Academy would 
 receive landscape-painters. His elevation to the full 
 membership was of immense value to him in his career, 
 and he knew this so well that he remained deeply 
 attached to the Academy all his life. He was Associate 
 or member of it for a full half century, and during fifty 
 years was only three times absent from its exhibitions. 
 The Academy had been kind to him from boyhood, an 
 alma mater from the first ; and now in the strength of his 
 manhood she opened wide for him the gates of her 
 Temple of Fame. 
 
 It may be a convenient help to the memory to join the 
 election to the full membership with the abandonment of 
 topographic truth in art. The coincidence is very close. 
 The year when Turner appeared as Royal Academician 
 was the very year in which he exhibited a picture con- 
 ceived in absolute disdain of topographic truth. From 
 that time forwards he may have admitted some recogniz- 
 able measure of such truth, to conciliate publishers or 
 buyers, but his own mental emancipation' from it was 
 complete. 
 
90 
 
 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 Let it not for one moment be supposed that, from the 
 point of view of the higher art-criticism, I, or any one 
 else, would blame Turner for emancipating himself in this 
 way. There is no doubt a certain feeling of disappoint- 
 ment when we come to realize the almost incredible 
 degree of his unfaithfulness to topographic fact, especi- 
 ally if we have a strong attachment to places and a feeble 
 interest in art. But the artist in Turner gained won- 
 drously by the liberation which sacrificed the topographer. 
 From the time of his early maturity he became, above 
 and before all other things, artist. It is not even accu- 
 rate to say that he deserted one order of truth for another, 
 that he quitted topography for the rendering of scientific 
 truth of aspect ; for although there is much truth in his 
 works, he never hesitated to become utterly unscientific 
 when his artistic instincts suggested that kind of unfaith- 
 fulness. It is not now the time or place to apply this 
 kind of criticism ; but we shall have to apply it later. 
 For the present it is enough to say, that the young Acad- 
 emician had a temper as scornfully independent in his 
 work as in his social relations, that he painted what suited 
 him just as it suited him, and that the impulse to follow 
 his own genius became stronger and more irresistible as 
 he grew older. His temperament was full of audacity, 
 self-centred, self-reliant, eager for success and fame, yet 
 scornful of popular opinion — a contradiction, if it is one, 
 very common in the characters of artists and men of 
 letters, yet seldom so strikingly visible as in Turner; for 
 no man ever loved fame and money more than he did, 
 and no man ever condescended less to the opinion univer- 
 
First Continental Excursion. 
 
 91 
 
 sally received amongst the vulgar, that art is the imitation 
 of nature. 
 
 Great Britain is an excellent country for a landscape- 
 painter ; but it is a country which, from its very nature, 
 excites an Englishman's curiosity to see what lies outside 
 of it. It is difficult, after seeing our sublime little north- 
 ern mountains, to repress the desire for mountain scenery 
 of a yet sublimer order ; it is difficult, after following our 
 comparatively short rivers, to avoid dreaming of those 
 vaster arteries of the Continent which flow for two 
 hundred leagues. Everything that England has awakens 
 the desire to see something which she has not. After 
 seeing Westminster Abbey one desires to visit Rouen, 
 Amiens, Rheims, Chartres, and Beauvais ; after standing 
 under the dome of St. Paul's we should like to see St. 
 Peter's at Rome. The Englishman has so much in his 
 own island that he is educated into longing for more and 
 grander things of the same kind ; and it so happens that 
 there is nothing in England except our ships and sea- 
 ports, of which some finer, or at any rate bigger, specimen 
 cannot be found on the Continent. For most things we 
 are like children who have ridden on ponies, and con- 
 ceived from that experience a peculiar passion for tall 
 horses. Of course such an artist as Turner, with his 
 intense appreciation of vastness, was not going to be 
 confined all his life to the limits of our insular scenery. 
 His first raid upon the Continent immediately followed 
 the first exhibition in which he had borne the full honors 
 of the Academy : let us remember this, for it is important. 
 The whole of Turner's Continental work was done in his 
 
92 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 maturity, and consequently after his emancipation from 
 topography. 
 
 His first impression of Calais was strong enough to 
 suggest a very strong picture, the Calais Pier, with 
 French Poissards preparing for Sea — an English Packet 
 arriving, which has been etched not long since, on a 
 great scale, by Mr. Seymour Haden. Luckily this work 
 is now the property of the nation, for it is the first mani- 
 festation of the full energy there was in Turner's genius 
 — of its energy, but not as yet by any means of its sense 
 of beauty. The picture is full of life and motion, but the 
 coloring of it is conceived as if it were intended to be 
 etched, and not intended to be exhibited perpetually as a 
 work in color. The light-and-shade, too, seems to have 
 been designed for the etcher, with his simple broad dis- 
 tinctions and vigorous darks, rather than for the engraver, 
 with his subtle translations of delicate tones. Still it is 
 already master's work, and if it had been exhibited two 
 years earlier the Academical election would have seemed 
 more the acknowledgment of success and less the intelli- 
 gent anticipation of it. Another important result of this 
 Continental tour was The Festival upon the Opening of the 
 Vintage of Macon. As the sense of power had revealed 
 itself in the Calais Pier, so the sense of beauty had its 
 satisfactions in the Macon Vintage. It is a graceful com- 
 position, full of the sentiment which we call classic, with 
 its noble river-divided landscape, its elegant trees, its 
 pleasant slopes of land and joyous animated figures. It 
 is, in short, a beautiful fancy with much southern poetry 
 in it, carrying us half-way to the Virgilian dreamland, but 
 
First Continental Excursion. 
 
 93 
 
 it is not Macon. The real scenery of Macon is interest- 
 ing to the intelligent traveller, but it is in the highest 
 degree embarrassing to the artist, and cannot be treated 
 pictorially without the free use of the artist's license, 
 about which Turner had no scruple. Not only did Turner 
 permit himself the widest departures from ftict, but he 
 also (as at Kilchurn) neglected important truths of char- 
 acter. In the country near Macon one of the most 
 striking peculiarities is the perfect flatness of the land on 
 the left bank of the Saone, and the boldness of the slopes 
 an' the right, yet this strong contrast is not given. The 
 river is a Turnerian river, but not the Saone near Macon ; 
 the vine-lands are Turnerian, they are not the vine-lands 
 )f the Maconnais. 
 
 From Eastern France our hero crossed over into 
 Switzerland, and seems to have made a halt at Bonneville, 
 on his way to Chamouni — a longer halt than passing 
 tourists usually make there, for he got materials for two 
 pictures, one of the little town wdth Mont Blanc, and the 
 )ther of the Chateau de St. Michel, at Bonneville. He 
 ivent on to the Mer de Glace, drawing the glacier and 
 source of the Arveiron ; crossed the Alps till he got into 
 the Val d'Aosta, and drew there also. Of his thoughts 
 ind impressions during this first journey among scenery 
 vhich must have greatly excited him we know nothing 
 3ut what may be gathered from his sketches. We have 
 no ample correspondence, like Byron's letters from the 
 Continent, giving the successive impressions of scenes 
 w^hen first visited. The feebleness of Turner's literary 
 ■acuity, and the defects of his education, made writing 
 
94 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 irksome to him, whilst his total ignorance of foreign lan- 
 guages must have kept him, when abroad, in too isolated 
 a position for any profitable intercourse with the inhabi- 
 tants. The man who could turn either the French or the 
 Italian name for the beautiful valley just mentioned into 
 such a wonderful muddle as the " Valley of d'Aoust " 
 seems a hopeless student of languages, yet he printed it 
 so in the Academy Catalogue. He writes Macon, the 
 town, with the cedilla (Magon), as if it were the French 
 for mason ; a mistake which nobody with an ear could 
 commit, after having been at the place and heard its 
 name jDronounced. He writes " Arveiron," "Arveron ; " 
 but this is more excusable, as it is a common English 
 error, or abbreviation. The incapacity of Turner in all 
 that constitutes literary power, even of the very humblest 
 order — the power of the emigrant who can write an in- 
 teresting letter to his relations in the old country, the 
 power of the traveller who can keep an intelligible jour- 
 nal — was an incapacity so complete that the biographer 
 has no materials for the history of the artist's mind except 
 his sketches and paintings and the dates on them. What 
 he thought, or whether he thought at all, is a mystery to 
 us : all we know is, that he received a succession of land- 
 scape impressions, which immediately transformed them- 
 selves in his brain till they became dreams, and that these 
 dreams either bore some resemblance to the places, or did 
 not, just as it happened. At the same time we are not to 
 forget that excursions such as this Continental journey 
 had their real utility for Turner, but a strange kind of 
 utility. They gave materials for new dreaming. The 
 
First Continental Excursion. 
 
 95 
 
 picture of the Macon vintage is unlike the reality, and yet 
 in some strange, unaccountable way, was suggested by 
 the reality. So with the mountains. It is probable that 
 Turner never painted a portrait of any mountain what- 
 ever : his way of treating Ben Cruachan (wholly arbitrary) 
 is his way of treating Alp or Apennine ; and yet it would 
 be a great mistake to suppose that his travelling was of no 
 use to him, that he learned nothing from the mountains 
 in Argyllshire or Savoy. On the contrary, where another 
 artist would have spent his time in the unintelligent copy- 
 ism of particular facts, such as the shape of this or that 
 rocky pinnacle or buttress (a shape which would be altered 
 past recognition by walking a mile in either direction), 
 Turner was imbuing his mind with those great laws of 
 structure which govern every hill of one class and every 
 mountain of another. All that this proves is, that his 
 mind acted as the most elevated minds generally do act. 
 The small mind learns painfully the particular fact, and 
 feels lost if the memory fails to retain it ; the large mind 
 notes the fact, but at once passes beyond, to the principle, 
 and after that holds the fact with a somewhat loose and 
 careless grasp. Emerson says that in youth we remember 
 painfully the very words of some great man whom we ad- 
 mire ; but that when our minds have grown larger we 
 become indifferent to this kind of accuracy, being our- 
 selves capable of thinking the thoughts over again, in our 
 3wn way. This was Turner's habit with regard to Nature. 
 He did not care to remember so as to quote Nature word 
 "or word, but he put himself as nearly as possible in har- 
 nony with Nature, so that he might be able at any time 
 
0,6 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 to create natural beauty over again in his own way. This 
 is the sort of relation, and the only sort, which subsisted 
 between the great natural universe and the little Turne- 
 rian one. From the date of his election as Academician, 
 Turner fed himself at the everlasting and inexhaustible 
 banquet of natural beauty, but only as an original poet 
 may freely pasture his mind on the literature of other 
 ages. In this free spirit he travelled ; never resting long 
 in one place, and never, or hardly ever, doing more than 
 sketch with the pencil-point, altering everything that he 
 sketched. On his return to London, after every such ex- 
 cursion, it is doubtful whether he ever possessed one ac- 
 curate study the more, and it cannot be proved that he 
 had any accurate recollection of a single scene that he had 
 passed through. The real gain to him was of a different 
 order. After a sea voyage he had the marine element in 
 his mind ; after wandering through Alpine valleys he 
 came back with an Alpine education, knowing how a 
 snowy crest shines in the sunset, how a glacier creeps 
 down to a valley, and a waterfall leaps from a cliff. 
 
 When Turner became an Academician he took his old 
 father away from his business of barber, and gave him a 
 home in his own house. It is said that he was kind and 
 respectful to the old man, invariably ; which we may 
 easily believe, though there have been stories to the con- 
 trary, originating in the simple habits of both father and 
 son. It seemed to both of them perfectly natural that the 
 elder man, having now much time on his hands, should 
 occupy himself in little tasks which would save a shilling 
 here and there ; but if the painter readily consented to 
 
Turner and his Father. 
 
 97 
 
 this, was it not the most delicate conduct possible under 
 the circumstances ? Old William Turner had been indus- 
 trious and economical all his life, and, like all old men 
 who have been accustomed to work for a living, he felt the 
 need of useful occupation. It is said that he acted as 
 porter at his son's gallery, would stretch canvases for 
 him, and do other little things, in all which there is cer- 
 tainly no real humiliation, but simply the gratification of 
 an old man's wish to be useful. The relation between 
 father and son is indeed quite the prettiest part of the 
 life-story we have to tell. The artist was never hindered 
 by his father, but aided by him in all possible ways with 
 tender parental care and sagacious foresight. The son, 
 on his part, was dutiful and filial to the last, taking the 
 old man to his house, and drawing closer the bond of 
 affection as the social distance between therp. became 
 wider. Thus it is precisely when the painter wins the 
 full honors of the Academy, honors which give a recog- 
 nized and envied position in London society, that he takes 
 his father home. A meaner nature would have tried to 
 keep the old man at a safe distance. Few readers of this 
 biography can have failed to meet with instances of pro- 
 
 essional men, brilliantly successful in the world, whose 
 lumble parents are never by any chance to be met with 
 n their houses, and are never mentioned by them. 
 Thackeray had certainly met with such instances, and 
 vas thinking of them when he described Sepio : " He 
 )rances about the park on a high-bred cock-tail, with lac- 
 
 uered boots and enormous high heels ; and he has a 
 7 
 
98 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 mother and sisters somewhere — washerv/omen, it is said, 
 in Pimlico." 
 
 The house to which Turner took his father from 
 Maiden Lane was No. 64, Harley Street. The artist 
 went to Hve there in the year 1803. In that year he ex- 
 hibited, amongst his other contributions to the Academy, 
 an indifferent figure picture, A Holy Family, in which 
 the early influence of Reynolds is very distinctly visible. 
 
 For the next three years there is hardly anything to 
 tell of Turner's life beyond the mere catalogue of his 
 pictures, and it would encumber the pages of this biog- 
 raphy to give the titles of them all. The Sun Rising 
 through Vapor, which now hangs with the Claudes in the 
 National Gallery, was exhibited in 1807 at the Royal 
 Academy, and the Goddess of Discord in the Garden of 
 Hespcrides appeared in the British Institution the year 
 before. Both these are notable pictures, but the Hesper- 
 ides landscape has a certain fixed place in Turner's 
 history as an artist which gives it a special importance. 
 It was a very ambitious picture, and in it he attempted to 
 combine, and to reconcile, something of his knowledge 
 of mountain form recently acquired amongst the Alps 
 with his knowledge of landscape tradition learned from 
 the old masters in picture-galleries. All artists attempt 
 the reconciliation of some sort of tradition with what they 
 learn from nature ; but in our day we very seldom see a 
 painter of any considerable power hampering himself with 
 the orthodox classicism. If any classicism pervades some 
 portion of the art of to-day, it attempts to show how much 
 better we understand classic feeling than our orthodox 
 
Pictures of 1806 and 1807. 
 
 99 
 
 predecessors did, instead of following blindly in their 
 footsteps. A modern critic ignorant of Turner's real 
 history and finding himself for the first time before this 
 Hesperides landscape of his, would say that here was a 
 man still bound in the chains of tradition, yet struggling 
 towards the truth of nature ; a follower of the ancients, 
 for whom there was some faint hope that in a remote 
 future he might come to see the world with the open eyes 
 of a modern. All this would be a complete mistake. 
 In 1806 it is evident that Turner could have drawn 
 mountain forms better than this if he had chosen ; for he 
 drew them better in 1801 with no other experience than 
 a little knowledge of Scotland. His picture of Kilchurn, 
 with all its topographic inaccuracies, was (for that time) 
 a very remarkable instance of mountain truth, and the 
 artist cannot have been made more ignorant of such truth 
 by his experience of the Continental mountains. The 
 Garden of the Hesperides is full of what seems ignorance 
 of natural form and color too, and yet it cannot have 
 been ignorance. It was a return to the traditions of the 
 picture-gallery, for which, let us bear in mind. Turner 
 does not seem at any time of his life to have felt any 
 hearty aversion. It pleased him to turn his back 
 temporarily upon Nature, and fabricate a classical picture 
 in browns and grays, with impossible geology, in the 
 style of the old masters. There is no denying that 
 the picture has considerable majesty, a kind of simple 
 grandeur which the old painters cared for more than 
 truth, and it is painted with a power which already rivals 
 theirs ; but it cannot give much satisfaction to any lover 
 
lOO The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 of natural beauty. The next year's picture, the Sun 
 Rising through Vapor, is a direct return to Nature, and 
 is the first decided expression on an important scale 
 of Turner's master-passion in his art, the love of light 
 and mystery in combination. Although Turner was only 
 thirty years old when this picture was painted, it is quite 
 mature in treatment throughout, and the proof that he 
 himself believed it to be so is, that he selected it as one 
 of his two representatives in the contest with Claude, 
 which he certainly would not have done if the work 
 had retained the slightest trace of youthful inexperience. 
 The foreground is rich in fishing-boats and figures. In 
 the distance are mighty ships of war, floating on a glassy 
 sea. The sun is struggling through the mist, and lighting 
 a few scattered clouds towards the zenith. Much of the 
 foreground is occupied by a fi.shing-boat ashore and a 
 group of fisherwomen on the sands, who are cleaning 
 and selling fish. The whole scene is of a kind which 
 must have been very familiar to Turner (more familiar 
 than any gardens of Hesperides) ; for he liked to be with 
 fishermen and sailors, and was an early riser, who had 
 often seen the sun in the east through the mists of an 
 English sea. 
 
 We now come to a new scheme of Turner's, which he 
 began to realize in the year 1807. Clever painter as he 
 was already, he did not yet earn very much money by 
 the direct sale of his pictures ; some of the best of which, 
 though exhibited in the Academy and appreciated by his 
 brother artisjs who elected him, returned to his hands 
 after the close of the exhibition, and remained for long 
 
Turner takes to Etching. 
 
 lOJ 
 
 afterwards in his own keeping. He therefore determined 
 to do what many artists are doing at the present day — 
 he determined to appeal to the general public through 
 the medium of etching ; but as the effect he sought 
 required chiaroscuro of a very complete kind, both in 
 fulness and in delicacy, he thought it desirable to add 
 mezzotint to his etchings. 
 
 It so happens that these two kinds of engraving are 
 the most opposite that can be imagined, and therefore 
 the most naturally complementary of each other. Etch- 
 ing depends on lines, mezzotint on shades. In etching 
 the darks are drawn, and every touch is so much added 
 darkness to the work. In mezzotint the dark is removed 
 to make light, and every stroke is so much added light- 
 ness. The faults of etching, considered as a representa- 
 tion of nature, are too much hardness of line, and too 
 little delicacy of distinction in shades. These faults can 
 be overcome, but not easily. Turner did not choose to 
 take the trouble to overcome them. He was always a 
 rapid worker, and liked expeditious methods. It is said 
 that at one time of his life he admired the foliage of a 
 brother landscape-painter, and asked to be allowed to see 
 him work. After watching the painter for a short time 
 he thanked him, but said that his manner would be 
 useless to himself, merely from its incompatibility with 
 rapid execution. Turner, indeed, seems to have shared 
 Landseer's opinion, that speed was a good thing even 
 from the artistic point of view, or at any rate he may 
 have perceived that it had an important pecuniary value, 
 and was necessary to enable him to earn his bread in 
 
I02 
 
 The Life of J. M. IV. Ttirner. 
 
 the beginning of his career. Now painting of any kind, 
 whether in water -color or oil, is a rapid process in 
 comparison with highly- finished etching in complete 
 chiaroscuro. Turner had been accustomed to paint 
 quickly, and he wished to etch quickly also. There was 
 one way in which this could be done, namely, by etching 
 all the organic lines and markings, and leaving the rest 
 of the work, the fine shading, to the mezzotinter. With 
 characteristic shrewdness he adopted this method, and 
 thereby disembarrassed himself of at least three-quarters 
 of the work to be done. In this way he reduced etching 
 to a comparatively simple process, easily learned by any 
 one who was already able to draw ; and as he had a 
 remarkable sense of the value of lines, partly a natural 
 gift, and partly the result of incessant sketching with the 
 pencil-point, the consequence was that he produced 
 etchings with hardly any preliminary apprenticeship, 
 which in their own peculiar kind as landscape markings 
 for mezzotint have never been surpassed, and are not 
 very likely to be in the future. The critics, however, 
 who entirely neglected these works for many years, and 
 did not recognize their merit until it was pointed out to 
 them, are in the present day going into the opposite 
 extreme, and praising Turner as a master of etching, just 
 as if he had practised the complete art — as Rajon does, 
 for example. This is only one of the innumerable in- 
 stances of that renchirissement in eulogy which attends a 
 great reputation. When it becomes fashionable to admire 
 what a famous man has done, people seek distinction for 
 themselves in praising him, and the art of discovering 
 
Turner takes to Etchifig. 
 
 103 
 
 new merits in his works becomes a part of the critic's 
 trade. At this stage in the history of ' a great renown, 
 the critic whose convictions are based upon accurate 
 knowledge finds himself so much left behind that any- 
 thing he has to say seems pale and tame in comparison 
 with what others have already said, and so he is either 
 reduced to complete silence, or else made to appear by 
 contrast, something like a defamer of the illustrious dead. 
 At whatever risk of this imputation, let me say plainly 
 that Turner never in his whole life attained any technical 
 power in etching beyond the very simplest rudiments of 
 the art, and that he is not to be compared for one 
 moment as an executant, with the really accomplished 
 etchers of the present day. There does not pass a month 
 without the publication of some etching in the Portfolio 
 which Turner could not have executed. He had just one 
 kind of skill in etching, that of laying organic lines well 
 which were to be mezzotinted afterwards. He could do 
 this with singular strength and determination, putting 
 very high powers of mind into his work, and proving the 
 value of the etched line, as a skeleton to be covered with 
 subsequent shading, better than any other etcher whom I 
 could name. But I think that the fashionable enthusiasm 
 for Turner's work becomes a downright superstition 
 when it takes his etchings, without the mezzotint shade 
 which he always intended to add to them, as models of 
 what etching should be when nothing is to be left to 
 mezzotint. 
 
 It does not seem very wonderful, when we know how 
 simple was the kind of etching which Turner practised. 
 
I04 
 
 The Life of J. M. W, Turner. 
 
 that he should have mastered so rapidly the limited 
 portion of the art which he intended to make use of ; 
 but I have always thought it very remarkable that he 
 should have been able to make himself a good mezzotint 
 engraver with the very limited amount of practice which 
 he gave to it. He does not seem to have liked the 
 work of mezzotinting, for he did very little of it, and 
 yet the little he did was good. The process was too 
 tedious for him : the slow working from dark to light may 
 be borne by the patience of an engraver ; but it is not an 
 artist's process, as etching is. The consequence was, 
 that Turner generally left the mezzotinting to professional 
 men, such as Charles Turner, Lupton, and others ; nor 
 did he always execute even the etching himself, as the 
 engravers could do it for him from his own drawings. 
 What he did invariably was an original drawing in brown, 
 with pen-work for his organic markings, and shadings 
 washed with a brush. From these drawings the engravers 
 worked. 
 
 The whole scheme of the Liber Studiorum was sug- 
 gested, as every reader of this biography is probably 
 already aware, by the Liber Veritatis of Claude ; but 
 there is an essential difference between the intention of 
 the two works, which a just critic would never overlook. 
 Claude made drawings in brown of his pictures as they 
 successively left his easel, just as David Roberts used to 
 make memoranda with pen and ink to preserve for himself 
 a record of his entire cEuvre, and also to serve for reference 
 in case of dispute about the authenticity of pictures 
 attributed to him. In doing this, Claude had no notion 
 
The Liber Studiorum. 
 
 105 
 
 of making a loud appeal to the public. His Liber Veri- 
 tatis was a private possession, made public long afterwards 
 by the engravings of Earlom, but not intended for pub- 
 licity. The Liber Studiorum, on the contrary, was a 
 direct appeal to the public to judge between its author 
 and the famous landscape-painter of Lorraine. Another 
 difference between the two schemes was, that Claude had 
 no design of proving to the world how varied were the 
 resources of his genius. He simply kept a memorandum 
 of each of his pictures separately, without reference to the 
 others ; but Turner had a great comprehensive plan, 
 according to which every plate in his magnum opus was to 
 form part of an important whole, so that the work, when 
 completed, might be an epitome of the Turnerian universe. 
 The contest is, therefore, one between a living man con- 
 sciously resolved to exhibit his powers to the very best 
 advantage, and a dead man who had no idea that there 
 was ever to be a contest at all, and had done his work for 
 his own private satisfaction. This is the first, but not the 
 last of Turner's plans, which reveal to us the intensely 
 ambitious character of his mind. It is probable that no 
 artist ever lived who had a higher opinion of his own 
 powers, or who thought more about his own fame. Those 
 comparisons which modest people are anxious not to 
 suggest, this artist deliberately invited. At a later time 
 he gave directions that two of his pictures should be hung 
 side by side with two pictures of Claude, and at the early 
 age of thirty we find him determining to build himself a 
 monument, so devised and so entitled that no instructed 
 person shall ever be able either to see it or hear of it 
 
io6 
 
 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 without thinking of Claude's Liber Veritatis. Little as 
 the English artist knew of Latin, he found or borrowed 
 erudition enough to call his publication a Liber instead of 
 a Book — a Liber Studiorum instead of a Book of Studies. 
 The suggestion of Claude's title is so exact that it is 
 imitated, not only in the language and grammatical form, 
 but even in the number of the syllables. 
 
 In Turner's scheme there was a comprehensive large- 
 ness, not less characteristic of his mind than the self- 
 assertion which challenged the most famous landscape- 
 painter of the past. He divided his studies into six 
 divisions : Historical, Pastoral, Elegant Pastoral, Moun- 
 tain, Marine, and Architectural. This is in the highest 
 degree interesting, as evidence that the artist was himself 
 perfectly conscious of the range and variety of his genius. 
 It was very like Turner, too, not to be able to get through 
 such a limited piece of literary work as the naming of his 
 divisions without a blunder of some kind ; so we find that 
 one of his divisions is " Pastoral," and another, " Elegant 
 Pastoral," as if the second were not a subdivision of the 
 first. It is like dividing the civilized world into Ameri- 
 cans, Europeans, and Frenchmen. What Turner origi- 
 nally intended may have been to separate the classical 
 pastoral in his works from the wilder modernism in which 
 he was one of the earliest discoverers or innovators ; but 
 when we come to examine the works themselves, we find 
 that if such an intention existed it must have been 
 forgotten in the execution. Norhani Castle, for example, 
 is "pastoral," but Raglan Castle is "elegant pastoral." 
 A Bridge with Cows is pastoral, a Stone Bridge with Goats 
 
 Mi 
 
 mam 
 
 i 
 
The Liber Studiorum. 
 
 107 
 
 s elegant pastoral. Chepstow yimction of the Severn, is 
 :lassed amongst the elegant subjects, whilst a scene of 
 water-cress gathering near Twickenham is not. On the 
 3ther hand, there is a reason why Solway Moss should not 
 )e elegant ; it is too wild and northern, so it is put 
 mongst the simple pastorals, with the Farmyard with 
 ^igs and the Hedging and Ditching. We can see a 
 eason for the classification in some instances, but not in 
 11. It is probable that if the series of plates had been 
 :arried out to the full extent which Turner intended, the 
 :lassical subjects, for which he had always a predilection, 
 would have been more numerous amongst those which he 
 :alled "elegant." In the title of another of his sections 
 there is a certain want of correspondence with part of the 
 contents. What he calls " History," includes legendary 
 subjects, such as ^sacus ajid Hesperia, Jaso7i, and Procris 
 znd Cephalus, and one illustration of a poem which is 
 certainly not historical, namely, the Faerie Qiieene : a few 
 Biblical subjects are also included in this section, and 
 they seem rather strangely associated with those which 
 we have just mentioned. It is difficult, when we look 
 Dver the list of subjects, to understand how Turner 
 intended the plates to be parts of a great whole, though 
 lis attempted classification proves that the intention was 
 :ertainly in his mind. The artist's chief purpose would 
 ippear to have been variety, and yet even this purpose 
 night have been more fully attained from the sketches 
 nd studies in his possession ; for the mountain subjects 
 ire nearly all from Switzerland and Scotland, with nothing 
 rom Northern England, or Wales. It is very curious 
 
io8 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 that, with Turner's classical tastes, there should be 
 nothing classical amongst his architectural subjects in 
 the Liber, unless Greenwich Hospital is to be considered 
 so. He draws a crypt, a castle on the Irish coast and 
 one on the Rhine, two Continental cities and one English 
 town, with two British abbeys, a cathedral, and the interior 
 of a church, but never a Greek temple, or Roman aqueduct, 
 or arch of triumph. 
 
 Turner managed the publishing business of the Liber 
 Studionnn himself, and not so skilfully as a clever pub- 
 lisher would have managed it. The plates were not issued 
 with that degree of luxe which is necessary to make a 
 work of art look its best. The paper took the impressions 
 well, but was not rich enough in quality to make the 
 margins handsome, whilst each number of five plates was 
 stitched in a dark blue cover, very inferior to the tasteful 
 covers which are used for such publications in the present 
 day. Seventy-one plates being published at the price of 
 £,1"] \os. for the whole work, and one of these plates 
 being a gift of the artist to his subscribers, it follows that 
 the cost of each subject was five shillings exactly. Turner, 
 with that desire to get as much money as possible into 
 his own pocket, which always characterized him, and 
 often led him to overreach himself in his unwillingness to 
 let others make profit out of his work, spoiled the com- 
 mercial chances of this publication by refusing the usual 
 share of profits to the trade. It is true that these profits 
 always appear enormous at first sight, and it seems 
 pleasanter to an artist to receive all the money which the 
 public lays out upon his engravings rather than let fifty 
 
The Liber Studiorum. 
 
 109 
 
 per cent, of it go to the wholesale and retail printseller; 
 3ut as it happens that the trade finds purchasers where 
 the artist himself cannot find them, the result of publish- 
 ing through the trade is invariably better for him in the 
 end. Turner not only employed the engravers himself at 
 ;he very moderate price of eight guineas a plate, so long 
 iS they would work for him at that rate,* but he got up 
 the numbers in his own house with the help of a female 
 servant, who is said to have robbed him of many proofs 
 when she had to stitch the numbers. As Turner was his 
 own publisher we suppose that he must have had the 
 trouble of collecting money from his subscribers, and of 
 ceeping the accounts relating to his publication, down to 
 ;he smallest detail. The first number appeared in 1807, 
 md its successors followed irregularly until 18 r6, when 
 the publication finally came to a standstill for want of 
 encouragement, and because the artist had found more 
 profitable work to do. The sale of the earlier numbers 
 appears to have been larger than that of the later ones. 
 
 Now that Turner has become one of the greatest 
 names in art, people eagerly contend for fine proofs of 
 the Liber Studiorum, some of which have been sold for 
 as much as ^20 each, whilst a perfect copy of the whole 
 \^ork, composed of choice proofs selected from different 
 copies, is now worth a small fortune. Prints, however, 
 io not improve by keeping; and these proofs, which now 
 sell for so much to connoisseurs, are not better in any 
 ivay than those other proofs which the same class of 
 
 * The prices paid to engravers were first five guineas, then eight guineas, 
 ind afterwards ten guineas or twelve guineas. 
 
I lo The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 connoisseurs thought so worthless in the first quarter of 
 this century that hundreds of them were used for lighting 
 fires. The Liber was neglected then, because Turner, 
 though an artist of reputation, had not yet become 
 splendidly famous ; and it is sought after now because 
 his name adds lustre to a collection of prints. It may be 
 doubted whether the change shows any decided improve- 
 ment in public taste. It is certainly very doubtful 
 whether, if works of exactly equal merit were now pub- 
 lished for the first time by an unknown artist, they would 
 repay the cost of engraving. Unhappily, in the fine arts, 
 the splendor of the name, and not the quality of the work, 
 determines the pecuniary result. Within quite recent 
 years the pictures of Jules Dupre have risen to forty 
 times their original value, and some of Miiller and David 
 Cox to eightv or a hundred times. The Liber Studioritm 
 has risen almost in the same proportions for some states 
 of the plates, though even yet a purchaser who buys to 
 gratify his artistic taste only, and does not care to con- 
 tend with rich people for rarities, may procure fair im- 
 pressions of separate plates at a moderate expense.* 
 
 The commercial side of art is always variable and un- 
 satisfactory to all, except those who make a profit out of 
 it. The artistic merits and qualities of a print remain the 
 
 * It is difficult to understand on what principle the dealers now regulate 
 the value of ordinary impressions of the Liber Studiortim plates. The 
 writer of this note bought a good impression of the Little. DeviPs Bridge oi 
 one well-known dealer for ^i 8j., and afterward sent it to another well- 
 known dealer to see what he would offer for it. The answer was, " It is 
 worth only a few pence." This is a matter of perfect indifference when we 
 buy only for artistic qualities ; but collectors may do well to be careful 
 Caveat emptor ! 
 
The Liber Studiorum. 
 
 Ill 
 
 same as long as the ink and paper last, whatever Fashion 
 may have to say on the subject. We may therefore leave 
 dealers and collectors to settle the current value of the 
 Liber Studiorum plates from year to year, whilst we turn 
 to the consideration of them from the artistic point of 
 view. 
 
 We are all familiar with a most ungraceful little word, 
 which it is almost impossible to introduce into writing of 
 any literary pretension, but which so happily describes a 
 common fault of common art that it is never likely to fall 
 entirely into disuse. The ungraceful little word is " nig- 
 gling." Well, the qualities of the Liber Studiorum are 
 exactly the opposite of all which that word implies. Tur- 
 ner was in 1807 already so completely the accomplished 
 master in art that he possessed to the full what Reynolds 
 called the genius of mechanical performance. We should 
 not use " mechanical " in that sense to-day, because, to 
 us, it conveys the idea of a machine's action rather than 
 an artist's ; the word we should use would be " technical : " 
 but we know what Re3molds meant, and if we did not his 
 own explanation would make it clear to us. "This gen- 
 ius," he said, " consists, I conceive, in , the power of 
 expressing that which employs your pencil, whatever it 
 may be, as a wJiole: so that the general effect and power 
 of the whole may take possession of the mind, and for a 
 while suspend the consideration of the subordinate and 
 particular beauties or defects." 
 
 This is exactly the opposite of "niggling," which 
 means a childish trifling over parts, and Turner in the 
 Liber Studiorum followed the precepts of Reynolds. 
 
112 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 None of the engravings after Turner have more of what 
 artists call " breadth " than those in the Liber, and few 
 are so consistent in their simplicity and in the omission 
 of useless material. The predominant feeling in these 
 compositions is very serious ; in many of them it is tragic 
 or gloomy, and the light-and-shade is generally in a lower 
 key than in the artist's later work in oil or water-color. 
 The work with the etching-needle, representing Turner's 
 pen-markings on his drawings, is full of a masculine 
 economy and strength, like the words of a speaker who 
 says little, but always to the purpose ; but it is not pretty 
 nor amusing, like the clever playing with the same instru- 
 ment in the hands of some modern Frenchmen. The 
 Liber shows a good deal of the influence of Cozens and 
 Girtin, both in feeling and in method of using shade, and 
 behind these there is the influence of Claude; but the 
 sentiment is profounder than that of Claude, and the pas- 
 sion for natural truth is stronger than it was in him. In 
 two or three of the grandest and most solemn plates in 
 the series it has been believed, perhaps with reason, that 
 the artist was working under the influence of Titian. 
 
 The finest collection of Liber Stiidiorimi impressions 
 ever seen together was exhibited by the Burlington Fine- 
 Arts Club in the year 1872, and the catalogue of that 
 exhibition affords some interesting fragments of informa- 
 tion about the progress of the work in the hands of Tur- 
 ner and his engravers. Although the artist was his own 
 publisher, he at first made use of his engraver, Charles 
 Turner, in that capacity, until there occurred a rupture 
 between them, due to the hardness and severity of the 
 
The Liber Stiidioriim. 
 
 113 
 
 painter. Although, as we have seen, the price asked for 
 the whole work was ^17 los., the early numbers were 
 charged to subscribers at the rate of 15^'. for prints and 
 ^\ 5^-. for proofs. These prices were afterwards altered 
 to one guinea for prints and twice as much for what the 
 artist was pleased to call proofs. " It is to be feared," 
 says the author of the Burlington Catalogue, "that the 
 difference between these two classes of impressions con- 
 sisted wholly in the price." The confused way in which 
 the whole work was issued appears to have been still 
 further complicated by something like downright dishon- 
 esty. "I am sorry too," observes Mr. Thornbury, "to 
 say that there can be no doubt, from years of investiga- 
 tion by Messrs. Pye, Stokes, and other collectors, that 
 Turner often took out the thickened letters of the plates 
 in the bad third state and engraved open letters higher 
 up in the plate : in fact, he sold sham proofs, having 
 private marks and scratches to indicate to himself the 
 v^arious states." If he did this, he is of course inexcus- 
 ible ; but as the plates had been worked upon by himself, 
 le may have thought them as good as new. Mezzotint 
 ivears away fast in the printing, and if a plate has just 
 Deen refreshed by added labor it may be equal to its 
 earliest state if the artist has been happy in his additions. 
 This may be an artistic excuse, but it is not a commercial 
 ne, because the commercial sense of the word "proof" 
 5 an early impression before the plate has been refreshed 
 ly any restoration whatever, whether successful in the 
 irtist's opinion or the contrary. The reader would be 
 mjust, however, if he inferred that Turner had no con- 
 
114 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 science. He was grasping, and yet curiously conscien- 
 tious in his own way, and according to his own notions of 
 what was honorable and just. 
 
 Amongst Turner's notes on the margin of the engrav- 
 ers' proofs we have some interesting bits of his mind, 
 showing both his faculty as a critic and his temper. The 
 Dunstanborough Castle was engraved by Charles Turner, 
 who permitted himself the facility of a little aquatint. 
 The painter, of course, detected this at a glance, and 
 wrote coldly and severely, — " Sir, you have done in aqua- 
 tint all the castle down to the rocks ; did I ever ask for 
 such an indulgence .'' " This is very like one of the Duke 
 of Wellington's laconic reproofs, and seems rather hard 
 when addressed to a brother-artist who, on the whole, did 
 his work faithfully and well, especially when we consider 
 that aquatint was not formally excluded from the Liber, 
 but was employed occasionally, as, for instance, in the 
 entire sky of the classical composition called the Bridge. 
 One very important characteristic of Turner's- marginal- 
 remarks is, that they prove him to have been quite clearly 
 conscious of what he was doing, and of the artistic 
 reasons for doing it : in other words, they prove that he 
 had the conscious critical faculty, and that he exercised it 
 on his own works and on the engravings from them. For 
 example, on the Morpeth he writes : " I think the whole 
 sky would be better a tone lighter, besides the light 
 clouds," and then comes the reason, " which will make the 
 hill more solid!' Here we have him anticipating a result 
 quite consciously. So on the margin of the Dimblain 
 Abbey he writes : "The sky must be much lighter and 
 clearer, and until it possesses both the other parts have 
 
 u 
 
The Liber Shidiorum. 
 
 115 
 
 not their value." The reader will observe the Turnerian 
 grammar in the last ?>^Xi\.t'!\ZQ, possesses being used for is ; 
 Dr else the writer has forgotten that he has used adjectives 
 n the comparative degree, and is now thinking of the sub- 
 stantives lightness and clearness. In the note upon a 
 :ouched proof of the Little Devil's Bridge Turner says : 
 "A slight indication of a ray of bursting light under the 
 bridge would improve that part, and a few sharp white 
 touches upon the leaves marked X> because they are now 
 two black spots without connection with the stems of the 
 trees!' Here again the reason is given, and this time it 
 is to prevent scattering, that great enemy of artistic unity. 
 Curiously enough, on another touched proof of the same 
 Dlate the artist had written : " Be careful about the dis- 
 ■ance. It wants air and light scraping to render it like 
 the place." This is the only indication I remember of any 
 anxiety on Turner's part to secure a likeness to the place. 
 We remember how he treated Kilchnrn. Raglan Castle, 
 in the Liber Studiornm, fared no better. The plate is so 
 unlike Raglan that the compiler of the Burlington Cata- 
 ogue says, " There seems to be no warrant for giving the 
 name Raglan Castle to this subject ; it is said to have 
 much more resemblance to Berry Pomeroy." 
 
 We know on the authority of Mr. Ruskin that the 
 luthor of the Liber Studiornm disliked the sale of sepa- 
 rate plates, because in his own mind there was a certain 
 :onnection of significance between the subjects. After 
 nentioning the castle and abbey subjects, Mr. Ruskin 
 iays : " These are his types of human pride. Of human 
 ove : Procris dying by the arrow ; Hesperie by the viper's 
 :ang ; and Rizpah, more than dead, beside her children. 
 
ii6 
 
 The Life of y. M. IV. Ttirner. 
 
 Such are the lessons of the Liber SUidionnn. Silent 
 always with a bitter silence, disdaining to tell his meaning 
 when he saw there was no ear to receive it, Turner only 
 indicated his purpose by slight words of contemptuous 
 anger when he heard of any one's trying to obtain this or 
 the other separate subject as more beautiful than the restJ 
 " What is the use of them," he said, " but together ? " 
 
 Surely there was little reason in this case either for 
 bitter silence or contemptuous anger. Those hidden 
 meanings which it appears that Turner often intended to 
 attach to his drawings or pictures have little to do with 
 art, and might be much better expressed in a few words 
 of written English than by any quantity of landscape 
 design. Any versifier of ordinary skill could compress all 
 the "lessons" of the Liber Studiorum into a couple of 
 sonnets, and the sonnets would not be very valuable to 
 humanity for such wisdom as they might contain. We all 
 know that strong castle and fair fame will alike fall ulti- 
 mately into ruin, that death and decay are everywhere, 
 and that bones will ever be found bleaching on the moun- 
 tains. We all know that love has often been interwoven 
 with the most pathetic sorrow ; that it has often been 
 associated with sad tragedies. So far as the knowledge 
 of these things can be of use to our minds it is already 
 familiar enough, having been the frequent theme of poets 
 and moralists since the days of the ancient Hebrews, and 
 any longer or deeper dwelling on such subjects would 
 only make us morbid, like the Trappists, who enliven 
 their days of taciturnity by the salutation, " Fr^re il faut 
 mourir ! " and the answer, " Mourir il faut, fr^re ! " The 
 suggestion of ideas of this kind, which Turner bitterly 
 
The Liber Studiorum. 
 
 117 
 
 despised the public for not understanding, is no doubt to 
 some degree within the province of landscape art, which 
 resembles music in its appeal to those who are susceptible 
 to its influences ; but it is in the nature both of landscape 
 art and of music to express moods rather than thoughts, 
 and it is unreasonable to be angry with people when they 
 do not read thoughts in a language less adapted to their 
 expression than the poorest of spoken dialects. It is pro- 
 Dable that much of Turner's contempt for the public may 
 have been due to an exaggerated conception, very common 
 with illiterate men, of the value and originality of such 
 thoughts as he tried to express. It would have been easy, 
 lad he condescended to do so, to make his thoughts clear 
 enough by the mere titles of his drawings ; but he seems 
 [Q have enjoyed, in a bitter way, the satisfaction of hint- 
 ing at obscure meanings and then despising his fellow- 
 countrymen for not following him. The real cause of 
 this temper was simply want of intellectual culture, which 
 would have made him perceive, that when a moralist 
 desires to read solemn lessons on the fate of nations land- 
 scape design is an inadequate means of expression. Such 
 culture would also have made Turner aware that there 
 svas no novelty in his choice of subjects. Many painters 
 Defore his time had sought in ruin and decay the elements 
 3f pictorial solemnity, whilst such motives as .^sacus and 
 Hesperie, Cephalus and Procris, and Rizpah, are in the 
 regular repertory of figure-painters, so that it would be 
 impossible to ascertain who first painted them, or to 
 oretell the time when artists will finally reject them as 
 butworn. 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 Turner a professor of perspective. — The Trafalgar picture. — First visit to 
 Petworth, 1809. — Pictures of 1811. — Turner as a writer on art and 
 nature. — Turner as an observer and critic. 
 
 TN the year 1808 Turner added the mysterious letters 
 " P. P." to his Academical honors. These have 
 puzzled some of his admirers in the provinces and foreign 
 parts, but they mean nothing worse than " Professor of 
 Perspective." The choice of the new Professor was at the 
 same time wise and not wise. Turner was utterly incom- 
 petent to explain anything orally to an audience, but he 
 was exceedingly conscientious, and did all he could by 
 elaborately prepared illustrations on a large scale to make 
 the principles of the science intelligible to his pupils. It 
 has been wittily observed that the artist never practised 
 what he professed. Certainly the perspective in his 
 pictures is not faultless, but there is as much of it as we 
 need. Nothing is more tiresome than an absolute scien- 
 tific accuracy in these things ; and we may be sure that it 
 was as far from Turner's essentially artistic nature as that 
 other kind of accuracy, the topographic, against which he 
 rebelled so energetically. 
 
 The professor was very conscientious about his work, 
 making careful illustrative drawings, and taking much 
 
Turner a Professor of Perspective. 
 
 119 
 
 pains to be understood, but he had the defect of a bad 
 delivery. His fellow- Academicians may have made him 
 a Professor because he drew what were supposed to repre- 
 sent Carthaginian temples in certain pictures of his, 
 involving the more obvious application of perspective ; 
 but the real truth is, that when it came to practice he 
 discarded theory altogether, and used a perspective of 
 his own in a wilful manner, infringing the mathematical 
 rules. He even maintained in his own laconic speech the 
 necessity for such deviations. G. Barret had once drawn 
 a temple in a landscape of his by rule, and Turner said, 
 "You will never do it in that way." His own cannot be 
 defined without illustrations which it is not worth while 
 for such a purpose to engrave ; but it may be said with 
 perfect truth that, although possessing accurate know- 
 ledge, he preferred taste to knowledge, and knowingly 
 refused to follow science whenever his artistic judgment 
 i suggested the policy of a deviation. There was nothing 
 I exceptional in this lordly way of dealing with perspective, 
 \ for he was equally arbitrary in every other department of 
 his art : in topography, as we have already seen ; in the 
 drawing of forms of all kinds, which he always forced into 
 the shapes that he wanted ; in light and shade, which in 
 his works is generally beautiful, but very seldom scien- 
 tifically true ; and finally, in color, where he permitted 
 himself all manner of violence and aberrations. 
 
 The newly-appointed Professor of Perspective permit- 
 ted himself the luxury of a suburban house at the end of 
 the Upper Mall, Hammersmith. From that time till his 
 death he seems always to have had two residences, and 
 
120 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 sometimes three, but they were never very remote from 
 each other. He may have thought them useful as a 
 means of escaping from visitors, to work in undisturbed 
 privacy. One biographer writes as if the Harley Street 
 residence had been abandoned when the Hammersmith 
 house was taken, but the Exhibition Catalogue gives both 
 houses at the same time. 
 
 About this time, 1808, it is probable that Turner 
 painted the big picture of Trafalgar which is at Green- 
 wich Hospital. This has always been an intensely un- 
 popular picture with sailors, and it has little artistic merit 
 to compensate for its want of naval knowledge. The 
 artist seems to have been so entirely absorbed by his 
 wish to represent the apparent confusion of a great sea- 
 fight, that he forgot the true sequence of events, and 
 forgot, at the same time, to charm the lover of art by that 
 subtle artistic arrangement which great artists have 
 usually thought necessary even when representing the 
 wildest actual disorder. The picture was, therefore, in a 
 double sense a failure. It was painted for George IV., 
 who, perhaps, may not have liked it, as he generously 
 presented it to Greenwich, the worst place in the world 
 to hang Turner, whether good or bad ; for, even if suc- 
 cessful from the artistic point of view, any work of his 
 would inevitably be too arbitrary and inaccurate to bear 
 the acute professional criticism of sailors. 
 
 In 1809 Turner seems to have gone to Petworth for the 
 first time. Lord Egremont was one of the very few 
 members of the aristocracy who appreciated either Turner 
 or the other great contemporary English painters. It is 
 
 i 
 
 "1 ' r A ■ ' s^ ' v 
 
 i 
 
First Visit to Petworth, 1 809. 
 
 121 
 
 probable that this Earl, whom we may call a noble earl in 
 a sense very different from the conventional one, had a 
 character above the vanity of caring to look well in the 
 sight of posterity ; but it so happens, from his great kind- 
 ness to men of genius whose- names are immortal in the 
 history of English art, that he himself has become 
 immortal also. Lord Egremont's nature was at the same 
 time highly refined in its perception of artistic beauty, 
 and unaffected to the extreme of simplicity in the ordi- 
 nary intercourse of life. Turner had these two qualities 
 also ; he had the most delicate perceptions united to the 
 plainest manners. All witnesses seem to agree that 
 Turner and the great Earl got on quite well together ; 
 and this is in favor of Turner, not because Lord Egre- 
 raont was a man of rank, but because he was a man of 
 great discernment, and therefore not likely to tolerate 
 about him any artist, whatever might be his professional 
 ability, who had not the qualities of simplicity and genu- 
 ineness. All who knew Turner personally appear to be 
 agreed that, although he was not what is called a gentle- 
 man in the society sense of the term — not having the 
 grace and polish which are necessary to that character — 
 he still had good manners in his own plain way, and a 
 good deal of delicate tact, often under apparent roughness. 
 When Turner was at Petworth, his habit was to work 
 very assiduously in the morning, and as he rose very 
 early, it was easy for him to get a great deal done in 
 these hours of privacy ; but later in the day he would 
 amuse himself, especially in fishing, so that the other 
 guests imagined that he led quite an idle life. It is 
 
122 
 
 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 curious, in illustration of these habits of his, that his first 
 picture of Petworth should be entitled in the catalogue, 
 " Petworth, Sussex, the seat of the Earl of Egremont — 
 Dewy Morning!' In 1810 the three works exhibited by 
 Turner were all views of seats — two from Lowther 
 Castle, and the third this view of Petworth. 
 
 The next year, amongst nine works exhibited, we only 
 find one gentleman's seat, but there are three pictures 
 from ancient mythology or poetry,. and one of the three 
 is the Apollo and Python. Nothing could be more char- 
 acteristic of Turner than to paint, the same year, Apollo 
 slaying Python with his Arrows, and Soiner Hill, near 
 Tunbridge, the seat of IV. F. Woodgate, Esq. Most artists, 
 when they have once begun to paint such highly classical 
 subjects as those in which far-darting Apollo is an actor, 
 begin to entertain feelings of contempt for the common 
 world of reality ; but Turner is just as ready to portray 
 whatever beauty there may be about Mr. Woodgate's 
 country house near Tunbridge as if he had never painted 
 either deities or dragons. His mind recurs also to 
 Whalley Bridge, in Lancashire, which he paints with the 
 remains of the Abbey, and enlivens with dyers who are 
 washing and drying cloth. The same year one of his 
 pictures illustrates flounder - fishing, and another crab- 
 collecting on the shore at Scarborough. He also exhib- 
 its a picture of Chickens, showing a tendency to study 
 poultry, which is not uncommon with landscape-painters. 
 
 It was observed, with reference to Turner's notes on 
 the Liber Stiidiorum proofs, that they gave evidence of 
 his conscious exercise of critical reason and judgment. 
 
 u. «&;> A V|-tiiii*^ iV n 
 
 1 
 
 ■ 
 
 i 
 
Turner as a Writer on Art and Nature. 
 
 123 
 
 His notes on his own private memoranda occasionally 
 prove that he thought out his composition consciously, 
 and fully understood the importance of those little contri- 
 vances and artifices which, however trifling they may 
 appear to people who are not artists, are never foolishly 
 despised by those who are. Mr. Thornbury selects as an 
 instance of these notes one about bargemen hanging 
 clothes: "Bargemen hanging clothes on the shrouds — to 
 avoid long lines." Turner wrote this to remind himself 
 afterwards that by hanging clothes on the shrouds of 
 their barges, the men afforded him an opportunity, as an 
 artist, of interrupting the long lines of the shrouds, which 
 he thought might be inconvenient in the intended future 
 composition. The reader will observe that the reason is 
 given here just as it was in the notes on the Liber proofs. 
 Turner also attempted to reason out for himself a theory 
 of reflections in water, but not quite successfully, because 
 the subject itself is difficult and obscure, and also because 
 Turner's use of language was defective. It may be worth 
 our while to examine his attempt at theory. 
 
 " Reflections not only appear darker, but larger than 
 the object which occasions them, and if the ripple or 
 hollow of the wave is long enough to make an angle with 
 the eye, it is on these undulating lines that the object 
 refl'ects, and transmits all perpendicular objects lower 
 towards the spectator ; but in receding lines, as well as 
 objects, rules seem to lose their power, and those guides 
 that enable us to find some cause for near objects lose 
 their power, or become enfeebled by contraction in remote 
 ones. It has been asserted that all appear equal from the 
 
124 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 base line of the water ; but these axioms I dissent from. 
 It is true, that by placing the eye equal to the water, it 
 comes up to the rules laid down ; but when the water is 
 ruffled on which all things are to be reflected, it is no 
 longer in right angles, but according to the elevation of 
 the spectator becomes more or less an angle of incidence. 
 If the undulating surface of the liquid did not, by current 
 or motion, congregate forms, there would be no difficulty 
 in simplifying the rules." 
 
 It is always difficult to criticise theories which are 
 badly expressed, because we have to deal with two 
 entirely different' things at the same time — what the 
 writer said, and what he meant to say. The first sen- 
 tence, " Reflections not only appear darker, but larger 
 than the object which occasions them," is far from being 
 universally true, though the statement is universal For, 
 to begin with, reflections are not always darker than the 
 things reflected ; that depends upon the state of the water 
 and of the atmosphere immediately above the water. If 
 the water is muddy in broad daylight, or if there is a 
 thin stratum of mist on the surface, the reflection will be 
 paler than the object. Again, reflections do not of 
 necessity appear larger than the things reflected. When 
 the water is perfectly calm the inverted image is of pre- 
 cisely the same size as the object; when there is ripple 
 the image is elongated, but it is not widened, except 
 under peculiar circumstances which we have not space to 
 explain. Turner then says, " If the ripple or hollow of 
 the wave is long enough to make an angle with the eye, 
 it is on these undulating lines that the object reflects 
 
Turner as a Writer on Art and Nature. 125 
 
 and transmits all perpendicular objects lower toward the 
 spectator." This is true ; but there is no necessity for 
 the conditional, because all ripples whatever, be they but 
 the eighth of an inch in height, are long enough to 
 " make an angle with the eye, and do elongate reflections 
 of perpendicular objects." The next sentence is not very 
 clear, but the writer seems to have intended to say that 
 rules of a trustworthy kind have not yet been found, by 
 the guidance of which an artist might manage reflections 
 of receding lines and objects on the principles of nature, 
 whatever those principles may be. The truth is, that in 
 the present state of artistic and scientific intelligence 
 there are many visible facts in such reflections which 
 cannot be satisfactorily accounted for ; we can therefore 
 only paint things as they appear to us, without waiting 
 for a complete theory of the subject. We now come to 
 difficulties of another kind, due to Turner's strange use of 
 words : " It has been asserted that all appear equal from 
 the base line of the water ; but these axioms I dissent 
 from." All what .'' Can he mean all reflections } Does 
 the " base line of the Avater" mean the exact level of the 
 water .? If it does, the answer is simple — a human eye 
 placed exactly on the level of the water sees no reflections 
 whatever. The next sentence is unintelligible : " It is 
 true, that by placing the eye equal to the water it comes 
 up to the rules laid down." How an eye equal to water 
 can come up to rules laid down we do not pretend to 
 understand. " When the water is ruffled on which all 
 things are to be reflected, it is no longer in right angles, 
 but according to the elevation of the spectator becomes 
 
126 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 more or less an angle of incidence." The water is no 
 longer in right angles in reference to what ? Of course 
 every one who has read an elementary treatise on optics 
 knows that there is always an angle of incidence, when 
 the rays of light rebound from the reflecting surface to 
 the eye of the spectator, and there is sure to be an angle 
 of incidence in any case where there is a reflection at all, 
 whether the surface is " ruffled " or quite smooth. The 
 final observation is at the same time more intelligible 
 and more profound than those we have just examined. 
 "If the undulating surface of the liquid did not, by 
 current or motion, congregate forms, there would be no 
 difficulty in simplifying the rules." Certainly, if there 
 were neither current nor motion on the surface we should 
 have perfectly calm water, like a flat looking-glass ; and 
 optical writers have fully explained for us the theory of 
 the looking-glass, which is thoroughly understood. The 
 difficulty lies entirely in the laws of ripple or disturbance 
 of surface, of which nobody but an artist ever seems 
 to know anything at all, whilst the most accomplished 
 landscape-painters know very little that can be unre- 
 servedly and unquestionably stated. 
 
 I have quoted and criticised Turner's written observa- 
 tions on this subject, because his works prove him to 
 have been a great discoverer in this department of 
 natural truth, and it is interesting to see in how much 
 mental confusion and uncertainty he was groping his way 
 where not a living creature could enlighten him. The 
 varied studies of modern landscape-painters have made 
 water phenomena much better known, though not much 
 
Turner as a Writer on Art and Education. 127 
 
 more clearly accounted for, than they were in the begin- 
 ning of this century, and the students of the future will 
 find a mass of suggestion and example in the art of the 
 nineteenth century which Turner could not find in that 
 of preceding times. The water -painting of Claude, 
 though very successful in rendering two or three common 
 aspects of nature, was so narrowly limited in its range 
 that little was to be learned from him, though that little 
 was of great value as a foundation. Ruysdael was equally 
 narrow. Something more might be got from the Dutch 
 marine-painters, but even their knowledge of water was 
 as nothing in comparison with the variety of Turner's 
 discoveries. Of all that he found out, what pleased him 
 best appears to have been the long-drawn confusion of 
 reflection upon a rippled surface, and he liked this so well 
 that it became a mannerism in his later works. It is 
 still, however, a great exaggeration of the truth either to 
 say directly, or to convey the impression indirectly, that 
 Turner had exhausted the phenomena of nature even in 
 such a department of study as water-surfaces only. Some 
 of the common appearances of water have not been illus- 
 trated by him in any work known to me, either in the 
 original or in an engraving ; and from some of the more 
 complex and remarkable phenomena of w^ater-surfaces he 
 may have abstained from prudence, knowing that it was 
 impossible that the general public should understand 
 them. Mr. Leslie, in his Handbook for Young Painters, 
 mentions some effects on water which (though after the 
 death of Turner) he had never met with in pictures, and 
 then observes : " The truth is, we go on painting the 
 things that others and ourselves have painted before, and 
 
128 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 do not look out for the art nearly as much as we should 
 do." One reason for this may be, that the class of critics 
 who are called " connoisseurs " always compare art with 
 previous art, and treat discoverers scornfully, as ignorant 
 innovators who do not know what is allowable in painting 
 and what is inadmissible. This traditional spirit in the 
 public and its guides did much to embitter the career of 
 Turner, though he succeeded in spite of it ; and it kept 
 down Constable's professional income so effectually, that 
 he could not have maintained his family without private 
 means. 
 
 Everything that can throw light upon Turner's habits 
 of thought is interesting to us, so we may remark that 
 he did not make notes exclusively of what attracted his 
 attention as an artist, but jotted down all sorts of little 
 odd facts in archaeology and geography. His mind was 
 not so much confined to art as we are apt to imagine, 
 from his want of success in other directions, that it must 
 have been. He had a lively curiosity, and that disposition 
 to accumulate facts which is said to be peculiarly charac- 
 teristic of Englishmen. Mr. Thornbury says, " He takes 
 notes like a spy or a pilot, and of things, too, that seem 
 quite out of his province." In this way he gradually 
 accumulated a general store of odds and ends, which gave 
 him what is called information, and made him able to talk 
 agreeably whenever it pleased him to break through his 
 habit of taciturnity. Mr. Cyrus Redding was Turner's 
 companion on a tour for a day or two, and says that he 
 spoke remarkably little, using habitually very few words ; 
 but on one occasion they sat up late together in an inn, 
 and then Mr. Redding: tells us that Turner showed that 
 
Turner as an Observer and Critic. 
 
 izg 
 
 he had a certain power of laconic criticism. " I found 
 the artist could, when he pleased, make sound, pithy, 
 though somewhat caustic, remarks upon men and things, 
 with a fluency rarely heard from him." Some of the best 
 notes on the character of Turner's conversation in his 
 maturity are to be found in the reminiscences of the artist 
 given by Mr. Trimmer's eldest son to Mr. Thornbury for 
 his biography. Turner and Howard, the Academician, 
 stayed together at Heston, whereof the elder Mr. Trim- 
 mer was Rector, and the two painters had professional 
 conversations, which sometimes degenerated into disputes. 
 On one of these occasions Howard maintained that 
 artists ought to paint for the public, but it is interesting 
 to learn that Turner took the opposite view, and main- 
 tained that " public opinion was not worth a rush, and 
 that one should paint only for judges." Mr. Trimmer 
 confirms what others have said about the great landscape- 
 painter's extreme sensitiveness to the ignorant and 
 illiberal criticisms upon his works which used to appear 
 in the newspapers of his day. " I have seen him almost 
 in tears," Mr. Trimmer says, "and ready to hang himself 
 though still only valuing their opinions at their worth." 
 It is curious that the artist, so little communicative to 
 Deople generally, should have been quite freely com- 
 nunicative in his friendly private intercourse with the 
 Rector of Heston, especially when we remember that the 
 Rector belonged to the category of amateurs, for whom 
 as a class Turner cherished feelings of unconquerable 
 iversion. He appears to have given a good deal of 
 Dractical art instruction to this clerical friend of his, who, 
 
 9 
 
I30 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 in return, tried to teacli the painter to read Latin — a 
 hopeless undertaking of course. With regard to Turner's 
 estimate of ancient and modern artists, Mr. Trimmer says 
 that he never appeared illiberal when speaking of the 
 great masters ; that he spoke most, enthusiastically of 
 Gainsborough's execution and Wilson's tone, plainly 
 thinking himself their inferior; and that on one occasion, 
 before a picture by Vandevelde, he said, in answer to 
 some one who had observed that he could go beyond 
 that, " I cannot paint like him." On the other hand, 
 with regard to contemporary landscape-painters, Mr. 
 Trimmer is inclined to believe that he considered most 
 of them to be beneath criticism, and that he hardly did 
 justice to whatever merits they possessed. It is quite 
 possible that Turner may have abstained on principle 
 from the criticism of living artists in conversation, know- 
 ing that his opinion would carry great weight with those 
 who appreciated his genius, and fearing to do an injury 
 to men who had difficulties enough to contend against. 
 Although Turner could say sharp things when he chose, 
 he had not the habit, unfortunately very common amongst 
 artists, especially unsuccessful ones, of expressing scorn 
 for the work of others. All who knew him are agreed 
 upon this. They all agree, too, in describing his conver- 
 sation as remarkably laconic. In this respect he seems 
 to have resembled a distinguished artist whom we have 
 recently deplored, the late Frederick Walker, who had 
 the same reserve, the same disinclination to talk about 
 art and artists, and whose intimate friends never heard 
 him criticise a contemporary. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 He removes to Queen Anne Street, 1812. — Excursion to Devonshire, 1812. 
 — Turner's poetry. — Turner's prose. 
 
 TN 18 1 2 Turner removed from Harley Street to 47, 
 Queen Anne Street, West, which will always be in- 
 timately associated with his name. Here he had not only 
 a studio to paint in, but also a gallery for the private 
 exhibition of his pictures, a place which he kept in a 
 condition little worthy of the treasures which it contained. 
 I never visited the house in Queen Anne Street during 
 Turner's life, but I well remember visiting it with Mr. 
 Leslie after his death, when everything remained just as 
 the departed genius had left it. There were about ninety 
 pictures in the gallery then, in a wonderful state of neg- 
 lect, the frames looking as if they had never been gilded. 
 Mr. Leslie told me that he had known the house forty 
 years, that during the whole time it had never received 
 one touch of paint or repair, and that the papers had 
 never been renewed. There was no picturesque magnifi- 
 cence about the house, such as artists often like when 
 they can afford it. Turner does not seem to have had 
 that delight in seeing varied colors and forms which 
 tempts artists like Fortuny to fill their studios with 
 
132 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Oriental tissues and strange vases from beyond the sea, 
 or carvings of other and more imaginative times than 
 ours. On the other hand, Turner seems to have been 
 equally indifferent to classic elegance in the interior of 
 his house. Though his art education and his predilections 
 were classical, he did not care to surround himself with 
 the beauty either of antiquity or the Renaissance. We 
 do not know that this was in consequence of any conscious 
 determination : it seems more probable that early habits 
 of simple and economical living may have led the artist to 
 refuse himself beautiful things, simply because such an 
 outlay of money seemed an extravagance ; and it is per- 
 fectly possible that a man of Turner's habits might fancy 
 that he could not afford such a thing as a marble statue, 
 or an ebony cabinet delicately carved and inlaid with 
 malachite or lapis lazuli. But there is also another con- 
 sideration which may better excuse the meagreness of the 
 great landscape-painter's surroundings, and his apparent 
 indifference to those things of beauty which, as a poet has 
 told us so exquisitely, can give endless pleasure to their 
 possessors. Turner was one of the most imaginative men 
 who ever existed, and such men are often singularly 
 independent of what is visible. " Certain localities," says 
 Emerson, "as mountain-tops, the sea-side, the shores of 
 rivers and rapid brooks, natural parks of oak and pine, 
 where the ground is smooth and unencumbered, are 
 excitants of the Muse. Every artist knows well some 
 favorite retirement. And yet the experience of some 
 good artists has taught them to prefer the smallest and 
 plainest chamber, with one chair and table, and with no 
 
He Removes to Queeti Anne Street. 
 
 133 
 
 outlook, to these picturesque liberties," In Turner's 
 house, however, there was not even this austere poetry of 
 asceticism, which gives nobility to the cell of the monk 
 and the tent of the traveller or soldier. There was no 
 poetry in the place whatever, and it was this which jarred 
 upon my feelings. A place may be bare and simple, yet 
 affecting in the extreme. The remarkable simplicity of 
 Goethe's study and bed-chamber is affecting in itself. In 
 the study " no arm-chair is to be seen, no sofa, nothing 
 which speaks of ease. A plain hard chair has beside it 
 the basket in which he used to place his handkerchief." 
 Of the bedroom, Mr. Lewes says, " a simple bed, an arm- 
 chair by its side, and a tiny washing-table with a small 
 white basin on it, and a sponge, is all the furniture." We 
 . like this absence of material luxury in the personal belong- 
 ings of a great man, but then in Goethe's house the stair- 
 case and reception-rooms made a thousand appeals to the 
 imind. There were the Olympian gods, there was a 
 colossal bust of Juno, there were cartoons, sketches of 
 great masters, and etchings, a collection of gems, another 
 of bronze statuettes, lamps, and vases. There were 
 portrait busts of illustrious contemporaries. In Turner's 
 house there was little to show that he cared for any other 
 art than his own, and not much evidence that he cared 
 even for that, since he treated his own pictures with less 
 care for their appearance and preservation than the 
 humblest picture-dealer will give to his least valuable 
 merchandise. But beside this absence of suggestion and 
 l)f association with past art, the interior of Turner's house 
 mad the defects of ordinary English middle-class interiors 
 
134 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 without their qualities. It had their tastelessness but not 
 their tidiness ; it was as dull as the dullest of them, but 
 not so clean. 
 
 I remember that, as we were looking at a picture evi- 
 dently painted under the influence of Stothard, Mr. Leslie 
 said that he had happened to see Turner at work upon 
 it, and had made the observation, " So you are imitating 
 Stothard!" "Yes," was the answer; "and I wish I 
 could paint like him : he is the Giotto of England." The 
 comparison seems to refer to the beautiful purity and 
 simplicity of Stothard's art ; but it scarcely does justice 
 to the Englishman, who was much more advanced and 
 developed as a painter than the contemporary of Dante. 
 It is interesting, however, as evidence that Turner could 
 admire heartily, and has the same value in this respect as 
 his expression, " I can't paint like him," with reference to 
 Vandevelde. 
 
 Some amusing anecdotes have been told of Turner in 
 his house in Queen Anne Street ; how he resented intru- 
 sion, and did not hesitate to show it ; how difficult, almost 
 impossible, it was to get the least glimpse of his painting- 
 room ; how little disposed he was to offer hospitality, 
 except to one or two old friends, and then how very 
 simple and primitive was his style of living. The one 
 absorbing interest of his life was the passion for his art ; 
 and he liked to work in perfect solitude, because the 
 presence and conversation of another might have dis- 
 turbed the action of the imagination by making his hold 
 upon imaginative conceptions more uncertain and precari- 
 ous. But besides this reason for liking to be alone, there 
 
He Removes to Queen Anne Street. 
 
 135 
 
 were others connected with the technical side of art. The 
 execution of modern painters is generally nothing but a 
 series of experiments, many of which are failures, and 
 have to be removed from the canvas. Turner's execution, 
 notwithstanding its extreme rapidity, was experimental in 
 many ways, and utterly unsafe, as is decisively proved by 
 the non-durability of his pictures. If purchasers and 
 critics had been admitted into his painting-room, they 
 would have seen experiments of which it was as well that 
 they should remain ignorant. Amongst others, they 
 would have seen the indiscriminate use of oil and water- 
 color in the same work. An artist still living, whose 
 name I could give, had permission many years ago to 
 visit the gallery in Queen Anne Street, accompanied by a 
 friend. Turner was not in the gallery, and did not show 
 himself, so they supposed him to be out of town. Being 
 left alone, the two friends amused themselves by examin- 
 ing the technical work in the pictures, and one, which was 
 unfinished, had an especial interest for them in this 
 respect. There were some masts and rigging in this 
 work, very freely drawn, so one of the visitors exclaimed, 
 "I am certain that's water-color," and wetting his finger 
 he rubbed it along one of the masts, which immediately 
 disappeared. At that moment the imprudent visitors 
 heard Turner's growling voice in the next room, and, 
 filled with dismay, fled from the house precipitately, but 
 unhurt. In this gallery he gave a very rough reception 
 to a relative of his mother who came to make his acquaint- 
 ance. On the whole, the house in Queen Anne Street 
 was decidedly not a safe place to venture into during the 
 lifetime of its master. 
 
136 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Turner spent a great part of his time in his studio, 
 working from early morning until night, and wasting as 
 little time as possible on the luxuries and ceremonies of 
 existence ; but although he was in the most complete 
 sense of the expression a studio-painter, and did not 
 belong at all to that school of rustic artists who live in 
 the presence of Nature, still he felt now and then a long- 
 ing for that fair world which is not visible in Queen Anne 
 Street, and so he took sudden flights, according to his 
 caprice, to some beautiful part of Great Britain or the 
 Continent. His way of travelling was independent and 
 peculiar. The increase of his means did not develop in 
 his character any latent desire for luxury. He could be 
 happy still, as he had been in his youth, with nature and 
 his art, living easily in poor inns when better accommo- 
 dation was not to be had, and leading the cheerful life of 
 a pedestrian blest with excellent health and very eco- 
 nomical habits. He was not unsociable when he met 
 with kindness on his travels ; but he well knew that more 
 work, and better, could be done in solitude than in 
 society. In 18 12 he went to Devonshire, a county which 
 he particularly admired, and it was on that occasion that 
 he met with Mr. Cyrus Redding, whom we have already 
 quoted. During this tour the artist gave ample evidence 
 of his independence of comfort, studying effects quite 
 calmly in an open boat on a stormy sea when others were 
 sea-sick, sketching when he landed in a violent wind, 
 supping contentedly on bread and cheese and porter, 
 sleeping in a place where there were no beds by the 
 simple expedient of laying his head on the table, and 
 
Excursion to Devonshire, 1812. 
 
 137 
 
 fresh the next morning for new wanderings. The uncom- 
 mon strength and soundness of his nervous system was 
 proved by an unusually severe test. He was on Mount 
 Edgecumbe with some friends, and engaged in conversa- 
 tion, when a battery of twenty-four pounders opened fire 
 quite suddenly only four or five feet above the heads of 
 the party. Although quite unprepared for the concussion. 
 Turner was not startled by it in the least. It was one of 
 the great advantages of his singularly perfect organi- 
 zation, that whilst possessing all that extreme delicacy of 
 perception which is necessary to an artist, and possessing 
 it in a most exceptional degree, he had none of that 
 nervousness with which men of genius are so often 
 tormented and distressed. For all artistic purposes his 
 nerves were as delicate as those of Shelley, whilst for the 
 uses of common life they were as strong as the nerves of 
 a common sailor. Few, indeed, are the common sailors 
 who would not betray at least some symptom of surprise 
 if a battery of cannon thundered unexpectedly over their 
 heads. 
 
 Another peculiarity of Turner's was brought out during 
 this tour, and on the very day when the incident of the 
 cannon occurred. Notwithstanding his habitual solitude 
 and parsimony, he could be hospitable when it seemed 
 to him that the occasion required it, though it must be 
 admitted that such occasions seem to have been of very 
 rare occurrence. However, it did so happen in the year 
 181 2 that Turner actually invited a party of ladies and 
 gentlemen to a picnic in Devonshire, and that he pro- 
 vided everything, including wines, on a liberal scale, 
 
138 
 
 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 whilst he acted his part of host in quite a becoming 
 manner. LesHe, in his Autobiography, tells a story of a 
 dinner at Blackwall, where there was a large party and 
 a heavy bill, Chantrey sat at the head of the table and 
 received the bill, so he handed it to Turner for a joke, as 
 Turner had a reputation for parsimony ; but in this 
 instance the great landscape-painter did not act up to 
 his reputation, for he insisted upon paying the whole, 
 and did so en grand seigneur. It is evident, however, 
 that these rare anecdotes of Turnerian hospitality would 
 not be so well remembered if they were not in contradic- 
 tion to the ordinary habits of the man. 
 
 The pictures exhibited in 1812 included the Hannibal 
 and his Army crossing the Alps, which was remarkable, 
 amongst other reasons, for a quotation from a manuscript 
 poem entitled " Fallacies of Hope," the first sample of 
 this poem which Turner offered to the appreciation of a 
 discerning public. He had discovered quite a new and 
 ingenious means of achieving poetical renown, namely, 
 through the medium of the Royal Academy Catalogue. 
 In this way the specimens of Turnerian verse, which 
 were printed from time to time, attained quite a consider- 
 able circulation ; but the effect upon the literary world 
 can hardly have been such as the poet must have desired. 
 The attempt was itself a remarkably apt illustration of 
 that very common fallacy of hope which leads people, 
 without the feeblest literary faculty for either prose or 
 verse, to imagine that they can construct a poem. 
 
 The composition entitled " The Fallacies of Hope," 
 may have existed at one time, or it may have been only a 
 
Turner s Poetry. 
 
 139 
 
 project ; nothing remains of it now except the few 
 extracts in the Exhibition Catalogues. The painter left 
 however, a good many fragments of other poems amongst 
 his sketches and papers, for the habit of making poetical 
 attempts was very persistent with him, notwithstanding 
 the wretchedness of the results. It might be possible, 
 indeed, if it were worth the expense, to make up a small 
 volume of Turnerian poetry which might bear as a motto 
 on its title-page one line of the poet himself — 
 
 " Lead me along with thy armo7ttious verse." 
 
 Such a volume would contain some of the most remark- 
 able specimens of grammar, spelling, and construction, 
 that could be offered as exercises for correction to little 
 boys at school. 
 
 " Hill after hill incessant cheats the eye 
 While each the intermediate space deny." 
 
 " To form the snares for lobsters armed in mail, 
 But man more cunning over this/r^a/7." 
 
 " From his small cot he stretched upon the main, 
 And by one daring effort hope to gain 
 What hope appeared ever to deny." 
 
 " The floating sea-weed to the eye appears, 
 And, by the waving medium, seamen steers." 
 
 " Here roars the busy mell called breaks, 
 Through various processes o'ertakes 
 The flax in dressing, each with one accord 
 Draw out the thread and meet the just reward." 
 
 " Have we not soil sufficient rich ? " 
 
 " Or sulphurous cloud at open east foretels 
 Where atmospheric contraries doth dwell." 
 
 The above extracts exhibit the Turnerian knowledge of 
 
140 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 grammar. The spelling is generally better than might be 
 expected in such "armonuous verse." The versification, 
 on the other hand, is perfectly amazing. There is never 
 any certainty when two or three verses have been got 
 through in the proper number of syllables that the one 
 which follows will not be a slough of confusion. 
 
 " Fain would I offer all that my power holds 
 And hope to be successful in my weak attempt 
 To please. The difficulty great, but, when nought 
 Attempted, nothing can be wrought." 
 
 The first line here would pass if we pronounced power 
 as a word of one syllable. The second line has two 
 syllables more than its share ; omit " my weak " and it 
 becomes readable, though prosaic. The third is peculiarly 
 awkward to read, and has one syllable de trop. The 
 fourth has only eight syllables instead of ten. Still, if we 
 do not count syllables, the mere roughness of the passage 
 is permissible enough ; indeed, it reminds me strongly of 
 some of Robert Browning's reflections. 
 
 All these defects of versification, though they may 
 make a poet unreadable, are not in themselves enough to 
 prove that he might not ultimately have done good work, 
 A far greater evidence of incapacity is the poverty of the; 
 versifier in ideas, and the laborious dulness of his think- 
 ing. There is not one ray of that poetic intelligence 
 which makes things new and fresh for us. In a word, the 
 written poetry of Turner is not only destitute of literary 
 craft and skill, but it is bete. It is below the ordinary 
 level of taste and intelligence amongst boys in English 
 grammar-schools. Imagine a versifier stupid enough to 
 write suoh rubbish as the followins I 
 
Turner s Poetry. 141 
 
 " To guard the coast their duty, not delude 
 By promises as little heeded as they 're good: 
 When strictly followed, give a conscious peace 
 And ask at the eve of life a just release. 
 But idleness, the bane of every country's weal. 
 Equally enervates the soldier and his steel." 
 
 * * * * 
 
 " Where the soft flowing gives renown, 
 
 'Mid steep worn hills and to the low sunk town, 
 Whose trade has flourished from early time 
 Remarkable for thread called Bridport twine." 
 
 The bathos of this poetry is such that the most affect- 
 ing subjects move us only to laughter when Turner deals 
 with them. Here is a description of a death by lightning, 
 which finishes so that one cannot think of the subject 
 seriously : 
 
 " Dark indeed 
 Died the smitten wretch, not doomed to bleed. 
 The current dread charred with the veins 
 Sulphurous and livid, still the form retains. 
 Most dreadful visitation ! Instantaneous death 
 Of supreme goodness allows the fleeting breath 
 To fall, apparently without a thought of pain." 
 
 It is difficult to make out the grammar of the last two 
 lines and a half. Is it the instantaneous death of supreme 
 goodness which allows the breath to fall, or is it instanta- 
 neous death which allows the breath of supreme goodness 
 to fall, and who is supposed to have been at all likely to 
 think about pain .•* Is it death, or goodness, or the breath } 
 
 Another peculiarity of Turner's poetry is a sort of 
 thunderous grandeur, often coming with the most comic 
 effect immediately after a very matter-of-fact passage : 
 
 " If then my ardent love of thee is said with truth, 
 Agents the demolition of thy house, forsooth. 
 Broke through the trammels, doubts, and you, my rhyme, 
 Roll into being since that fatal time." 
 
142 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 The meaning of the Hnes about house property is not 
 very clear, though one has a vague notion that something 
 unpleasant has occurred, but the last line seems very sub- 
 lime. The idea of the poet's rhyme rolling into being 
 after the fatal time of that affair about the house-agents 
 has in it an undeniable grandeur. There is a very strik- 
 ing passage about the ancient Romans in connection with 
 a road of theirs near Salisbury. The second line of it 
 might be most appropriately quoted with reference to the 
 Coliseum, the Arena at Nimes, and many other relics of 
 antiquity : 
 
 " Then the famed street appears a line, 
 
 Roman the work and Roman the design. 
 
 Opposing hill or streams alike to them ; 
 
 They seemed to scorn impediments ; for when 
 
 A little circuit would have given the same, 
 
 But conquering difficulties cherished Roman fame." 
 
 Turner never did anything worse than his poetry, ex- 
 cept his prose. Yes, after fairly weighing the faults of 
 both, we are driven to the conclusion that the necessity) 
 for some degree of attention to metre was an advantage to 
 him in literary composition. Amongst the verses you 
 will find a line occasionally which may fairly stand com- 
 parison with the more turgid ones in Thomson's " Sea- 
 sons," or another line of a pedestrian kind, which is as 
 good as the prosaic ones in Wordsworth's " Excursion." 
 
 '1 
 
 " The straining vessel to its cordage yields. 
 So Britain floats the produce of her fields." 
 
 2. " Another guards the passage to the main." 
 
 3. " As morning fogs that rising tempt the breeze." 
 
 4. " And barren left through all the varied year." 
 
Turners Poetry. 143 
 
 5. " The parching heat of summer's solstice o'er." 
 
 6. " A gloomy lurid interval succeeds." 
 
 7. " Or on the blasted heath or far-stretch'd down." 
 
 < " While the fierce archer of the downward year 
 ' \ Stains Italy's blanched barrier with storms." 
 
 These are not bad lines, taken separately, and if Turner 
 had always kept up to their level he might have been a 
 respectable mediocrity in versification, like many other 
 artists who have tried their hands at poetry for amuse- 
 ment. The reader has probably, by this time, had enough 
 of Turner's verse, and may find it a relief to see a speci- 
 men of Turnerian prose — not merely a letter to a friend 
 accepting an invitation to dinner, but a philosophical 
 piece about morality and art. Let him study it as long 
 as he may think it worth his attention, and he will find it 
 utterly impossible, I will not say to understand the whole, 
 but to understand one single sentence in the paragraph : 
 
 " They wrong virtue, enduring difficulties or worth in 
 the bare imitation of nature, all offers received in the 
 same brain ; but where these attempts arise above medi- 
 ocrity it would surely not be a little sacrifice to those who 
 perceive the value of the success to foster it by terms as 
 cordial that cannot look so easy a way as those spoken of 
 convey doubts to the expecting individual. For as the 
 line that unites the beautiful to grace, and these offerings 
 forming a new style, not that soul can guess as ethics. 
 Teach them of both, but many serve as the body and the 
 soul, and but presume more as the beacon to the headland 
 which would be a warning to the danger of mannerism 
 and the disgustful." 
 
144 T^Ji^ Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Of Turner's correspondence very little is in existence, 
 and little can have been worth preserving. He could 
 write a simple note, especially to an intimate friend ; and 
 though his spelling was always uncertain, he sometimes, 
 by happy accident, could get through a few sentences 
 without a blunder. Like most uneducated men, he dis- 
 liked letter-writing, and he carried this dislike to a degree 
 involving positive discourtesy to others. He received a 
 good many dinner invitations, and though not what was 
 called a din^-out, was on the other hand frequently dis- 
 posed to profit by that rule of society which allows a 
 bachelor to receive hospitality without returning it ; so 
 that although nobody could be sure he would accept an 
 invitation, nobody, on the other hand, could be certain 
 that he would invariably prefer his bachelor's fireside. 
 His dislike to the trouble of letter-writing made him treat 
 invitations in a very peculiar manner, and in a manner 
 which only very kind and indulgent friends would have 
 put up with. Sometimes he answered them, but he did 
 not by any means consider it an obligation to do so ; and 
 he would go to dine, or determine at the last minute not 
 to go, just as we go to the theatre, without writing any- 
 thing to the provider of the entertainment. Whenever he 
 went beyond a simple note his letters were ill-spelled and 
 ungrammatical. 
 
 This criticism of Turner as a writer may here come to 
 an end. Enough has been said to prove the truth of an 
 assertion made at the beginning of this biography, to the 
 effect that he did not know the Enghsh language. His 
 unsuccessful attempt to learn Latin with Mr. Trimmer is 
 
Turner s Prose. 
 
 145 
 
 a proof that he did not know Latin. His outrageous 
 spelling of French names is equally good evidence that he 
 never mastered French, and there is not a trace of proof 
 that he ever knew any other tongue. The plain truth is, 
 that he never possessed any language whatever. Hun- 
 dreds of foreigners can write better English than he could. 
 There are English letters on my table from Dutchmen at 
 Amsterdam, at the Hague, at Leyden, which are far 
 superior in grammar, spelling, and construction, to any- 
 thing that Turner could compose after living in London 
 for fifty years, with access to the best society in England. 
 Is there any use, it may be asked, in dwelling upon 
 these weak points of a great genius } Would it not be at 
 once more agreeable and more becoming to veil them 
 gently in forgetfulness .-* Perhaps it might, but surely the 
 agreeable and the becoming are not the only purposes of 
 biography. When we study the life of a man who is 
 famous for what he has done, it is good for us to have no 
 illusions about the range of his powers or the degree of 
 his cultivation. The quotations which have been made 
 will quite certainly prevent any reader from forming in 
 his own mind the image of an ideal Turner and worship- 
 ping it. Beyond this benefit, which is not to be dispised, 
 we have the other advantage of knowing how completely, 
 in Turner, the man was sacrificed to the artist, as gar- 
 deners sacrifice certain fruit-trees to their fruit. The 
 pruning was not done intentionally in his case. One 
 dominant faculty absorbed all the sap of his intelligence, 
 and left him as inferior to the mass of educated men in 
 common things as he was superior to them in the percep- 
 10 
 
146 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 tion of natural beauty. It may be a consolation to 
 mediocrities to reflect that if they cannot paint they 
 would infinitely outshine Turner at a grammar-school 
 examination ; but, without desiring to soothe the jealous- 
 ies of artists who spell better than they paint, we may 
 surely affirm that it remains, and must ever remain, an 
 open question whether, if you compare Turner with what 
 we call an educated gentleman, the sum of superiorities 
 will not be on the side of the gentleman. The case of 
 Turner is just one of those cases which confirm an old 
 prejudice against artists, as craftsmen who have developed 
 a special skill at the cost of more necessary knowledge 
 and accomplishments. It throws, too, a very strong light 
 upon the question whether artistic genius is a special 
 faculty or an exceptionally high condition of all the fac- 
 ulties. I think that the case of Turner proves artistic 
 genius to be a special faculty only. If all his mental 
 powers had been of a high order he would have written 
 his native language easily and correctly as a matter of 
 course, and even composed good poetry, since he had 
 feeling and imagination. On the other hand, his career 
 proves conclusively that literary talent and the sort of 
 education which fosters it are not, as so many believe, 
 absolutely essential to the attainment of distinction and 
 success in life. The lesson which such men leave to us, 
 when we understand both their excellence and their 
 deficiency, is not to humiliate ourselves, not to lose our 
 self-respect in their presence, and on the other hand not 
 to attach too much importance to our own superiorities 
 over them, since they have done so easily without our 
 
Turner s Prose. 
 
 147 
 
 accomplishments. It is probable that every reader of 
 these pages is greatly superior to Turner in what is held 
 to be the education of a gentleman — why, then, should 
 he humble himself before Turner as a sort of demigod ? 
 At the same time it is impossible to forget that this 
 unpolished and illiterate being had the rarest gifts of 
 nature of a special kind, and cultivated them, by incessant 
 industry, to the uttermost; all which is a clear proof 
 that the knowledge of language is not necessary to the 
 exercise of high faculties. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Turner at Twickenham. — English coast scenery. — Crossing the Brook. — 
 Distances in elder art. — The fascination of the remote. — A second possi- 
 bility of marriage, 1815. — Dido building Carthage. — Other classical 
 pictures. — Turner and Scott. — Oil pictures of 1818. — Pictures of 1819. — 
 Rome from the Vatican. — Whitaker's History of Richmondshire. 
 
 /^NE of Turner's important changes of residence took 
 place probably in 181 3, when he bought a house at 
 Twickenham, called Sandycombe Lodge, which he kept 
 till 1826. In speaking of this acquisition as involving a 
 change of residence, we mean simply that the artist 
 changed his country-house, for he had no intention of 
 abandoning his house in town. Turner was too keen a 
 man of business not to know that a town-house was a 
 convenience which in his case paid for itself, and he does 
 not seem at any time to have had that intense passion for 
 the country which makes some lovers of nature feel 
 miserable in a street. He could, in fact, live anywhere ; 
 yet he had his preferences, and Twickenham appears to 
 have been one of them. When Turner purchased the 
 little place there was a small house upon it, but he was 
 not satisfied with this, and erected another in its place, 
 which he designed himself. He was also the architect of 
 his own doorway in Queen Anne Street. The house at 
 
Turner at Twickejihain. 
 
 149 
 
 Twickenham was called Solus Lodge at first, but perhaps 
 the proprietor thought this only too characteristic, so he 
 changed it to Sandycombe. Mr. Trimmer knew Turner 
 at this place, and believed that his residence there had an 
 influence upon some of his important compositions which 
 bear no reference, in their titles, to any English scene. 
 Twickenham is so near to Richmond that Turner received 
 the influence of Richmond scenery to the full, and Mr. 
 Trimmer seems to be right in the supposition that the 
 character of the artist's classical compositions was affected 
 by this neighborhood. 
 
 In 18 13 he painted the Thames at Kingston Bank, and 
 he made a picture of Richmond Hill, which was exhibited 
 in 1 8 19. He had a boat at Richmond, and Mr. Trimmer 
 said that he painted from nature on large canvases in this 
 boat, a practice exceedingly rare with him. His other 
 means of locomotion for sketching excursions in the 
 country consisted of a horse and gig — an old bay horse, 
 neither tall nor swift, which served him as a model for 
 both the horses and the well-known picture, A Frosty 
 Morning. Turner seems to have driven about a good 
 deal in a leisurely fashion, stopping to sketch when he 
 found anything of interest. He seems to have liked the 
 pony whilst it lived, and to have appreciated its good 
 qualities, for he used to say that it could climb the hills 
 like a cat and never get tired, and after the animal's death 
 he gave it honorable burial within the precincts of his 
 garden. It had rather a sad end, by strangulation in the 
 night, having entangled itself in its fastenings, which 
 were chains, used in consequence of its untowardness. 
 
ISO 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Man and horse do not seem to have got on well together, 
 notwithstanding much affection on the human side ; 
 which, as usual in such cases, met with no return. Tur- 
 ner does not seem to have suffered from unrequited 
 affection, but he grieved when the object of it was gone. 
 
 All the pleasant scenery about Twickenham and King- 
 ston was far less built upon in Turner's time than it is now, 
 and the railways had not yet deprived it of the character 
 of rustic peacefulness ; but whatever may have been its 
 charms in those days, they were quite insufficient to bind 
 down Turner for long. He was at the same time one of 
 the most constant of artists, and one of the most various 
 in his affections. A place that he had loved once he 
 loved always, but he never seems to have had any disposi- 
 tion to anchor himself and his art together in some one 
 pleasant haven never to leave it more. The Thames was , 
 very well to boat upon, and to be sketched occasionally, | 
 and the gig with the old pony might be useful rather I 
 frequently in the fine weather; but Turner could no more 
 be kept within the limits of such citizenish excursions , 
 than Byron could be bound down to the immediate neigh- 
 borhood of Newstead Abbey. A list of his works during 
 the time he had Sandycombe Lodge shows how little the 
 Twickenham influences had done to settle him. Even 
 when his purchase was quite recent he seems to have 
 been generally thinking of something else. In 1814 he 
 exhibited Dido and y^neas leaving Carthage on the morn- 
 ing of the Chase, and Apnleia in search of Apuleiiis. His 
 only traces of Thames influence in these pictures are, 
 that in the first there are stone pines, which Turner may 
 
Crossinz the Brook. 
 
 151 
 
 have been led to like by the Scotch firs at Richmond, 
 and in the second there is a river with a bridge of seven 
 arches. 
 
 Turner was led about this time to work heartily and 
 hopefully at a kind of scenery which he always very 
 much liked — the English coast scenery. A very able 
 engraver, Mr. W. B. Cooke, undertook a laborious and 
 costly publication of plates from the southern coast, and 
 Turner did forty of the drawings, beginning with St. 
 Michael's Mount, Poole, Land's End, Weymouth, Lul- 
 worth Cove, and Corfe Castle. By the time the forty 
 drawings were finished in 1826 the artist had explored 
 the coast, at least at intervals, from Ramsgate to Land's 
 End. He did these drawings at first for most moderate 
 prices, not more than^7 ioj. each ; they attracted his 
 attention closely to coast scenery, and one consequence 
 of this direction of his studies was a picture of Bligh 
 Sand, near Sheerness, with Fishing-boats trawling — cloitdy 
 sky. This picture was exhibited in 1815, a very prolific 
 exhibition year for Turner, including two of his best- 
 known and most important pictures — Crossing the Brook, 
 and Dido bicilding Carthage, both of which were be- 
 queathed by him to the nation. 
 
 Crossing the Brook is a piece of Devonshire scenery, 
 with a vast expanse of distance, and one or two tall pine- 
 trees in the foreground. It is interesting as evidence how 
 very little material from nature Turner needed for a work 
 of art, that the most important tree in this picture was 
 painted from a slight pencil sketch, not of large dimen- 
 sions, which was reproduced in the Portfolio for Novem- 
 
152 
 
 The Life of J. M. IV. T7 truer. 
 
 ber, 1877. The manner in which Turner dealt with this 
 sketch is a good instance of his great power, for the tree 
 is very strongly painted ; not that it looks at all like a 
 study from nature, but rather like a bold attempt to 
 appropriate the merits of Claude. The execution is 
 indeed founded quite frankly upon Claude, especially in 
 the artifice by which the farther masses of foliage are 
 separated from the trunk and branches, and made to 
 appear more distant than they would have appeared in a 
 literal interpretation. Although it is perfectly true that 
 the effect of binocular vision can never be given on a fiat 
 surface, except by the help of the stereoscope, it is also 
 true that there are artifices in painting which do to some 
 extent compensate for this deficiency, and the chief of 
 these artifices is the exaggeration of distance between 
 near objects, such as the farther and nearer branches of a 
 foreground tree, none of which can really be very remote 
 from the spectator. The artist, however, may wish to 
 make the spectator feel as if the air circulated amongst 
 the leaves, and as if he could put his arms round the 
 trunk if he went up to it; and to do this he may have 
 recourse to certain tricks of the craft, which are allowable 
 when the reason for them is understood. 
 
 Crossing the Brook is one of the most important 
 pictures in the career of Turner, and it may be well to 
 remember the date of it. This picture marks the transi- 
 tion from his earlier style to that of his maturity. If the 
 reader will take the trouble the next time he visits the 
 National Gallery to compare it with Turner's work in 
 1803, or in 1806, dates at which he was already quite a 
 
Crossing the Brook. 
 
 153 
 
 powerful and successful painter, he will see great changes 
 both in purpose and in style. Calais Pier was painted in 
 1803. It is magnificently composed, and full of all kinds 
 of energy, manifesting the giant strength of Turner';? 
 mind and hand, but it is heavily painted and opaque. 
 So great, indeed, are the impediments to a full enjoyment 
 of the work created by these effects, that the merits of it 
 may be more distinctly perceived in Mr. Seymour 
 Haden's etching than in the presence of the picture 
 itself, and most distinctly of all in the earlier states of the 
 etching, when it is least encumbered by labor. This is 
 so for a very simple reason. Mr. Haden has a well- 
 grounded preference for open work in etching, and likes 
 to suggest light and shade rather than to realize it. This 
 etcher's taste of his led him to eliminate three-quarters 
 of the blackness there is in the picture, and all its 
 opacity, preserving only its glorious composition and 
 energetic movement. This unfaithfulness to the letter 
 that killeth secured the far higher fidelity to the spirit 
 which giveth life, but by disengaging the spirit it has 
 proved how much the genius of Turner, in 1803, was 
 encumbered by traditions inherited from his predecessors. 
 Even in 1806 there is no visible progress towards any 
 self-disengagement or emancipation. The Goddess of 
 Discord in the Gardens of the Hesperides is almost as 
 heavily painted as the Calais Pier, and as much wanting 
 in the charms of light and color. In all such works as 
 this nothing is really luminous, and color appears only in 
 certain portions of the work instead of pervading it ; as, 
 for example, in the fish of the Calais Pier, or a piece of 
 
154 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 drapery in the later picture. There are hundreds of old 
 pictures, often by famous men, which are popularly 
 supposed to be works in color, but which in reality are 
 nothing but simple monochromes in gray or brown, with 
 a little color here and there to prevent them from being 
 avowed monochromes. By means of this artifice a 
 painter who does not feel that he has very much coloring 
 power may gradually work his way from monochrome to 
 real color, and conceal the steps of the transition from 
 the observation of all who are not acquainted with the 
 technical craft of painting. Now, the picture of Crossing 
 the Brook is scarcely, even yet, a work in full color ; for it 
 does not go beyond the color-range of the Dutch land- 
 scape-painters, with their grays and quiet greens for the 
 earth, and pale blues for the sky ; but there is an essential 
 difference between this picture and the two before criti- 
 cised, which is, that such color as there is in it pervades 
 the whole work. The light, too, is equally pervading. 
 The canvas is lighted from side to side and from top to 
 bottom. There are critics who consider this to be one of 
 Turner's greatest works, but here they are in error. The 
 full splendor and power of his art were yet to come, and 
 this sober but admirable picture only cleared his way, 
 as a successful experiment, to an art which had no 
 precedent. One very essential thing in this experiment 
 remains to be mentioned. This picture proved to Turner 
 that he could paint a distance better than any master 
 who had preceded him, and this, in the literal as well as 
 the figurative sense, " opened for him new horizons." 
 It would be premature, in this place, to occupy the 
 
 ^ 
 
Distances hi Elder Art. 
 
 155 
 
 reader's time with a dissertation on the distances which 
 Turner painter afterwards, but there cannot be a doubt 
 that the success of the experiment in Crossing the Brook, 
 of which he must have been fully conscious, was the vic- 
 tory which nerved him for contests with difficulty in this 
 department of landscape-painting such as no artist had 
 ever attempted before him. The landscape-painters of 
 other times had indeed frequently tried to get truth of 
 tone in distances, and had succeeded ; but their distances 
 are always comparatively simple in treatment, even when 
 the material in them is most diversified; and they appear 
 generally to have labored between these two alternatives, 
 either that they had to simplify nature, thus losing its 
 infinity, or else sacrifice truth of aspect to truth of fact, 
 informing you truly enough what villages, houses, and 
 fields existed ten miles from the spectator, but failing 
 altogether to convey the appearances with which the 
 effects of atmosphere and light must have clothed those 
 various objects. 
 
 As an example of simplification I may mention one of 
 the best-known Claudes in the Louvre, with the title 
 Ulysses restores Chryseis to her Father ; and as an example 
 of minuteness without truth of effect, the very remarkable 
 landscape seen through the arcade in the Van Eyck of the 
 Louvre, La Vierge an Donateur. There is great truth of 
 tone in the Claude, and I do not dispute the possibility 
 of the effect, but everything shows that Claude considered 
 simplification an essential quality in the painting of dis- 
 tances. Not only are the hills flat patches of almost 
 equally tinted paint, but even their outlines have a cor- 
 
156 
 
 The Life of y. M. W, Turner. 
 
 responding want of variety. Follow the line of the 
 highest mountain, and you will scarcely find more thought 
 or design in it than would be necessary to make the out- 
 line of a thimble or a sugar-loaf; whereas in nature, 
 however much the mass of a mountain may be obscured 
 by mist, and its modelling flattened, the outline, if trace- 
 able at all, is sure to retain its character. The distinction 
 in tone between a hill on a misty morning and the sky 
 behind it may be so faint that nothing but the most deli- 
 cate art can render it ; yet at the same time the line, if 
 line it can be called, will be full of subtle incidents and 
 changes, difficult indeed to follow, but not to be omitted 
 without falsity any more than you could copy poetry 
 whilst omitting to write out the words. When we turn to 
 the Van Eyck, and look through the three arches of his 
 arcade, we see a complete epitome of all that he considered 
 noble or interesting in landscape ; a broad river with 
 islands and a fortified bridge, a city with churches on one 
 of its banks and the faubourgs of the city on the other ; 
 in the distance there is a chain of mountains, the whole 
 being very probably a reminiscence of the scenery about 
 Lyons, or, at least, an invention suggested by that scenery. 
 Now in this early landscape we have plenty of detail, for 
 nothing is slurred over, either from negligence or in 
 obedience to any theory of simplification ; the artist has 
 done his utmost in every way, and carried as well as he 
 could even to the snowy mountains, the shining crown of 
 his earthly landscape, the same exquisite and loving finish 
 that he bestowed on the pearls of the heavenly diadem 
 which the angels bear to the Virgin. But the details of 
 
Distances in Elder Art, 
 
 157 
 
 the landscape, though numerous, are too clearly defined. 
 The artist does not lose and find them as the eye loses 
 and finds details in nature ; he sees a certain quantity of 
 them, which he sets before us in order like pretty objects 
 in a shop - window : in fact, his arcade does strikingly 
 resemble such a window, with models set behind it and 
 carefully colored. These, then, are the two main divisions 
 of old landscape distances, the simplified and the minutely 
 detailed : but besides these there was some clever dis- 
 tance-painting occasionally, in Dutch art, which deserves 
 separate mention. Of Ruysdael's mountain distances 
 little is to be said that is favorable. They are not so well 
 colored as those of Claude (being really nothing but dis- 
 guised monochrome), and they are not superior to his 
 work in knowledge ; but there are flat distances in Dutch 
 art, including some by Ruysdael, which show almost a 
 modern sense of extent of country and play of wandering 
 light.* Such, then, had been the artistic experiments 
 made by others in this direction before Turner came, and 
 his own early efforts showed little improvement upon his 
 predecessors. It has been remarked before, that whereas 
 with most men the maturing of the faculties leads from 
 imagination to reason, from poetry to prose, this was not 
 the case with Turner, who became more and more poeti- 
 cal as he advanced in life ; and this might in some 
 measure account for his ever-increasing tendency to desert 
 the foreground, where objects are too near to have much 
 
 * There is a fine example of this in the National Gallery now (WjTin- 
 Ellis collection), the large Ruysdael, with a church and an expanse of open 
 country beyond. 
 
158 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 enchantment about them, in order to dream, and make 
 others dream, of distances which seem hardly of this 
 world. 
 
 The fascination of the remote, for minds which have'any 
 imaginative faculty at all, is so universal and so unfailing, 
 that it must be due to some cause in the depths of man's 
 spiritual nature. It may be due to a religious instinct, 
 which makes him forget the meanness and triviality of 
 common life in this world to look as far beyond it as he 
 can to a mysterious infinity of glory, where earth itself 
 seems to pass easily into heaven. It may be due to a 
 progressive instinct, which draws men to the future and 
 the unknown, leading them ever to fix their gaze on the 
 far horizon, like mariners looking for some visionary 
 Atlantis across the spaces of the wearisome sea. Be this 
 as it may, the enchantments of landscape distances are 
 certainly due far more to the imagination of the beholder 
 than to any tangible or explicable beauty of their own. 
 It is probable that minds of a common order, which see 
 with the bodily eyes only, and have no imaginative per- 
 ception, receive no impressions of the kind which affected 
 Turner ; but the conditions of modern life have developed 
 a great sensitiveness to such impressions in minds of a 
 higher class. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to 
 name any important imaginative work in literature, pro- 
 duced during the present century, in which there is not 
 some expression proving the author's sensitiveness to the 
 poetry of distance. I will not weary the reader with 
 quotations, but here is just one from Shelley, which owes 
 most of its effect upon the mind to his perception of two 
 
The Fascination of the Remote. 
 
 159 
 
 elements of sublimity — distance and height; in which 
 perception, as in many other mental gifts, he strikingly 
 resembled Turner. The stanza is in the " Revolt of 
 Islam : " 
 
 " Upon that rock a mighty column stood, 
 
 Whose capital seemed sculptured in the sky. 
 
 "Which to the wanderers o'er the solitude 
 Of distant seas, from ages long gone by, 
 Had made a landmark ; o'er its height to fly 
 
 Scarcely the cloud, the vulture or the blast, 
 
 Has power — and, when the shades of evening lie 
 
 On earth and ocean, its carved summits cast 
 
 The sunken daylight far through the aerial waste." 
 
 This was written in 1817, just about the time when 
 Turner was passing from his early manner to the sublim- 
 ities of his maturity ; and there is ample evidence, of 
 which more may be said later, that Turner and Shelley 
 were as much in sympathy as two men can be when one 
 is cultivated almost exclusively by means of literature 
 and the other by graphic art. But however great may 
 have been the similarity of their minds, whatever sus- 
 ceptibility to certain impressions they may have had in 
 common, the two arts which they pursued differed widely 
 in technical conditions. It may, or it may not, be as 
 easy to write verses as to paint when both are to be 
 supremely well done, but it is certain that poetic descrip- 
 tion requires less realization than pictorial, so that less 
 accurate observation will suffice for it, and an inferior 
 gift of memory. In the whole range of the difficulties 
 which painters endeavor to overcome there is not one 
 which tries their powers more severely than the represen- 
 tation of distant effects in landscape. They can never 
 
 MHMM 
 
i6o 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 be studied from nature, for they come and go so rapidly 
 as to permit nothing but the most inadequate memor- 
 anda; they can never be really imitated, being usually in 
 such a high key of light and color as to go beyond the 
 resources of the palette, and the finest of them are so 
 mysterious that the most piercing eyesight is baffled, 
 perceiving at the utmost but little of all that they con- 
 tain. The interpretation of such effects, however able 
 and intelligent it may be, always requires a great deal of 
 goodwill on the part of the spectator, who must be con- 
 tent if he can read the painter's work as a sort of short- 
 hand, without finding in it any of the amusement which 
 may be derived from the imitation of what is really 
 imitable. For all these reasons it would be a sufficiently 
 rash enterprise for an artist to stake his prospects on the 
 painting of distances ; but there is another objection even 
 yet more serious. Such painting requires not only much 
 goodwill in the spectator, but also great knowledge, 
 freedom from vulgar prejudices, and some degree of faith 
 in the painter himself. When people see a noble effect 
 in nature there is one stock observation which they 
 almost invariably make : they always say, or nearly 
 always, — "Now, if we were to see that effect in a pic- 
 ture we should not believe it to be possible." One would 
 think that, after such a reflection on their own tendency 
 to unbelief in art and to astonishment in the presence of 
 nature, people would be forewarned against their own 
 injustice; but it is not so. They will make that observa- 
 tion every time they see a fine sunset or a remarkable 
 cloud in the natural world, and remain as unjust as ever 
 
 mmammmL 
 
A Second Possibility of Marriage. 
 
 i6i 
 
 to the art which represents phenomena of the same 
 order. Turner had to contend against this disposition to 
 deny the truth of everything that is not commonplace. 
 He was too proud and courageous to allow it to arrest its 
 development, and would not submit to dictation from any 
 one as to the subjects of his larger pictures. He knew 
 the value of money, and would work very hard to earn it, 
 but no money consideration whatever was permitted to 
 interfere between him and the higher manifestations of his 
 art. His oil-pictures, by their very unsaleableness, gave 
 him much artistic liberty, which he made use of to the 
 utmost. If Royalty and the aristocracy had bought 
 them the artist would have got rich earlier, but would 
 have been less master of himself. 
 
 It is said, that in the year 1815 Turner might possibly 
 have been married to a young lady who was a relation of 
 his friend Mr. Trimmer, but, unluckily, he felt too timid 
 to propose, though he wished the lady " would but waive 
 bashfulness, or, in other words, make an offer instead of 
 expecting one." She did not break through the decorum 
 of her sex, and Turner never mustered the degree of 
 assurance which is so common a characteristic of mascu- 
 ine humanity, so the end of it all was that he simply 
 remained a bachelor. This is an odd instance of those 
 imrealities, so nearly realized, the marriages that might 
 lave been. Perhaps the lady had a happy escape, for 
 ivith all our admiration for Turner we may frankly confess 
 :hat he had become by this time too much accustomed to 
 lis own way of life to adapt it readily to feminine exigen- 
 ces. He was not the sort of person to associate well 
 
1 62 ' The Life of y. M. W. Ttirner. 
 
 with anybody. His temper, in this respect, is well illus- 
 trated by a little incident which occurred to him on a 
 sketching excursion with a friend. They had but one 
 palette between them, so it was settled that each should 
 use half of it, an arrangement which answered pretty well 
 for some time ; but at length Turner perceived, or fancied 
 that he perceived, something like an encroachment on his 
 half, when he growled out angrily, " Keep to your own 
 messes ! " Imagine such a temper in the partnership of 
 marriage ! 
 
 The most important picture exhibited in 1815 was Dido 
 Building Carthage, or the Rise of the Carthaginian Empire. 
 This is one of Turner's best-known works, and is likely 
 ever to remain so, because it has been hung near a 
 Claude, according to the directions in the will, and so 
 everybody tries to make up his mind as to whether it 
 deserves such good company or not. This comparison it 
 will be more convenient to postpone until our biographi- 
 cal narrative has come to an end. The Dido owes its 
 origin to various causes, — to the painter's early archi- 
 tectural studies, to his assimilation of Claude's artistic 
 ideas, and to an interest in Carthage, of a very peculiar 
 kind. Leslie hit the mark in a single sentence when he 
 •said that the picture made him feel as if he were in a 
 theatre decorated with the most splendid of drop scenes. 
 Yes, that is true ; and the only intelligible utility of such 
 works is that they are a portable kind of decoration. It 
 is conceivable that a rich man, having a magnificent 
 room, might like to have such a canvas as this to give a 
 pompous air to one of the walls of it, but it is difficult to 
 
 ^ 
 
Dido Biulding Carthage. 
 
 163 
 
 imagine how it could give him any deeper or more 
 delicate aesthetic satisfaction. As for intellectual satis- 
 factions, the thing is an intellectual misconception and 
 mistake. It belongs to the old erroneous school of false 
 history-painting, in which nothing is worth criticising but 
 the technical workmanship in composition and execution. 
 The representation of history so remote that we have 
 scarcely any data for anything can never be very interest- 
 ing. Turner's Carthaginian pictures were painted before 
 the days of universal archaeology, and he knew nothing 
 even of the little that is ascertainable. It might have 
 been worth his while to go as far as Tunis and imbibe at 
 least the spirit of the Carthaginian scenery, as he imbibed 
 that of the Roman Campagna. They who have been 
 where Carthage once stood tell us that the landscapes are 
 fine in character, with the lake of Tunis, the distant azure 
 mountains, the scattered woods of olive and other trees, 
 the vast plain, not unrefreshed with verdure. Then you 
 lave the fine North African atmosphere, with its perfect 
 ight, through which the color shows itself, pure and 
 ntense, like sapphires and emeralds through clear glass. 
 Turner did not concern himself, in this instance, with 
 ocal beauties or characteristics, but invented a place 
 irhich might have belonged to some English nobleman in 
 he Georgian era with a fancy for stone and mortar and a 
 aste for classic temples in his grounds. We feel, of 
 ;ourse, the skill of the practised composer ; the material 
 
 s so arranged as to keep well together, but the lighting 
 impossible. Mr. Leslie pointed out that the shadows 
 
 om the projecting pieces of scaffolding to the left fell in 
 
 ill 
 
1 64 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 a direction only possible with a sun much higher than that 
 in the picture. He was right in this criticism, and might 
 have extended it not only to other details, but to large 
 masses, especially the mass of architecture to the right, 
 above the arch of what looks like a sewer in the corner. 
 All that is lighted as if the sun were fifty degrees (of the 
 circle of the horizon) farther to the left. With the lumi- 
 nary where he is, the piece of architecture in question 
 would have reposed in a broad, unbroken penumbra. 
 The sky is heavy and rather unpleasantly opaque, but 
 that may be due to chemical alteration in the pigments, 
 for Turner used them without regard to permanence. 
 
 The first price Turner asked for this picture was ;!^500, 
 but he did not find a purchaser, and feeling rather indig- 
 nant at this raised the price enormously afterwards by a 
 process of successive doubling. He could do so without 
 imprudence, as, in fact, he had determined to keep the 
 work until his death. This determination was put to a 
 very severe test some years later, when several gentlemen 
 who admired Turner (Sir Robert Peel, Lord Hardinge, 
 and others) offered ;^5000 for this and another picture of 
 Carthage, in order to present them to the National Gal- 
 lery. Turner was pleased by this offer, but adhered to 
 his original intention. 
 
 In 1816 he was still in the classic vein, and exhibited 
 two pictures of the Temple of Jupiter Panhellenius, in 
 the Island of ^Egina, which he had never visited. The 
 material was supplied by a sketch taken by Mr. Gaily 
 Knight. 
 
 The next year Turner returns to Carthage, and exhibits 
 
Turner and Scott. 
 
 165 
 
 a large picture, entitled The Decline of the Carthaginian 
 Empire. The work was accompanied by both prose 'and 
 verse in the Academy Catalogue : 
 
 " 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, con- 
 sented 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." 
 
 The second Carthage was a much worse picture than 
 the first, going still more into the accumulation of bad 
 architecture, whilst the coloring is quite inferior, except 
 in the sky. It has always seemed wonderful to me that 
 Sir Robert Peel and his friends, with their excellent 
 intentions towards the artist on the one hand, and the 
 nation on the other, should have selected these particular 
 pictures to immortalize him and benefit ourselves ; and I 
 heartily endorse Mr. Ruskin's estimate, " It is, in fact, 
 little more than an accumulation of Academy students' 
 outlines, colored brown." 
 
 Turner was brought back to less ambitious, but really 
 much better material, by a tour in Scotland in the year 
 
 18. He was associated with Sir Walter Scott in the 
 production of the Provincial Antiquities, and visited the 
 localities in his company. The great novelist had a keen 
 
i66 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 enjoyment of the things in nature which were the raw 
 material of Turner's art ; he delighted in natural land- 
 scape ; and no artist ever had a stronger passion for 
 romantic old buildings, especially when the interest of 
 them was enhanced by associations of history and 
 legend : yet, notwithstanding what was up to this point 
 a community of tastes. Sir Walter could not really enter 
 into the mind of Turner, because, whilst delighting in 
 nature, he had no understanding of graphic art. The 
 enjoyment of what he saw: the heather on the moor, 
 the gray walls of an ancient peel, the silvery birch and 
 glittering rivulet in the dell, — this enjoyment, of which 
 the refreshment is so often communicated to us in his 
 works, was entirely disconnected in his mind from the 
 kind of knowledge, far more painfully acquired, which is 
 the foundation of the art of painting, and he lived in a 
 state of happy ignorance about the subject. He was 
 never tormented, like Goethe, with the longings of a 
 painter or draughtsman, and had never gone through 
 those practical studies which open the eyes of an amateur, 
 even when they do not enable him to overcome the diffi- 
 culties of art. He would have preferred, as an artist, Mr. 
 Thomson of Duddingstone, the clergyman and landscape- 
 painter, but "supposed he must acquiesce" in the 
 selection of Turner, "because he was all the fashion." 
 This did not prevent Scott from using a few compli- 
 mentary phrases about Turner's genius, phrases which 
 are customary in speaking of eminent artists and do not 
 indicate any reality of admiration. "The Author of 
 Waverley " must have had little conception of the 
 
Oil Pictures of 1 8 1 8. 
 
 167 
 
 splendid position which Turner was destined to occupy 
 in the artistic history of England ; and one cannot help 
 thinking with a touch of sadness of these two men, 
 temporarily associated together and nearer to each other 
 as artists than Sir Walter could be aware. Lockhart, on 
 the other hand, seems really to have appreciated Turner, 
 even at that comparatively early date, which was before 
 the production of his most delightful works ; for Lock- 
 hart said, even then, " The world has only one Turner," 
 and spoke of him as "a great genius," and called his 
 drawing " magnificent delineation." 
 
 The Provincial Antiquities of Scotland, include three 
 Edinburgh subjects and two of Dunbar, with views of 
 Roslin, Stirling, Crichton, Borthwick, and Tantallon 
 Castles, as well as Linlithgow Palace. The series 
 finished with the Bass Rock. The drawings were well 
 engraved by the best landscape -engravers of the day, 
 who afterwards did so much to disseminate the works of 
 Turner. 
 
 This year, 18 18, was not a brilliant period for Turner's 
 work in oil. The artist was like a ship in stays : the 
 impulse from one tack had exhausted itself, the impulse 
 of the next was only just beginning. There are no 
 pictures at this period with the massive but cumbersome 
 strength of the Calais Pier and the Shipwreck ; there 
 are none with the grace of a later time. Besides the 
 difficulty attendant upon a change in style amounting to 
 revolution, there was another which lay deep in the 
 inmost nature of the man. Turner never acquired that 
 delicate critical faculty which limits an artist to what he 
 
i68 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 can do thoroughly well ; his mind was too luxuriant in 
 its fruitfulness to bear with the restrictions which the 
 true classical temper imposes upon itself. He would 
 never have endured to confine his efforts to some narrow 
 specialty of his art, even with the certainty of a sustained 
 and unquestionable excellence. He could not, like 
 Meissonier, have deliberately resolved to paint only one 
 sex, and adhered to his resolve. Like all men of im- 
 mense range, he was constantly incurring new risks in 
 coping with new difificulties. So many things interested 
 him that he was always tempted to express his interest 
 about them in his art — having no other sufficient outlet, 
 since literary expression, eagerly desired, was denied to 
 him ; and so his work as a painter, instead of being 
 pushed steadily in a safe technical direction, became the 
 vehicle of feelings and ideas which had little to do with 
 landscape-painting, For example : the whole series of 
 his Carthage pictures was suggested, not by a landscape- 
 painter's healthy desire to paint the scenery about Tunis, 
 but by patriotic interests and anxieties in the greatJ 
 struggle between England and Napoleon. He did not,l 
 perhaps, accept the Gallic theory that England was the 
 modern Carthage, destined to destruction by the enemy 
 which called itself the modern Rome, but he had a fore- 
 boding that it might be so — that the greatness of his 
 country might bring down upon it the fate of those whom 
 relentless Envy pursues to a final, irremediable overthow ; 
 and this idea impelled him to paint repeatedly a vanished 
 city, of which he knew neither the architecture nor the 
 sight. A peculiar misfortune attended most of his 
 
Pictures of 1819. 
 
 169 
 
 patriotic pictures. The Trafalgar was an impossible 
 medley of masts and sails, which no seaman can endure 
 and no artist would ever imitate; but he painted it from 
 a sense of patriotic obligation — one of the false motives 
 that sometimes intrude upon the domain of art. The 
 same patriotism produced a Waterloo in the exhibition of 
 1 8 18, a picture which only served to exhibit the artist's 
 figure-painting to painfully manifest disadvantage. Turner 
 has often been unfairly criticised for the figures in his 
 genuine landscapes, where, with few exceptions, they serve 
 their purpose admirably. It would be difficult to name 
 another landscape-painter who has used the figurine, I 
 will not say better, but so well. His groups form an 
 integral part of the scene, and keep their places quite 
 harmoniously with the trees and buildings, so that we do 
 not desire to have them elsewhere, and it is only an 
 imperfectly -educated criticism which dwells upon their 
 faulty drawing. But in such a picture as the Waterloo 
 that faulty drawing becomes insupportable. The reason 
 for Turner's failure in this instance is obvious. The 
 human interest is too overpowering here, the landscape 
 interest insufficient. It is a figure -painter's subject, a 
 subject for Detaille or de Neuville, not for him who, 
 after wandering in the tranquil paradise of Claude, was 
 destined to open for us a fairer Eden of his own. 
 
 In the exhibition of 18 19 Turner reverts to more 
 artistic motives. One of his pictures bore the title 
 (which looks, indeed, as if it had been written by a sailor) 
 Entrance of the Meiise — Orange Merchant on the Bar, 
 ^oing to pieces ; Brill Church bearing S.E. by S., Mar en- 
 
I/O 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 sliiys E. by S.; but the real suggestion of the picture 
 would only occur to a colorist. The artist had a fancy 
 for painting oranges bobbing about in sea -water, hence 
 the picture. The other work, Richmond Hill on the 
 Prince Regent's Birthday, had its origin in a rare and 
 sudden sympathy with popular jollification, when happy 
 Londoners, rejoicing that so good a prince should have 
 been born to rule over them, danced with their Amandas, 
 or walked the smiling mead, according to the Thomsonian 
 verse. The following quotation accompanied the picture' 
 in the Royal Academy Catalogue : 
 
 " Which way, Amanda, shall we bend our course ? 
 The choice perplexes. Wherefore should we choose ? 
 All is the same with thee ; say, shall we wind 
 Along the streams ? or walk the smiling mead ? 
 Or court the forest glades ? or wander wild 
 Among the waving harvests ? or ascend, 
 While radiant summer opens all its pride, 
 Thy Hill, delightful Shene ? " 
 
 How remote this poesy appears to us to-day ! No' 
 less remote these smiling meads and forest glades o\ 
 Turner, missing alike the enchantment of imaginatior 
 and the refreshment of reality. Leslie judged rightl) 
 when he said of Turner, " Neither has he expressed the 
 deep, fresh verdure of his own country ; and hence he is 
 the most unfaithful (among great painters) to the essentia 
 and most beautiful characteristics of English midlanc 
 scenery. Constable said to me, ' Did you ever see a 
 picture by Turner and not wish to possess it .-* ' I forget 
 the reply, but I might have named his view from the 
 terrace at Richmond; from which, with the exception of 
 
Rome from the Vatican. 
 
 171 
 
 the general composition, every beauty of that noble land- 
 scape is left out, I remember, in a summer of unusual 
 drought, when the trees became embrowned and the grass 
 was burnt up, that the color of the woods and meadows 
 seen from Richmond approached to that of Turner's 
 picture; but I never remember to have met with trees of 
 such forms as those which he has placed in its foreground 
 in any part of the world." 
 
 In 18 19 Turner went to Rome, one result of which 
 excursion was the extraordinary picture, exhibited in the 
 following year, and still to be seen at the National 
 Gallery, of Rome from the Vatican. Raphael and the 
 Fornarina are in the immediate foreground, and some 
 pictures are lying about on the floor and against the 
 balustrade. The artist's intention may here have borne 
 some reference to his own honors. He figured in the Cata- 
 logue for 1820 as " Professor of Perspective and Member 
 of the Roman Academy of St. Luke," so we have both 
 perspective and Rome in the picture. It is a frank 
 violation of common rules which every artist ought to 
 know and observe, especially the capital rule that per- 
 spective which appears exaggerated is to be avoided, and 
 that interiors are to be represented as if the wall behind 
 the artist were removed, so that he could place himself at 
 a convenient distance, like a spectator at the theatre. 
 The objects in Turner's foreground come forward too 
 near to the footlights, the floor of the loggia slopes like 
 the floor of a ship's cabin in a storm, and it is impossible 
 to look at the picture without unpleasant sensations. 
 One cannot imagine a Sovereign Pontiff walking along 
 
1/2 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 the floor of that corridor ; it is only fit for slaters or 
 sailors. Equally wonderful is the arch through which we 
 get the view of Rome. It goes over our heads like the 
 Milky Way, and looks so prodigious in comparison with 
 its next neighbor that few would imagine the two to be 
 really of the same size. Turner's most enthusiastic 
 admirer confesses that this is " a challenge to every 
 known law of perspective to hold its own, if it could, 
 against the new views of the professor on that subject." 
 This may be the language of facetious criticism, but it 
 expresses a known fact. Turner really did reject the laws 
 of perspective, though it was his offlce to uphold them. 
 
 A very slight suggestion or indication was enough to 
 stimulate the imaginative faculty in Turner, and this may 
 sometimes have been rather a misfortune, as it made him 
 only too willing to work from memoranda supplied by 
 others. In our own day artists use photography, and 
 they use it much more than is generally supposed ; in 
 1820 they had not that resource, but there was the 
 camera-obscura. Hakewill's "Picturesque Tour in Italy" 
 was illustrated by Turner from camera-obscura sketches. 
 He got his own material in the north of England for Dr. 
 Whitaker's " History of Richmondshire." If the reader 
 will go back to the year 1799 {Portfolio, vol. vii., p. 10 1), 
 he will see the beginning of Turner's connection with Dr. 
 Whitaker and his works. After a long interval, the 
 painter and archaeologist were again associated together 
 in their labors. Each of the three districts — Whalley, 
 Craven, and Richmondshire — is an inexhaustible mine 
 for a landscape-painter; but when Turner was illustrat- 
 
Whitaker s History of Richmondshire. 
 
 173 
 
 ing the two first he was as yet very httle of an artist in 
 the higher sense of the word : he was a painstaking and 
 tolerable accurate topographer, and little or nothing more. 
 In the interval between the Craven and the Richmond- 
 shire he became more of an artist and less of a topog- 
 grapher than any of his brethren. It is difificult, in the 
 history of the arts, to point to a more surprising trans- 
 formation. It is as if some painfully dry chronicler of 
 common events had won the power and achieved the 
 liberty of a poet. Never was caterpillar so humble 
 changed into such a brilliant butterfly! The difference 
 between Turner's earliest and his later work for Dr. 
 Whitaker is, therefore, not to be attributed to any finer 
 character in the scenery, but to the revolution in the 
 mind of the artist. A painter of the second rank keeping 
 nearly on the same level, would have made far more of 
 Whalley and Craven, and less of Richmondshire. 
 
 Messrs. Longman gave Turner the landscape depart- 
 ment, and they employed Buckler for the architectural 
 subjects. I do not know the details of the business 
 matters connected with this publication, but it appears 
 that it cost ;!^io,ooo; and I have been informed that by 
 far the greater part of this considerable sum went into 
 Turner's pocket. I think there must be some error here. 
 There are only twenty drawings in the Richmond Series, 
 which the artist began in 1820, a date at which the highest 
 prices he received for drawings had not exceeded ^100. 
 The probability is, that the ;^ 10,000 included the cost of 
 engraving ; and it does not seem impossible to bring out 
 
174 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 the whole work, including the letterpress, for that sum. 
 However this may have been, the originals were afterward 
 sold ; and one of the principal purchasers was Mr. John 
 Marshall, of Leeds. These works were kept at Halsteads, 
 on UUswater, by his son, Mr. William Marshall, who 
 used to tell anecdotes about them which have not been 
 preserved, unluckily for the interest of this narrative, 
 Wordsworth being one of the audience. The subjects 
 were not selected by Turner in an independent-artist 
 fashion, but were chosen for him by a little company of 
 gentlemen who made a tour for the purpose. The mem- 
 bers of this pleasant little society were Dr. William 
 Turner, " Old Tate," the celebrated Master of Richmond 
 Grammar School, and Mr. William Whitaker. 
 
 A very amusing anecdote has been told, with full 
 details, about Turner being mistaken for a Jew. Tt has 
 been said, that when he went to Yorkshire to illustrate 
 the " Richmondshire " he brought a letter of introduc- 
 tion from a publisher in London to one in Yorkshire, 
 telling him, in conclusion, to remember that Turner was 
 a great Jew, the consequence being that he was treated 
 as if he belonged to the Jewish religion. The incident 
 really occurred ; but the person who made the mistake 
 was a lady, Mrs. Whitaker (wife of the historian), who 
 was Turner's hostess at that time. She had heard that 
 the artist was a Jew, took it literally, as was very natu- 
 ural, and treated him as an Israelite indeed, possibly 
 with reference to church attendance and the consumption 
 of ham. One cannot help feeling for Mrs. Whitaker, 
 
 nil 
 
Whitaker s History of Richmondshire, 
 
 175 
 
 who must have needed all the tact of a lady to extricate 
 herself from such a position ; but it is impossible to 
 regret her b^vue. It is one of the very finest and most 
 perfect bevues committed in the first half of the nine- 
 teenth century, the only one quite equal to it being that 
 of the Empress Marie Louise, when she told a distin- 
 guished statesman that he was one of " les plus grandes 
 ganaches de /' Empire,'^ believing that ganache meant a 
 Nestor, wise in council. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 Transition to color. — Turner as a traveller. — His system of study. 
 
 'T^URNER was an exhibitor at the Academy for the 
 space of sixty years, with only four exceptions- — 
 1805, 1821, 1824, and 1848. The first of these omissions 
 may be attributed to the necessity for earning money in 
 early life by other means than the painting of important 
 oil-pictures, and the last was due to declining health and 
 power; but that of 1821 has been considered, perhaps 
 justly, to indicate a pause in his career as a painter when 
 a new conception of his art was taking possession of his 
 mind. He had given up topography long before, as we 
 have seen with reference to the Kilchurn, but the evolu- 
 tion from chiaroscurist to colorist was not accomplished 
 so soon. The most famous of the earlier pictures, those 
 solid, substantial pictures which are so strikingly unlike 
 the manner of his full maturity, were painted simply on 
 Dutch principles in gray and brown, with a patch of red 
 here and there, to make people believe that it was color. 
 In Crossing the Brook we have yellow grays and quiet 
 greens managed with the taste of a colorist who does not 
 yet venture to employ the full force of his palette. The 
 difference between Crossing the Brook and the Garden of 
 
Turner as a Traveller. 
 
 177 
 
 the Hesperides (which was exhibited at the British Institu- 
 tion in 1806) is, in principle, absolute; the later picture is 
 colorist's work in quiet hues, the earlier is not colorist's 
 work at all. This great transition having been accom- 
 plished, a farther step had to be taken, of greater difficulty 
 than the first. To borrow a comparison from the war 
 between Russia and Turkey, I may say that he had passed 
 his Danube, but that in the mysterious distance the Bal- 
 kan mountains lay still to be traversed. Here, then, he 
 paused, exhibiting nothing in 1821 ; in the following year 
 an unimportant picture called What you Will : in 1823, a 
 great experiment in the new style; and in 1824 nothing 
 again. This may be an appropriate time for pausing in 
 the narrative of the Life to consider Turner's various 
 methods of studying from nature, of which we have said 
 little hitherto. 
 
 The reader may have felt some surprise at the cursory 
 way in which the painter's art travels have been passed 
 over, the reason for this being simply our ignorance of 
 any events which may have happened to him. No travel- 
 ler has left less in the way of written memoranda or 
 :orrespondence. His poverty in language amounting to 
 ibsolute destitution in foreign tongues, and the uncommu- 
 licativeness of his character, made his intellect useless 
 [or the study of human nature beyond the limits of his 
 Dwn country. He was the exact opposite of such men as 
 ricknor and Crabb Robinson, who always, in every 
 "oreign city, fell into the very midst of the most cultivated 
 society, and heard all that was most interesting. Intellec- 
 :ual tastes, and enlightened interest in foreign politics 
 12 
 
178 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 and literature, would have been quite incompatible with 
 the immense amount of professional labor that he went 
 through ; and as for thrilling adventures, we only remem- 
 ber that he once slipped on a very steep slope of rock, or 
 debris, in the Isle of Skye, and saved himself by clinging 
 to one of the rare tufts of grass which are able to grow in 
 such places. Some artists have passed through stirring 
 scenes, and participated in them ; the recently published 
 autobiography of Etex, the sculptor (who did two of the 
 groups on the Arc de Triomphe) is as full of change and 
 interest as " Gil Bias " or " Don Quixote," with duels, 
 difficulties, dis-guises, glimpses of the highest society and 
 the lowest, sudden contrasts of splendor and poverty, 
 rapid changes of scene and circumstance, visions of 
 womanly beauty, of manly courage, and incidents of 
 pleasure and peril. The life of Goya was a wild romance; 
 even the lives of Fortuny and of Regnault are as interest- 
 ing as the tragedies of Shakespeare. These artists were 
 mingled with the boiling tide of humanity, and had their 
 share of that stimulating commotion which is the intensi- 
 fication of existence. Turner knew too well the productive 
 value of solitude and peace to expose himself to useless 
 adventures, and he wandered about the Continent, so 
 lately desolated by the most terrible of modern conquerors, 
 in a spirit of perfect artistic tranquillity, conscious indeed 
 of the miseries of humanity, and partially saddened by 
 them, yet steadily minding his own business, which was 
 to observe how cities, and rivers, and distant mountains, 
 would combine into beautiful compositions. He had 
 visited Rome in 1813, he revisited it in 18 19, and .saw the 
 
• ' a ■' (T fli , I '^ii: 
 
 4| I 
 
Turner as a Traveller. 
 
 179 
 
 Rhine in the same year, but we have no traveller's remi- 
 niscences to enliven our bare statement of the fact. The 
 best account of Turner's impressions as a traveller is to 
 be found in the vast collection of sketches bequeathed by 
 him to the National Gallery. 
 
 Turner's system of study from nature was from the first 
 adapted to the habits of a tourist who never remained 
 ong in one place. Some of his studies are elaborate ; but 
 X. is a kind of elaboration due ra.ther to a perfect command 
 Df means, and great practice, than to much time spent 
 upon any one particular sketch. He was always a painter 
 :rom memoranda, and his sketches, whether slight or 
 elaborate, are really memoranda, and no more, except in a 
 very few instances, when he tried for imitative quality in 
 drawings of still life. 
 
 The collection of his sketches, now belonging to the 
 lation, is so considerable, that students may find in it 
 ibundant examples of the various kinds of work which he 
 iid in the presence of Nature. Some of these sketches 
 lave been copied for this biography with sufficient 
 iccuracy as to form, and the reader may judge from them 
 )f the degree of elaboration which Turner usually con- 
 sidered necessary. 
 
 The character of Turner's drawings varies considerably 
 t different periods, and during different tours. Some- 
 imes the pencil is cut broad at the end, and the sketches 
 je very comprehensive in treatment ; at other times a 
 iarder pencil is used, and it is sharpened to a fine point. 
 The papers vary also, being sometimes white, and at 
 )ther times gray, of various tints and textures. Then, 
 
i8o 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 again, the relations vary between the line and the wash 
 in the degree of importance given to the one or to the 
 other. 
 
 But whatever may be the differences between Turner's 
 ways of sketching, he was always equally decided ; he 
 always evidently had determined beforehand exactly the 
 kind of work, and pretty nearly the quantity of it, that 
 he intended to put into his sketch. His ideas are per- 
 fectly clear, and his intentions settled. His interpretation 
 of Nature is always carried up to a predetermined point, 
 and no farther. Less consummate artists often find 
 themselves led beyond what they at first intended by the 
 interest of the subject and the pleasure of study, so that 
 they do not know when and where to stop. In Turner's 
 sketches, without any exception known to me, there is 
 absolute self-control. He never finishes to his utmost 
 unless it be to mark some particularly interesting portion 
 of a sketch, and then the finish is knowingly restricted to 
 that portion, and the rest is loosely indicated. He is not 
 at any time the slave of Nature or her echo, but always 
 her interpreter. In a certain sense his sketching is 
 intensely conventional. I do not mean that he always 
 followed ancient recognized methods, for he was an 
 audacious innovator ; I mean, that he worked as if draw- 
 ing, relatively to Nature, were understood to be a sum- 
 mary and artificial method of interpretation. This may 
 have been partly due to his love of rapidity. No one can 
 look over the national collection of Turner's sketches 
 without perceiving that he cultivated rapidity as an art, 
 that he consciously applied his mind to those artifices 
 
His System of Study. 
 
 I8l 
 
 which economise time, and which consequently enable an 
 artist to get much from Nature in one sitting. This habit 
 of economy in time is often much increased by practice 
 n noting down very transient effects, so that the methods 
 ivhich an artist has invented for this purpose may be 
 used by him for things less transient when he is in a 
 lurry. Having sketched clouds quickly because they 
 ■elain their forms only for a few seconds, he may some- 
 :imes apply similar methods to trees and cities, when the 
 iiligence pnly allows him ten minutes to make his sketch. 
 Vlany things conspire to teach Turner the art of using 
 :ime to the best advantage. The effects which he cared 
 to paint were generally transient, and his eager search 
 "or new impressions prevented him, when on his travels, 
 :rom remaining more than an hour or two on one spot. 
 So far as we can judge, the time given to his sketches 
 rom Nature varied from three or four minutes to as many 
 lours. The most elaborate of them were retouched in 
 :he house afterwards, but it is probable that he never, or 
 lardly ever, gave more than one sitting to the same 
 iketch in the presence of Nature, at least during his for- 
 eign tours. He had several distinct methods of sketch- 
 ng at command, to be used according to circumstances, 
 md was perfectly master of each of them ; so that when- 
 ;ver one seemed likely to take too much time, another 
 night be immediately adopted. Exceedingly unmethod- 
 
 Eal in the ordinary habits of his life, he was methodical 
 the extreme when working directly from Nature ; and 
 is is the more remarkable that he was not methodical 
 /hen painting in his studio at home. The difference 
 
1 82 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 may be explained by the difference of leisure. In the 
 studio he had time to try experiments ; but there was no 
 time for experimentalizing on the road, with the inn to be 
 reached at night. 
 
 The following classification will, it is believed, be found 
 to include all the different kinds of sketches and studies 
 which Turner usually executed from Nature. 
 
 I. Lead pencil on white paper. — Many of these pencil 
 studies are done with the point of a hard pencil, kept 
 well sharpened, especially for architectural material. 
 Shade is either not indicated at all, or very slightly, thel 
 studies of this class being strictly notes of form. Even 
 form, however, is f^r from being complete ; there is only 
 just as much of it as the artist thought indispensable. 
 For example : in architecture, when details were repeated 
 in the building. Turner would often draw one of them 
 carefully, and indicate the rest ; and in landscape he 
 would indicate foliage in a summary way by loops. In 
 these pencil studies Turner never came nearer to imita- 
 tion than the very simplest etching. Sometimes the 
 loops would be rejected for a comprehensive sketching o^ 
 masses, with a slight indication of shade, consisting 
 generally of a few diagonal lines kept well open. The 
 reader may judge of the more complete pencil studies by 
 referring to the sheep and the pine-tree on pages 174 and 
 175 of the Portfolio for 1876, and to the landscape on 
 page 189. He will see at once, that notwithstanding 
 Turner's great knowledge of light and shade, he was 
 very sparing of it in sketches of this class, yet he often 
 made use of them afterwards for the most elaborate works 
 
 
His System of Study. 
 
 183 
 
 in water-color or oil. There are instances in which shade 
 is just indicated with a slight rubbing. He seems to 
 have had recourse to pencil-sketching at all periods of his 
 life ; but rarely to have practised highly-finished pencil 
 drawing, as the old figure -painters used to do. The 
 reason for this is, that when he had time for elaboration 
 he took up color. Pencil, in his system, was simply used 
 for memoranda, unless in some early work. 
 
 2. Broad lead pencil on buff paper, white lights in body 
 color, yelloiv occasionally used. — An early series of 
 sketches in Scotland are done in this manner. These 
 sketches are remarkable for breadth carried to excess, 
 for they contain hardly any information about matters of 
 detail of the kind that a painter needs. The finality of 
 them is such that they look as if the artist had no other 
 object than their production, and was fully satisfied with 
 broadly - shaded, but really very empty, spaces. These 
 Scottish drawings are rather large, which makes us more 
 alive to their want of detail. 
 
 3. Black and white chalk on gray paper. — Turner seems 
 to have been rather fond of black and white chalk early 
 in the century, but he afterwards preferred body-color for 
 lights, except in correcting proofs of engravings. He 
 used chalks magnificently, but with the utmost careless- 
 ness as to preservation. " These drawings," says Mr. 
 Ruskin, in speaking of a fine series of them, " were on 
 leaves of a folio book, which, for the most part, is dashed 
 over with such things on both sides of its thin, gray 
 leaves ; the peculiar ingenuity of the arrangement being 
 that each leaf has half of one sketch on its front and half 
 
1 84 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 of another on its back, so that, mounting one whole 
 sketch must generally hide the halves of two. The 
 further advantage of the plan is that the white chalk 
 touches, on which everything depends, rub partly off 
 every time the leaves are turned ; besides that a quantity 
 of the said chalk, shattered by Turner's energetic thrusts 
 with it, is accumulated in a kind of Alpine debris in the 
 joints, shaking out, and lodging in unexpected knots of 
 chalk indigestion whenever the volume is shut ; and, to 
 make the whole thing perfect, the paper is so thin and 
 old that it will hardly bear even the most loving handling, 
 much less the rack and wear of turning backwards and 
 forwards on a mount, if attached by one edge." 
 
 There are some noble studies of boats of this class, 
 executed with great simplicity and directness of method, 
 but with consummate knowledge. Turner does not seem 
 to have troubled himself much about fixing, which lowers 
 the whites. Neither did he care to finish his chalk 
 drawings very far. 
 
 4. Black chalk on gray paper, with white lights in body, 
 color. — An example of this is one of his studies in Savoy, 
 that of Vareppe, executed in 1802. It is sketched first 
 in lead pencil, slightly, on dark -gray paper, almost brown, 
 then drawn boldly in black chalk, and finally touched 
 with brush-white. 
 
 5. Pen sketches on gray paper, with white lights in 
 chalk. — Some of the sketches in France in the middle 
 time of the artist's career were done in this manner. 
 The ink is black, and the handling very swift and light. 
 Neither this combination nor the preceding one is, how- 
 
 ■Hi 
 
i 
 
His System of Study. 
 
 185 
 
 ever, technically harmonious. Chalk and pen -work do 
 not go well together, neither do black chalk and brush- 
 white. A better combination is the following : 
 
 6. Pen sketches on gray paper, with white lights in 
 body -color. — Many of Turner's best and most rapid 
 sketches are done in this manner, which is valuable for 
 its permanence and precision. Nothing can be clearer 
 than a pen line in good black ink, and the point of the 
 brush can lay the body>color in the smallest touches and 
 sparkles. The paper which Turner preferred for this sort 
 of sketching was of a blue gray, and he liked (without 
 using it exclusively) the kind which has a blue fibre in 
 gray pulp. 
 
 7. Pencil sketches on gray paper, with white lights in 
 body-color. — The pencil used is generally hard and 
 pointed, and the same method is followed as in the pencil 
 sketches on white paper. Some of these studies on gray 
 paper are very elaborate, noting down abundant details 
 of cities, etc., with numerous touches in white to explain 
 them more clearly ; but they do not attempt any complete 
 expression of light and shade. There is a very fine 
 general view of Rome in the national collection of this 
 class. 
 
 8. White paper with a flat wash of gray. On this a 
 drawing in black chalk colored afterwards in water-color, 
 with lights obtained either by scraping or by body -color. — 
 At first sight the student is likely to imagine that these 
 studies are done on paper that was gray when manu- 
 factured ; but the work of the penknife shows that the 
 paper was really white and tinted by Turner himself. 
 
1 86 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 This combination of methods is excellent for its economy 
 of time. The forms are got rapidly in chalk, and an 
 artist so skilful in water-color as Turner was would add 
 the washes in an hour. The sketches of this class are 
 large, and very bold in treatment ; and there is nothing 
 in the national collection which proves more decidedly 
 the colossal strength of Turner's mind and hand when he 
 was excited by the sublimity of Nature, and utterly] 
 heedless of the public. The flat wash differs in tint in the 
 different drawings. Sometimes it is dark, and so warm 
 as to be almost brown ; at others, it is a yellowish-gray, 
 the tint being chosen so as to do the most it can towards 
 advancing the drawing. The work of the penknife and 
 the brush for lights is also far from being uniform. For 
 example : there is a noble sketch of the Old Devil's Bridge, 
 St. Gothard, which is especially remarkable for the work 
 of the penknife in the foaming torrent. The St. Gothard, 
 with the bit of yellow sky at the top of the drawing, and 
 rising clouds amongst the pines in the chasm, is also a 
 most noble specimen of the same kind of work, and a 
 great example of sublimity in coloring. I use the word 
 colortlig and not color, intentionally here, because these 
 sketches are really colored drawings. For breadth of 
 handling in the application of the washes on the drawing 
 I may mention the Mer de Glace Chamouni, and Mer de 
 Glace, Aiguille Charmoz, especially the latter. In these 
 two sketches the high lights are in body-color. In the 
 Source of the Arveiroti the lights are obtained in that way, 
 and with the knife also. 
 
 9. Water-color on tinted papers. — Turner was very fond 
 
His System of Study. 
 
 187 
 
 of tinted papers for water-color sketching, and used them 
 of various kinds, a cool blue-gray predominating. The 
 following brief descriptions of a few examples will show 
 how he dealt with them : 
 
 Bonneville, Savoy. Firmly drawn in lead pencil first, 
 the drawing left very visible, especially in the foreground. 
 Washed in water-color and heightened with body-color 
 lights. 
 
 Rome, the Alban Mount. Dark gray paper, black 
 pencil ; abundant washes in water-color with a full brush. 
 
 Studies at Marley and Rouen. Dark gray -brown 
 paper ; pencil sketch washed with half-color tints, rapidly 
 dashed on with a full brush ; lights in body-color. 
 
 Rome. Pearly-gray paper ; drawing with the point of 
 a hard pencil; water -color employed delicately and 
 partially, especially in the distances. Retouches in 
 opaque color. 
 
 Rome, St. Peter's. Pearly-gray paper, the first draw- 
 ing in hard pencil ; the second with the brush point, in- 
 troducing much golden color under the arches. 
 
 Honfleur. Blue -gray paper; all organic lines and 
 markings in indelible brown ink, afterwards washed over 
 in water-color.* 
 
 Effects of Sky and Sea. Some studies of sky and sea 
 are done in bold touches and washes with a full brush, 
 there being no preparatory markings with the pencil. 
 
 A series of late Sketches of Venice. There is an 
 astonishing; Venetian Series in the national collection 
 
 * Turner often used penwork under water-color, as he did etching under 
 mezzotint. 
 
1 88 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 much more Turnerian than natural ; but extremely inter- 
 esting on account of the plain evidence they give about 
 the principles of his later manner in water-color, more 
 visible in sketches than in more highly-finished drawings. 
 The paper is a mauve-gray, the pencil work pale, so as to 
 become invisible under the wash ; and the wash itself is 
 very broad, and in very pure colors. On this comes a 
 second drawing with the point of the brush, the vermilion 
 lines characteristic of Turner's late manner being added 
 in this way. Besides these, there are skilful touches in 
 thick color, or with a brush that is nearly dry. In all 
 these Venice subjects the coloring is as brilliant as the 
 hues of sunset, and the sunset is like a vision in the 
 western sky, a city of crimson, gold, violet, and vermilion, 
 floating over a sea of emerald. The real power of these 
 sketches is in the skies, which are generally possible. 
 The rest is not possible. 
 
 lo. Sketches in water-color on ..white paper. — This may 
 be separated into two subdivisions. In one of them the 
 work in pencil is intentionally hard, decided, and visible 
 to the end ; in the other it is faint and purposely over- 
 powered by the water-color. For instance, in a study of 
 Vesuvius from Naples, firmly drawn throughout in hard 
 pencil, the water-color work is carried very far in the 
 mountain, and in some buildings of the foreground, but 
 the rest is left frankly in pencil. On the other hand, 
 there are two superb studies of Tivoli, in which the pencil 
 has been used as little as possible, so that it becomes 
 invisible under the broad energetic washes. These 
 Tivoli subjects are remarkably fine examples of Turner's 
 
 ^mmu 
 
His System of Study. 
 
 189 
 
 skill in pure transparent water-color, the lights of which 
 aie all reserved in the white paper. He disliked the 
 employment of body-color in principle, though he used 
 it freely when the paper itself would not supply the light. 
 There is a grand energetic study of the Campagna, with 
 snowy mountains in the distance. The foreground is 
 yellow, with violent marks of the brush handle, and also 
 of the artist's thumb, all proving that he was in a state 
 of high excitement. Another of the Campagna, with a 
 foreground of red and dark green, is carried farther in 
 color than most studies of this class. A third of these 
 Campagna subjects may be mentioned for its extreme 
 delicacy of tone ; it shows the meanders of the Tiber and 
 a fortified bridge. The same bridge supplied subjects for 
 several rapid pencil sketches on white paper. If the 
 reader cares to see admirable examples of extreme 
 economy of labor and paint in water-color, he should 
 study Turner's fishes on white paper, his perch, tench, 
 and trout, drawn with the pencil and colored with 2 
 wondrously small allowance of color, but most brilliantly. 
 Turner made some fine studies of birds on the same 
 principle, the markings of the plumage as elaborate as in 
 Bewick, but always very light and open. 
 
 The above classification of Turner's studies from 
 Nature will be found to include most of them, as he 
 became addicted to certain habits of work, and remained 
 faithful to them, at certain periods, long enough for the 
 production of studies in sets and series. My classifica- 
 tion does not, however, pretend to be exhaustive : I know 
 that there are studies by Turner which it does not com- 
 
1 90 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 prehend : but it is comprehensive enough to meet the 
 lli reader's needs without wearying his patience. A few 
 
 words remain to be said about the relation of these 
 studies to Nature itself. 
 
 Turner differed from most landscape-painters in his 
 condition of mind in the presence of Nature. The ordi- 
 nary landscape-painter is truthful in his studies — truthful 
 at least, so far as the illusions of an artist will allow him ; 
 but he often permits himself some poetical reverie in the 
 studio. Turner may have tried also to be truthful as a 
 raw beginner ; but the work of his maturity in the pres- 
 ence of Nature is true to nothing but his own emotions. 
 There is a passage of Mr. Ruskin on this subject which I 
 will quote with the ungracious intention of expressing 
 dissent from it : " Turner's decision came chiefly of his 
 truthfulness ; it was because he meant always to be true, 
 that he was able always to be bold. And you will find 
 that you may gain his courage if you will maintain his 
 fidelity." About the decision of Turner there cannot be 
 two opinions, it is as evident as the decision of Napoleon, 
 and as wonderful ; but it did not come of truthfulness, it 
 was not due to any fidelity to what he saw : it was due, 
 on the contrary, to his audacious preference of his own 
 fancies to the facts of the external world. There can be 
 no doubt that Turner passionately enjoyed the beauty of 
 the world, and deeply felt the influence of its sublimity, 
 but he cared no more about the truth than Victor Hugo 
 cares. We have already seen what " Turnerian Topogra- 
 phy " really was in our analysis of Kilchurn, and it is 
 unnecessary to say more about it here except that nobody 
 
His System of Study. 
 
 191 
 
 ;an place the slightest trust in the topographic fidelity of 
 my sketch of Turner's. Now in studies of landscape, 
 true topography and accurate drawing are inseparable. 
 If the drawing is accurate, true topography will come of 
 itself, and the absence of topography in Turner's work is 
 associated with a reckless inaccuracy in design. 
 
 Passing now from drawing to color, let me explain what 
 Turner's coloring was and was not. It was not an imita- 
 tion of Nature except in certain studies, chiefly of still 
 ife, done very conscientiously for discipline. It was 
 really a long series of experiments on the play of colors 
 themselves. Here is an anecdote in illustration of his 
 :onception of coloring. He was staying once in a friend's 
 house at Knockholt, where there were three children. 
 The late Mr. Cristall, a friend of Mr. Samuel Palmer, was 
 also a guest at Knockholt, at the same time, and he 
 witnessed the following incident, which he afterwards 
 narrated to Mr. Palmer. Turner had brought a drawing 
 with him of which the distance was already carefully 
 outlined, but there was no material for the nearer parts. 
 One morning, when about to proceed with this drawing, 
 he called in the children as collaborateurs, for the rest, in 
 the following manner. He rubbed three cakes of water- 
 color, red, blue, and yellow, in three separate saucers, 
 gave one to each child, and told the children to dabble in 
 the saucers and then play together with their colored 
 Angers on this paper. These directions were gleefully 
 obeyed, as the reader may well imagine. Turner watched 
 the work of the thirty little fingers with serious attention, 
 md after the dabbling had gone on for some time, sud- 
 
192 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 denly called out, " Stop ! " He then took the drawing 
 into his own hands, added imaginary landscape forms, 
 suggested by the accidental coloring, and the work was 
 finished. On another occasion, after dinner, he amused 
 himself in arranging some many-colored sugar-plums on a 
 dessert plate, and when disturbed in the operation by a 
 question, said to the questioner, " There ! you have made 
 me lose fifty guineas ! " What relation had sugar-plums 
 to landscape-painting? Simply this, that a landscape 
 might have been afterwards invented in the same color- 
 arrangement. The sugar-plums would have been dis- 
 guised in landscape forms in Turner's arbitrary way. 
 Without wishing to prove too much by a couple of anec- 
 dotes,* I do think that every candid reader will agree with 
 me that we have here a mind seeking color combinations 
 for themselves, without reference to the truth of Nature. 
 
 Many of Turner's studies have convinced me that this 
 condition of mind, as a colorist, was habitual with him. 
 The drawings for the " Rivers of France " are glaringly 
 false in color, considered with reference to Nature, and the 
 later drawings of Venice are outrageous ; but if we look 
 upon them as simple experiments in the juxtaposition of 
 hues we shall understand them better. I am familiar 
 enough with French rivers, under all natural effects, but 
 I never yet saw one of their bridges dashed with the 
 Tiirnerian vermilion. The plain truth is, that when Tur- 
 ner thought that a streak of vermilion or a blot of cobalt 
 would help the brilliance of his drawing he set it there, as 
 a jeweller sets a red stone or a blue one. 
 
 * These anecdotes may be relied upon. They were kindly communicatee 
 to me by Mr. Samuel Palmer. 
 
His System of Study. 
 
 193 
 
 Another result of examining Turner's studies is that 
 w^e see both the extent of his knowledge and the limits of 
 It ; we see especially his independent power of discovery. 
 The fourth volume of De Saussure's great original book, 
 "Voyages dans les Alpes," was published in 1796, with 
 many engravings. De Saussure • was rich as well as 
 [earned, and employed, no doubt, the best engraving 
 talent to be had at that time in Switzerland. The plate^ 
 ire large — so large that many of them are twice folded 
 in a quarto volume ; and they are engraved with milch 
 labor and care. They really do express the most perfect 
 mountain-knowledge which had been attained up to the 
 5nd of the eighteenth century. They really give evidence 
 of much deeper mountain lore than any which had been 
 attained by the old masters ; but compare them with the 
 incipient Alpine work of Turner, done in the first year of 
 :he succeeding century, and what are they .-* Nothing 
 3ut old maps, in which defective outlines surround spaces 
 illed with emptiness. Turner's drawings of the Alps, 
 ;ven the early ones, are as much beyond those engravings 
 vhich the learned and admirable De Saussure approved 
 md published, as Greek figure -sculpture was beyond 
 jrothic. The evidence of Turner's knowledge is not less 
 ibundant and convincing than the evidence of his wilful 
 naccuracy. But although his studies prove that he knew 
 nuch, they do not prove that he knew everything. He 
 ras not learned in sylvan lore. It is surprising that so 
 ;reat a landscape-painter should have studied forest sce- 
 lery so little. He drew some trees elegantly, but clearly 
 ireferred buildings as subjects of study ; and there is no 
 13 
 
194 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 evidence that he had the sylvan sense, the delight in 
 forest scenery, which has animated the genuine sylvan 
 painters, such as Theodore Rousseau, for example. This 
 fnay have been due to his passion for great spaces ; he 
 may have felt confined and imprisoned in the woods. But 
 besides this, he took comparatively little interest in rustic 
 subjects. There are painters now living — Hanoteau is 
 pne of them — whose knowledge of rustic material is 
 much closer, more intimate, more affectionate than Tur- 
 ner's. With an immense and unwearied industry. Turner 
 accumulated thousands and thousands of memoranda to 
 increase his knowledge of what interested him, especially 
 in the mountains, rivers, and cities of the Continent, and 
 the coasts of his native island. Amidst all this wealth of 
 gathered treasure his imagination reigned and revelled 
 with a poet's freedom. With a knowledge of landscape 
 vaster than any mortal ever possessed before him, his 
 whole existence was a succession of dreams. Even the 
 hardest realities of the external world itself, granite and 
 glacier, could not awaken him ; but he would sit down 
 before them and sketch another dream, there, in the very 
 presence of the reality itself. Notwithstanding all the 
 knowledge and all the observation which they prove, the 
 interest of Turner's twenty thousand sketches is neither 
 topographic nor scientific, but entirely psychological. It 
 is the soul of Turner that fascinates the student, and not 
 the material earth. 
 
 There are a few little details and anecdotes about Tur- 
 ner's practice as an artist which I have thought it better 
 not to scatter through the volume, as they illustrate each 
 
 \ 
 
His System of Study. 
 
 195 
 
 other when taken together. The instrument he most 
 commonly used in sketching was the lead-pencil. A 
 friend of his, travelling in the Jura, came to an inn where 
 Turner had entered his name in the visitors' book, and, 
 to make sure of the painter's identity, asked the inn- 
 keeper what sort of a man he was. " A rough, clumsy 
 man," was the answer; "and you may know him by this 
 ' — he has always a pencil in his hand!' When sketching 
 from nature in the Val d'Aosta with Mr. Munro, Turner 
 was vexed with himself for having used color instead of 
 the pencil, with which (as he observed) he would have got 
 much more in the time. Mr. Cyrus Redding, who saw 
 Turner at work, speaks of the roughness of his sketches, 
 which were in pencil, and remarks that many of his finest 
 pictures were painted from rough pencil memoranda. 
 There is, indeed, quite a special science or art of taking 
 memoranda, which Turner thoroughly understood. A 
 painter who is conversant with the materials of nature, 
 ban paint from very slight memoranda, if only they are of 
 the right kind. Mr. Redding gives us another interesting 
 scrap of information about Turner's way of making a 
 sketch. " He sketched the bridge, but appeared, from 
 changing his position several times, as if he had tried 
 nore than one sketch, or could not please himself as to 
 he best point." It is probable that the real explanation 
 [)f this would be that Turner collected into one and the 
 same sketch a good deal of material which lay scattered 
 iround him in various directions, for he never troubled 
 limself about drawing a scene as it appears from a single 
 Doint of view. Mr. Redding speaks also of the confused 
 
196 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 nature of Turner's memoranda, taken on paper not bigger 
 than a sheet of letter-paper. The only instance of his 
 painting directly from nature in oil-color occurs in some 
 sketches on canvas done at Richmond in his boat. There 
 are about forty of these studies. 
 
 An interesting detail about his taste in scenery is that 
 he declared he had " never seen so many natural beauties 
 in so limited an extent of country as he saw in the vicin- 
 ity of Plymouth." He was especially pleased with Mount 
 Edgecumbe. Though rarely communicative about his 
 impressions in the presence of nature, Turner once talked 
 with a Mr. Rose, of Jersey, about scenes which he had 
 visited ; but Mr. Rose, unluckily, did not make a memo- 
 randum of his observations. Turner mentioned the Fall 
 of Foyers in Scotland, the Pyrenees, and the French 
 river Ranee, which he recommended as rich in pictur- 
 esque scenes. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 Rivalry with Wilson. — The Bay of Baiae. — The Rivers of England. — Pro- 
 vincial Antiquities. — England and Wales. — The Ports of England. — The 
 Cologne. — Works from sketches by others. — Separate plates. — Transac- 
 tions with Cooke. Pictures exhibited in 1827. 
 
 TN the year 1822 Turner had a scheme which may be 
 mentioned as an illustration of his character, both be- 
 cause it exhibits his love of important enterprises and 
 because it shows that tendency to put himself in direct 
 rivalry with deceased artists of reputation which, through 
 life, was one of the peculiarities of his ambition. He had 
 a conversation in the month of June with Messrs. Hurst 
 and Robinson, successors of the well-known Alderman 
 Boydell, in the course of which they encouraged him to 
 have an important plate engraved from one of his pictures, 
 by promising that if he undertook this at his own risk, 
 and sold copies of the engraving to no one but themselves 
 for the space of two years, they would take five hundred 
 impressions. In a letter, dated June 28th, 1822, Turner 
 enters into this plan, and proposes to combine it with a 
 scheme of his own, which was to issue four important 
 plates from his pictures, to place himself as a painter in 
 rivalry with Wilson, and at the same time to place the 
 engraver whom he would employ in rivalry with Woollett. 
 
198 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 The letter is clearer and more business-like than many of 
 his compositions ; but there is one of his curious phrases 
 which, at first sight, does not seem very intelligible. He 
 says: "The pictures of ultimate sale I shall be content 
 with." What are "pictures of ultimate sale," and why is 
 Turner content witlt them .'' The answer, I imagine, must 
 be that he was to take his chance of selling the pictures 
 ultimately if he painted them for the present purpose of 
 being engraved. Turner mentions "four subjects to bear 
 up with" — namely, " Niobe, Ceyx, Cyledon, and Phae- 
 ton." These are all well-known works by Wilson. By 
 " Ceyx " Turner means the Ceyx and Alcyone, and by 
 " Cyledon " he means the Celadon and Amelia. It is inter- 
 esting to note that he speaks of both Wilson and Woollett 
 as " powerful antagonists," and says : " If we fall, we fall 
 by contending with giant strength." This is clear evi- 
 dence that, when quite in his maturity Turner looked up 
 to Wilson instead of considering him an inferior, and that 
 his own project of contending against him was accom- 
 panied by certain misgivings. He proposed, as a first 
 picture, either his Hannibal or the Mornifig of the Chase ; 
 and his calculation was that, with the pictures still to be 
 painted, the whole project might be realized in five or six 
 years. He expressly excepted the Carthage from a possi- 
 ble list. The plan was never realized ; and it is said that 
 Messrs. Hurst and Robinson offended Turner by trying 
 to bargain with him for the two Carthage pictures at a 
 time when his own price was a thousand guineas each. 
 
 In that year, 1822, the prices received by Turner for 
 his water-colors were not very considerable. He got eight 
 
The Bay of Bai(Z. 
 
 199 
 
 guineas each for the Colne, Rochester, and Norham ; and 
 p^"85 for three drawings on the Rhine. But the impor- 
 tance of a work to the artist himself is not to be measured 
 by the price paid for it. That drawing of Norham Castle 
 is said to have been always regarded by the artist as the 
 turning-point of his success. 
 
 Nothing of importance was exhibited in 1822, but in 
 the following year a great picture appeared at the Acad- 
 emy, The Bay of Baice. The full title in the Academy 
 Catalogue was the Bay of Bai(E, with Apollo and the Sybil. 
 
 " Waft me to sunny Baise's shore." 
 
 Although connected with the name of a locality, this 
 picture really belongs almost as completely to the realms 
 of imagination as those pure inventions with fanciful titles 
 which amused or perplexed the critics. It is a poetical 
 scene, with a fine expanse of land and water, the land 
 scenery being more than usually elaborate and full of rich 
 invention. The gay delight in the beauty of " sunny 
 Baiae," which is expressed in the motto, is visible also in 
 the painting, which has been executed with evident enjoy- 
 ment. This is really a picture after Turner's own heart, 
 with plenty of light, plenty of space for the eye to wander 
 over, endless detail to amuse and occupy his inventive 
 faculty, and just a bit of mythology to take the subject 
 out of the common world. Besides, although the Bay of 
 Baiae is a real locality, it has been celebrated long ago in 
 the Horatian verse, and is therefore sacred to the classic 
 muse. The Cumaean Sibyl, who is seated with Apollo 
 under the shade of the tall pine-trees, is famous in old 
 
200 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 poetry and in the art of the Italian Renaissance. Not- 
 withstanding his lack of scholarship, one of Turner's 
 strongest characteristics was a taste for associating his 
 work with places and personages of historical or legend- 
 ary interest, and there were certain stories of antiquity 
 which took root in his mind very strongly. That about 
 the Cumaean Sibyl, beloved by Apollo, was one of them. 
 It suited Turner by its sad poetical ending; for if the 
 Sibyl had yielded there would only have been an addition 
 to the liaisons of the gods, and she would have lived on 
 joyously in perpetual youth, but being obdurate she 
 slowly decayed and finally became only a voice. There is 
 no telling what analogies may have been suggested to 
 Turner's mind by the story of the Sibyl, but it is quite 
 possible that he may have followed out some analogies for 
 himiSelf, in his own obscure way. 
 
 The picture was painted lightly and easily, with a 
 degree of refinement far surpassing the early work of the 
 master; but it was not soundly painted as to the mate- 
 rials, for the delicate coloring has not stood well every- 
 where. In some parts it is cracked, in others the 
 relations of the most aerial tints have evidently somehow 
 gone wrong ; though what they were, as the painter laid 
 them, it is not now possible to determine. 
 
 In 1824 Turner exhibited no oil picture either at the 
 Royal Academy or the British Institution. He seems to 
 have been much occupied at this time of his life by 
 drawing for the engravers. His " Rivers of England " 
 was brought out in that year by W. B. Cooke. These 
 engravings were in mezzotint by Reynolds, Lupton 
 
England and Wales. 
 
 201 
 
 Bromley, Jay, Phillips, and Charles Turner. The title 
 given to this publication was far too comprehensive for 
 what it really included, as some of the most important 
 amongst Eng-lish rivers are omitted. There is no illus- 
 tration of the Thames, the Mersey, or the Severn ; whilst 
 there are subjects on such little known streams as the 
 Eamont, the Coquet, the Colne, and the Okement. The 
 truth is, that the " Rivers of England " can only be con- 
 sidered as a small portfolio of subjects which happen to 
 )e mere streams, and several of them are so treated as 
 to be rather illustrations of buildings than of rivers. 
 The noble Brougham Castle would come grandly in a 
 [collection to illustrate mediaeval castles, and the Kirkstall 
 Abbey might belong to a portfolio of ecclesiastical arch- 
 itecture. The sixteen subjects are treated with careful 
 attention to light and shade, of which some of them are 
 remarkably fine examples. 
 
 In 1825 Turner was still actively occupied with his 
 bublications, or with illustrations to publications under- 
 taken by others. We have already mentioned his journey 
 :o Scotland in 1818, when he got materials for the 
 ' Provincial Antiquities." This publication did not appear 
 bntil 1826, when it was published in two volumes, with 
 descriptive letterpress by Sir Walter Scott. Mr. Thom- 
 on, of Duddingstone, drew some of the illustrations. A 
 nuch more important work employed Turner at this time, 
 md at intervals for twelve years afterwards — namely, 
 ' The England and Wales," including towns, remarkable 
 JDuildings, and beautiful scenery. Altogether, the work 
 ncludes ninety-nine subjects which were published, and 
 
202 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 two of which the plates were never finished. More than 
 thirty towns are illustrated in the series, and more than 
 twenty castles, as well as many abbeys and priories, and 
 two cathedrals — Ely and Durham. There are several 
 marine subjects, and four lakes are included — namely, 
 Keswick, Llamberis, Ulleswater, and Windermere. Im- 
 portant, however, as the work unquestionably is, it can- 
 not be considered, in any complete sense, representative 
 of England and Wales. It was evidently not conceived 
 as a whole, but merely got together from materials which 
 Turner happened to possess in his portfolios. An artist 
 might illustrate England and Wales in a hundred plates,] 
 but he could do it only by carefully selecting subjects 
 representative of whole glasses — a hamlet, a village, a^j 
 town, a city, a cathedral, a country church, an old hall^ 
 a castle, and so on, amongst the works of men ; and 
 lake, a stream, a river, a mountain, etc., amongst th< 
 works of nature. That would be the illustration of the 
 country by typical subjects ; but you find nothing of the 
 kind in this important work of Turner's. The subjects i 
 seem to be chosen by pure accident. There is a plethora 
 of castles and abbeys, and only one mountain, drawn for 
 its own sake — namely, Penmaen Mawr ; whilst we have 
 not a single example of English forest scenery, nor eveii 
 of an English trout stream. A foreigner, glancing over 
 the engravings, might admire the talents of the artists, 
 but would get a most imperfect idea of England and 
 Wales. This is only one amongst several examples of 
 Turner's too comprehensive titles. They were generally 
 too comprehensive or ambitious, as we have seen already 
 
 ft 
 
England and Wales. 
 
 203 
 
 in " The Rivers of England," which is as if one were to 
 call half-a-dozen cockboats the British fleet. At a later 
 period Turner called a more important work " The Rivers 
 of France ; " but you may look through it from beginning 
 to end without finding a single subject either on the 
 Rhone or the Garonne. 
 
 The " England and Wales " series occupies an inter- 
 nediate position between Turner's early topographic 
 A^ork, and that in which he drew in complete indepen- 
 ience of the natural scene. Too many of the subjects 
 ivere taken from definite buildings and places to permit 
 :he artist a quite absolute liberty. He could* not make 
 :he cathedrals of Ely and Durham mere piles of imaginary 
 irchitecture, like that which he composed for his pictures 
 3f ancient Carthage ; and it was necessary that Blenheim 
 House should be clearly recognizable by persons who 
 ;ake an interest in historic habitations. It is impossible 
 "o look over the index to the " England and Wales " with- 
 )ut seeing at a glance that, from the business point of 
 ;^iew, it is a continuation of the topographic labors of the 
 irtist's youth, that the appeal to public interest is far 
 nore dependent upon locality than upon landscape char- 
 Lcter. At the same time Turner put as much art into 
 lis subjects as he possibly could, and elevated some prosy 
 inglish towns into the region of Turnerian poetry. He 
 vas by no means overpaid for his labors, as he received 
 )nly twenty-five guineas for each of his drawings and 
 hirty proofs of the engraving. The drawings have since 
 isen in the market to eight or ten times their original 
 ralue. In 1824 Mr. Tomkinson had given Turner fifty 
 
204 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 guineas for two drawings in continuation of his " Southern 
 Coast," so that this price seems to have been his rule, 
 about that period of his Hfe. 
 
 In 1826 Turner issued the prospectus of his series 
 "The Ports of England," a prospectus so unskilfull) 
 worded that it must have been Turner's own work. It 
 begins as follows : "Under the patronage and dedicates], 
 with permission, to His Most Gracious Majesty Georg( 
 the Fourth. Ports of England, from original drawing; 
 by J. M. W. Turner, Esq., R.A. To be engraved ir 
 highly-finished mezzotints by Thomas Lupton. Size of 
 the plates', 9 inches by 6\, and to be printed on small 
 folio. Price of the work : Prints, Zs. 6d.; proofs, 12s. 6(i-: 
 proofs on India paper, 14.5-." 
 
 Anybody would conclude from this announcement that 
 the whole work was to be had for ^s. 6d.; but as the artist 
 further explains that it was to be issued in parts, and 
 that twelve parts were to form a volume, and says that 
 at the completion of each volume handsome letterprc 
 was to be published, which leads us to infer that thi 
 were to be several volumes, the bewildered reader so 
 begins to doubt the possibility of getting so limitless 
 work for such a limited sum of money. Not a word 
 said about the expected extent of the undertaking ; it 
 might have gone on, for anything the reader was told to 
 the contrary, until all the ports of England had been 
 illustrated in their minutest details. The space which 
 ought to have been occupied by a clear explanation of the 
 project, was taken up with appeals to the patriotic senti- 
 ments which might induce Englishmen to become su 
 

The Ports of England. 
 
 205 
 
 cribers. The style and language resemble those of a 
 ivic speech -maker when he proposes a naval toast. 
 ^Notwithstanding this magniloquent call upon national 
 eeling in others, the artist's own enthusiasm for his 
 ubject was not sufficient to sustain him through pro- 
 pnged labors. The work never got beyond twelve plates, 
 learing about the same relation to the ports of England 
 hat a former imperfect series had borne to her rivers. 
 ^'he plates were re-published in 1856 by Mr. Gambart, 
 dth letterpress by Mr. Ruskin, who observes that 
 iverpool, Shields, Yarmouth, and Bristol are absent from 
 he series, whilst it includes some of the least important 
 f English watering-places. There is a slight difference 
 n title between Turner's prospectus and Mr. Ruskin's 
 lublication. Turner had called his work the " Ports," 
 /Tr. Ruskin, or Mr. Gambart, decided to call it the 
 ' Harbors " of England. The size of the plates is not 
 kecisely what Turner at first intended them to be ; they 
 re generally from half an inch to an inch longer. He 
 ot over the artistic difficulty of dealing with piers and 
 bws of houses, by giving great importance to turbulent 
 leas crowded with ships and boats in motion. The ships 
 ^ere especially useful, because their sails could be made 
 D hide an uninteresting town, or break a monotonous 
 -ont of cliff. But this is only one of many artifices to 
 ^hich Turner had recourse in this series in order to 
 vercome the natural untowardness of his subjects. I 
 o not know any connected set of his works in which he 
 lade so much use of the weather. This may have been 
 artly in sympathy with sailors, who, whether in port or 
 
206 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 at sea, are always thinking about the wind; but it wag 
 probably much more because he found it convenient tq 
 veil what was uninteresting, and exhibit to better advans 
 tage the more available portions of his subjects b)i 
 means of the resources which bad weather placed at his 
 disposal. Besides this, he had great spaces that wanted 
 furnishing, and he furnished them in the upper parts ol 
 his drawings by means of rain-clouds, and in the lowei 
 by means of waves and shipping. These plates consti 
 tute an excellent set of examples in the art of furnishing 
 even the old Dutchmen, who were very clever in tha 
 department, never went so far. Take, for instance, th( 
 view of Deal. The plate contains about fifty-six square 
 inches of engraved surface ; in this the view of Dea 
 measures five and a half inches long by half an inch high 
 consequently it occupies two square inches and three 
 quarters of engraved surface. The foreground is com 
 posed of two big waves with the trough of the see 
 between them, and there is a group of fishing boats tc 
 the left, which, were it not for the comfort of knowing 
 that Deal was within sight, might just as well be in the 
 midst of the German Ocean. And please observe tha 
 this is not called a sea subject, but a port. Here is th( 
 most serious objection to the treatment adopted, that it il 
 not in poetic harmony with the title. Instead of feeling 
 the comfort of sheltered havens, where ships may quietl] 
 ride at anchor whilst the sea is raging outside, we an 
 kept tossing uncomfortably on tumultuous waves amids 
 a jumble of pitching boats and flapping sails. So it is in 
 nine subjects out of twelve. In the remaining three (the 
 
The " Cologne y 
 
 207 
 
 'lymouth, Falmouth, and Scarborough) we really feel in 
 ort. The Scarborough, judiciously placed by Mr. Rus- 
 :in at the close of the series, is like peaceful music ; it 
 3 even more restful than any music, for it does not move 
 nd pass, but quietly is what it is, and stays with us. 
 'ainting may even excel nature in the expression of 
 epose, for in nature there is no perfect rest, and not for 
 )ng will the evening light linger on the castled cliff, or 
 le "old gray church on the shore." 
 
 Turner could paint repose admirably when he liked, 
 nd his great picture in the exhibition of 1826 was a 
 magnificent example of it. I well remember the profound 
 mpression which I received from that noble work on 
 eeing it for the first time in 1857, ^-^ the Manchester Art 
 freasures Exhibition. The title was simply, Cologne — 
 he Arrival of a Packet-boat — Evening, but there were 
 uch unity and serenity in the work, and such a glow of 
 ght and color, that it seemed like a window opened upon 
 le land of the ideal, where the harmonies of things are 
 lore perfect than they have ever been in the common 
 rorld. I remember reading, with a young man's indigna- 
 ion, a stupid criticism of this picture by Monsieur W. 
 Jurger, in which he declared that everything in the 
 icture was uniformly colored like the yoke of an ^g^. 
 le would have admired it more, very likely, if he could 
 ave seen it on the walls of the Royal Academy, when 
 
 urner had temporarily hidden its glowing light and 
 olor under a wash of lamp-black, in order that it might 
 ot spoil the effect of two portraits by Lawrence, 
 etween which it happened to be placed. " Poor Law- 
 
208 
 
 The Life of y, M. W. Turner. 
 
 rence," he said, " was so unhappy. It 's only lamp-black 
 It will all wash off after the Exhibition ! " Was there 
 ever a more exquisitely beautiful instance of self-sacrifice 
 It is not as if Turner had been indifferent to fame, for he 
 was anxiously careful about everything that could affect 
 his reputation, and here we see him voluntarily exposin:^ 
 himself to harsh criticism for having painted a foul, ill- 
 colored sky, when that very sky was one of the niost 
 splendid pieces of harmonious coloring in the whole 
 range of landscape art. Unluckily for our estimate of 
 Turner's unselfishness, there are counter-anecdotes about 
 his eagerness to crush his neighbors by heightening the 
 intensity of his colors. 
 
 I need hardly observe that M. Burger's assertion about 
 the uniform coloring, like yolk of egg, is due, first, to 
 his national antagonism to English art, and, secondly, to, 
 his personal incapacity to see variety in color. The 
 Cologne, though harmonious, is not uniform in its hues. 
 There is not only a golden glow in it, there are exquisite 
 passages of rose and violet in the tender transitions o| 
 its evening lights and shadows. The picture was wel^ 
 described by an excellent writer in the Manchester 
 Guardian : 
 
 " It represents," he said, " the Rhine under the walls o 
 Cologne, with the ' Treckschuyt ' arriving, and taking u 
 its berth for landing the passengers. The river is placid, 
 and scarce rippled by the slowly-moving 'Treckschuyt,' 
 as she makes her way past the picturesque craft beside 
 her. On the right are the walls, with a tower and spire 
 
The " Colozney 
 
 209 
 
 jreaking their line, and running up to a postern, backed 
 )y a taller tower. In the foreground some balks of 
 imber, and the spider -like arms of a couple of those 
 ishing-nets, which tourists by the Rhine and Moselle 
 know so well, reflected in the wet sand, and casting their 
 bvening shadows as well as their reflections. In the dis- 
 tance you catch a glimpse of the distant bridge of boats. 
 The sky is being rapt through that rosy change which 
 precedes the dying of twilight into dark. The sun is 
 lot seen in the picture, but a cloud lies between it and 
 ;he spectator ; and from behind this the broad-slanting 
 rays strike on town and tower, and shoot down to the 
 >tream, flinging on its unruffled face and on the rounded 
 ides of the ' Treckschuyt ' the shadows of intercepting 
 bdifices ; while from the lighted water a glow strikes back 
 Into the cool violet shadows cast by wall and steeple, and 
 ills them with reflected light." . • ■ 
 
 This picture was sold at Mr. Wadmore's sale, in 1854, 
 or two thousand guineas to Mr. John Naylor ; and Mr. 
 R.uskin afterwards sent a pang of regret through the 
 vhole art-world of England by announcing that it had 
 )een utterly destroyed in a railway accident ; a calamity 
 vhich in reality happened to some other pictures, not by 
 f urner, but belonging to the same owner. 
 
 The incessant industry of the great painter still applied 
 tself abundantly to the work of book illustration. In 
 lose days photography was not actively supplying artists 
 ith material, which, however imperfect it may be, is, at 
 east, impartial, and not distorted by passing through 
 mother mind. In those days a landscape painter must 
 14 
 
210 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 either travel to the places he had to illustrate, or else do 
 what he could with material supplied by others, such 
 material being usually sketches rather than studies. It iss 
 always unsatisfactory to work from a sketch made by 
 another person ; for a sketch is a selection, and we cannot 
 select by deputy. If the traveller who made it was an 
 artist, he altered nature to suit the needs of his own indi- 
 vidual talent ; and if he was an amateur, he may have 
 missed important points from imperfectly trained obser 
 vation. In either case, the material is scarcely to be 
 relied upon. The sketches of travellers — of Africar 
 travellers, for instance — are constantly made up intc 
 showy book illustrations by clever men who know how tc 
 make the best of any material ; but in these cases the 
 work so done is usually anonymous, and the clever mer 
 who do it have not to maintain a great and peculiar artis 
 tic reputation. Turner was in a different position. He 
 could not simply mend, complete, amplify, a sketch in its 
 own way, he was compelled by his own fame to transform 
 it into something entirely different, into something that 
 the public might at once recognize as a Turner. He did 
 this by giving skies and water of his own invention, by 
 composing all movable things according to his own taste, 
 and by drawing the rest over again with Turnerian altera- 
 tions and exaggerations in the recognized Turnerian 
 mannerism. That we may not have to recur again to this 
 subject, I will mention, in this place, the principal works 
 in which Turner made use of sketches taken by others. 
 They began with Hakewill's " Picturesque Tour of Italy," 
 published by Murray in 1820, from Mr. Hakewill's camera- 
 
Works from Sketches by Others. 
 
 211 
 
 bscura sketches. In 1825 Murray's octavo edition of 
 Jyron, in eleven volumes, included several illustrations 
 y Turner, some of which were from sketches by Mr. 
 Mlison ; and in 1833 appeared Finden's " Illustrations to 
 3)ron," including works by Turner from sketches by 
 R.cinagle, Allison, and Page. A complete edition of 
 Jyron's works, with Moore's Biography, appeared in 
 eventeen volumes in 1834; and Turner contributed to it 
 le same number of illustrations, several of which were 
 : places that he had never seen — such as Athens, Par- 
 assus, Scio, St. Sophia, the Plain of Troy, and Corinth 
 — the materials being supplied by Page, Barry, and 
 .ittle. But by far the greatest of Turner's undertakings 
 i working up other men's memoranda was the series of 
 lis illustrations to the Bible. He never visited Palestine, 
 ^et illustrated Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nazareth, Mount 
 ebanon, the Dead Sea, and many other places, his pro- 
 viders being Mr. Barry, Sir A. Edmonstone, Sir Robert 
 Cerr Porter, Messrs. R. Cockrell, C. J. Rich, J. G. Wil- 
 :inson. Gaily Knight, Major Felix, and the Rev. R. 
 blaster. There is also a set of views in India — seven in 
 lumber — chiefly among the Himalaya mountains, from 
 rawings by Lieutenant White. I need hardly observe 
 hat the mere variety of the hands which supplied Turner 
 /ith all these materials is in itself a scource of difficulty 
 nd embarrassment. Artists of the present day are much 
 sappier with photographs, whose peculiarities and imper- 
 jctions are always the same, and may be thoroughly 
 nderstood and regularly allowed for. 
 To all these various publications, which were spreading 
 
212 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Ttirner. 
 
 the name of Turner more and more amongst the public, 
 may be added the plates, published separately and at 
 irregular intervals, from the beginning of the century till 
 the artist's death. Some of those were in mezzotint by 
 Lupton, Charles Turner, and others ; but the majority 
 were in that modern style of landscape engraving which 
 is familiar to every reader, and which, with all its faults, 
 unquestionably marks the highest point of perfection 
 attained hitherto in the complete interpretation of land- 
 scape art on metal. It is not pure burin-work, but a 
 mixed style, including a great deal of etching, much work 
 with the point, and not a little ruling ; but, taken as a whole, 
 in the hands of the marvellously skilful men who used 
 it — such men as Miller, Cooke, Goodall, Jeavons, Heath 
 Higham, Allen, Willmore, and Wallis — it interprets land 
 scape painting m.ore completely than any other method 
 Mezzotint can render the tones of light and shade with 
 unsurpassable accuracy, but it is never so lucid and lumin- 
 oijs as engraving, and consequently its effects of atmos- 
 phere can never be so pure. Independent etching, as I 
 have frequently had occasion to observe elsewhere, may 
 suggest delicate distinctions of tone, but does not ; 
 surely render them as engraving does, and is therefore 
 not so well adapted for the interpretation of skies. The 
 influence of Turner upon engraving might supply a sub- 
 ject for a separate essay. He educated a whole school of 
 engravers, and a very remarkable school it was ; he edu- 
 cated them first by showing them the most subtle and 
 delicate tonality in his pictures, and afterwards by a strict 
 supervision of their work as it proceeded. His best 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
Transactions with Cooke. 
 
 213 
 
 [ualities as a teacher came from his union of extreme 
 lelicacy with force ; his worst fault, his most evil influ- 
 ;nce, came from his reckless desire for brilliance, which 
 nade him always ready to destroy the tranquillity of a plate 
 f he thought that it did not look effective enough. This 
 vas the same spirit, acting in another direction, which 
 nade him so determined to make his pictures brilliant, at 
 ill costs, on the walls of the Academy ; but there he could 
 Lchieve it with the help of chrome, and cobalt, and ver- 
 nilion. On a dull plate he had no resource but that of 
 flittering lights, which he scattered in profusion "like 
 itars on the sea." 
 
 Turner's transactions with his engravers, and with the 
 )ublishers of his prints, were not always perfectly agree- 
 ible. Amongst other evidences of this, we have a long 
 etter from Mr. W. B. Cooke, dated the first of January, 
 827, and proving by its contents that the hopeful and 
 :heerful associations of New-year's Day had not power to 
 jvercome the engraver's sense of injury and wrong. The 
 ^cts appear to have been as follows : Turner agreed to 
 kiake the South Coast drawings for £,j \os. each, and for 
 he first four numbers of the work that was what he 
 eceived. Afterwards an agreement was made, by which 
 "urner was to receive ^^13 2s. 6d. for each drawing in a 
 uture " Coast." He seems to have understood that this 
 ncrease of price was to have a retroactive effect, that he 
 iras to receive a balance on the drawings already done 
 nd paid for — drawings which belonged to the first divi- 
 ion of the work called the " Southern Coast." This Mr. 
 V. B. Cooke did not understand to be their agreement at 
 
 ift 
 
 ^i* 
 
214 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 all, and the result was a tempest, the great painter loudly 
 declaring that he would have his terms, and would oppose^ 
 the work by doing another " Coast." Mr. Cooke admitted 
 that he had agreed to pay ten guineas for each drawing 
 after the fourth number, and affirmed that he had faith- 
 fully adhered to this agreement ; which must have been 
 true, as he had Turner's receipts to prove it. At the time 
 this quarrel broke out the work had been finished upwards 
 of six months, and the painter had had his money. It is 
 evident by a quotation from a previous letter that the cor- 
 respondents had not been on quite pleasant terms before. 
 " Do you imagine," wrote Turner, " I shall go to John 
 o'Groat's House for the same sum I receive for the 
 Southern part .-'" Mr. Cooke complains at the end of his 
 letter that he regrets the time he has bestowed in endeav- 
 oring to convince Turner calmly, since he had met with 
 such hostile treatment in return. 
 
 The clear result of the correspondence is, that there 
 had been three distinct prices. The first agreement was 
 to give Turner £,"] \os. each for the drawings of the 
 Southern Coast ; the second agreement was to pay him 
 ten guineas for each drawing after the fourth number ; 
 the third agreement was to pay him twelve and a half 
 guineas each for drawings to belong to a future coast 
 series of the same kind from the northern scenery of 
 Great Britain, since John o'Groat's House is in a very 
 northerly situation. Turner's conduct in the matter is one 
 of the most singular instances of confusion in a matter of 
 business that can be imagined. Stated plainly, it amounts 
 to this : that, on the strength of the third agreement, he 
 
 •M 
 
 iHi 
 
Transactions with Cooke. 
 
 215 
 
 ipplied the terms of the second agreement to the first. 
 Pie quotes Mr. Cooke's promise to give twelve guineas 
 md a half for the future coast drawings as a reason why- 
 there should be a balance still due to him — a balance of 
 two guineas — on the earliest, drawings of all. There is 
 no reason to suspect Turner of dishonesty ; it is a case of 
 tnental confusion in a grasping temperament. Avaricious 
 md grasping people often make mistakes in pecuniary 
 transactions, but it may be observed that a sure instinct 
 ilways preserves them from making such mistakes against 
 :hemselves. The transaction has an interest for posterity 
 in the light it throws on Turner's prices. He is fifty 
 ears old ; he has been ^ Royal Academician for twenty 
 ears ; he has painted many important pictures, including 
 hree or four unquestionable masterpieces ; and he is 
 aggling and quarrelling with an engraver about a miser- 
 ble balance of forty shillings a-piece on some of his best 
 drawings ! He looks with the same eagerness after a 
 guinea or two wherever he thinks he can establish a claim 
 :o them. Cooke declares that Turner gave him a draw- 
 ing of Neptimes Trident as a present ; but Turner 
 demands the return of it, and charges two guineas for the 
 oan. This appears almost inconceivably mean ; but we 
 nust remember two things which may partially excuse 
 Turner: first, that his mind was subject to confused 
 :hanges and irregularities about all transactions from its 
 )wn want of method and clearness ; and, secondly, that to 
 :harge for the loan of a drawing was an old habit with 
 lim, contracted in early life, when it had been one of the 
 hief sources of his income as a drawing -master. He 
 
2l6 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 fancied he had lent the drawing, and charged for it as a 
 matter of course, just as a boat-keeper at Richmond will ' 
 make you pay when you have had one of his boats. 
 
 Let us return to the exhibited pictures. There is an 
 attempt at wit, by the mixture of incongruous nautical 
 and artistic ideas, in the title of the finest picture on the 
 list for 1 827 — Now for the Painter ! — Passengers going 
 on Board ; the v^'ord painter here meaning a rope, though,! 
 seeing how few people understand nautical terms, the 
 majority of the public would, of course, take it to mean] 
 le peintre rather than la corde. This was Turner's fun, 
 and it is not at all impossible that he may have intended 
 a little bit of self-glorification at the same time. " Now 
 for the painter ! Now, see what a real painter, a pictor 
 eximius, can do ! You have been looking at the attempts 
 of my weaker brethren ; now it is iny turn, so just look at 
 me ! " Whatever may have been the defects of our hero, 
 bashfulness and false modesty were not amongst them. 
 Like a certain famous artist who died recently, and who 
 calmly entitled himself "the master painter of Ornans," 
 Turner believed in his own powers, as we should probably 
 believe also if we possessed them. The title was origi- 
 nally suggested by one of Callcott's, Letting go the 
 Painter. The picture afterwards became the property of 
 Mr. Naylor, and was exhibited, along with his other 
 Turners, in the Art Treasures at Manchester in 1857. It 
 was described at the time by the able writer in the 
 Manchester Guardian, from whom I have already quoted ; 
 and I quote him again in the present instance because he 
 wrote from a fresh impression. He says : 
 
 H^ft^tf^^M 
 
Pictures Exhibited in 1827. 
 
 217 
 
 " The picture is by much the most powerful example of 
 Turner's sea-painting here exhibited, and, indeed, one of 
 the very finest seas we have ever seen from his hand. It 
 shows what an immense advance he had by this time 
 made upon the work of those days when Van de Velde 
 furnished his ideal of marine painting. Here is liquidity 
 and lustre, as well as true drawing of waves. His seas 
 reflect, as well as rock, the craft that roll arid pitch upon 
 them as naturally as ever. We may see, too, how much 
 larger and grander his ocean has grown — how much 
 more awful in its expression of power is even this quiet 
 and harmless channel sea, than the storm-lashed surf 
 which is grinding the Minotaur to splinters." 
 
 i The same writer had an interesting paragraph on an- 
 other of the pictures exhibited in 1827 — Mortlake Ter- 
 race, Seat of William Moffat, Esq. — Summer Evening : 
 
 " He had exhibited a picture of the same place the year 
 before, with an effect of Early Summer Morning — both, 
 Drobably, records of a happy day. The day that closed 
 is this picture represents should have been a happy one. 
 The broad light of the evening sun still lies upon the 
 river, and casts the lengthening shadows of the limes 
 )ver the golden sward, where a garden-chair and a port- 
 olio speak of the artist who has just left the spot, and 
 he gilded barges and glancing wherries tell of holiday- 
 nakers upon the river, and the dog has awakened from 
 lis dose in the sun to leap upon the parapet and bark at 
 :he passing boats. This dog is one of the often-quoted 
 examples of Turner's reckless readiness of resource, and 
 ;arelessness as to means of effect. There was no dog in 
 
2l8 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 this picture originally. Turner thought, or somebody 
 suggested to him, that a dark object on the parapet would 
 throw back the distance, and enhance the aerial effect of 
 the whole picture. So Turner cut out this dog in black 
 paper and stuck him on the wall, and, satisfied with the 
 effect, either forgot how it was produced, or did not think 
 it worth while to replace his paper dog with a painted 
 one, and there the paper dog remains to this day." 
 
 There is an instance, I believe, in one of his water- 
 colors, of a glorious setting sun, which on examination 
 turns out to be nothing but a common red wafer. I need 
 scarcely observe that in such cases the adjunct, from its 
 harmony with its surroundings, and the rdle it is made to 
 play, becomes just as much a part of the picture as if it 
 were a pigment applied with the brush. 
 
 Amongst the pictures exhibited in 1827 was Port 
 Ruysdael. It is scarcely necessary to observe that there 
 is no such place as Port Ruysdael, yet Turner gave the 
 title to two of his pictures ; first to this, and at a much 
 later period of his life to another, which was exhibited at 
 the Academy in 1844. It is the later of these pictures 
 which was etched for the Potfolio (it appeared in August, 
 1875), the original being in the National Gallery. In his 
 note on that work, Mr. Wornum said, "The Port Ruysdael 
 of 1827 was of the same size (three feet high by four feet 
 wide), and was bought by Mr. Elhanan Bicknell for three 
 hundred guineas ; it was sold at his sale many years after- 
 wards, in 1863, for the large sum of ;^I995 ; proving to 
 him, like many other of Turner's works, a very good 
 investment for his family." It is very probable that, 
 
Pictures Exhibited in 1827. 
 
 219 
 
 besides the convenience of having a name of some sort 
 for an imaginary seaport, Turner may have intended to 
 honor the memory of his predecessor in art. He was not 
 one of those artists whose high opinion of themselves 
 prevents them from respecting others; on the contrary, 
 he had a rather surprising degree of respect for several 
 old masters whom we consider much inferior to him. He 
 saw qualities in their works which were by no means 
 easy to imitate, and he readily overlooked what our criti- 
 cal fastidiousness considers to be their defects. Very few 
 modern landscape-painters admire Ruysdael much. The 
 continental critics are loud in his praise, of course, being 
 always ready to sing hymns of eulogy to any god who has 
 his place on the artistic Olympus. 
 
 In 1828 Turner exhibited another of his Carthage 
 pictures. Dido directing the Equipme7it of the Fleet ; or, 
 the Morning of the Carthagi^iian Empire. This picture 
 was originally painted for Mr. Broadhurst, but is now in 
 the Turner Collection of the National Gallery. It is 
 simply one of those compositions of imaginary architec- 
 ture, with water, in which the painter occasionally in- 
 dulged himself. The same year he exhibited two pictures 
 of marine subjects, much more within the range of our 
 English tastes and sympathies. East Cowes Castle, with 
 the regatta beating to windward, and the same place with 
 the regatta starting from their moorings. His fourth 
 picture that year was Boccaccio relating the Tale of the 
 Birdcage, and it was with reference to this picture that I 
 narrated, in one of the early chapters of this biography, 
 an anecdote which Leslie told me in Turrer's house in 
 
 Mi 
 
 •■■M 
 
220 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Queen Anne Street. Leslie accused him of imitating 
 Stothard, which Turner at once admitted, saying that he 
 wished he could paint like him, and calling him "the 
 Giotto of England." The comparison, like all such com- 
 parisons, will not bear investigation ; but it is interesting 
 as an expression of Turner's admiration for a contempo- 
 rary, and the confession that the picture was not original 
 in manner may partly account for the fact that it is one of 
 the painter's failures. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 Journey to Italy, 1828. — The Polyphemus. — Death of Turner's father. — 
 The illustrations to Rogers. — Scotland revisited, 1S30. 
 
 npURNER went to Italy again in 1828, and we know 
 by a letter from him to his friend Jones, the Acade- 
 mician, that he had spent nearly two months on the way, 
 and in settling to work in Rome. The letter is dated 
 October 13th, so it is probable that he left London in the 
 latter half of August. He seems to have delayed most in 
 the south of France, and to have suffered so much from 
 the heat at Nismes and Avignon that it brought on tem- 
 porary debility, relieved afterwards by sea-bathing when 
 he reached the Mediterranean. There is an interesting 
 paragraph in the letter about the scenery of the Cornice, 
 with a pleasant bit of playfulness about Chantrey, whom 
 Turner loved. 
 
 " Genoa, and all the sea-coast from Nice to Spezzia, is 
 remarkably rugged and fine ; so is Massa. Tell that fat 
 "ellow, Chantrey, that I did think of him the7i (but not the 
 Srst or the last time), of the thousands he had made out 
 Df those marble craigs, which only afforded me a sour 
 )0ttle of wine and a sketch : but he deserves everything 
 vhich is good, though he did give me a fit of the spleen 
 It Carrara." 
 
22 2 The Life of % M. IV. Turner. 
 
 On the 6th of November he dates a letter to Chantrey 
 from No. 12 Piazza MignanelH, and begins as follows : 
 
 "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 depart- 
 ment 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 three-feet-four 
 to stop their gabbling: so now to business." 
 
 The rest of the letter is occupied ^ith accounts of 
 other artists' doings, and there is a hit at Gibson's Venus 
 and Cupid. 
 
 " The Venus is a sitting figure, with the Cupid in 
 attendance ; and if it had wings like a dove, to flee away 
 and be at rest, the rest would not be the worse for the 
 change." 
 
 I have remarked elsewhere that we have seldom any 
 materials from which to construct an account of Turner's 
 artistic expeditions. He wrote few letters ; he did not 
 date his sketches, nor even always write upon them the 
 names of the places where they were taken ; he kept no 
 journal of his travels, and he was almost invariably alone; 
 so that the want of material from his own hand is not 
 supplied by another. The glimpse that we get of him in 
 Rome is interesting as a proof that he not only sketched 
 but painted pictures there : he began one for " Lord E.," 
 
yourney to Italy in 1828. 
 
 223 
 
 " but as the folk here talked that I would show them noty 
 I finished a small three-feet-four to stop their gabbling." 
 Here is evidence that he did not let people see his works 
 in an unfinished state ; in which he was most wise. The 
 preparations on a canvas may be intentionally just the 
 opposite of the ultimate result ; it is said that Cuyp's 
 golden light was laid in with silvery gray, and that the 
 finest flesh color of a great Venetian was first prepared in 
 green. The studio haunter comes and criticises ; men- 
 tally, if not orally, he thinks, "That sky is dreadfully cold 
 in color," " that flesh is ghastly : " the painter knows what 
 he is thinking, and must either endure it in silent vexation, 
 or else take the trouble to explain his processes, which 
 seems as if he were apologizing for what is really his own 
 superiority of skill and knowledge. Turner had not the 
 sort of temper either to bear with the criticism of Ignor- 
 ance, or to excuse himself for offending it ; so he bolted 
 his door and worked in protected peace. He will throw 
 a sop to Cerberus, a picture finished. on purpose, and give 
 the "folk" "a small three-feet-four to stop their gabbling." 
 By this he means a canvas measuring four feet by three, 
 not such a very small size ; and with these dimensions to 
 guide us, we can fix upon the picture alluded to. It must 
 have been the View of Orvieto, now in the National 
 Gallery, which exactly measures four feet by three, and 
 was exhibited at the Academy in 1830.* 
 
 * Mr. Wornum described it as a brilliant landscape, with a town in the 
 
 listance, and women washing at a fountain in the foreground ; but he said 
 
 |it was painted in Rome in 1829. This appears to be a mistake, as the 
 
 letter to Chantrey was written early in November, 182S, and it speaks of 
 
 the picture as already finished. 
 
224 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Ttirner. 
 
 We have a means of guessing the date of the painter's 
 return to England. In the Academy Exhibition of 1829 
 there was a picture entitled Messieurs les Voyageiirs on 
 their return from Italy {par la diligence) in a Snowdrift 
 upon Mount Tarra, 22nd of yanuary, 1829. This was 
 very probably a recollection of an incident witnessed by 
 the artist at that place and time ; the travellers are " on 
 their return from Italy," and it is probable that Turner 
 was amongst them. 
 
 All the results of this residence in Rome were not 
 immediately visible ; the impressions received there re- 
 mained in Turner's memory, and afterwards ripened into 
 two or three of his finest pictures. The more immediate 
 results were the View of Orvieto and a composition 
 entitled Palestrina, which was exhibited in 1830 with the 
 following quotation from the painter's poem, the famous 
 manuscript, " Fallacies of Hope : " 
 
 " Or from yon mural rock, high-crown'd Prseneste, 
 "Where, misdeeming of his strength, the Carthaginian stood, 
 And marked, with eagle eye, Rome as his victim." 
 
 Whilst painting pictures of more or less importance, 
 Turner continued his minor labors of illustration. From 
 1828 to 1837 he contributed drawings to the "Keepsake," 
 and in 1829 he made drawings of Fonthill for the "Anni- 
 versary." That year was a great one in the history of 
 his art, for he exhibited the splendid Polyphemus picture, 
 and also the Loretto Necklace, which, without being one 
 of the greatest of his works, deserves mention both for its 
 beauty and for an unfortunate change of intention. The 
 
 A 
 
The Polyphemus. 
 
 225 
 
 title is attached to a little figure -incident in the fore- 
 ground, a necklace given by a peasant to a girl who is 
 seated by his side, Loretto being visible in the middle 
 distance, on a hill, and the sea in the remote distance. 
 The striking peculiarity of the picture is a great tree, and 
 Mr. Ruskin says of this : " It has evidently been once a 
 graceful stone-pine, of which the spreading head is still 
 traceable at the top of the heavy mass ; the lower foliage 
 has been added subsequently, to the entire destruction of 
 the composition." 
 
 The great picture, Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, is a 
 work of higher aim and of more unquestionable achieve- 
 m.ent. It has been freely criticised, and it belongs to a 
 class of compositions which may easily be pulled to pieces 
 by matter-of-fact people; but the impression which it 
 makes as a whole is an impression of extraordinary 
 splendor and power, and it is mere folly to weaken our 
 own sense of its magnificence by a sceptical analysis of 
 its materials, and of the sources from which the artist may 
 possibly have derived them. The ships, it is said, are 
 not such as the ancient Greeks ever used ; to which it 
 may be answered, that it does not signify in the least 
 whether they are archseologically authentic or not. Any 
 schoolboy, in these days, can ascertain in half an hour, 
 from modern books of reference, the precise truth about 
 some special matter of this kind, with an accuracy far 
 surpassing that of either Shakespeare or Paul Veronese. 
 It has been said that the properties in the picture remind 
 one of the opera, which is rather a compliment than the 
 reverse, for the last time I saw an ancient Greek ship 
 IS 
 
226 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 come sailing on an opera stage in a ballet, it was as 
 carefully archaeological as a picture by Alma Tadema. 
 The artifices of composition are obvious enough ; the 
 ships arranged to the right, so as not to interfere with the 
 trail of sun reflection on the water ; the advancing rocks, 
 to bring the forms of the land down picturesquely to the 
 sea ; the mountainous shore, for the statuesque figure of 
 Polyphemus to recline upon ; the high deck of the ship's 
 poop, as a pedestal for Ulysses to stand upon — all is 
 artificial ; all except the sky, which is a reminiscence of 
 pure nature, and so magnificent that it would be hard to 
 find its equal amongst the most glorious triumphs of aft. 
 And yet, in order that there might not be a too absolute 
 dissonance between the naturalness of the sky and the 
 artificial character of the other material in the picture. 
 Turner has recalled human beliefs and the old Grecian 
 time, even amongst the evanescent splendors of the 
 clouds ; for he who looks at that rising sun may dimly 
 discern, through the mists of this world's atmosphere, the 
 swift horses of Apollo as they begin eagerly their course 
 in heaven. The confines, too, of earth and sky are pur- 
 posely mingled in the morning mist; and the Cyclops 
 himself is made so grandly vague by it, that we hardly 
 know if he be an earthly giant on his island hill in the 
 ^gean sea, or an angry god obscure in the clouds of" 
 Olympus. 
 
 We have to return now from the dreams of Turnerian 
 art to the sad realities of an existence which did not 
 escape from the usual sorrows of human life. Turner's 
 father died in 1830, and in him the painter lost his nearest 
 
Death of Turner s Father. 
 
 227 
 
 friend and the only relation with whom he kept up any 
 intercourse. After this date, then, we are to think of 
 Turner as a singularly isolated human creature, dependent 
 upon a very few friends for such society as he possessed, 
 and having no home, if by " home " we understand any- 
 thing more than a material building of bricks, with the 
 wooden furniture inside it. The loss to the painter must 
 have been inexpressible, for he loved his father deeply in 
 his own quiet, undemonstrative way. The old man had 
 given up his barber's shop more than thirty years before, 
 and had lived with his son ever since, finding many little 
 occupations, and making himself useful in various ways^ 
 either by acting as keeper of his son's gallery in Queen 
 Anne Street, or by stretching and preparing canvases, or 
 by looking after the bit of garden at Twickenham, and 
 the frugal household affairs. It requires little stretch of 
 imagination to realize the tranquil, affectionate life which 
 father and son led together during those long years, and 
 the dreadful void which the old man's departure must 
 have left in the daily existence of his son. No more to 
 find him in the garden ; no more to eat the simple meal 
 with him ; no more to have him there in an evening when 
 the long day's work was over, to tell him of professional 
 successes, of growing fortune, and extending fame ; never 
 again to be encouraged by his confidence, or rewarded 
 by his fatherly joy and pride; and instead of all these 
 solaces and consolations to find only vacancy, an empty 
 chair, a chilling solitude, was not that enough to pain a 
 heart less tender than that of Turner, which, if it loved 
 seldom, loved ever faithfully and well } Remember that 
 
228 The Life of J M. W. Turner. 
 
 the old man had always, from the first, done all he could 
 to help his gifted child, and nothing whatever to hinder 
 him ; that, instead of being alarmed by Heaven's great 
 gift of genius, and hostile to it, as mediocrity so often is, 
 he had welcomed it with joy and gladness, and watched it 
 as a gardener might watch some marvellous, miraculous 
 flower, and protected it against the hardships of the com- 
 mon world, and watered it with all necessary knowledge. 
 It was he who had first said, " William is to be a painter ! " 
 And before he was laid in his grave in St. Paul's, Covent 
 Garden, hard by the narrow street where he had followed 
 his humble profession, his "William" had painted the 
 Ulysses ! 
 
 The painter afterwards composed an inscription for his 
 father's monument : 
 
 IN THE VAULT 
 
 BENEATH AND NEAR THIS PLACE 
 
 ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF 
 
 WILLIAM TURNER, 
 
 MANY YEARS AN INHABITANT OF THIS PARISH, 
 
 WHO DIED 
 
 SEPTEMBER 2IST, 183O, 
 
 TO HIS MEMORY AND OF HIS WIFE, 
 
 MARY ANN, 
 THEIR SON, J. M. W. Turner, R.A., 
 
 HAS PLACED THIS TABLET. 
 AUGUST, 1832. 
 
 Internal evidence, if all other were wanting, would 
 prove this to be a Turnerian composition. The pleonasm 
 in the second line, and the omission in the eighth, coulci 
 have occurred to nobody but the author of the " Fallacies 
 
The Illustrations to Roarers. 
 
 229 
 
 of Hope," in the arrangement of carefully-chosen words 
 to be chiselled on enduring marble. It may, however, be 
 suggested in Turner's defence, that it is possible to be 
 beneath us without being near to us. New Zealand is 
 beneath us, but not near ; and what of the southern con- 
 stellations .■" 
 
 It was in the year 1830 that Rogers' "Italy" first ap- 
 peared with Turner's illustrations, and his " Poems " were 
 published four years later, illustrated in the same manner. 
 These editions were splendid examples of the degree of 
 perfection then attained by Englishmen- in the various 
 arts which combine to produce the livre de luxe. They 
 could not have been produced at the beginning of the 
 century, and fine copies of them will ever remain a monu- 
 ment of English genius and taste in combination with 
 various kinds of artistic and mechanical skill. Very ill- 
 natured things have been said about Rogers for wishing 
 to get down to posterity by Turner's assistance, and there 
 are some clever epigrams on the subject ; but it may be 
 observed that in this instance there were two persons in 
 one — a singularly intelligent lover of art and a maker of 
 elegant verses, the lover of art being quite as much inter- 
 ested in the matter as the poet, or versifier, whichever we 
 may decide to call him. It may be argued, further, that 
 there is really more modesty than pride in permitting 
 one's verses to become mere letterpress to accompany 
 such an overwhelming artist as Turner. The result has 
 certainly been to keep Mr. Roger's poetry in existence, 
 and to give it a sort of immortality ; but it is an immor- 
 tality which few would envy. The pride of a real poet 
 
230 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Timier. 
 
 is to think that his verses will endure by their own vitality, 
 and we learn without surprise that Lamartine was vexed 
 when his exquisite poem " Le Lac " was set to music, 
 although the music was exquisite too, and that a famous 
 English poet of the present day unwillingly submitted to 
 illustration in the supposed interest of his publishers. 
 
 Turner has seldom been so perfectly the poet as in the 
 illustrations to Rogers. The vignette form may have 
 aided him here, as it is more poetical in itself than the 
 picture bounded by four hard straight lines with as many 
 right angles at the corners, but the vignette cannot make 
 a poet, though it may be convenient for one. It answers 
 to some pretty lyrical form in literature, which charms us 
 in the songs of a true singer, and leaves us perfectly 
 indifferent in the attempts of the incapable. Of all 
 artists who ever lived I think it is Turner who treated the 
 vignette most exquisitely, and if it were necessary to find 
 some particular reason for this, I should say that it may 
 have been because there was nothing harsh or rigid in his 
 genius, that forms and colors melted into each other 
 tenderly in his dream-world, and that his sense of grada- 
 tion was the most delicate ever possessed by man. If 
 you examine a vignette by Turner round its edges, if you 
 can call them edges, you will perceive how exquisitely the 
 objects come out of nothingness into being, and how 
 cautiously, as a general rule, he will avoid anything like 
 too much materialism in his treatment of them until he 
 gets well towards the centre. There is some inequality 
 in the beauty of the vignettes, they are not all of them 
 equally exquisite ; but even the least poetical are still 
 
The Illustrations to Rogers. 
 
 231 
 
 very far removed from the prose of art, whilst it is simply 
 impossible to find in them any careless neglect of those 
 subtle artifices of arrangement which Turner understood 
 better than any other landscape painter. Comparisons in 
 art are usually profitless, but they may be sometimes 
 instructive when the works to be compared are of the 
 same class. I will not compare Turner's art in the com- 
 position of the vignette with that of Stothard, because 
 Stothard was not a landscape-painter, and he had not 
 naturally the faculty which arranges things most happily 
 in vignettes ; it is enough to say that Stothard's contri- 
 butions to the illustrated edition of Rogers, though often 
 graceful and charming, look like patches on the page, and 
 the patches are sometimes awkwardly shaped, whilst 
 Turner's never seem to be shaped or put on the paper at 
 all, but we feel as if a portion of the beautiful white 
 surface had in some wonderful way begun to glow with 
 the light of genius. We feel this quality in the Turnerian 
 vignettes most strongly when we compare them with 
 works of the same class, and nearly the same date, such 
 as the vignettes to Burns by Mr. D. O. Hill, which were 
 published in 1835. I am not so ungracious as to mention 
 Mr. Hill only to sacrifice his reputation to the fame of a 
 greater than he. His vignettes have often given me 
 pleasure, for which I am not ungrateful. They are poetic 
 in feeling, and he had many of the qualities of a landscape 
 painter, such as a love of luxuriance in vegetation, a fine 
 sense of distance, an enjoyment of light, and a proud 
 affection for Scottish lowland scenery which made his 
 heart sensitive to its rich beauty. His engravers were as 
 
232 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Tnrner. 
 
 skilful as those who worked from Turner, being in some 
 cases the very same men ; still the result is invariably 
 heavier, and the talent of the one artist seems over- 
 burdened by mere matter, whereas the genius of the 
 other uses material nature only for artistic and spiritual 
 ends. 
 
 I have not space for any minute analysis of Turner's 
 vignettes, but cannot leave them without saying a few 
 words more. They may be divided into landscape sub- 
 jects, marines, architecture, and supernatural inventions. 
 The vignette of Derwentwater is one of the best of the 
 pure landscapes. The sky, with great pale clouds and 
 the sun in his splendor lighting their edges, is one of the 
 most perfect of all Turner's skies for its delicate truth of 
 pale tones. The treatment of the landscape material is 
 arbitrary, of course ; the islands are arranged at the 
 artist's pleasure, the forms of the hills are entirely altered, 
 a dark mass being enormously exaggerated to show what 
 Rogers called " the tumbling tide of dread Lodore ; " but 
 the vignette is an exquisite idealization of a lake. The 
 bits of Alpine scenery in "Jacqueline" and "The Alps 
 at Daybreak " are especially admirable for their expres- 
 sion of that shadowy vastness which so strongly impresses 
 us in the loftiest ranges. I have heard artists afifirm that 
 even a large picture can give no idea of a lofty moun- 
 tain, yet the vignette of the Garonnelle, with the Alps of 
 Piedmont in the distance, gives me such an idea quite 
 perfectly, and it is only three inches high. This is due, 
 not to truth of portraiture, which Turner always neglected, 
 but to his knowledge of mountain structure and effect. 
 
The Illustrations to Rogers. 
 
 233 
 
 Any one who knows the Alps can see at once that these 
 really are Alps, twelve thousand feet high at least, though 
 a Cumberland hill seen near would have its sky line quite 
 as high on the paper. One of the finest of the marine 
 subjects is Columbus discovering land, and here again we 
 have clear evidence that a great scale is not necessary to 
 the production of a great effect. The line of sea horizon 
 is only about an inch and a quarter long in the engraving, 
 yet from the effect chosen in water and sky it conveys an 
 awful idea of the vastness of the deep. The figure in its 
 simple grandeur, with the old ship for a pedestal, is one of 
 Turner's rare successes in figure conception. There are 
 two particularly successful instances of the treatment of 
 architecture : one a building seen from outside, Green- 
 wich Hospital ; the other the interior of an imaginary 
 Gothic chapel with banners and tombs. The Greenwich 
 is another excellent instance of largeness expressed on a 
 small scale. The vastness of the building is intentionally 
 exaggerated, and it is made to look prodigious. Who 
 would believe that the twin towers, with the domes, are 
 only an inch high on the paper .'' Their real measurement 
 is rather less, being nine -tenths of an inch exactly. 
 Within that little space you have columns on columns, 
 cornices, architraves, attics, dome, and lantern, all drawn 
 with the most exquisite care, and there is a delicate play 
 of light and shadow along the whole front of the building. 
 A very grand bit of supernaturalism is that of the armed 
 phantoms passing across the sky after sunset. 
 
 " Slowly along the evening sky they went, 
 As on the edge of some vast battlement ; 
 Helmet and shield, and spear and gonfalon. 
 Streaming a baleful light that was not of the sun ! " 
 
234 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 The verses are impressive, but the drawing is much 
 more impressive than the verses. The last rays of the 
 afterglow are in the sky ; the ships are motionless on the 
 dark ocean ; on the high poop of one of them stands a 
 little human figure, and before him passes the strange 
 procession of giant shapes, half mingled with low vapor, 
 through which a solitary star shines dimly. The superi- 
 ority of the drawing to the verses is due, I believe, to 
 the greater resources of mystery which the painter had at 
 his disposal. The sense of mystery can be conveyed in 
 words, but not easily in a few lines. 
 
 In 1 830 Turner exhibited nothing but Pilate washing his 
 hatids before the multitude, which was one of the painter's 
 failures, as the reader may well imagine from the subject. 
 It is in the national collection, and the canvas measures 
 nearly four feet by three. 
 
 In the same year the painter revisited Scotland, being 
 commissioned by Mr. Cadell, the publisher, to make 
 twenty -four drawings in illustration of Scott's Poetical 
 Works. Amongst these are two or three celebrated 
 ones. The Loch Corriskin, Skye, is a scene of extra- 
 ordinary desolation, which Turner felt profoundly, not- 
 withstanding his love for the richer beauty of the south. 
 He drew the precipices and the gloomy lake with great 
 fidelity to the character of the place, which had deeply 
 impressed him. Turner is reported to have said that he 
 nearly lost his life at Loch Corriskin by slipping down a 
 precipice, but saved himself by grasping two tufts of 
 grass ; a proof that Scott had used a poet's license in the 
 well-known verses in " The Lord of the Isles : " 
 
Scotland Revisited , in 1830. 
 
 " On high Benmore green mosses grow, 
 And heath-bells bud in deep Glencroe ; 
 
 And copse on Cruchan-Ben ; 
 But here — above, around, below, 
 
 On mountain or in glen, 
 Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower, 
 Nor ought of vegetative power. 
 
 The weary eye may ken." 
 
 23s 
 
 The Melrose is a beautiful piece of lowland river 
 scenery, the broad Tweed flowing through the plain, the 
 Eildon hills in the distance. The river is treated with 
 excellent taste, the character of its shore line being at 
 the same time graceful and very carefully studied ; the 
 hills are drawn with the greatest delicacy, and retain 
 their true hill character, not being turned into mountains. 
 This is the scene that Scott loved better than any other 
 scene on earth ; these are the hills and this the river 
 which agitated him with profound emotion when he came 
 back a shattered creature, insensible to the charms of 
 every land but this, from that weary voyage to Italy. 
 
 The foreground in the Melrose is one of the most un- 
 fortunate in Turner's compositions. A cart and two 
 horses are set just upon the lower boundary line of the 
 drawing to tell against the space of shining river, and 
 throw it well back, and keep it down in the plain ; but 
 the part is much too conspicuous in itself, and too ugly, 
 and it composes with nothing whatever. The little 
 picnic party to the right is not so objectionable. It is 
 highly probable that these figures of gentlemen taking 
 their ease, with bottle, provision-basket, and newspaper, 
 may have been suggested by the party from Abbotsford, 
 
236 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 for Lockhart tells us that during Turner's visit at the 
 house, Sir Walter and his friends accompanied him on 
 excursions in the neighborhood, in quest of subjects for 
 his pencil. 
 
 " On several such occasions," said Lockhart, " I was 
 of the party, and one day deserves especially to be re- 
 membered. Sir Walter took Turner that morning, with 
 his friend Skene and myself, to Smailholm Crags ; and it 
 was while lounging about them, while the painter did his 
 sketch, that he told Mr. Skene legends of the place. 
 
 " He then carried us to Dryburgh, but excused him- 
 self from attending Mr. Turner into the enclosure. Mr. 
 Skene and I perceived that it would be better for us to 
 leave him alone, and we both accompanied Turner." 
 
 This desire on Scott's part for a moment of solitude at 
 Dryburgh reminds us that in 1830 he was a saddened 
 man ; that she whom he called " My Charlotte, ray thirty 
 years' companion," was already lying in the family grave 
 under the ruin : that for four years he had maintained a 
 gigantic effort to pay his debts, and that little strength 
 remained to support him under a mountain of afflictions. 
 He could be submissively courageous even yet, but the 
 end of his labor was at hand, and it is likely that whilst 
 Turner was sketching Dryburgh the Last Minstrel was 
 looking forward to his long rest in that place which so 
 many of us have since visited for his sake. 
 
 Amongst other drawings made during this excursion 
 was one of Abbotsford, and I well remember both the 
 intensely romantic feelings which the engraving from it ; 
 
Scotland Revisited in 1830. 
 
 237 
 
 used to awaken in me long ago, and the extreme dis- 
 appointment produced in me, as in many others, by the 
 building itself — a disappointment partly due to the 
 exaggerated descriptions of Sir Walter's home as a 
 romance or poem in stone and mortar, but due also in 
 great measure to Turner's exalting and ennobling imagi- 
 nation. In his drawing Scott's country-house became a 
 fairy castle of vast size in a beautiful domain on the side 
 of a noble stream : in reality Abbotsford is only a fantastic 
 residence, imposing neither by its size nor by its archi- 
 tecture, whilst the Tweed near the house would be but 
 a very ordinary stream if it had not been consecrated for 
 us by the affection of an immortal genius. 
 
 Besides the twenty-four drawings to illustrate Scott's 
 poems. Turner undertook, for the same Edinburgh 
 publisher {Mr. Cadell), a series of illustrations of his 
 prose works. The main distinction between the two 
 undertakings is that the poems kept the artist entirely to 
 local subjects in the northern parts of our own island, 
 from Staffa and Loch Corriskin for " The Lord of the 
 Isles," to the Junction of the Greta and Tees in illustra- 
 tion of " Rokeby ; " whereas, on the other hand, the 
 range of the prose works was much wider, and here 
 Turner could have recourse to his own accumulations of 
 British and Continental studies, and even materials 
 supplied by others. A good many of his French studies 
 came in conveniently, and after making four illustrations 
 of Jerusalem for Finden's Bible, it was not difificult to 
 make a fifth for a new purpose. There were forty illus- 
 
238 
 
 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 trations to the prose works, in all, and of these twenty- 
 three are foreign, and only fourteen Scottish.* 
 
 * There has been some confusion of dates about Turner's visits to Scot- 
 land. A lady in Jersey, whose name is not given, said in a letter, dated 
 Sept. 23, 1831, " Mr. Turner is returned from Scotland, where the weather 
 has been very boisterous, and his health not improved by the excursion." 
 Probably, in consequence of this letter, Mr. Thornbury says, " In the au- 
 tumn of 1831 Turner was employed by Mr. Cadell to make a collection of 
 twenty-four sketches for a new edition of Scott's poems, the publisher to 
 retain the drawings." On the other hand, Lockhart fixes Turner's visits to 
 the scenes of Scott's poetry, in company with Scott himself, as having 
 occurred in 1830, which is evidently the correct date, as Sir Walter quitted 
 Scotland for Italy in the autumn of 1831, and had been unwell from the 
 beginning of the year. It is possible, but I have at present no evidence on 
 the point beyond the anonymous Jersey lady, and her evidence comes to us 
 at second-hand through Mr. Thornbury, that Turner may have visited 
 Scotland again in 1831. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Rivers of France — Turner's architecture. — Inaccuracy of other artists. 
 — The rivers of France. — color. — The rivers of France — Turnerian 
 charm. 
 
 'HpHE famous work, the "Rivers of France," which in 
 its latest edition was called Liber Fhiviorum by Mr. 
 Bohn, the publisher, was at first issued in three successive 
 years under the title " Turner's Annual Tour." It was 
 published "for the proprietor" by Moon, Boys, and 
 Graves, but before the work was completed the title of 
 the firm had changed to Hodgson, Boys, and Graves. 
 The title-page of each year's issue was adorned with a 
 vignette, and the three vignettes are amongst the most 
 beautiful which Turner ever produced. The drawings 
 engraved in the body of the work are all oblong, and the 
 engravings generally measure five inches and a half by 
 rather less than four inches. The proportion may be 
 noticed for its avoidance of the long panoramic form, 
 which is very tempting for its convenience in the repre- 
 sentation of river scenery in lowland countries. How far 
 this choice of shape may have been Turner's decision, or 
 that of his publishers, who would naturally like a shape 
 going conveniently into a book, I am unable to inform the 
 reader, but the matter is of more importance than at first 
 
240 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 sight may appear. The nearer a shape approaches to the 
 square form, the more a landscape-painter is tempted to 
 exaggerate the height of things to fill up his composition 
 and get things in, on each side ; the more, on the con- 
 trary, the shape of the drawing is extended in horizontal 
 length, the less this temptation will be felt. 
 
 It is said that Turner was associated for three successive 
 seasons 'with Mr. Leitch Ritchie, who wrote the letter- 
 press which now accompanies the illustrations to the 
 " Rivers of France," but that their tastes were very dis- 
 similar in everything except art, so that they travelled 
 very little together. All that Mr. Ritchie had to say about 
 Turner's ways of work was, that he noticed his wonderful 
 exaggerations ; for example that he would elevate the 
 stunted cone of a village church into a tall steeple when it 
 suited his purpose. If Mr. Ritchie had known Turner's 
 habits as we know them, this would not have excited 
 his surprise. He used to banter Turner about it after- 
 wards in London, but without offending him, for the 
 landscape-painter had his retort about literary license. 
 Mr. Ritchie had attempted to identify Gilles de Retz with 
 Blue Beard, by insisting that his beard was so intensely 
 black as to have a shade of blue. " This," said Mr. 
 Ritchie, " tickled the great painter hugely, and his only 
 reply to my bantering was, his little sharp eyes glistening 
 the while, ' Blue Beard ! Blue Beard ! Black Beard ! ' " 
 This is all we learn from Turner's travelling companion 
 about his ways of work on the French rivers, and it is not 
 much. 
 
 The reader may remember Lord Byron's letter in an- 
 
The Rivers of France. 
 
 241 
 
 swer to Mr. Bowles about artificial things in poetry, in 
 which he so stoutly maintained that artificial things have 
 a poetry of their own. Thomas Campbell had written a 
 vivid account of his emotions on witnessing the launch of 
 a ship of the line. Bowles asserted that Campbell's ship 
 derived all its poetry, not from art, but from nature, and 
 was dependent for it upon the waves and winds. To this 
 Byron vigorously replied, that the ship of the line con- 
 ferred its own poetry on the waters and heightened theirs ; 
 after which, extending the argument from ships to other 
 artificial things, he went on to speak of buildings on land 
 as increasing the poetry of the land. 
 
 "Am I to be told," he asked, "that the nature of 
 Attica would be more poetical without the art of the' 
 Acropolis .-* of the temple of Theseus .'' and of the still all 
 Greek and glorious monuments of her exquisitely artificial 
 genius? Ask the traveller what strikes him as most 
 poetical — the Parthenon, or the rock on which it stands } 
 the columns of Cape Colonna, or the Cape itself .-* the 
 rocks at the foot of it, or the recollection that Falconer's 
 sJdp was bulged upon them .'' There are a thousand rocks 
 and capes far more picturesque than those of the Acro- 
 polis and Cape Sunium in themselves ; what are they to a 
 thousand scenes in the wilder parts of Greece, of Asia 
 Minor, Switzerland, or even of Cintra in Portugal, or to 
 many scenes of Italy, and the Sierras of Spain 1 But it is 
 the ''art," the columns, the temples, the wrecked vessel, 
 which give them their antique and their modern poetry, 
 and not the spots themselves. Without them the spots of 
 earth would be unnoticed and unknown." 
 16 
 
242 
 
 The Life of y M. W. Turner. 
 
 I am not aware that Turner ever expressed opinions 
 such as these in words, but there are a thousand evidences 
 in his numerous drawings that he agreed heartily with 
 Byron in looking for the poetry of his subjects much more 
 to man and man's works than to nature. Few landscape- 
 painters have drawn so many buildings, and few painters 
 of water have been so much disposed to crowd it with 
 ships and boats. I will not go so far as to say that pure 
 nature had no interest for him, but I think there is abun- 
 dant evidence that it was unsatisfying to his mind. Iti 
 would be easy to give rather a long list of compositions 
 by Turner, in which there is no landscape whatever, but 
 there is scarcely a single drawing or picture by him which 
 does not contain either a boat, or a building, or a figure. 
 One of the first things that strikes us on looking through 
 the " Rivers of France," is how much less Turner seems 
 to have cared for the rivers themselves than for the 
 human works which are connected with them. The fol- 
 lowing analysis may throw some light upon his taste. 
 
 There are sixty plates in all, without counting the 
 vignettes, and amongst these sixty plates I find fifteen 
 with castles or chateaux in them, fifteen with cathedrals 
 or important churches, twenty -two with at least one 
 bridge, and of these there are six with two bridges. 
 There are, also, half-a-dozen subjects of seaports with 
 shipping and boats in abundance. You may even find 
 that number of compositions without either water or land- 
 scape, the river being out of sight and the land all covered 
 with buildings. The Boulevard des Italiens, for example, 
 is given as an illustration of the Seine, which is like giving 
 
The Rivers of France. 
 
 243 
 
 Regent Street as an illustration of the Thames. At 
 Orleans the place near the cathedral is preferred to the 
 Loire, and in several other towns the artist willingly 
 leaves the river for the streets. In the whole of the sixty 
 plates there is not one without a building of some kind, 
 and there is not a foreground without figures, nor a reach 
 of water without boats. Men and their works are indeed 
 so constantly predominant in these designs, that, to find 
 the refreshment of pure nature, we must quit the encum- 
 bered earth and take refuge in the clouds of heaven. 
 
 Now, the theory of Byron and the practice of Turner 
 assert a truth, >X^hich is that man's work may be poetical, 
 but they assert it too strongly in assigning to natural 
 beauty an entirely inferior position. There is such a 
 thing as the real landscape instinct, which is quite closely 
 connected with poetic emotion, and there is a rich abun- 
 dance of beauty in pure nature for its satisfaction. It is 
 this instinct which is not satisfied with Turner's selection 
 of subjects on the French rivers, for they do not always 
 flow through towns, under bridges, by castles and cathe- 
 drals. They pass through leagues and leagues of the 
 sweetest rural scenery, where he who is indifferent to 
 landscape beauty will find nothing whatever to interest 
 him, but where the true lover of nature will be quietly 
 gratified by a constant succession of beautifully grouped 
 trees, or varied forms of shore, changing from the moun- 
 tains of the Upper Loire to the coteaiix of the vine-lands 
 and the flat Dutch-looking distances of the plains. After 
 floating for hours through these great spaces of rural 
 France, when you are beginning to weary a little of river, 
 
244 
 
 The Life of J. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 and trees, and sky, you catch sight of some town in the 
 distance with its old church, or, in rare cases, its cathe- 
 dral, and then a fresh reach of the river discloses a bridge 
 of many arches and a jumble of roofs and chimneys half 
 hidden by the trees of the public walk. It is then that 
 you feel the value of the town as an ornament to the 
 river, and when you have been all day alone with nature 
 you are not sorry to communicate again with humanity, 
 to see the groups of people about the wharf and boats, 
 and gratify your love of architecture or your feeling for 
 the picturesque by a hunt after the remains of the middle 
 ages. Such are the pleasant experiences of artists who 
 love the water ; they see nature, and they see cities also, 
 but they see them in due proportion. Now it seems on 
 looking through these sixty plates from Turner as if, in- 
 stead of leading us from town to town along the broad,; 
 beautiful water-way of the river, he had got into a dili- 
 gence in one town and out of it at the next, like a traveller 
 "doing" the principal localities. Daubigny, who had not 
 Turner's magnificence of conception, loved nature with a 
 more intimate affection, and passed days and nights on 
 the Seine in a combination of hut and boat, rudely enough 
 contrived, yet a treasure for a student of river scenery. 
 He was not a great genius like Turner, but_ he really 
 loved the river, and in return for this simple devotion he 
 was rewarded by an insight into its own natural beauty, 
 which was wanting in the illustrious Englishman.* 
 
 * The following quotation from Mr. J. L. Molloy's "Autumn Holiday or 
 French Rivers " gives an excellent idea of what I mean. It is rathea 
 long, but so good and true, and so strikingly apropos of our present subject, 
 that the reader will thank me for not abridging it : — 
 
The Rivers of France. 
 
 245 
 
 What Turner cared for was the picturesque aspect of 
 a French town taken as a whole, with its bridge, and 
 towers, and multitudinous roofs. I cannot think that he 
 took any very deep and serious interest in architecture 
 for itself, though he liked it as an element of the pictur- 
 esque. The front of Rouen Cathedral is very magnificent 
 and impressive, and it is the most favorable example of 
 architecture in the volume.; but in other subjects, such as 
 the castle of Amboise, the inaccuracies are of a kind 
 which convinces me that the artist was thinking only of 
 
 " Then, far ahead, in a haze of sunset, rose up the indistinct outline of 
 Blois. 
 
 " It was at such times we realized how grand was the Loire — the river of 
 ancient cities. Beautiful as the Sein-e was — in many respects far more so 
 than the Loire — it fell far short of the latter in expanse. Here was some- 
 thing of the breadth and distance of the sea. I feel the difficulty, the im- 
 possibility even, of describing the effect it produced on us. 
 
 " To co7tie out of the solitariness of the river, let the boat drift with the tide, 
 and turn roicnd to watch the gradual unfolding of these cities, was in its way 
 akin to the feeling of hearing for the first time one of the great sytnphonies of 
 Beethoven. And there is nothing fanciful in this comparison ; it is the 
 simple expression of the thought which occurred at the time. Many will 
 understand how things, apparently opposite, and without any material con- 
 nection, will, under certain influences, recall and suggest one another. 
 Weber, from only seeing the tables, chairs, and benches of a cafij piled up 
 to the ceiling, composed one of his grandest triumphal marches. On days 
 when the rain fell thick and heavy he wrote his most joyous music, on 
 sunny days the saddest. 
 
 " I remember one of us saying that evening, as we looked at Blois, that it 
 was like a peal of old bells, when they clang all together. 
 
 " Most of our readers will probably have seen all these towns and many 
 parts of the Loire. But it will have been by diligence or rail — shooting 
 suddenly from a tunnel into the heart of the city, and with passing glimpses 
 )f the river ; for no steamers can ascend above Tours — and Gien, Orleans, 
 Beaugency,- Blois, and Amboise, are accessible by land only (except in small 
 3oats). In no way hut the way we travelled is it possible to see what these 
 Haces really are, and how they are inseparable from the rivers." 
 
246 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 his poetical effect, and did not really care about archi- 
 tectural construction. As nothing is more unprofitable 
 than generalities in criticism, we will direct our attention 
 more especially to Amboise. In the first of the two 
 subjects, the two big round towers, for which the place is 
 celebrated, are greatly exaggerated as to height, which 
 deprives them of much of their massive character. It is 
 plainly impossible to drive a carriage up the inside of 
 Turner's towers, but it can be done in one of the real 
 ones. In the reality, there is an old palace apparently 
 built on the top of a very strong feudal castle.* Turner 
 has been faithful to the idea just so far as this, but all his 
 architectural details are wrong, even big details — wrong 
 every one of them ; and this inaccuracy is still more 
 evident in the illustration called the Chateau of Amboise, 
 where the architecture is conspicuous, and required care. 
 What surprises me, even yet, after long familiarity with 
 Turner's ways of work, is his disdain, not of the ugly 
 truths which artists often avoid, but of the beautiful 
 truths which the artistic temperament usually delights in. 
 The real Chateau of Amboise is not only different from 
 Turner's, but certainly more beautiful than his, and far 
 more picturesque. 
 
 The reader may remember that in my criticism of 
 Turner's Kilchurn Castlef I pointed out his omission of 
 important architectural features, such as the corbelled 
 turrets at the corners. In the Chateau of Amboise it is 
 not so much omission that one has to complain of, as 
 
 * It is really built upon a rock, encased in walls with towers, 
 t See page 69. 
 
Turfters Architecture. 
 
 247 
 
 wilful or involuntary misrepresentation. I can give a 
 parallel instance from literature. M. Louis Enault says 
 that the English inscribe in letters of gold on the front of 
 their museums, "A thing of art is an endless joy." Of 
 course we recognise what he means ; he means the 
 immortal verse of Keats, which was inscribed at one end 
 of the Art Treasures' Exhibition at Manchester ; and the 
 Frenchman's line contains a sort of muddled reminiscence 
 of everything in the original, but on the whole the 
 English reader may still prefer, "A thing of beauty is a 
 joy for ever." Well, Turner's drawing of Amboise pro- 
 duces exactly that effect upon me. It may be an im- 
 provement, but I cannot help preferring the real thing. 
 
 I will mention two instances more. In the view of the 
 Pont Neuf, at Paris, the tower of St. Jacques de la Bou- 
 cherie is brought in at the left by a permissible violation 
 of strict topography which would have kept it out of the 
 drawing. As the artist had gone somewhat out of his 
 way to adorn his subject with the tower, it is natural to 
 expect that he would look at it, yet his drawing gives 
 evidence of the most perfect indifference to its archi- 
 tecture. It is rather a large object in the drawing, it is 
 a very important object, it is quite near enough for its 
 general character to be seen plainly and its details mys- 
 teriously, yet neither character nor detail is given, and a 
 grossly commonplace piece of nineteenth century Gothic 
 is substituted for one of the most perfectly beautiful, one 
 of the most exquisitely elegant masterpieces of the middle 
 ages. Not much is seen of the towers of Notre Dame, 
 but the little we do see abounds in architectural errors. 
 
248 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 A draughtsman so careless about noble architecture was 
 not likely to pay more attention to that of streets and 
 houses, and, provided that he got an effect of quantity 
 and mystery, he attempted little more. Still, it is difficult 
 to avoid a feeling of surprise at Turner's indifference to 
 blocks of building which have an especial picturesque 
 interest. Trees grow now on the point of the island 
 between the two halves of the bridge, and hide the houses 
 at the Place Dauphine from the point of view in Turner's 
 sketch ; but when he drew it, either there were no trees 
 at all, or else he removed them on purpose. In either 
 case one is surprised at his neglect of the houses, because, 
 as every Parisian artist knows, they are quite remarkably 
 picturesque, with their cumbrous roofs overburdened with 
 dormer windows and chimneys. Of course, the houses 
 were there in Turner's time, and long before, according 
 to the poet : 
 
 " Ces deux maisons. Ventre Sainct Gris I 
 Je les cognois, diet Henry Quatre, 
 Icelles sont du vieulx Paris 1 " 
 
 Another of the Parisian subjects affords a good oppor- 
 tunity for testing the draughtsmanship of the artist, 
 because the materials in it are familiar. In the Hotel de 
 Vi//e and the Pont d' Arcole we have three well-known 
 buildings — i. Part of the old H6tel de Ville — 2. The 
 Church of St. Gervais — 3. The Pump in the river. The 
 absence of refinement, of truth, and of precision, in 
 Turner's representation of these buildings is decisive, 
 and settles the question. If the reader will compare 
 Turner's Hotel de Ville with a photograph of the real one, 
 
Ittaccuracy of other Artists. 
 
 249 
 
 he will see that the landscape-painter's interpretation 
 entirely loses the elegance of the original. The Pump 
 was a very picturesque object (a tower between two 
 wings, the whole erected on a great intricate wooden 
 scaffolding, through which the water flowed), and it was 
 etched by Meryon with great delicacy and truth. If the 
 reader has an opportunity for comparing the etching with 
 the engraving after Turner he will see the difference. I 
 should not find fault with minor inaccuracies if truth of 
 character was preserved ; but it is not preserved in these 
 instances. The elegance of the tower of St. Jacques and 
 the H6tel de Ville is as much sacrificed as their details. 
 The real pump was picturesque, with a certain purity 
 and stateliness which Meryon gave ; Turner made it 
 picturesque in quite another way, and a much coarser and 
 ruder way. 
 
 By the common consent of humanity a fault is half 
 excused, and more than half excused, when it is known to 
 be general. If all Cretans were liars, a Cretan of ordinary 
 virtue would have been a liar like the rest of his country- 
 men ; and for a Cretan to tell the truth he would have 
 needed, not ordinary commonplace virtue, but that excep- 
 tional virtue of the saint or hero which we admire when 
 we meet with it, but expect from no ordinary mortal. To 
 be quite fair towards Turner we ought to take into 
 account the general- state of the art he practised. Of the 
 accomplished artists of his time. Turner was, I quite 
 believe, the most inaccurate, and the most ready to shut 
 his eyes to truths which did not interest him ; but if you 
 examine the work of his contemporaries with any strict- 
 
250 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 ness, you will find the same indifference, in minor degrees, 
 without the compensation of that exquisite charm which 
 has made Turner's work immortal. If the reader should 
 happen to have the opportunity of comparing an engrav- 
 ing from Stanfields Verrex in the Val d'Aosta with 
 Harding's drawing of the same place (both exactly from 
 the same point of view), he will see to what extent those 
 artists considered themselves at liberty to treat buildings 
 as they pleased, for one, or both, must be wrong in every 
 detail.* Turner's carelessness of architectural truth goes 
 farther, no doubt, but it is the same thing in principle. 
 It has been said that picturesque., drawing and archi- 
 tectural drawing are so distinct that the one disqualifies 
 for the other, and when inaccuracy has become a habit it 
 cannot be cured at a moment's notice, merely because the 
 artist happens to be drawing some very beautiful object, 
 like the tower of St. Jacques de la Boucherie. But the 
 true philosophy of the subject goes deeper than this 
 practical side of the question. It has been stated by 
 Joubert, in one of his profound sentences : — "The poet's 
 subject," he says (and a painter like Turner is just as 
 much a poet as any maker of verses), " should present to 
 his genius a region of fantasy which he can expand or 
 contract at pleasure. Places that are too real, and persons 
 
 * A very able artist, who has drawn architecture in Italy, France, and 
 elsewhere, for half a century, wrote to me as follows about the drawings of 
 Venetian architecture by Turner, Stanfield, and Prout : " However charm- 
 ing and talented their works may be in a picturesque sense, they are all, 
 and without one exception that I can now call to mind, clumsily, heavily, 
 and incorrectly drawn so far as architectural form and beauty are concerned. 
 Architects, I believe, are unanimously of this opinion. 
 
Inaccuracy of other Artists. 
 
 251 
 
 that are too historical, imprison his mind and confine his 
 movements." Such an object as the tower of St. Jacques, 
 or a wing of the Hotel de Ville, is too real to be dealt 
 with by so poetic an artist as Turner, because he must 
 either think of its own beauty too much, or else represent 
 it unsatisfactorily. I do not think that a faithful repre- 
 sentation of the tower of St. Jacques would have spoiled 
 that particular drawing, but I am quite convinced that 
 the objective spirit which would have enabled Turner to 
 draw architecture faithfully, would have destroyed in him 
 that imaginative spirit which produced the Turnerian 
 world of dreams. It is true that Meryon was a poet in 
 his way also, and that he saw very clearly, and was on 
 the whole a fairly faithful draughtsman, "but the cases are 
 quite different. Meryon's gift was a sensibility to emotion 
 in the presence of certain buildings, and a power to com- 
 municate that emotion by a very clear representation of 
 them, in which his own passion betrayed itself more by 
 subtle modulations of line, and by a certain morbid in- 
 tensity of perception, than by any very manifest unfaithful- 
 ness ; Turner's poetry was not in clearness at all, but in 
 confusion and mystery, and the object at all times had less 
 hold upon his memory and imagination than the effect. 
 
 To understand the impossibility of an accurate Turner, 
 the reader has only to realize to himself what accuracy 
 really is. It involves the complete suppression of feeling 
 and imagination in the artist, and no imaginative artist 
 will do anything so suicidal as to suppress his own 
 imagination. Again, to require of Turner that he should 
 be accurate in his representations of architecture, would 
 
25 2 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Ttmier. 
 
 be to require of him the subordination of his own art to 
 another art, the effacement of himself in the presence of 
 any builder who happened to have erected a church 
 steeple. The slightest reflection will convince us that a 
 genius like Turner's is far too strongly personal for such 
 humility as this. Again, we are much too apt to associate 
 memory and imagination together in our minds, as if one 
 never weakened the other. We forget Pope's doctrine, 
 which is the true one : 
 
 " Where beams of warm imagination play, 
 The memory's soft figures melt away." 
 
 The imagination substitutes fresh images for those which ^ 
 a good memory, without imagination, would retain. 
 
 Since the whole influence of common custom amongst 
 artists, and of Turner's own imagination, made him a 
 glaringly inaccurate architectural draughtsman, it may 
 be asked why he drew really existing architecture at all. 
 Why did he not confine himself simply to pure inventions 
 like the architecture in his Carthages, which never 
 existed in any country under the sun, and which no 
 builder will ever be extravagant enough, or so misguided, 
 as to erect in stone and mortar .'' The answer is of a 
 double character. In the first place. Turner felt a certain 
 emotion in the presence of architecture which operated 
 upon his mind, and tempted him to make drawings in 
 which the buildings which he admired occupied a very 
 important place. Besides this. Turner was a keen man 
 of business, and he knew that the sale of a set of engrav- 
 ings was much safer when they bore the names of places 
 that tourists had seen, or might possibly hope to see ; 
 
The Rivers of France — Color. 
 
 253 
 
 places not avowedly in dreamland, but actually mentioned 
 in the map. As for his inaccuracies, they might puzzle a 
 solitary traveller now and then, but people are usually so 
 wonderfully unobservant that they cannot detect them. 
 Before the invention of photography, the most absurdly 
 inaccurate engravings and lithographs of public buildings 
 were bought in thousands, and carried away contentedly 
 by travellers, who were satisfied so long as a tower did 
 not look like a dome, nor an obelisk like a factory 
 chimney. 
 
 It would be of little use to enter into an elaborate 
 dissertation on the coloring of the drawings for the 
 " Rivers of France," but I may make a few brief observa- 
 tions, founded upon a close acquaintance with the country 
 itself. 
 
 Every land has certain special characteristics in its 
 coloring, and we may judge, to a great extent, of an 
 artist's affectionate intimacy with his subject by the 
 fidelity with which he recalls these special characteristics. 
 Now I do not recognize this kind of fidelity in Turner's 
 coloring of French scenery. It seems to me that he 
 colored according to his own general conceptions of 
 what would be harmonious, with little or no reference to 
 the natural quality and effects of French landscape. The 
 drawings are brilliant, and often crude in their brilliance ; 
 they are never simply natural. Here, again, as in the 
 matter of architectural form, the intensely strong person- 
 ality of the artist subordinated truth to imagination, and 
 led him to substitute what he imagined for what he saw. 
 The drawings were seldom, it is believed, colored in the 
 
254 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Ttimer. 
 
 presence of nature ; Turner's more usual custom having 
 been to sketch from nature in pencil and dash the color 
 on his sketch afterwards ; but however this may have 
 been, we know the result, which is rather the play of a 
 man of genius with his materials than the sober endeavor 
 to render the real aspects of the country. If the reader 
 will imagine Turner as a supremely clever executant in 
 water-color, who played with his orange and purple, his 
 red and green, his washes of cool gray to refresh the eye, 
 and his touches of burning scarlet to excite it, just as a 
 musical composer will combine the effects of the various 
 instruments in an orchestra, he will, I sincerely believe, 
 not be very far from a just appreciation of his work. I 
 will go even a little farther and venture upon the assertion 
 that it is only the minor colorists who are quiet-minded 
 enough, or humble enough, for fidelity. All the splendid 
 colorists, the men who dazzle and astonish and win great 
 reputations for their color-power, are utterly audacious in 
 their manner of dealing with the truth of nature. They 
 go beyond it to play their own mighty music. We all 
 know the Rubens color, with its regular set scale of tints, 
 so admirably and truly analyzed by Fromentin. Turner 
 was more various, but not less personal, and if I were 
 asked whether his color reminded me of France, I should 
 answer, No, not of France, but of Turner. And if the 
 inquirer pushed his examination so far as to ask whether 
 the Turnerian color seemed to me a compensation for the 
 coloring of nature, I should answer that the two appeal 
 to different sentiments, that Turner's work is a display, 
 an exhibition of power and dexterity, calling for admira- 
 
The Rivers of France — Color. 
 
 255 
 
 tion, whereas the comparatively humble artists who touch 
 our hearts by reminding us of the scenes and effects we 
 thoroughly and intimately know, make little display, and 
 are seldom extolled for genius, but find their way to our 
 affection. The reader will please remember that I am 
 speaking here of color, and, for the moment, of color only. 
 Well, in two words, the drawings for the " Rivers of 
 France " seem to me astonishing curiosities.* No one 
 but their author could have done them, but they are 
 simply the play of a consummate artist with the materials 
 in his color-box. This free way of playing with chromatic 
 elemeats is the true sign of a great color-faculty, and the 
 only way to produce splendid results, but though origi- 
 nally suggested by nature, it leaves nature out in the 
 cold. 
 
 After having denied the truth of Turner's architecture, 
 and the truth of his color also, I may be suspected of 
 saying favorable things merely by way of compensation, 
 and to reconcile myself in some measure with English 
 public opinion, which left him to sell his drawings for a 
 few pounds each and now purchases them at the rate of 
 twenty guineas the square inch. Be this as it may, the 
 truth must be told on both sides. After all the deduc- 
 
 * In the chapter on Turner's studies I went into the subject of his 
 coloring, and explained how he colored with a view to obtain certain 
 ;hromatic results rather than truth to nature. It is, unfortunately, not 
 possible to maintain any argument about color by giving examples, because 
 i reproductions were given an opponent could answer (probably with truth) 
 hat the reproductions were not like the originals. If the reader could be 
 vith me with the originals before us I would soon show him what I mean. 
 Turner as a colorist was splendid and powerful, but utterly unfaithful. 
 
256 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 tions of criticism the charm of the work remains. It is 
 with these drawings as with the romances of Sir Walter 
 Scott : a time comes in the life of every intelligent reader 
 when he perceives that Scott was not, and could not 
 be, really true to the times he represented, except when 
 they approached very near his own ; but a student of 
 literature would be much to be pitied who was unable 
 to enjoy " Ivanhoe " after this discovery. So when we 
 have found out the excessive freedom which Turner 
 allowed himself; when we have discovered that he is not 
 to be trusted for the representation of any object, however 
 important — that his chiaroscuro, though effeciive, is 
 arbitrary, and his color, though brilliant, is false ; when 
 we have quite satisfied ourselves, in a word, that he is a 
 poet, and not an architectural draughtsman, or an imitator 
 of nature, is that a reason why we should not enjoy the 
 poems .'' There is a wide difference, I grant, between the 
 pleasure of real belief and the pleasure of confessed 
 imagination : the first belongs to imaginative ignorance, 
 and is only possible for the uncritical ; the second belongs 
 to a state of knowledge, and is only possible for those 
 in whom the acquisition of knowledge has not deadened 
 the imaginative faculties. Show the " Rivers of France " 
 to a boy who has the natural faculties which perceive 
 beauty, but who is still innocent of criticism, he will 
 believe the drawings to be true, and think as he dreams 
 over them that a day may come when he will visit these 
 enchanting scenes. Show them to a real critic, and he 
 will not accept for fact a single statement made by the 
 draughtsman from beginning to end, but he will say, 
 
45» '■■~"'':^v ' • ' u r* > Miii-ti-r* )J'^ 
 
 
 
The Rivers of France — Tiirnerian Charm. 257 
 
 " The poetic power is here," and then he will yield to its 
 influence, and dream also in his own way — not, like the 
 boy, in simple faith, but in the pleasant make-believe 
 faith which is all that the poet asks of us. 
 
 " Who believes me shall behold 
 ***** 
 
 Only believe me. Ye believe ? 
 
 Appears 
 Verona 
 
 The worst passages in Turner, as in Milton and Words- 
 lA^orth, are the matter-of-fact passages, where the poetic 
 "acuity has not acted with sufficient energy to fuse the 
 material. In landscape-painting, this danger is greatest 
 n proximity to the foreground, and in the " Rivers of 
 France " the foregrounds are often prosaic and unpleas- 
 int when the material is of an inconvenient kind, such 
 IS angular steps, logs of wood, and pieces of barren shore 
 vhich had to be covered with figures to hide their want 
 )f interest. The distances are always poetical, full of 
 xquisite invention of distant detail, and of minute 
 >eauties in which the spectator is constantly making fresh 
 iscoveries. The town subjects, in which there is little or 
 10 distance, are the least satisfactory. The St. yiiliarts, 
 ^oiirSy in which all the material is matter-of-fact — 
 
 church quite near, a diligence with horses and people 
 - is a subject unsuited to Turner's genius, painfully 
 xhibiting his deficiencies as a draughtsman ; the distant 
 iew of Rouen, with its vastness of extent and mystery 
 f distance, full of minute indications, all of which set 
 le imagination to work immediately, is, on the contrary, 
 recisely one of those subjects in which he has had no 
 ^7 
 
258 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 rival. Some of the finest things in the volume are 
 amongst the simplest ; the Clairmont, for example, with 
 its chateau perched on a rocky height with a fine hollow 
 of wooded land behind it. All is simple in this compo- 
 sition ; the land is in large masses, the boats are few, and 
 there is a single star in the calm evening sky. In every 
 instance where a long sweep of river has been attempted 
 the result is a striking success, that being one of the 
 characteristics of French scenery by which Turner was 
 most powerfully impressed. His drawing of the forms 
 of land, coteaux and plains, is always beautiful, though 
 the height of the coteaux is generally exaggerated, and 
 nothing can surpass the exquisite sense of mystery with 
 which Turner finds the outline of a remote rise of lane 
 and loses it again. His use of cloud, of smoke or steam 
 from chimneys or boats, is admirable, both near and ir 
 the distance, and he avails himself of it in the mos' 
 cunning manner to lighten masses which might otherwise 
 appear heavy or monotonous. Sky and water, under ver) 
 varied effects, are never less than exquisite. The systen 
 of light-and-shade, as usual with Turner, is delicate anc 
 subtle, but arbitrary. He will observe most minute dis 
 tinctions of tone and rely far more upon them than oi 
 vulgar oppositions of black and white ; but at the sam 
 time he will not be bound by scientific truth. Shadow 
 are cast just where he wants them, whether there is an; 
 luminary to cast the shadows or not, and when the 
 luminary is there it generally throws the shadow in quite 
 impossible positions. 
 
 Turner understood some aspects of French scenery 
 
T?ie Rivers of France. — Tiirnerian Charm. 259 
 
 with peculiar sympathy and felicity, but there is much 
 in French landscape character which lies outside of 
 Turner's range, and has been discovered gradually by the 
 affectionate explorations of the native painters. 'The 
 chief distinctions between his work and theirs may be 
 expressed as follows. He was interested chiefly in towns 
 and in landscape distances ; they avoid the towns (with 
 a few exceptions) and attach themselves to rustic sub- 
 jects, the main interest of which lies either in the fore- 
 ground or in the middle distance. They have also a 
 certain simplicity and earnestness of sentiments which 
 were generally wanting in Turner, who loved elaboration, 
 quantity, and brilliance. Turner's view of France is the 
 view rather of a traveller than a resident. The view 
 taken by the French landscape-painters themselves has, 
 in almost in all cases, been curiously (if I may use the 
 word in this uncommon application) residential. One of 
 the best of them, who lives within a morning's drive of 
 one of the finest parts of the Loire, never paints the 
 Loire and its magnificent distances at all, but confines 
 himself to the little rustic bits within a mile of his own 
 house, which is in a retired part of the country, buried 
 in dense woods. This is what I call the residential spirit 
 in an artist. It acts, to the letter, on Longfellow's 
 advice : 
 
 " That is best which lieth nearest : 
 Shape from that thy work of art." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. — Turner's technical carelessness. — The golden 
 Bough. — The Venice pictures. — An American criticism. — French enthu- 
 siasm. — Illustrations to Milton. — Mercury and Argus. — The Phryne. — 
 Turner and Mr. Bohn. — Switzerland and Italy. — The Agrippina. — Illus- 
 trations to " The Epicurean." 
 
 TT is not necessary to mention every one of Turner's 
 pictures in the course of this biography, which, if that 
 were done, would be likely to become a catalogue. I may 
 also be pardoned for not saying much about pictures 
 which leave me simply indifferent, such as the Caligula s 
 Palace and Bridge, which, in spite of its^fine trees and 
 bright effect of sunshine behind architecture, is too obvi- 
 ously artificial, too devoid of any true inspiration, for 
 much aesthetic satisfaction or enjoyment. This picture 
 was exhibited in i83i,and it belongs to the somewhat un- 
 decided time in which the artist's genius had not yet 
 delivered itself from what may be called the piled-up 
 sublimities. In 1832 the painter exhibited a much more 
 memorable work, entitled Childe Harold's Pilgrimage 
 {Italy). The conception of this picture was very broadly 
 comprehensive. Turner set himself the difficult, yet not 
 impossible, task of representing, in a single important 
 work, a resumi oi what was most characteristic of Italian 
 
Childe Harold' s Pilgrimage. 
 
 261 
 
 scenery. Such a scheme, notwithstanding its difficulties, 
 was far better adapted to the imaginative intellect of the 
 artist than the representation of particular localities. It 
 gave his inspiration free play, entirely emancipated him 
 from even the slight restraint of his own kind of topog- 
 raphy, and left him face to face with a problem which he 
 was more competent to deal with than any other artist. 
 The allusion to " Childe Harold " refers particularly to 
 the twenty-sixth stanza of the fourth canto, which was 
 quoted in the Academy catalogue : 
 
 " And now, fair Italy ! 
 Thou art the garden of the world, the home 
 Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree ; 
 Even in thy desert, what is like to thee .'' 
 Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste 
 More rich than other clime's fertility ; 
 Thy wreck a glory, and thy ruin graced 
 With an immaculate charm which cannot be defaced." 
 
 Turner's conception of this typical Italy included a 
 mountainous distance, the distances in Italy being very 
 generally mountainous ; an interesting middle distance, 
 with hill and wood and water, plenty of buildings, partly 
 ruinous, in memory of the past ; and a foreground, with a 
 stone-pine which struck the artist as the most character- 
 istic Italian tree, and figures enjoying the sweet warm 
 southern evening, in the southern manner, with dancing 
 and festivity in the open air. This picture belongs to a 
 category of works which it is perfect folly to criticise ; for 
 the critical spirit, however useful and even necessary may 
 be the services which it renders, is always a spirit of 
 reserve, of caution, of investigation, whilst to enjoy great 
 
262 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 poems we need simply to tune our feelings into unison 
 with those of the poet himself, and let them vibrate sym- 
 pathetically as the strings of a piano vibrate in answer to 
 the notes of a violinist. The motive of the picture was 
 not to astonish by grandeur, but to charm by what is 
 loveliest in landscape ; and so there is in it little or 
 nothing of sublimity except the moderate sublimity of the 
 hill to the left whose summit is crowned with buildings, 
 and the quiet kind of sublimity which belongs to ruin 
 always. Soft outlines melting in the distant atmosphere ; 
 gentle curves of earth everywhere ; rich masses of remoter 
 foliage, and luxuriant vegetation in the foreground ; these 
 of themselves would suggest ideas of beauty, but they are 
 sustained and accompanied by the tenderest, most deli- 
 cate execution, and by a fortunate sureness of taste in the 
 treatment of every detail. Unhappily, the picture is far 
 from being in a satisfactory material condition. 
 
 Turner's disregard for the permanence of his work was 
 simply absolute ; he seems to have been indifferent to that 
 most valuable of all sciences for a painter, the knowledge 
 of pigments in their material effects upon each other. 
 His work gained greatly in refinement as he advanced in 
 art, but it lost in material substance, so that the heavy 
 early pictures, the brown and gray works executed when 
 the painter was as yet only feeling his way timidly to 
 color, are often the best preserved. In later life he got 
 into a fatal way of treating oil as if it had been water- 
 color, with a recklessness of everything but the immediate 
 effect, which it would be difficult to parallel in the history 
 of the great old masters, though several moderns have 
 
Turner s Technical Carelessness. 
 
 263 
 
 been equally reckless, if reckless in other ways. Turner's 
 technical sins may be classed in two categories : he did 
 not care what colors he used, and he did not care about 
 the material consequences of his manner of using them. 
 He would employ pigments which are known to be un- 
 safe, and he would lay his tints on the canvas without 
 taking into consideration results which may be predicted 
 with all the certainty of science. The art of painting a 
 pictuje which shall last five hundred years is by this time 
 clearly understood ; the permanent pigments are known, 
 and so are the fugitive and mutually destructive pigments ; 
 we are able, also, to calculate with certainty on many 
 effects of method in painting — we know that a thin coat 
 of paint which perfectly conceals what is beneath it when 
 it is first laid on will in course of time no longer do so 
 with the same completeness ; and although we may not be 
 able to determine beforehand all the innumerable and 
 highly complex effects of technical imprudences, we can 
 at least avoid them. 
 
 Most unfortunately for Turner, and for all who value 
 his art, he could not endure the slight restraints which 
 technical wisdom imposes upon a painter. He gave his 
 genius libre car'rih'e, as if pigments had required no more 
 care in their management than washes of Indian ink; 
 and by one of the strangest contradictions ever exhibited 
 by inconsistent human nature, at the very time when he 
 was beginning to form great projects for the establish- 
 ment of his posthumous fame, he refused to take the 
 simple, easy, and well-known precautions which would 
 have secured the permanence of those very works on 
 
264 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 which his fame depended. The Childe Ha7vld picture 
 has gone to pieces. The changes in certain portions of 
 the work are painfully evident, and although it may still 
 be enjoyed, it is only with that melancholy pleasure that 
 we take in spoiled and ruined things which have once 
 been ineffably exquisite. 
 
 A picture of less importance, but not entirely dissimilar 
 in character. Lake Avernus, the Fates and the Golden 
 Bough, was exhibited in 1834, and afterwards purchased 
 by Mr. Vernon, who bequeathed it to the nation along 
 with the other pictures in his gallery. Here, too, we have 
 an Italian scene, with a stone-pine in the foreground, 
 water and richly-wooded land in the middle distance, and 
 pale hills or mountains far away. The subject is from 
 the sixth book of the ^neid in the page following the 
 universally known bit : 
 
 " Facilis descensus Averno ; 
 Noctes atque dies patet atri janua Ditis : 
 Sed revocare gradum superasque evadere ad auras 
 Hoc opus, hie labor est." 
 
 The golden bough was a branch which, when plucked, 
 enabled the bearer to visit the infernal regions safely and 
 come back to the light of day. 
 
 " Latet arbore opaca 
 Aureus et foliis et lento vimine ramus, 
 Junoni infernae dictus sacer ; hunc tegit omnis 
 Lucus et obscuris claudunt convallibus umbrae. 
 Sed non ante datur telluris operta subire, 
 Auricomos quamquis decerpserit arbore fetus." 
 
 Turner liked to give a poetical association to his pic- 
 tures, and in this instance he was more than usually 
 
 ■" m mmmw s-^ • ^ - w. - ' , » * ■"■ r- 
 
The Golden Bough. 
 
 265 
 
 happy, for The Golden Bough is as pretty a title as a land- 
 scape-painter could find, whilst Avernus is, at the same 
 time, interesting for its natural beauty and curiosity, and 
 just a little awfuHor its mythological attributes, even yet 
 not wholly incredible by the cultivated imagination. The 
 painter, however, so treated his subject that the pale blue 
 waters of Avernus, sleeping so calmly in their deep basin, 
 scarcely recall to us, as we see them in the picture, that 
 dark river Acheron, from which they were believed to 
 rise. The only motive of the painter appears to have 
 been beauty ; the beauty of a fair Italian landscape, ideal- 
 ized to the utmost by the power of his own genius. The 
 pictures of this class are, I believe, the most perfect and 
 complete expression ever given by Turner to his sense of 
 charm and loveliness in landscape, as distinguished from 
 his sterner delight in the sublime. No one who has not 
 tried to paint, and tried seriously and long, can estimate 
 justly the delicacy of tone and color in these pictures, the 
 |exquisiteness of the transitions in the lightest passages, 
 and the sustained refinement which could carry the artist 
 safely over twenty or thirty square feet of canvas, when 
 the slightest failure would have shown as an intolerable 
 blot upon his work. If at this time of his life, when he 
 had formed his own style, and overcome the difficulties of 
 execution. Turner could have been wisely directed in the 
 knowledge which ensures the permanence of a picture, 
 and encouraged to produce an important but limited 
 series of great works to illustrate what had most impressed 
 him in all Europe, as the Childe Harold and The Golden 
 Bough illustrate the landscape of Italy, he would have left 
 
266 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 behind him the most magnificent of monuments and the 
 best expression of his genius. 
 
 Mr. Vernon, who bought The Golden Bough, also bought 
 a picture of Venice in the same Academy Exhibition, 
 Venice ; the Canal of the Ciudecca, and he possessed an- 
 other Venice of Turner exhibited in 1833. Tliese Venices 
 were afterwards succeeded by many others, for as Turner 
 grew older, his increasing taste for brilliant color led him 
 to think more and more of that splendid city which excels 
 all others so especially in her coloring. A city of rose 
 and white, rising out of an emerald sea against a sky of 
 sapphire, here, in a few words, are the chief elements of 
 Venetian color. It may interest the reader to see some 
 notes by an observant writer who has lived much in 
 Venice, but whose impressions are quite independent of 
 Turner's, to whom he never refers, and whose work is 
 probably all but unknown to him. M. Henry Havard, in 
 his book on Amsterdam and Venice, has many descrip- 
 tions of the city on the Adriatic from various points of 
 view, descriptions always full of color. Here are three 
 or four of them. 
 
 I. Venice from a Distance.-— Searching along the hori- 
 zon, trying to penetrate the haze, we try to distinguish 
 the marvellous city from the clouds in which she lies 
 hidden. Suddenly above the green waters, in front of 
 the blue mountains whose feet are lost in mist, we see 
 her rise. She glitters in the midst of the islands which 
 surround her. Her palaces of blue and white seem to 
 float on the Adriatic. She reminds us of a necklace of 
 pearls lying on a cloth of emerald velvet. 
 
The Venice Pictures. 
 
 267 
 
 2. A Nearer View. — The forms do not yet appear 
 vith clearness and precision ; there are no exact out- 
 ines, nothing but patches of rose and white which are 
 elieved against a blue horizon of an exquisite softness 
 
 md on the green waves which become silvery in the 
 lUnshine. 
 
 3. Nearer Still. — As we approach, all this delightful 
 :haos becomes less confused ; the campaniles detach 
 heir delicate profiles and the domes their obesity ; the 
 ace-like balconies and oriental roofs of the palaces are 
 :ut out more clearly, the outlines are more plainly visible, 
 )ut the tones remain unchanged. The city preserves her 
 :ints of white and rose, the sky and sea their tints of blue 
 md green. 
 
 The next description brings us within the city, and we 
 see the great boats with their colored sails, the stone 
 ^uays, and the marble bridges, the red campaniles, the 
 rose-colored brickwork and the white marble, all close at 
 band. " It is a marvellous concert of the richest colors, 
 1 clashing of the liveliest and most joyous tints." 
 
 In the notes supplied by Mr. William Wyld for his 
 biography in the Portfolio published in 1877, he gave 
 I short description of Venice without having read M. 
 Fiavard's book, and the two descriptions coincide exactly. 
 \fter mentioning the advantages of splendid costume 
 mjoyed by the Venetian painters as a daily spectacle in 
 he public places, he went on to say : 
 
 "Then they had, too, the lovely Italian skies, and the 
 hining silvery and rose-colored palaces glancing in the 
 
268 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Ttirner. 
 
 sun, which, with the emerald waters beneath, were alwayi 
 in readiness as backgrounds to their compositions," 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 Most of Turner's Venice pictures are attempts t( 
 convey, not exactly the sensation of color given b] 
 Venice itself, but an equivalent sensation ; and althougl 
 the Venices purchased by Mr. Vernon are already a wile 
 extravagance in comparison with the sober but prosaic 
 work of Canaletto, they were afterwards surpassed ir 
 their own direction by his latest Venices. He began tc 
 exhibit Venetian subjects in 1833, and continued, with 
 intervals, till 1845. The whole of these pictures belong 
 to his late manner, and some amongst them to his latest, 
 The characteristics which they have in common are 
 splendor of color and carelessness of form ; the coloi 
 being in most instances really founded upon the true 
 Venetian color as we have just seen it repeatedly de- 
 scribed, but worked up to the utmost brilliance which the 
 palette would allow, the forms simply sketched, exactly on 
 the. principles of the artist's own free sketching in water- 
 colors. To get the brilliance the painter is believed tc 
 have adopted the following method, which has been usee 
 with success in copying his pictures of this class. It is 
 believed, and with probability, that he first blocked out the 
 picture almost entirely in pure white, with only some 
 very pale tinting just to mark the position of the objects 
 and that this white preparation was thick and loaded frorr 
 the beginning. On this he afterwards painted thinly ir 
 oil or water-color, or both, so that the brilliance of th( 
 white shone through the color and gave it that very lumi- 
 
 W- B^ iki.; 
 
The Venice Pictures. 
 
 269 
 
 ous quality which it possesses. This is simply a return 
 D the early Flemish practice of painting thinly on a light 
 round, with this difference, however, that Turner made a 
 iresh ground of his own between the canvas and his 
 fright colors, and that the modelling of the impasto with 
 he brush was done in this thick white. The result was 
 unite the brilliance of water-color to the varied and rich 
 urface of massive oil-painting. 
 
 The Venice pictures exhibited in the Academy from 
 833, and now in the National Gallery, number in all 
 leven canvases. One of the finest of these. The Sun of 
 Venice going to Sea, was etched by M. Gaucherel for the 
 Portfolio in 1874, and published in the November number 
 if that year. The etching has the spirit of the original 
 icture, and is an excellent reminder for those who have 
 een it, but it can, of course, give no idea of the brilliant 
 olor which is the principal artistic motive of the paint- 
 ig, and which is concentrated in the painted sail of the 
 shing-boat. An etching of The Approach to Venice, by 
 I. Brunet-Debaines, appeared in the Portfolio for Sep- 
 
 mber, 1875. The subject is a view of the canal of the 
 riudecca, with Fusina in the distance. The reader may 
 jdge from this etching how Turner treated the materials 
 f Venice, the spaces of the water, the boats, and the 
 uildings. The sense of space and distance on water 
 urface is admirably expressed in this subject ; the boats 
 re made to serve the artist's purpose in composition, 
 oth by the way he has placed them and by their re- 
 ections, and the buildings are treated in Turner's usual 
 rbitrary manner with his disdain of architecture and 
 
270 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 topography. Some confusion has been created by givinc 
 the title The Approach to Venice to a drawing from whicl: 
 a picture was painted which is called San Benedetto, whilsi 
 there is another picture called The Approach to Venice 
 which is in a state of ruin from technical causes. Whilst 
 describing the San Benedetto picture, Mr. Ruskin sayj 
 first that the title is a mistake, as no such church coulc 
 be included in the view, and then he proceeds to recog- 
 nize a o:eneral truth of Venetian character in it : 
 
 " The buildings on the right are also, for the most par 
 imaginary in their details, especially in the pretty bridg 
 which connects two of their masses : and yet, without on 
 single accurate detail, the picture is the likest thing t 
 what it is meant for — the looking out of the Giudecc 
 landwards at sunset — of all that I have ever seen. Th 
 buildings have, in reality, that proportion and characte 
 of mass, as one glides up the centre of the tide stream 
 they float exactly in that strange, mirageful, wistful wa 
 in the sea-mist — rosy ghosts of houses without found; 
 tions ; the blue line of the poplars and copse about th 
 Fusina marshes shows itself just in that way on the hor 
 zon ; the flowing gold of the water, and quiet gold of th 
 air, face and reflect each other just so ; the boats rest so 
 with their black prows poised in the midst of the ambei 
 flame, or glide by so, the boatman stretched far aslope 
 upon his deep-laid oar." 
 
 The success of Turner's later method of coloring has 
 been questioned by some critics, who seem to be especi 
 ally offended by the crudeness of the whites. The 
 following may be taken as a fair example of these criti- 
 
An American Criticism. 
 
 271 
 
 cisms ; it is from an American writer who has travelled a 
 good deal in Europe : 
 
 " In these pictures Turner appears to have departed 
 from all those qualities which make his water-colors so 
 valuable. There is nothing of Nature in them. Occa- 
 sionally some familiar object is suggested; but there is 
 no certainty, even after close study, of the motive, and 
 scarcely of the form. With many, the time chosen — 
 especially in the Venetian pictures — is when the sun- 
 light is strongest, and we naturally fly from its glare. If 
 his ambition were to rival Nature's intensest light, he has, 
 as all painters must, signally failed. The pictures present 
 glaring white surfaces, spotted with positive colors, laid 
 on with a dash of the brush or the fingers, with little or 
 no attention to form ; an intense blue for the upper sky, 
 but all color opaque, and the canvas so heavily loaded 
 that in many places the paint has dried, cracked, and 
 dropped off. . . . We want luminous and liquid air, and 
 not plain white or blue paint, which Turner has given. 
 His skies are spotty and hard. They do not illuminate. 
 The bright atmospherical colors should appear of pris- 
 matic tenderness of outline and texture, as in the rain- 
 bow, arching space. Solid pigments will not express the 
 qualities of either sky, flesh, or water." 
 
 Is this criticism just } It is, I think, not a bad piece 
 of criticism. The writer has something to say, and does 
 not simply confine himself to condemnation without 
 giving his reasons. His eyes have been really offended 
 by the style of painting which I have just endeavored 
 to describe, and he states the reasons for the offence. 
 
2/2 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 His feeling is one which I constantly observe in people 
 who have some taste for art, but do not easily read its 
 strongest language. For many years such people kept 
 etching in a state of profound unpopularity because they 
 were offended by its strength of expression, and even at 
 the present day they are angry at what is really the most 
 powerful work. They look upon the fine arts as an imi- 
 tation of nature, not as an utterance of human genius: 
 and when the utterance reaches a certain pitch of inten- 
 sity it seems to them a bad imitation — coarse and harsh 
 and crude. The right theory was stated by Burger in 
 1863, when he said : 
 
 " In the works which interest us the authors substitute 
 themselves, so to speak, for nature. However common- 
 place the natural material may be, their perception of it 
 is special and rare. When Chardin has painted a glass, 
 it is Chardin whom we admire in the glass which he has 
 painted. It is the genius of Rembrandt which we admire 
 in the profound and singular character which he has im- 
 pressed upon the head, whatever it may have been which 
 served him for a model. We think, ' Ah ! did they see 
 like that, and how simple or how fantastic it is in expres- 
 sion and execution ! ' " 
 
 Now the mistake of the American critic is to have 
 condemned the Venetian pictures of Turner because they 
 are not imitations of nature. The question is not whether 
 they are close imitations of nature, but whether they have 
 the art-power of conveying a profound impression, and 
 that they unquestionably have. 
 
French Enthusiasm. 
 
 273 
 
 Some years ago several eminent French etchers came 
 over to London for the purpose of executing plates from 
 pictures in the National Gallery. They were all men of 
 considerable experience in art, perfectly familiar with the 
 old masters, and with as much modern art as may be seen 
 in Paris ; some of them were painters as well as etchers, 
 and therefore practically acquainted with the use of oil 
 color. Thus prepared, and eager to make acquaintance 
 with our national collection, they went to Trafalgar 
 Square. It would be difficult to exaggerate the effect 
 which the Turner pictures produced on their minds. It 
 was not mere critical approbation, not merely the respect- 
 ful attention usually given to a great master, it v/as the 
 passionate enthusiasm with which highly educated and 
 very sensitive persons acknowledged a new, strange, 
 irresistible influence in the fine arts, the sort of enthusi- 
 asm which was awakened by the verses of Byron and the 
 violin-playing of Paganini. All %these Frenchmen, what- 
 ever had been their previous speciality in art — whether 
 they had been etchers of the figure, or of architecture, or 
 of landscape — asked to be employed in the interpretation 
 of Turner ; and the pictures which they most desire to 
 etch were not those of what has been considered his 
 sober, and sane, and orthodox time, but such things as 
 the later Venices and those daring experiments in light 
 and color which have so often been spoken of as little 
 better than the freaks of a gifted madman. Here, then, 
 is evidence, if all other evidence were wanting, that these 
 pictures have the one great power of all genuine works of 
 art, as distinguished from simple imitations of nature, the 
 18 
 
274 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 power which excites and arouses the artistic suscepti- 
 bilities. 
 
 Again, the offensiveness of what may be called tech- 
 nical excesses, such as excessive loading, for example, 
 or the excessive fulness or richness of a glaze, seems to 
 diminish in exact proportion to the artistic culture of the 
 spectator. I mean that the partially cultivated spectator, 
 such as the critic quoted above, will be offended by a 
 loading, and see in it nothing but thick paint, when a 
 trained eye like that of M. Gaucherel or M. Brunet- 
 Debaines will not be offended at all. I believe the reason 
 to be that the one stops at the mere paint and the other 
 goes at once far beyond it, to the artistic conception 
 which the paint is intended to convey. 
 
 In 1835 appeared Macerone's edition of Milton, in 
 seven volumes, and Tegg's one -volume edition of the 
 poems, in foolscap octavo. Turner illustrated the poems 
 for these editions with seven vignettes, which are gene- 
 rally considered, and rightly, amongst the least success- 
 ful of his inventions. There is a certain materialism in 
 Milton himself which a critical reader has considerable 
 difficulty in reconciling with the nature of his subject, 
 and yet it is easier to do this in reading a poem than in 
 looking at a drawing, for the imagination is less exacting 
 about material possibilities than the eye. One of the 
 most unfortunate of the vignettes was the Mustering of 
 the Warrior Angels, a mixture of unaccountable astron- 
 omy and bad figure-drawing, all rendered with that entire 
 unsatisfactoriness which is the consequence of setting 
 every natural law and possibility at defiance. Another 
 
 ■mmmm 
 
Illustrations to Milton. 
 
 275 
 
 lamentable attempt was The Temptation on the Pinnacle, 
 a most difficult subject to treat, and treated in such a 
 manner that one cannot venture to describe the drawing 
 as it really is. These failures are the more provoking 
 that Milton abounds in fine subjects for an imaginative 
 landscape-painter. How suggestive, for example are the 
 lines : 
 
 " Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, 
 Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls 
 Her watery labyrinth." 
 
 And those, again, which follow almost immediately : 
 
 "Beyond this flood a frozen continent 
 Lies, dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms 
 Of whirlwind and dire hail." 
 
 The best of the illustrations to Milton are the St. 
 Michael's Mount, with the shipwreck of Lycidas, and the 
 Ludlow Castle, with the rising of the water nymphs. 
 Here the painter was brought down to the real earth and 
 to his native land, and gained strength accordingly. 
 
 It was a custom of the classical school of landscape- 
 painters to take subjects from the legends of antiquity, 
 partly, no doubt, for the practical purpose of giving titles 
 to their pictures, and also because the legends are in 
 themselves poetical, and lend some poetry of association 
 to the landscape with which the craft of the painter has 
 connected them. Claude was fond of doing this, as we all 
 know from the Claudes in our own National Gallery, 
 almost all of which are associated with ancient legend or 
 history. The story of Cephalus and Procris is a good one 
 for this purpose, because the unhappy accident which 
 
 mk 
 
2/6 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 ended fatally for Procris took place in a wood, and Claude 
 delighted in sylvan subjects. The story of Mercury and 
 Argus is, perhaps, even more available for the landscape- 
 painter, as the cow, lo, must be introduced, and a cow is 
 a landscape-painter's animal. Claude painted a picture 
 of Mercury and Argus which was one of a pair, the other 
 being yuno entrusting to Argus the guardiaitship of lo, 
 and amongst Claude's etchings is one of Mercury and 
 Argus, rather a pale etching, with a temple to the right, 
 and a distant view of a bay with hills beyond it, seen 
 between two groups of trees. 
 
 Besides these works of Claude there are others in 
 illustration of the same subject by the old painters ; for 
 example, Rubens painted it four times, as his taste for 
 landscape and the naked figure, and his skill in both, gave 
 him an interest in putting the two together. These 
 examples, but especially that of Claude, may have in- 
 duced Turner to try his strength on the same story ; 
 and whatever may be said of the cow and figures, it 
 would be difficult, in elder art, to find it illustrated with 
 such poetic feeling and such a happy mixture of natural 
 and artistic beauty. It is to be regretted that the pic- 
 ture, which was purchased by Mr. Naylor, is not in the 
 National Gallery, but it is widely known through the 
 engraving, one of the most luminous of the larger plates 
 ever executed from Turner's pictures. This work pro- 
 duced such a strong impression on Mr. Ruskin that he 
 referred to it no less than nine times in " Modern 
 Painters." Like Rubens, Turner introduced a rivulet in 
 his landscape, finding its way over the irregular ground. 
 
 mt 
 
Mercury and Argus. 
 
 277 
 
 This stream is well described by Mr. Ruskin in a few 
 words : 
 
 " In coming down to us, we see it stopping twice in two 
 quiet and glassy pools, upon which the drinking cattle 
 cast an unstirred image. From the nearest of these the 
 water leaps in three cascades into another basin close to 
 us ; it trickles in silver threads through the leaves at its 
 edge, and falls tinkling and splashing (though in con- 
 siderable body) into the pool, stirring its quiet surface, at 
 which a bird is stooping to drink, with concentric and 
 curdling ripples, which divide round the stone at its 
 farthest border, and descend in sparkling foam over the 
 lip of the basin." 
 
 The picture was one of the richest and fullest of those 
 produced in Turner's complete maturity, the quantity of 
 detail in it was immense, but detail fused and harmonized 
 into unity. The sun is the centre of the picture, or 
 nearly so, and the light brilliant. Great importance is 
 given to foliage, especially to one great tree, which has 
 the Turnerian pear-shape. I may observe that about this 
 time of his career Turner had a fancy for a great tree, 
 sometimes very much isolated. He probably found it 
 convenient to throw back the sky and distance ; and, by 
 his system of aerial perspective, which confined the 
 extreme darks, to the immediate foreground, a tree did not 
 cut so crudely against the sky as it does in ordinary 
 drawing or in photographs. Turner had also, as I have 
 explained elsewhere with reference to the fir on the left 
 in Crossing the Brook, certain artifices in the treatment of 
 
278 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 such material which mitigated what might have been 
 objectionable without them. Not only was the tree 
 generally nearer in tone to the sky than it would have 
 been in nature, but the branches farthest from the spec- 
 tator, and consequently nearest to the sky, were made 
 still paler in proportion as a compensation for stereoscopic 
 effect, which painting cannot render. The general result 
 of this artifice was that, however isolated a tree may be 
 in one of Turner's landscapes painted in his maturity, it 
 is never by any chance like an object appliqu^, but forms 
 an integral part of the material between the spectator and 
 the horizon. 
 
 A magnificent instance of his treatment of trees when 
 his art was fully developed is the picture of Phryne going 
 to the Public Bath as Vemis. I well remember how the 
 combined grace and energy of the branch drawing in this 
 picture seemed to me, before I knew the forest of Fon- 
 tainebleau, an idealization of sylvan beauty beyond the 
 possibilities of nature ; and how, when I came almost 
 directly from Fontainebleau to the National Gallery, I 
 found in the picture the power, the freedom, the elegance 
 which astonish us in the noblest Fontainebleau trees, and 
 give the visitor to that wonderful place an entirely new 
 conception of what sylvan magnificence may be. It is 
 useless to expatiate farther upon the subject, for no con- 
 ception of the trees in the Phryne can be given without 
 illustration, and even that, on a reduced scale, would be 
 inadequate, as the picture itself is more than six feet 
 high, and drawn with such delicate modulation in all its 
 curves that every inch of it is a study. Again, the most 
 
The Phryne. 
 
 279 
 
 subtle etching or engraving would fail to render ade- 
 quately the play of light in the foliage and amongst the 
 branches, not to speak of the elaborate distances which 
 are as full of material as they can be. The Phryne is 
 certainly one of the very greatest pictures of Turner's 
 full maturity. It was first exhibited in 1838, and shows 
 signs of over-ripeness in the figures more than in any- 
 thing else. 
 
 The decay of Turner's art was of a character quite 
 peculiar to him. He is the only painter whose scheme 
 of color in the decline of life had a morbid tendency to 
 white and scarlet — white for the light, scarlet for the 
 shade — a combination as unnatural as it is glaring. You 
 may see this already in the figures of the Phryne, and to 
 some extent they undoubtedly spoil the picture, but they 
 will not prevent a cultivated critic from enjoying the 
 work as a whole. Something, too, may be said in favor 
 even of the figures themselves, defective as they may be. 
 Their faults are of a kind which the popular eye easily 
 detects, their merits are evident only to a few. They are 
 well composed, they take their place in the picture, and 
 add to the impression of life and splendor which is already 
 partly created by the architecture of the baths. Besides 
 this, as Mr. Ruskin has remarked, " The infinitudes of 
 gradation, and accurately reflected color, which Turner 
 has wrought into these strange figure groups, are nearly 
 as admirable as the other portions of the work." 
 
 In 1838 an incident occurred which throws some light 
 both on Turner's policy in matters of business, and on 
 the degree of success which attended one of the most 
 
280 
 
 The Life of J. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 important series of engravings from his works. In the 
 biographical sketch by Mr. Alaric Watts, which was pub- 
 lished in Bohn's edition, an account is given of a transac- 
 tion in which Turner bought up a series of copper-plates 
 — those of the " England and Wales " — in order to 
 prevent them from passing into the hands of a publisher, 
 who might have worn them out and issued impressions of 
 a quality injurious to the painter's reputation. The 
 " England and Wales " series had not been a commercial 
 success, so the work was brought to an abrupt conclusion 
 in 1838, and it was decided to sell off the stock and 
 copper-plates, and balance the accounts. The whole was 
 offered to Mr. Bohn, the publisher, for ^3000, and he 
 offered ^2800, but would not go any farther, so it was 
 decided to put the property up to auction, "After 
 extensive advertising," says Mr. Watts, " the day and 
 hour of sale had arrived, when, just at the moment the 
 auctioneer was about to mount his rostrum, Mr. Turner 
 stepped in, and bought it privately, at the reserved price 
 of ;^3000, much to the vexation of many who had come 
 prepared to buy portions of it." Turner met Mr, Bohn 
 at the sale, and told him, in his gruff way, thd^t he had 
 taken care to prevent him from selling cheap prints from 
 the coppers, adding the expression of a general determi- 
 nation, " No more of my plates shall be worn to shadows." 
 Mr, Bohn replied that his chief object was not the coppers, 
 but the large printed stock. Oh ! very well ; I don't 
 want the stock, I only want to keep the coppers out 
 of your clutches." So far mollified, the great artist 
 positively went so far as to invite Mr. Bohn to break- 
 
Turner and Mr. Bohn. 
 
 281 
 
 fast the next morning, with a view of doing business. 
 The publisher kept the appointment at nine, but there 
 was no breakfast, and Turner asked as much for the 
 impressions alone as he had just given for the impressions 
 and coppers both together. This Mr. Bohn thought un- 
 reasonable, so he left the stock on the painter's hands. 
 It remained at Queen Anne Street till after Turner's 
 death, eating up interest and slowly deteriorating. 
 
 It is said that Turner visited Switzerland in 1838 ; but 
 I am, as usual, unable to give the reader any details of 
 his tour. The effect of Switzerland on his mind is much 
 more visible in his sketches and water-color drawings 
 than in his oil pictures. In the whole catalogue of 
 pictures exhibited by him at the Royal Academy and the 
 British Institution I only find three Swiss subjects : we 
 all know how much more numerous are his Italian 
 pictures. Notwithstanding the magnificence of Swiss 
 scenery, it is not generally popular amongst artists, and 
 a very experienced London picture-dealer told me that it 
 is not popular amongst the purchasers of landscapes. In 
 most cases a painter may shrink from Swiss scenery, 
 simply because he finds a difficulty in dealing with its 
 vastness ; but vastness was one of Turner's strong points 
 in art, and he drew mountains with great knowledge. The' 
 lake of Lucerne is said to have been one of the places 
 which gained the strongest hold upon his affections, yet 
 I believe he only exhibited one oil picture of it in the 
 whole course of his life. The historic traditions of Italy 
 seem to have drawn him strongly to Italian material, and 
 the traditions of landscape art may have had the same 
 
282 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 effect. Claude, whom Turner imitated and emulated, 
 painted Italian scenery, and so did the other classical 
 landscape painters, but they never painted Switzerland. 
 In 1838 and 1839 Italy was quite predominant in Turner's 
 mind. In 1838 he exhibited Ancient Italy — Ovid ban- 
 ished from Rome, a7id Modern Italy — the Pifferari. In 
 1839 h^ followed up the idea by painting ancient and 
 modern Rome under the followinef rather elaborate titles : 
 
 " Ancient Rome. — Agrippina Landing with the Ashes 
 of Germanicus. The Triumphal Bridge and Palace of the 
 Ccesars restored. 
 
 " * The clear stream, 
 Aye, the yellow Tiber glimmers to her beam 
 Even while the sun is setting.' 
 
 " Modern Rome. — Campo Vaccino. 
 
 " ' The moon is up, and yet it is not night ; 
 
 The sun as yet divides the day with her.' — Lord Byron." 
 
 Besides these pictures there was one in illustration of 
 Ovid (Pluto carrying off Proserpine), and one representing 
 Cicero at his villa. 
 
 An etching, with aquatint, of the Agrippina was pub- 
 lished in the Portfolio for February, 1878, and by its help 
 the reader may easily follow what I have to say of the 
 picture. It is fine composition of its class, giving a grand 
 idea of the enormous palace of the Caesars, in which 
 Tiberius and Augusta remained invisible whilst the people 
 of Rome received Agrippina with the most touching 
 demonstrations of sympathy and sorrow. The archi- 
 tectural invention in the palace is not very elaborate, and 
 
The Agrippma. 
 
 283 
 
 it may be open to the criticism of architects, but the ideas 
 3f v^astness, majesty, and a haughty domination are con- 
 i^eyed very impressively. The smaller masses are not 
 
 Itogether so fortunate ; they have an arranged look, like 
 :he architecture in Martin's pictures ; and one of them, 
 ;hat above the bridge, is in very bad perspective. The 
 
 cene is lighted by slanting rays of sunset, which, with 
 he cast shadows and the mist in the atmosphere, afforded 
 Turner an opportunity for one of his poetical effects of 
 ight, shadow, and reflection. 
 
 ' The picture will not bear historical criticism. From 
 [he title which Turner gave it, he evidently believed (or 
 Supposed, intentionally, for his own convenience) that 
 ^grippina landed at Rome. She really landed at Brun- 
 lusium, and travelled to Rome by the Appian Way, along 
 vhich Drusus, with Claudius and the children of Ger- 
 nanicus, who were in Rome, went as far as Terracina 
 to meet her. The whole description, as given by Tacitus, 
 mplies an imposing entry into Rome by land on an in- 
 comparably vaster scale than the few groups of figures in 
 :he picture. Turner, with his half-a-dozen people on the 
 "ight, his four boats on the left, with people in balconies 
 md on shore, renders the human interest of the scene so 
 inadequately, that we are driven to imagine it over again 
 for ourselves with the help of the Roman historian. 
 There have been two great spectacles in modern times 
 which may help us to some conception of the real event. 
 iVhen Nelson's remains were brought home to England 
 "rom Trafalgar, when the body of Napoleon was brought 
 Paris from St. Helena, popular emotion in England 
 
284 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 and France did not express itself by loitering groups on 
 the shores of the Thames and the Seine. The tide o^ 
 humanity came out like a flood, by thousands and tens ol 
 thousands, filling the public place from side to side, the! 
 long avenue from end to end. Yet there was a poignanc)j 
 of interest in the ancient event not equalled in either ol 
 the modern ones. Nelson died prematurely, but was nol 
 the victim of a murderer ; Napoleon's ashes were not 
 carried in an urn by a never -injured Josephine, Show 
 us, O painter ! the bereaved wife as she came " bearing 
 the funeral urn," and the multitude in their fresh emotion, 
 strangers and kindred, men and women, recetites in dolore. 
 In 1839 Turner illustrated Moore's novel, "The Epicu- 
 rean," with four vignettes, The Garden, The Ring, Tht 
 Nile, and The Chaplet. The Ring may be dismissed a1 
 once as a wild fancy of a man swinging in the void, 
 surrounded by diabolical apparitions, a subject authorizec 
 by the story, but not well chosen for illustration ; Tht 
 Chaplet is an interior of an Egyptian temple, not without 
 sublimity ; The Nile is an impressive moonlight scene on 
 the river, with massive temples, stairs, and terraces ; anc 
 The Garden is an attempt to realize the beauty of a garder 
 of the Epicureans at Athens, with a lake down in th( 
 hollow, and a view of Athens, with the Acropolis beyond 
 There are statues in the garden, and boats full of pleas 
 ure-seekers on the lake ; the whole scene glowing anc 
 glittering in the sunshine of a summer afternoon. This 
 vignette and that of The Nile are quite sufficient evidenci 
 that, in spite of the failure with the Milton vignette; 
 three years before, Turner still retained his remarkable 
 
Illustrations to " The Epicurean!* 
 
 285 
 
 kill in dealing with this kind of design. The vignette of 
 The Garden, which only measures three and a half inches 
 )y four, is a striking example of the power by which 
 \rt can sometimes concentrate its materials. There is 
 inough in it to fill a large drawing, and as for the expres- 
 iion of the artist's conception (which is the chief purpose 
 »f art), this is quite effectual. It transports us, I will 
 ot say to the real Athens, but to the Turnerian Athens, 
 ist as well as a large picture. 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Temeraire. — The Bacchus and Ariadne. — The Snow-storm. — Tb 
 Slave-Ship. — Latter years of Turner. — Pictures of 1842. — Tendency t( 
 the formless. — Dregs of life. — Last excursion on the continent. — Disabled 
 — Turner's death. — Funeral at St. Paul's. — Turner's care for his owi 
 fame. — Rivalry with Claude. 
 
 " I ^HE great work made public in 1839 was the T^m^ 
 raire. The entry in the Academy Catalogue is as 
 follows : 
 
 " The fighting Thniraire tugged to her last berth to b, 
 broken up, 1838." 
 
 " ' The flag which braved the battle and the breeze 
 No longer owns her.' " 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell upon the obvious wilfulnes 
 in the lighting of this picture. With the sun and mooi 
 where they are, it would not be possible for the vessel 
 to be so lighted ; but this may be granted as a painter' 
 license. Evidently Turner's object in this arbitrary lighl 
 ing was to give the Thniraire a sort of ghostly, unearthl; 
 look, as if already more a melancholy vision of the pas 
 than any present reality. Turner, with his love of th 
 sea and shipping, and his strong national feeling, took a 
 deeply pathetic interest in the old war -vessels of the 
 heroic time, the glorious days of Nelson ; and we whc 
 of late years have seen so complete a revolution in the 
 building of war-ships — a revolution unfavorable alike tc 
 
The Thn^raire. 
 
 287 
 
 seamanship and to art — may admit that there were rea- 
 sons for such regrets as Turner's deeper than any that he 
 himself was aware of. Not only have the beautiful old 
 war-ships almost entirely disappeared, but they have left 
 no inheritors of their beauty. The same revolution which 
 has replaced the proud castle of the middle ages by the 
 low and ugly earthworks of modern fortification, has 
 substituted for the glorious battle -ship, with her high 
 freeboard, her tiers of guns, and magnificent display of 
 canvas, a variety of inventions in which beauty is super- 
 seded by grim utility and seamanship by machines. War- 
 ships in these days are not towed to their last rest at 
 sunset, but suddenly sent to it by a thrust of a consort's 
 snout. 
 
 The picture is, both in sentiment and execution, one of 
 
 the finest of the later works. The sky and water are 
 
 both magnificent, and the shipping, though not treated 
 
 with severe positive truth, is made to harmonize well 
 
 with the rest, and not stuck upon the canvas, as often 
 
 happens in the works of bad marine painters. The sun 
 
 lets in red, and the red, by the artist's craft, is made at 
 
 :he same time both decided in hue and luminous — always 
 
 , great technical difficulty. Golden sunsets are easy in 
 
 omparison, as every painter knows. This picture has 
 
 ore than once been associated by critics with the mag- 
 
 ificent Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, which was painted 
 
 :en years earlier. Both are splendid in sky and water, 
 
 ind both are florid in color. Mr. Ruskin's opinion is that 
 
 the period of Turner's central power, " entirely developed 
 
 and entirely unabated, begins with the Ulysses and closes 
 
288 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 with the Timh'airey This decade had been a time of 
 immense industry for Turner. In that space he had 
 made more than four hundred drawings for the engraver, 
 had exhibited more than fifty pictures in the Royal 
 Academy, and had executed besides some thousands of 
 sketches, and probably many private commissions which 
 cannot easily be ascertained. It was the decade during 
 which he united a sufficient substance with poetry ; after 
 1839 he retained poetic power, but his works became 
 unsubstantial. 
 
 Mr. Thornbury, in his biography of Turner, informs us 
 that the subject of the Tem^raire was suggested to Turner 
 by Stanfield. 
 
 "In 1838 Turner was with Stanfield and a party of 
 brother -artists on one of those holiday excursions in 
 which he so delighted, probably to end with whitebait 
 and champagne at Greenwich. It was at these times 
 that Turner talked and joked his best, snatching now and 
 then a moment to print on his quick brain some tone of 
 sky, some gleam of water, some sprinkling light of oar, 
 some glancing sunshine cross-barring a sail. Suddenly 
 there moved down upon the artists' boat the grand ok 
 vessel that had been taken prisoner at the Nile and thai 
 led the van at Trafalgar. She loomed pale and ghostly 
 and was being towed to her last moorings at Deptford b\' 
 a little fiery, puny steam-tug. 
 
 '"There's a fine subject, Turner,' said Stanfield." 
 
 After the close of the Academy Exhibition of 1839, 
 Turner decided never to sell the Thn^raire. The picture 
 
The Bacchus and Ariadne. 
 
 289 
 
 was on what he called his two -hundred -guineas' size of 
 canvas, and an amateur would willingly have given more 
 than twice that sum, but Turner resolutely refused. He 
 probably intended the picture for the Turner-room in the 
 National Gallery, as soon as he perceived its relative 
 importance amongst his works. 
 
 Turner generally relied on his own resources even for 
 the arrangement of his figure groups, but in the circular 
 picture of Bacchus and Ariadne, which he exhibited in 
 1 840, he frankly borrowed the principal figures from the 
 noble picture by Titian. Little else need be said of the 
 work, which is defective both in drawing and composition. 
 The figures, though perhaps not quite so shapeless as 
 those entirely invented by Turner, are less easily excused 
 — perhaps because they remind us too directly of their 
 too magnificent prototypes, and the composition is unsat- 
 isfactory because so obviously artificial. 
 
 It is unnecessary to dwell upon failures of this descrip- 
 tion, but this instance arrests one's attention, because it 
 follows so immediately after the triumph of the T^miraire. 
 The painter had often done work in former years which 
 fell far below the level of his best, and this in a life of 
 such incessant industrial production was inevitable ; but 
 former failures had always been succeeded by splendid 
 ■•ecoveries of power, and were due far more frequently to 
 fen unlucky choice of intractable or uninteresting subject 
 than to weakness in the artist himself. Now, however, 
 at the age of sixty-four, the great painter really entered 
 upon the period of his decline ; a decline of which it may 
 be truly saic] that although it afforded ample opportuni- 
 19 
 
290 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 ties for the cruelties of criticism, it proved, far more than 
 the cautious advance of his early manhood, the essentially 
 pictorial quality of his mind. For what in his last years 
 did he retain, and what did the enfeebled hand surrender? 
 He retained color, reflection, mystery — the qualities 
 which only the most cultivated care for or apprehend : he 
 lost the firm grasp of objects, which is, I will not say the 
 infancy, but the early manhood of the pictorial art. The 
 aspects of things are of far more consequence to a painter 
 than the realities, and the more he works the less the 
 actual substance affects him. For an}'- one who under- 
 stands what painting is, how it deals with appearance and 
 not with substance, and how necessary, in order to paint, 
 well, it is to see the appearance and the appearance only,j 
 the later pictures of Turner are full of pathetic interest, 
 and are far indeed from being either ridiculous or con- 
 temptible. I do not pretend that they always render the 
 real appearances of nature, for they fall short of them in 
 many ways, but they always aim at the appearance and 
 never at the fact. Color and shade, light and reflection, 
 are the old painter's latest impressions and recollections 
 of that world of mystery and beauty in v/hich he had 
 worked incessantly for fifty years. His very earliest work 
 had been as matter-of-fact as possible; his latest is a 
 vision of phenomena scarcely more substantial than the 
 tail of a comet, the arch of a rainbow, or the crimson 
 gleaming of the aurora borealis. 
 
 Let it not be supposed that those works of Turner's 
 decline, however they may have exercised the wit of 
 critics and excited the amusement of visitors to the exhi- 
 
The Snow-stonn. 
 
 291 
 
 bition, were ever anything less than serious performances 
 for him. The Snow-storm, for example (1842), afforded 
 the critics a precious opportunity for the exercise of their 
 art. They called it soapsuds and whitewash, the real sub- 
 ject being a steamer in a storm off a harbor-mouth making 
 signals and going by the lead. In this instance nothing 
 could be more serious than Turner's intention, which was 
 to render a storm as he had himself seen it one night when 
 the "Ariel" left Harwich. Like Joseph Vernet, who, when 
 in a tempest off the island of Sardinia, had had himself 
 fastened to the mast to watch the effects, Turner, on this 
 occasion, " got the sailors to lash him to the mast to observe 
 it,"* and remained in that position for four hours. He did 
 not expect to escape, but had a curious sort of conscientious 
 feeling that it was his duty to record his impression if he 
 survived. The picture, then, was serious in purpose, and 
 not an invention, but a recollection of real nature. Tur- 
 ner was much hurt by the soapsuds and whitewash 
 criticism. " He was passing the evening at my father's 
 house," says Mr. Ruskin, "on the day this criticism came 
 out ; and after dinner, sitting in his arm-chair, I heard 
 him muttering low to himself at intervals, ' Soapsuds and 
 whitewash ! ' again, and again, and again. At last I went 
 o him, asking ' why he minded what they said .-* ' Then 
 le burst out : ' Soapsuds and whitewash ! What would 
 they have } I wonder what they think the sea 's like .-' I 
 wish they'd been in it.'" 
 
 The Rev. W. Kingsley said that his mother, who had 
 3een in such a scene on the coast of Holland, was much 
 
 * His own words to the Rev. W. Kingsley. 
 
292 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 struck with the truth of the Snow-storm when she first 
 saw it in Turner's private gallery. I may bear witness to 
 it also, having often been in rough weather at sea, and, 
 on one occasion, in a real winter tempest, when the main- 
 topmast was carried away and the sea-water swilled down 
 into the engine-room, as nearly as possible extinguishing 
 the fires. Being interested in art, and proof against sea- 
 sickness, I have always employed such times in diligent 
 observation of natural phenomena, and can say with truth 
 that Turner's Snow-storm has always interested and never 
 offended me ; and that although it is not possible to 
 imitate such phenomena as a Dutch painter would imitate 
 a bucket of water, still, if not imitated, they are fairly and 
 intelligently interpreted in the picture, however absurd it 
 may appear to those who have no experience of the fury 
 of nature or the difficulty of art. It may be answered that 
 a painter has no right to attempt such impossible sub- 
 jects ; but who are we, to define and limit his right to 
 paint .'' Effects which cannot be imitated may still, as in 
 this instance, be interpreted ; and a little knowledge, a 
 little indulgence of goodwill on our part, a little help from 
 our own memory and imagination, will complete what the 
 artist of necessity left imperfect, and make us feel with 
 him the grisly wildness of grim winter on the sea. 
 
 Another important sea picture of Turner's latter years 
 was the Slave-Ship, exhibited in 1840, with the following 
 title in the Academy Catalogue : 
 
 " Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and Dying 
 
 Typh 
 
 oon comms: on. 
 
The Slave- Ship. ' 293 
 
 " Aloft all hands, strike the topmasts and belay ; 
 Yon angry setting sun and fierce-edge clouds 
 Declare the Typhoon's coming. 
 Before it sweeps your decks, throw overboard 
 The dead and dying — ne'er heed their chains. 
 Hope, Hope, fallacious Hope ! 
 Where is thy market now ? " — MS. Fallacies of Hope. 
 
 This picture became the property of Mr. Riiskin, who 
 ivrote a fine description of the sea as Turner here repre- 
 sented it, and referred to the picture eleven times in 
 ' Modern Painters." He afterwards sold it, and it went 
 to America. After being exhibited in New York in 1876, 
 ivhere it "failed to make the impression expected,"* it 
 went to Boston, where it created a great sensation and 
 stirred up an eager and vehement controversy. A Boston 
 correspondent was so kind as to send me some of the 
 long letters published during this period of active hostili- 
 ties, which proved that our American cousins can take a 
 very lively interest in artistic matters. The following 
 Dpinion, expressed by an intelligent and accomplished 
 American artist, Mr. George Inness, is interesting for its 
 frankness : 
 
 "Turner's Slave -Ship is the most infernal piece of 
 clap-trap ever painted. There is nothing in it. It has as 
 nuch to do with human affections and thought as a ghost, 
 't is not even a fine bouquet of color. The color is harsh, 
 iisagreeable, and discordant." 
 
 This is severe, and I think its severity is partly due to 
 reaction against Mr. Ruskin's eloquent praises. On the 
 
 * This phrase is quoted from " Harper's New Monthly Magazine." 
 
 —-^namsa^aim 
 
294 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Tttrner. 
 
 other hand, I have observed that some Americans seem 
 to think it a sort of duty to admire Turner, and to be- 
 come enthusiastic about even his least important works. 
 May I venture to observe, both to American and English 
 readers, that nobody is under any obligation to admire 
 either the late or the early works of Turner, that they 
 are as much open to criticism as those of any other 
 artist, and that the best way to judge them fairly is to 
 look at them as if they had never been either praised or 
 censured. The warm controversy at Boston about the 
 Slave-Ship was caused by a feeling of rebellion in some 
 minds, too independent to accept dictation from an 
 English critic, whilst others defended the picture as the 
 work of a man of genius who had been roughly treated 
 by the press. An antagonism of this description is good 
 for the fame of an artist, because it makes everybody 
 talk about him, but truth disengages itself only when the 
 noise has ceased and the smoke of the battle has passed 
 away. It is not of the least use to argue about color. 
 From Mr. Ruskin the color of the Slave-Ship calls forth 
 no harsher criticism than that he thinks " the two blue 
 and white stripes on the drifting flag of the Slave-Ship 
 in the least degree too purely cold," and he elsewhere 
 expressly approves of its strongest passages. It is one 
 of those compositions in which Turner used the most 
 brilliant of all his pigments. A lurid splendor was his 
 purpose, and he hesitated at nothing for its attainment. 
 It is hardly possible for any painter to deal with ver- 
 milion and lemon -yellow, in any quantity, without falling 
 into some degree of crudity. If you compare even the 
 
 '■^ a 1» S Mi iW lb 
 
Latter Years of Turner. 
 
 295 
 
 Tanh'aire with the rich deep harmonies of Titian and 
 Giorgione, you will feel it to be relatively crude. But are 
 fiery sunsets never to be painted ? 
 
 Form may be argued about more positively. The 
 wave forms in the Slaver are original, but they are, I 
 believe, carefully observed. The comparatively flat or 
 simply swelling space between the rides of broken sea I 
 have often seen in nature, and the sudden leaping of the 
 spray is no doubt also a reminiscence. The introduction 
 of the sharks, manacles, and human hand and leg, was 
 artistically awkward to manage, and is so horrible that 
 the mind revolts from these details. The thoroughness 
 of study in the sky may be judged of by the rain-cloud 
 engraved from it by Mr. Armytage, under the title The 
 Locks of Typhon* Our sense of the delicacy of this piece 
 of w^ork may be heightened by the exquisiteness of the 
 engraver's performance, but the painter must have worked 
 delicately also. 
 
 The personal history of Turner during the latter years 
 of his life is almost entirely devoid of interest. He lived 
 exclusively for his art, unless we except his friendships ; 
 but even these, though warm, were not the occupation of 
 every day, like his painting. He seems to have been 
 glad to meet his friends occasionally, but not to have been 
 dependent upon social intercourse as a daily necessity. 
 The loss of Chantrey was a bitter grief to Turner. He 
 had a fraternal and playful affection for " that fat fellow " 
 as he called him, and the sculptor's sudden death in 
 November, 1841, left a great void in Turner's existence. 
 
 * Published in the fourth volume of " Modern Painters." 
 
296 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 It is said that when Chan trey lay dead his friend called 
 to pay him a last visit, and finding Jones the Academician 
 (whom he also loved) in the chamber of death, wrung his 
 hand in silence and marched out of the house. The 
 shock occasioned by this event probably did Turner harm, 
 by putting him into low spirits, and predisposing him to 
 morbid influences. He was very ill in the spring of 1842, 
 and was shaken by his illness, and had afterwards to 
 live by rule. 
 
 The death of Wilkie had evidently impressed him also, 
 for in 1842 he exhibited a picture, entitled Peace — Burial 
 at Sea, now in the National Collection, to commemorate 
 Wilkie's funeral, which had taken place in June, 1841, off 
 Gibraltar, but at a distance from the shore. This picture 
 was etched for the Portfolio by M. Brunet-Debaines.* 
 It is square in shape, but in an octagon frame. Mr. 
 Wornum tells an anecdote about Stanfield, who visited 
 Turner's studio whilst the picture was on the easel, and 
 rather complained about the blackness of the sails ; to 
 which the painter answered, " If there was anything to 
 be had in nature blacker than that I 'd use it." There 
 can be no doubt of the substantial truth of the anecdote, 
 but I remember (and made a note of it at the time) that 
 Mr. Leslie told it me, with a slight difference, in Turner's 
 Gallery in Queen Anne Street. He said that Stanfield's 
 criticism was made in the Academy on a varnishing-day. 
 " You 're painting the sails very black," said Stanfield, 
 and Turner answered, " If I could find anything blacker 
 than black I 'd use it." My impression is that this little 
 
 * This etching was published in that periodical for February, 1874. 
 
Pictures of 1842. 
 
 297 
 
 colloquy was heard by Mr. Leslie himself. He was much 
 impressed by Turner's remark, as indicative of his sorrow 
 for Wilkie, and his determination to put the picture as 
 much as possible in mourning. 
 
 In the same year (1842) Turner exhibited his Napo- 
 leon at St. Helena under the title, War — the Exile and 
 the Rock Limpet. Napoleon is contemplating a limpet, 
 and supposed to be pronouncing the following lines from 
 the " Fallacies of Hope : " 
 
 " Ah ! thy tent-formed shell is like 
 A soldier's mighty bivouac, alone 
 Amidst a sea of blood .... 
 . . . but you can join your comrades." 
 
 This suggested to Punch, " The Duke of Wellington 
 and the Shrimp (Seringapatam — Early Morning), " with 
 the supposed quotation : 
 
 " And can it be, thou hideous imp 
 That life is, ah ! how brief, and glory but a shrimp ! " 
 
 During these latter years of Turner's career as a 
 painter, the wits amused themselves rather freely at his 
 expense. It is said that he was acutely sensitive to these 
 attacks, which is to be regretted, but I do not think the 
 writers in Punch deserve any serious blame for the way 
 in which it pleased them to exercise their talents. They 
 laughed at Turner, it is true, but they laughed good- 
 humoredly, and without malice. It is quite undeniable 
 that there is a ludicrous side to some aspects of Turner's 
 art, if you choose to see it ; and although no critic with 
 good feeling would laugh at an old painter's work if he 
 knew that the jokes really wounded him, ridicule is 
 
298 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 generally a permissible weapon in art-criticism. Though 
 Turner could joke with his friends, he resembled Milton 
 in his lack of that keen sense of the ridiculous which 
 saves from so many errors. It is hard to say why 
 Napoleon, looking at a rock -limpet, should make us 
 laugh, but there is a difficulty about taking Turner's 
 picture seriously. Another odd instance of the mistakes 
 he sometimes made in dealing with the outer world was 
 the picture of the Bavarian Walhalla, and what he did 
 with it. The King of Bavaria had erected a building by 
 the Danube, in the Doric style of architecture, to contain 
 busts of eminent Germans. This temple of fame was 
 opened in 1842, and Turner seems to have been im- 
 pressed by what seemed to him King Ludwig's happy 
 idea, so, by way of rewarding that sovereign, he painted 
 a picture of the scene, packed it up in a case, and sent it 
 to His Majesty as a free gift. The King, on receiving 
 the picture, did not at all know what to make of it, and 
 probably thought the painter was mad, or making game 
 of him, so he ungratefully ordered it to be packed up 
 again immediately, and sent back to the artist. Turner 
 was never patronised by royalty, and this was the only 
 occasion on which he himself attempted to patronise 
 royalty. I need hardly observe that nobody with any 
 talent for guessing the probable condition of another 
 man's mind would have committed such a mistake as 
 that. Considering what an outrage against topography 
 and local truth the picture is, the King of Bavaria was 
 the very last sovereign in the world to whom it could 
 prudently be offered. It was inevitable that he should 
 
Tendency to the Formless. 
 
 299 
 
 judge the work by its resemblance to a place which he 
 knew intihiately, and which the painter had never seen. 
 As for the artistic charms of the Turnerian imagination, 
 nobody but the initiated could be expected to appreciate 
 them. This is but one instance the more of the great 
 truth that imaginative artists ought not to deal with 
 places that are too real. 
 
 The titles of Turner's later pictures are sometimes in 
 themselves a clear indication of the direction of his 
 artistic thinking. For example, in the year when he 
 exhibited the WalJialla there were two other pictures by 
 him, entitled Shade and Darkness and Light and Color. 
 It is evident from these titles that the painter's attention 
 was much more occupied by light and shade and color 
 than by the subjects of the pictures. This is what I 
 have already remarked elsewhere with reference to the 
 condition of Turner's mind in its latter years. It 
 certainly lost its hold of substance, of objects, but it 
 retained its hold of the artistic qualities of nature. It no 
 longer valued form — or perhaps I ought to say that it 
 was no longer capable of dealing with natural form — 
 but color and light it valued and appreciated still.* 
 
 The tendency to paint the formless was manifested in 
 another of the later pictures. Rain, Steam, and Speed — 
 
 * The full titles of the pictures mentioned in the above paragraph were, 
 Shade and Darkness — The Evening of the Deluge, and, Light and Color 
 [Goethe's theory) — The Morning after the Delnge — Moses writing the Book of 
 Genesis. Turner's exegesis seems to be at fault here, as Moses did not 
 write the Book of Genesis on the morning after the Deluge. The titles of 
 these pictures were accompanied by quotations from the unpublished " Fal- 
 lacies of Hope." 
 
30O The Life of y. M. IV. Ttmier. 
 
 the Great Western Railway. The title sufficiently indi- 
 cates the intention of the artist, which was evidently to 
 give the idea of "Rain, Steam, and Speed," much more 
 than the portrait of a steam-engine or a view of the Great 
 Western Railway. A painter who tries to express mental 
 conceptions instead of copying matter always exposes 
 himself to harsh treatment from a large class of critics, 
 whose conception of art is realization, and who have no 
 indulgence for the art which does not realize. Here is a 
 specimen of this kind of criticism from an American book 
 with reference to this very picture : 
 
 "The bridges are mere ghosts of substance. Both 
 earth and water are equally destitute of quality. The 
 sky is far more solid than the stonework. It has no 
 luminosity whatever, but is actually falling to pieces 
 from its own weight of paint. Even the locomotive, 
 which should have the appearance of metal at least, is a 
 mere phantom. The ironwork, which naturally suggests 
 strength and opacity, is made of a thin glazing of black. 
 In short, the artist has reversed the first principles of 
 painting, leaving solids transparent, and making liquids 
 solid, and pitching all upon so high a key as to offend 
 the eye." 
 
 I do not for a moment doubt the perfect honesty of 
 this criticism, and it would be good criticism if it were 
 true that the purpose of art is the imitation of nature. 
 The plain truth is, that such things as locomotives and 
 railways are absolutely inadmissible in painting of a high 
 order except on condition of being sketched with what 
 
Dregs of Life. 
 
 301 
 
 looks like an appearance of carelessness or ignorance. 
 Turner's picture may offend some people by its scorn of 
 material truth, but it would have offended every real 
 judge of art far more if it had condescended to a slavish 
 imitation of rails and a locomotive. I do not make this 
 assertion as a mere guess or supposition. The experi- 
 ment has been tried — I have seen i't tried — by an 
 English painter of eminence, who is now a Royal Acade- 
 mician. At a time when English art was looking out in 
 various directions for new and unhackneyed material, this 
 painter thought he would try what could be made of the 
 railways, and very wisely, instead of trusting to the 
 opinion of others, he put the question practically, by 
 painting a locomotive from nature with as much care as 
 if it had been a horse. The result was an interesting 
 piece of handicraft, for a locomotive is a most difficult 
 thing to paint : but the experiment settled the question 
 for me ; it convinced me that the hard materialism of 
 mechanical things, by its incompatibility with sentiment, 
 is unsuitable for fine art, and of the two steam-engines I 
 infinitely prefer Turner's. I remember another case in 
 point. Daubigny the landscape-painter was a very clever 
 etcher, and yet, in one of his plates in the "Voyage en 
 Bateau," he represented a railway train with the most 
 careless inaccuracy. I can only say that his drawing was 
 good enough for such material ; it gave a notion of the 
 train's length and speed, and that was about enough. 
 
 It is unnecessary to say anything of the very latest of 
 Turner's pictures. All those exhibited after 1845 belong 
 not merely to a period of decline, but to a state of senile 
 
302 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Ttirncr. 
 
 decrepitude. It is, therefore, both a waste of time and 
 an offence against decency to criticise them with the 
 frankness which we rightly use in speaking of work done 
 in the maturity of the human faculties ; and as criticism 
 which is not frank can serve no useful purpose, it is better 
 to pass by these " dregs of life and lees of man " in mel- 
 ancholy and respectful silence. The titles of the very 
 latest pictures, those exhibited in 1850, have a certain 
 interest from their fidelity to classic subjects of the old- 
 fashioned kind, that belonged to the landscape art which 
 preceded Turner, and on which his own was founded. 
 We find him still, in 1850, thinking about ^Eneas, and 
 Dido, and Mercury, still quoting verses from the " Fal- 
 lacies of Hope," in which old Troy is mentioned. One 
 of the subjects is Mercury sent to admonish j^neas ; 
 another, yEneas relating his Story to Dido ; and a third, 
 The Departure of the Trojan Fleet. It is remarkable, too, 
 that with a melancholy dwelling on death natural to one 
 who felt his strength ebbing away from him. Turner 
 should have exhibited in that last year a picture entitled 
 The Visit to the Tomb. 
 
 During the latter years of Turner's life, the only event 
 which broke the monotony of his daily work appears to 
 have been an excursion on the Continent (probably in 
 1843), during which he made his last sketches of a place 
 very dear to him, the glorious lake of Lucerne. I can 
 only repeat, with reference to this excursion, what has 
 already been said about others ; namely, that the absence 
 of correspondence and diaries, and the solitude of the 
 traveller, leave us without material for any narrative. 
 
Disabled. 
 
 303 
 
 Turner recorded himself in his art, but in his art only, 
 and the sketches of a landscape-painter can preserve little 
 trace of the vicissitudes of his life. It would be simply a 
 waste of space to speculate on travels of which so little is 
 known to us, but we may better understand the peculiar 
 nature of Turner's life on the Continent by a contrast. 
 Think of Byron and Shelley in Switzerland and Italy, 
 always heightening their enjoyment of what they saw by 
 conversations with people who could understand them, 
 living with nature and humanity at the same time, writing 
 also their impressions in abundant letters addressed to 
 friends at a distance ; and then think of Turner, old and 
 solitary, going silently from lake to lake, from city to city, 
 ignorant of the languages of the countries in which he 
 sojourned, shunning his own countrymen when he met 
 them, writing hardly ever, and then so curtly that his 
 letters express no thoughts : and yet he, too, was a poet ; 
 a silent brother of those who wrote " Childe Harold," and 
 "Endymion," and "Alastor." 
 
 One of the pictures of his old age, exhibited in 1844, 
 under the title, Fishing Boats bringing a Disabled Ship 
 into Port Riiysdael, seems to foreshadow, like the Timi- 
 raire, that approaching condition of helplessness which 
 Turner looked forward to with a sad foreboding. The 
 evening of his life had begun, and was rapidly deepening 
 :owards the night. He kept up, however, pretty well 
 until the year 185 1, when he ceased to exhibit, and no 
 longer attended the meetings of the Royal Academicians, 
 which had formerly been greatly valued by him as an 
 opportunity for the kind of social intercourse most con- 
 
304 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 genial to his feelings. David Roberts wrote to him, and 
 begged to be allowed to see him, but got no answer to 
 his letter during the space of a fortnight, after which 
 Turner himself called on Roberts at his studio, and pro- 
 mised to call again whenever he came to town. The 
 following is the account of the interview given by David 
 Roberts himself : 
 
 " I tried to cheer him up, but he laid his hand upon 
 his heart and replied, ' No, no ; there is something here 
 which is all wrong.' As he stood by the table in my 
 painting-room, I could not help looking attentively at 
 him, peering in his face, for the small eye was brilliant 
 as that of a child, and unlike the glazed and ' lack-lustre 
 eye ' of age. This was my last look. The rest is soon 
 told. None of his friends had seen him for months ; 
 indeed I believe I was the last, together with his friend 
 George Jones, who I afterwards learned had that day 
 also called upon him." 
 
 A mucb stranger thing than Turner's absence from the 
 meetings of the Academicians was his absence from his 
 own home. His old housekeeper, Mrs. Danby, was in 
 painful anxiety about the place of his retreat, and dis- 
 covered it by accident. " One day," says Mr. Thornbury, 
 "as she was brushing an old coat of Turner's, in turning 
 out a pocket, she found and pounced on a letter directed 
 to him, and written by a friend who lived at Chelsea. 
 Mrs. Danby, it appears, came to the conclusion that 
 Turner himself was probably at Chelsea, and went there 
 to seek for him, in company with another infirm old 
 
Death. 
 
 305 
 
 woman. From inquiries in a place by the river-side, 
 where ginger-beer was sold, they came to the conclusion 
 that Turner was living in a certain small house close by, 
 ind informed a Mr. Harper whom she and Turner knew. 
 H[e went to the place and found the painter sinking. 
 This was on the i8th of December, 1851, and on the 
 following day Turner died." 
 
 It is said that he died with the sun of the winter morn- 
 ing shining upon his face. " The attendant drew up the 
 window-blind, and the morning sun shone on the dying 
 artist." We naturally seek for some poetic circumstance 
 o accompany the death of a poet, but this ray of morning 
 unlight is all we have in Turner's case. The history of 
 is last days has the kind of interest which is sought after 
 by novelists rather than that which inspires the most 
 touching verses of the poets. It is a subject for Dickens 
 rather than for the mournful singer of Adonais. 
 
 Turner, with that love of secrecy which had always 
 
 teen one of his characteristics, and which in later years 
 ad become a passion, had gone to hide himself in some 
 porner of London, where not one of his friends might find 
 im. He had discovered a small house at Chelsea kept 
 y a Mrs. Booth, and had settled there as a lodger, calling 
 imself Mr. Booth, and in the neighborhood he was 
 nown as "Admiral Booth," for the people really believed 
 im to he an impoverished old naval officer. All this is 
 jexcellent material of the kind that Dickens made use of. 
 The rich old man, the famous painter, leaves a home 
 where he could procure for himself all the comforts or 
 uxuries he cared for ; quits the society of his fellows, 
 20 
 
3o6 
 
 The Life of J. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 where his wealth and fame were acknowledged by every- 
 one ; hides his wealth under an appearance of decent 
 poverty ; conceals his celebrity under an unknown name ; 
 abandons even the affection of those who had some feel- 
 ings of attachment towards him, his old housekeeper, the 
 group of his old comrades and friends, and goes to await! 
 his end in a hired lodging, to be tended by a woman who 
 was a recent acquaintance, and in whose eyes his princi- 
 pal, perhaps his only merit, was his ability to pay his 
 expenses. What is the use of all the things for which 
 men weary their brains with toil if towards the close of life 
 they are to be cast aside as vanities ? What is the good 
 of troubling ourselves about wealth, and reputation, and 
 friendship, if a day is to come when we shall prefei 
 obscurity to fame, solitude to society, and simplicity to 
 splendor ? 
 
 " Seeing there be many things that increase vanity, 
 what is man the better ? " 
 
 " For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, 
 all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a 
 shadow?" 
 
 The temporary obscurity of the dying man was sue 
 ceeded by a full glare of publicity for the dead. He was 
 buried in St. Paul's Cathedral with some considerable 
 pomp and ceremony. Many famous painters and men 
 celebrated in other departments of the fine arts, some wh 
 loved art and encouraged it, and others who had felt foi 
 the great painter some personal affection with which th 
 fine arts had no concern, followed him to his last resting- 
 
Funeral at St. PauVs. 
 
 307 
 
 place. The hearse was preceded to the Cathedral by a 
 long procession of mourning-coaches and private carriages. 
 When the coffin was taken into the building the choris- 
 ters chanted the Dead March in " Saul," and the service 
 was read by Dean Milman. It appears from the con- 
 temporary account in the Times that a considerable 
 crowd was attracted outside by the ceremonial, and about 
 five hundred persons were present in the aisles and the 
 chapel. 
 
 It can matter little where the stiffened hand and the 
 sightless eyes of a dead landscape-painter may rest from 
 their pleasure and their toil. For some, who have loved 
 sylvan nature truly, it may be appropriate that the 
 " shadows of the silver birk," or of some other beautiful 
 or noble forest tree of their native land, should " sweep 
 the green that folds their grave ; " that light and shadow 
 should " ever wander " over it, that rain should make 
 music in the tree, and the woodbine and eglatere drip their 
 dews, and the brooding bee chaunt sweeter tones than 
 calumny. There are many humble nature-loving land- 
 scape-painters for whom such a grave would be most fit- 
 ting ; others should rest beneath the immemorial oaks of 
 Fontainebleau, or in the recesses 
 
 " Of the deep forest glades of Broceliande, 
 Through whose green boughs the golden sunshine creeps, 
 Where Merlin by the enchanted thorn-tree sleeps." 
 
 For Constable we feel that Hamstead Churchyard was 
 suitable, as he loved the place, but that a quiet church- 
 yard in his own Suffolk would have been more suitable 
 still. Gainsborough sleeps well in the little green at Kew, 
 
3o8 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Millet and Rousseau in a little village cemetery nearest to 
 their own humble Barbizon. Why should not Turner 
 have been laid in some place where Nature is beautiful, 
 and where he had studied lovingly — in that valley of the 
 Wharfe, for instance, which he could never revisit without 
 tears ? The answer to such suggestions is that he lies in 
 the place chosen by himself, the place most suitable to his 
 character, and in reality also to his preferences and pur- 
 suits. Of all painters known to us he was, if not the 
 most ambitious, certainly the one whose ambition was the 
 least concealed. To lie under the great Cathedral, by the 
 side of Reynolds, gratified his ambition more than to take 
 his rest in the prettiest churchyard in Yorkshire. Again, 
 he was only occasionally, and as it were by chance, a 
 rustic painter, London was his birth-place, the dome of 
 St. Paul's had been a familiar object to him from his 
 infancy, and he had drawn or painted cities from his 
 earliest youth. Even the very architecture of St. Paul's 
 is in harmony with the painter's classical taste and asso- 
 ciations. He drew Gothic architecture when he had to 
 deal with it as a matter of business in a view of some 
 English or French city, but whenever he had to invent 
 architecture for one of his composed pictures it was invari- 
 ably classical. 
 
 It is characteristic of Turner's care for his own fame 
 that he left by will a thousand pounds for a monument to 
 himself in St. Paul's. This monument has taken the form 
 of a statue by MacDowell, and it is therefore often be- 
 lieved that Turner decreed a statue to himself. There is, 
 however, a shade of distinction between the general pre- 
 
Turner s Care for His own Fame. 
 
 309 
 
 occupation about a monument and the definite ordering of 
 a statue, and it is probable that Turner, who had always 
 refused to allow his brother-artists to take his portrait, did 
 not foresee that a statue would be the consequence of his 
 bequest. I may observe, too, that the bequest itself im- 
 plies a curious mixture of modesty and its opposite. 
 Turner was always modest enough to feel strong doubts 
 about the care which others would have for his posthumous 
 fame. He seems to have thought, " If I don't take care 
 of my fame myself, by doing all I can to fortify it, nobody 
 else will do so, and it is likely to be extinguished." This 
 is rather a modest sentiment ; but then, on the other 
 hand, it was accompanied by this other feeling about him- 
 self, — "I am great enough to deserve to be remembered, 
 and will take good care that people shall remember me 
 whether they will or not." He had not the slightest trace 
 of that truest pride, that best dignity which scorns the 
 honor that is not freely given. He clung to fame as all 
 that would remain to him or of him after death, and 
 resolved so to bequeath his possessions in pictures and 
 money that they might perpetuate his memory amongst 
 men. Even the charitable project in aid of decayed 
 artists, by which the bulk of his fortune was to give com- 
 fort in their old age to his brethren who had been less 
 prosperous than himself — even this charitable project, 
 which in itself deserves nothing but gratitude and honor, 
 was tarnished by the donor's perpetual anxiety about the 
 preservation of his name. He expressly stipulated in his 
 will that the charity was to be called "Turner's Gift," as 
 if in needless apprehension that the trustees might forget 
 
310 
 
 The Life of J. M. ■ W. Turner. 
 
 to mention him in connection with it. He was equally 
 careful to stipulate that the pictures he bequeathed to the 
 nation were to be exhibited in rooms of their own, and 
 that these rooms were to be called " Turner's Gallery." 
 Again, instead of simply leaving money for a medal to be 
 given for the best landscape exhibited at the Academy 
 every two or three years, leaving the title of the medal to 
 be fixed by the Academicians, he takes care to settle be- 
 forehand that the medal shall be called " Turner's Medal. 
 Observe, too, the anxiety to ensure perpetuity to the gifts 
 which bear his name. They were not donations to be 
 once made and then forgotten. The National Gallery is 
 the most permanent exhibition in the country. Unless it 
 is burnt or sacked by Communards of a possible demo- 
 cratic future it will last with the civilization of England. 
 " Turner's Gallery " will thus be visited by unnumbered 
 generations. Again, the project of the charitable gift was 
 to endure as long as there were any artists to be helped 
 in their old age. Lastly, the medal is to be given as long 
 as landscapes are exhibited at the Academy. Who does 
 not see that the purpose of the triple scheme, like that of 
 the monument in St. Paul's, is to perpetuate the name of 
 Turner } 
 
 But there is another clause in the will, of which the 
 intention is equally plain, whilst the conception is more 
 audacious and original. After bequeathing to the Trus- 
 tees of the National Gallery the two pictures, Dido 
 building Carthage, and the picture formerly in the Tabley 
 Collection, the testator goes on to impose a certain con- 
 dition about the hanging of these works which is, I be- 
 
Rivalry with Claude. 
 
 311 
 
 lieve, without a parallel in the history of Art. " I direct 
 that the said pictures or paintings shall be hung, kept, 
 and placed, that is to say, always between the two 
 pictures painted by Claude, the Seaport and Mill." Thjs 
 was an error of judgment in many ways. To begin with, 
 it is always a mistake to suppose that two great artists 
 can be compared with anything like a satisfactory critical 
 result, for the simple reason that originality is an essential 
 part of greatness, and that two originalities are not proper 
 subjects of comparison. You may compare a strawberry 
 with another strawberry very reasonably, or a peach with 
 another peach, and give a prize to the one that had the 
 finer flavor, with little misgiving as to the justice of your 
 decision ; but the comparison of peach with strawberry 
 would inevitably be an unsatisfactory exercise of criti- 
 cism. Amongst painters you might well compare two 
 imitators of one artist, and decide which imitator had 
 mimicked the master most closely. For example, if 
 Turner and Calcott had set themselves the one object of 
 imitating Claude, it would be easy to decide which of the 
 two Englishmen had produced the cleverer pastiche, and 
 in such a case it would be a reasonable proceeding to 
 hang a Turner and a Calcott on each side of a Claude 
 which had been their model. Turner learned a great 
 deal, no doubt, from Claude, and to some extent he imi- 
 tated him in his early manhood, whilst he remembered 
 him through life ; the influence of Claude being still quite 
 distinctly visible even in such late works as Bay of Baice 
 and the Childe Harold. But the essential greatness of 
 Turner lies precisely in what is outside of Claude's range, 
 
 MHHMf 
 
312 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 and cannot he compared with him. It is like comparing 
 Byron with Pope. There are parts of Byron's works 
 which may be compared with Pope, and the influence of 
 Pope is visible in the clear, strong language that Byron 
 always preferred ; but you cannot really compare the two 
 men when they are not on common ground. Turner's 
 intention may, however, have been rather to invite com- 
 parison between particular work than to suggest a general 
 comparison between the two artists. In that case the 
 error of judgment is still more palpable. Claude's field 
 was a narrow one. Though he lived long, and covered 
 many canvases, he seems to have had but few artistic 
 ideas, and the very paucity of these enable him to realize 
 them with all the greater perfection. Turner was vast in 
 range and very unequal ; Claude, narrow in range, but 
 remarkably regular in the degree of his technical success. 
 Now, what Turner did was this : he, a man of wide range, 
 attempted to contend with a man of narrow range, on one 
 of the narrow man's own private specialities. He invited 
 a comparison between his seaport with classical architec- 
 ture called Dido building Carthage, and Claude's seaport 
 with classical architecture, known as the Embarkation of 
 the Queen of Sheba. The mistake of inviting such a com- 
 parison is visible almost at the first glance. The Claude 
 is light, fresh, full of atmosphere, and that lively, inspirit- 
 ing feeling which takes possession of us when a pleasant 
 breeze and transparent waves invite us to sail out upon 
 the sea ; the Turner is heavy, and though, in a certain 
 sense, imposing and magnificent, is entirely wanting in 
 freshness. As to the Tabley picture (The Sun Rising in 
 
Rivalry with Claude. 
 
 313 
 
 Mist), and Claude's Mill {The Marriage of Isaac and 
 Rebecca), the critic is embarrassed by the impossibility of 
 comparing two absolutely dissimilar works. The Turner 
 is a northern seascape, seen from the shore, near a jetty ; 
 British all through, from the men-of-war in the distance 
 to the fishermen on the sand ; the very atmosphere, which 
 the sun penetrates with difficulty, being foggy and British 
 also : the Claude (notwithstanding Isaac and Rebecca) is 
 in reality an extensive Italian landscape, in clear daylight, 
 with massive and graceful groups of trees. There is not 
 a. tree in the Turner, there is not a sail in the Claude. 
 Turner has painted fog, and Claude a clear atmosphere. 
 The sun is in Turner's picture, and it is out of Claude's. 
 So we have to compare sails with trees, and the sea with 
 in inland landscape, and the sun with a summer cloud, and 
 1 mill with a man-of-war. May the critics of future gene- 
 rations get much benefit by these comparisons ! 
 
 There is another aspect of this bequest which forces 
 itself upon our attention — its want of modesty. The 
 rank of a painter is not determined by his merit but by 
 lis fame, whatever may determine that. The fame of 
 Claude was, and is, prodigious. It is not enough to say 
 ;hat his fame in landscape is equal to that of Raphael in 
 igure-painting, because Raphael has great rivals in his 
 iepartment of art ; and Claude, as a painter of the beauty 
 md amenity of landscape, had a celebrity which until 
 |uite recently was considered to be absolutely above all 
 Dossibility of rivalry, and which is still so considered by 
 learly all the connoisseurs of continental Europe. The 
 ■eader will please to observe that I am speaking, not of 
 
 MM 
 
314 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turiier. 
 
 merit, which is a questionable and doubtful thing, but of 
 fame, which is an ascertainable thing. For two centuries 
 Claude's position has been considered unquestionable; 
 his name has been known to every human being who 
 tried to sketch a landscape, however humbly, as that of 
 the supreme sovereign of the art ; it has passed into all 
 literatures, so that every writer who spoke of landscape 
 beauty thought of him as he thought of Salvator in con- 
 nection with landscape sublimity. The fame of Claude 
 is, indeed, so closely associated with landscape throughout 
 Europe, that if you know anything whatever about art, \i 
 you have visited a gallery of any importance, or read the 
 shortest and most meagre history of painting, you are 
 sure to have heard of him as you are sure to have heard 
 of Raphael. Now suppose for one moment that some 
 contemporary Frenchman, some very able and clever man, 
 were to leave two figure-pictures to the Louvre on condi- 
 tion that they should be hung between two Raphaels, 
 what would all Europe say ? Simply that the Frenchman 
 was mad. And just so M. Viardot, in perfect good faith, 
 takes Turner's bequest as clear evidence of madness. 
 
 " One is still more surprised on seeing this historical 
 landscape of Turner placed between the two finest works 
 of the Lorrainer, the J/z7/ and the Queen of Sheba ; and 
 our surprise redoubles when we learn that the picture is 
 so placed by the order of Turner himself, who required 
 this position for his pictures as the express condition of 
 their entrance into the National Gallery. I will not seek 
 any other proof of the state of insanity in which he 
 ended his life. Everybody knows that pride is the most| 
 common cause of madness." 
 
Rivalry with Claude. 
 
 315 
 
 This is what comes of measuring yourself with a great 
 established celebrity ; your presumption is considered 
 evidence of insanity. It is certainly clear evidence of a 
 nental condition in which self-admiration had blinded 
 ,ts victim to the true proportions of things. Claude had 
 in incomparably magnificent European position ; Turner 
 aothing but a rising celebrity in his own country. Even 
 It the present day Turner's name has little weight on the 
 [Continent, where he is generally considered a more or 
 ess successful imitator of the old masters, who became 
 )riginal only when he lost his reason. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 Celebration by Mr. Ruskin. — Ruskin's " Modern Painters." — Mr. Ruskin's 
 literary powers. — Mr. Ruskin and the English public. — Mr. Ruskin not 
 the discoverer of Turner. — Criticism and art in words. — The love of ef- 
 fect. — Circumstances of Turner's death. — Mr. Ruskin's estimate of Tur- 
 ner. — Turner and Pre-Raphaelitism. — The criterion of truth. — Distinction 
 between nature and art. — Turner's position in art. — Mystery. — Turner's 
 color. — Turner's imagination. — Taste. — Resume. — Danger of Turner- 
 Worship. — Past and future of landscape painting. 
 
 T HAVE attempted to mark the distinction between 
 artistic rank, wliich is simply fame, and merit, whiich 
 depends upon faculty and labor. I reserve for a late page 
 an attempt to estimate the total value of Turner's work. 
 It has been considered part by part, as he produced it, in 
 the course of this biography. We have still to consider 
 broadly what he performed, and what he left' undone. 
 
 Before we come to that I have to repair an omission 
 which was made purposely, in order not to interrupt the 
 course of the narrative. I have observed on several 
 occasions, that in most things which related to his art 
 Turner was one of the most fortunate of men. Good 
 luck attended him — not always as a man, but almost 
 invariably as an artist — from his earliest youth to the 
 latest decade of his life. His father encouraged instead 
 
Celebration by Mr. R us kin. 
 
 317 
 
 of thwarting his genius in boyhood. The Exhibition 
 Rooms of the Royal Academy were open to him from 
 the age of fifteen ; at the age of twenty-five he was made 
 an Associate, and at twenty-seven a Royal Academician. 
 His fame was spread abroad by the most accomplished 
 group of engravers who ever interpreted a landscape- 
 painter. At a very early age he could earn enough to 
 permit him to devote half his time to art for art's sake, 
 in complete independence of the buyer, and before middle 
 life he was independent, if he chose, from January to 
 December. Even the misfortunes which happened to 
 the man were generally favorable to the development of 
 the artist. The failure of his marriage project drove him 
 to a laborious solitude, and left him that liberty of move- 
 ment which enabled him to ransack Europe for the 
 subjects most favorable to his genius and the advance- 
 ^ment of his fame. With all his success there was the 
 drawback that a frivolous public and a periodical press, 
 but little instructed in matters connected with the fine 
 arts, permitted themselves to make fun of his originalities. 
 Here, again, the annoyance was followed by a splendid 
 compensation. The sneers of a portion of the public, 
 and the sarcasms of the newspapers, brought a champion 
 into the field who worshipped Turner with a devotion such 
 as no other artist ever excited in his admirers, and who 
 expressed his feelings with an energy and an ability far 
 surpassing the powers of all previous writers upon Art. 
 
 Remember old Montaigne's definition of fame. "There 
 is the name and the thing : the name is a voice which 
 denotes and signifies the thing ; the name is no part of 
 
3i8 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 the thing, or of the substance ; 'tis a foreign piece joined 
 to the thing, and outside of it." 
 
 The thing in the case of an artist is the mass of his 
 actual production, the voice which denotes and signifies 
 the thing is the voice of the talkers and writers about 
 Art. 
 
 Every artist knows that there are qualities in his 
 work which would become famous, if only " the voice " 
 would be good enough to " denote and signify the thing." 
 The work is one thing, the fame another, as Montaigne 
 says, and outside of it. " The name is no part of the 
 thing, or of the substance." It follows that, after having 
 made the thing, the artistic product, the paintings, the 
 artist has done his part, and has to wait patiently for the 
 "voice " to "denote and signify the thing" to the world 
 at large. Some, like Franz Hals, have had to wait two 
 hundred years before the voice spoke audibly ; even the 
 Great Captain and King, William III., remained more 
 than a hundred and forty years in his grave, before 
 Macaulay's splendid eloquence made him shine with his 
 full lustre in the immortalising pages of history. Turner 
 found his Macaulay during his own lifetime. 
 
 Mr. John Ruskin was the only son of a wealthy London 
 wine merchant, who knew Turner, and had bought some 
 of his pictures. He had been educated privately and at 
 Oxford, and his education had included some instruction 
 in practical art, under Harding and Copley Fielding. 
 This simple statement might, however, very easily convey 
 a false impression, because many amateurs have studied 
 water-color under those masters, without acquiring any 
 
Ruskins " Modern Painters, 
 
 319 
 
 very deep insight into artistic matters. Mr. Ruskin had 
 a peculiar and very precocious talent of a practical kind, 
 consisting, not in the power of composing brilliant pic- 
 tures, but in the less ambitious accomplishment of mak- 
 ing very precise, delicate, and truthful studies. Armed 
 with this useful talent, and having naturally an intense 
 enjoyment of both nature and art, and the modern land- 
 scape-passion in all its energy, Mr. Ruskin travelled in 
 youth and early manhood, observing everything with a 
 keen and intelligent curiosity. He soon became familiar 
 with the principal classes of scenery which Turner had 
 represented, both in Great Britain and on the Continent, 
 and at least equally familiar with the works of Turner's 
 most famous predecessors, which are preserved in the 
 galleries of Europe. The general result of these com- 
 parisons and investigations may be briefly expressed in a 
 sentence. The young student and traveller became 
 profoundly convinced that Turner's work displayed an 
 unprecedented fulness of knowledge, whilst that of his 
 predecessors in landscape- painting was an effort of at 
 least relative ignorance and incapacity. 
 
 With this conviction, and a strong feeling of indignation 
 at the inadequate manner in which the periodicals of the 
 day treated the genius of Turner, Mr. Ruskin, at the age 
 of twenty-three or twenty-four, determined to take up the 
 pen in favor of his favorite artist, and to write, in the 
 form of a short pamphlet, a letter to the editor of a 
 Review, about what seemed to him the " shallow and false 
 criticisms" then current in the newspapers and magazines. 
 
 Before the letter to an editor had left the desk of the 
 
320 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 writer, it iiad expanded itself into a volume, and before 
 the writer had fully accomplished his purpose, the book 
 grew into a great work, in five volumes, accompanied 
 by various auxiliaries in the shape of pamphlets, lectures, 
 and other minor works. The great work was entitled 
 " Modern Painters," but the author's original intention 
 had been to call it "Turner and the Ancients," — much 
 more appropriately, as Turner is the only modern painter 
 spoken of at any length, his English contemporaries, 
 when spoken of at all, being dismissed in a sentence or a 
 paragraph, whilst the reader may seek in vain for any 
 account of modern continental art. The change of title 
 was suggested by the desire to obtain a more extensive 
 circulation. Many, it was thought, might like to hear 
 about modern painters, who cared little about Turner and 
 the ancients. 
 
 The book had really two main subjects. It was a 
 treatise on the aspects of natural landscape, and at the 
 same time a vigorous advocacy of Turner. The first and 
 second volumes were published during the painter's life- 
 time, and probably read by him. Notwithstanding the 
 intensity of his passion for fame, the enthusiasm of his 
 young admirer seemed excessive to Turner, who con- 
 stantly tried to prevent him from writing, from a belief 
 that such excessive praise must hurt the feelings of other 
 artists. The truth is that Turner, all through the book, 
 appears as the giant, and other modern painters, however 
 eminent their abilities, are put by his side occasionally, 
 to let us see his superior height and bulk, when compared 
 with ordinary humanity, after which they are unceremo- 
 
Mr. Riiskins Literary Poivers. 
 
 121 
 
 niously dismissed. I may add that Mr. Ruskin began by 
 [publishing his first volume anonymously, not because he 
 shrank from any responsibility, but on account of the 
 writer's youth, which, had it been known at first, would 
 iprobably have brought down upon him the contempt of 
 people who please themselves by assuming that age and 
 wisdom are identical. 
 
 Notwithstanding Turner's objection to being over- 
 tjraised, it was a most extraordinary piece of good fortune 
 lor him that Mr. Ruskin should have become his advocate. 
 No painter, since the world began, ever had such an 
 idvocate before, and there are excellent reasons for 
 Delieving (I will give some of them shortly) that no painter 
 vill ever have such an advocate in the future. 
 
 The reader, after this rather strong expression in Mr. 
 Ruskin's favor, may perhaps conclude that in my opinion 
 le is the best critic who ever was or will be. No, that is 
 not what I mean. Mr, Ruskin shows little of the critic's 
 "acuity, and is seldom in the really critical temper for any 
 ength of time together ; but he is a splendid artist in 
 ivords, and down to the present date he is the only artist 
 n words, of any conspicuous power, who has written 
 nuch, and with his best force, about painting. 
 
 My reasons for believing that in the future no painter 
 vill ever have such an advocate again, are founded upon 
 he natural movement (I do not say progress) of the 
 human mind. Without burning enthusiasm a Ruskin is 
 lot possible, and enthusiasm itself, in that degree, is pos- 
 lible only in the first freshness of national perception 
 Ibout art. Anything like extensive critical experience 
 
322 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 kills it. It is absolutely impossible, for example, that a 
 Ruskin should arise in France, because all artistic ques- 
 tions have lost their freshness there from too much dis- 
 cussion, and for the same reason it is now becoming 
 impossible that a second Ruskin should arise in London. 
 But there are other reasons why the appearance of such 
 a writer upon art could only occur at the time and in the 
 place when and where it actually did occur. The English 
 public was at that time admirably prepared by the great 
 authors of the earlier part of the century for the enjoy- 
 ment of first-rate literature, and being, at the same time 
 with all its faults, essentially the most modest, the mosi 
 patient, and the most teachable public in Europe, it was 
 quite ready to accept instruction on a subject like art 
 of which it felt that it knew much less than it did o 
 literature. Again, Mr. Ruskin appealed to the Englisl 
 love of truth. Previous writers upon art had dwel 
 much less on truth than on style, and on those artifice; 
 of arrangement which the ordinary Englishman feek 
 strongly inclined to depise as tricks of .trade, about whicl 
 no one but " the artist and his ape " need trouble himself 
 The appeal to the truth of nature would have been me 
 at once, in France, by the answer that art and natur 
 were two entirely different things, and that the artis 
 could at any time escape from the criterion of truth b^ 
 claiming the artistic license, by virtue of which he is 
 authorised to alter nature in compliance with the exi- 
 gencies of art. 
 
 The beginning of Mr. Ruskin's advocacy of Turner 
 depended upon himself, but the continuation of it de- 
 
Mr. Riiskin and the English Public . 
 
 323 
 
 pended on the public. Had the public turned a deaf 
 ear, the new teacher would have turned his attention 
 to other matters, and the first volume of " Modern 
 Painters " would have remained alone, a singular monu- 
 ment of a young man's energy and courage. The public, 
 lowever, listened so willingly, that the first volume, 
 Driginally published in 1843, reached its fifth edition in 
 [851, and the second, which first appeared in 1846, 
 ■cached its third edition in 185 1. An audience being 
 :hus assured, the writer had only to go on, and as he had 
 imple means at his disposal, with perfect freedom from 
 :ommercial or professional avocations, habits of steady 
 Industry, and the strongest possible interest in artistic 
 questions, he made it his business to learn and teach what 
 seemed to him the truth about art, and especially to place 
 he fame of Turner on what he considered a sound and 
 inshakable basis. 
 
 Nothing could have been more prudent in the begin- 
 ling of Mr. Ruskin's long battle on behalf of Turner than 
 he appeal to the English love of truth, a love which is 
 ilways strong in theory, though in practice it may be 
 emarked that our countrymen often prefer fiction to 
 ruth, and have even a strong tendency to the fictitious, 
 )y a certain necessity of their imagination.* Mr. Ruskin's 
 irst argument was of this kind : " You say Turner is not 
 rue to nature. I will first give you good evidence that 
 le is true ; that he is truer than Claude and Salvator and 
 aspar Poussin ever were ; and then at some future time 
 ire will talk about beauty and sublimity." This line of 
 
 * As in legal and constitutional fictions, social fictions, etc., etc 
 
324 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Ttirtter. 
 
 argument was addressed to a certain state of the publi 
 mind, and proved successful. Mr. Ruskin did not succee( 
 in proving that Turner was veracious, but he gave th 
 public some idea of the painter's enormous knowledge 
 If the public of those days, and the brilliant youn 
 Oxonian who addressed them, had really understood th 
 peculiar nature of poetic art, they would both have at 
 tached much less importance to truth, and his elaborat 
 investigation of the truth of nature would probably, i 
 undertaken at all, have been undertaken simply as ai 
 independent contribution to a new science, the science o 
 natural aspects, with very secondary reference to art 
 Poetic art is indeed strangely independent both of scienc 
 and of veracity, and plainly, in its own way, refuses to b 
 tested by science, and even by reason. It is indeed a 
 nearly as possible useless to apply these tests to ar 
 except for the critic's own personal education or amuse 
 ment, as the artist can always so easily escape from then: 
 He has only to say that he did the thing because th 
 picture seemed to require it, and there is an end 
 reasoning. This was forcibly and justly expressed b; 
 Henri Regnault in a letter from Rome. " If one were 
 to reason about painting, one would not dare to do an}^ 
 thing. If you choose to reason before the works of thg 
 masters, you will find many things which have no raison 
 d'etre, and which are where they are because they do well 
 there. Art should obey sentiment above all, and not fear 
 to set exactness and reason at defiance." Again, he said 
 with an admirable sense of what art really is : " Our law, 
 the law for us artists, is not good sense but fancy; and 
 
 
 
Mr. Ruskin aftd the English Public. 325 
 
 i something absurd does well, I see no reason why we 
 ihould decline to make use of it." 
 
 There are passages in Mr. Ruskin's works which seem 
 o imply that in his own opinion his writings revealed 
 Furner to the world, and these have been answered by 
 he clearest evidence (exceedingly easy to get together) 
 hat Turner was a famous and successful man long before 
 he publication of "Modern Painters." It may even be 
 hown, by a simple comparison of dates, that Turner had 
 een a Royal Academician about seventeen years when 
 dr. Ruskin was born, and no artist is ever elected to -that 
 ank unless he is highly esteemed by his brethren. Dayes 
 aid of Turner in 1804 (fifteen years before Mr. Ruskin's 
 irth) : " He has overcome all the difficulties of the art, 
 3 that the fine taste and color which his drawings pos- 
 2SS are scarcely to be found in any other, and are accom- 
 anied with a broad, firm chiaroscuro and a light and 
 egant touch." From this and several other opinions 
 hich I shall have to quote in reference to another sub- 
 let, it is abundantly evident that Mr. Ruskin was not the 
 iscoverer of Turner ; but at. the same time a certain 
 spect of the matter has to be taken into consideration 
 hich may partially explain and excuse his impression, 
 requested an artist who had known the state of the fine 
 rts in England for more than fifty years to tell me what 
 ; believed to be the exact truth about. Mr. Ruskin's 
 scovery of Turner, and his answer (as nearly as I can 
 imember) was in these words : " Turner's merits were 
 srfectly well known to artists and to a few amateurs 
 ing before the publication of * Modern Painters ; ' but in 
 
326 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 those days the general public never talked about him, 
 whereas since that book came out the general public 
 talks about him, and takes a sort of interest in his work," 
 
 I have said that Mr. Ruskin was less a critic than an 
 artist in words. This, again, was most fortunate for 
 Turner's fame. Real criticism is seldom attractive read- 
 ing. Poetry and eloquence transport and delight the 
 reader, criticism seldom does anything more than awaken 
 the critical spirit in the reader himself, and one of the 
 first uses that he generally makes of it is to question the 
 decisions of the writer who is trying to teach him. I asli 
 leave to establish this distinction more at length, because 
 it seems to me one of great importance in art-literature 
 
 An artist, then, be he poet, painter, orator, musician 
 or writer of enchanting prose, is a person who, consciousl} 
 or unconsciously, employs his mental gifts and labor ir 
 order to produce emotion by exciting interest and sym 
 pathy. He does this by using his own imagination t( 
 appeal to the imagination of another ; as, for example 
 when the novelist invents a situation, or the historiai 
 realizes past events as if he had actually witnessed them 
 The reader of the novel or history then follows the imagi 
 nation of the artist by a slighter and easier effort of his 
 own, and his pleasure consists precisely in this arousing 
 of his own imaginative faculty which gives him ne\M 
 emotions under a new stimulus. The distinguisl^ing 
 peculiarity of the artistic nature is that it does not hesi 
 tate to produce emotion by saying what is not true. 1 
 will give a single instance, just at present, by way ol 
 illustration. 
 
Criticism and Art in Words. 
 
 327 
 
 Leslie, in his autobiography, says that when he and 
 his daughters were at Brighton, Mr. Rogers took them 
 in his carriage to the Dyke. 
 
 "As we sat in his carriage looking over the vast 
 expanse of country below us, he pointed down to a 
 village that seemed all peace and beauty in the tranquil 
 sunset. ' Do you see,' he said, ' those three large tomb- 
 stones close to the tower of the church } My father, my 
 mother and my grandfather are buried there.' " 
 
 Leslie told me the anecdote himself, and imitated 
 Rogers' tone of voice, which was most pathetic. 
 
 Now the truth was that Rogers had not a single relative 
 in that churchyard, and the only foundation for what he 
 said, as he soon afterwards confessed, was that he would 
 have liked to be buried there himself. 
 
 Somebody, on hearing the story, exclaimed "What a 
 lying old rascal ! " Rogers was not precisely that. With- 
 out being a great poet he had much artistic feeling, and 
 for a moment he heightened the interest of the peaceful 
 churchyard by going beyond the truth, by leaving the 
 truth behind as insufficient for the degree of sympathy 
 and interest which he desired to produce in his hearers. 
 
 The critical spirit, on the contrary, so far from sacri- 
 ficing truth to feeling, is constantly sacrificing feeling to 
 truth. It does not precisely oppose itself to ideals or 
 deny the value of fiction, but it will have no confounding 
 of ideals with realities, of fiction with fact. Even at the 
 risk of disenchanting you it will plainly tell you where 
 the truth ends and the fiction begins; in history it 
 
328 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 accurately distinguishes between legend and the ascer- 
 tainable, in science between what can and what cannot 
 be experimentally verified, and in the fine arts the truly 
 critical spirit takes upon itself the important but little 
 appreciated office of showing what is due to the study of 
 nature, and what has its origin in the embellishments or 
 the errors of individual taste, ignorance, or imagination. 
 Now as the production of sympathy and interest is the 
 purpose of art, and the announcement of plain truth the 
 purpose of criticism, it follows that the artist in words, 
 the poet, the rhetorician, needs the utmost attainable 
 degree of literary craft and skill, whereas the critic needs 
 only precision in the use of language, simplicity, and 
 clearness. Pages adorned with the most moving elo 
 quence, the most extensive and various learning, the most 
 exquisite art in the arrangement of words, with a delicate 
 sense alike of their signification and their sound, 'ma\ 
 still be utterly worthless as criticism from the simple 
 omission of some fact or consideration which a real critic 
 would never have overlooked. And, on the other hand, 
 a wise judgment, the latest result of a life spent in honest 
 thought and laborious investigation, may be delivered in 
 a short sentence of the simplest, the baldest English, of 
 no more artistic value, as language, than the phrases used 
 in the most ordinary conversation. Nay, it may even be 
 less literary than that; it may be expressed in ungram- 
 matical language or in professional slang, and still be 
 excellent criticism of the very highest value.* 
 
 * Such phrases of critical advice as the following may be of inestimable . 
 value when rightly applied, " Don't let your drawing be too tight ; " " Don't I 
 be mappy ; " " Mind that your work carries across the room." * 
 
The Love of Effect. 
 
 329 
 
 Now the critical faculty in Mr. Ruskin may have been 
 naturally strong, but as the artist in him was incompar- 
 ably stronger, the critical faculty, or the judgment, has 
 been perpetually snubbed, silenced, and set aside by the 
 artist's need of effect. " English literature," wrote a 
 sober-minded foreign critic in 1861,* "is like a beautiful 
 woman who tries to hide the traces of age beneath the 
 artifices of the toilet. Writers have but one object, to 
 stimulate a dulled and deadened sense. Style and com- 
 position, everything betrays the necessity for striking 
 effects. The reader's mind is to be kept in a state of in- 
 cessant expectation and surprise. The study of effect 
 leads to pretension, and pretension to charlatanism. 
 Eccentricity has become a means of attracting book- 
 buyers. There is calculated artifice in the antitheses, so 
 knowingly balanced, of Macaulay ; we find it in the artis- 
 tic paradoxes of Ruskin, and in the jargon of Carlyle." 
 
 This is severe, and I should not have used so harsh a 
 term as charlatanism in speaking of these three eminent 
 writers ; but it is simply true that their works are the 
 works of powerful literary artists who like to stimulate 
 and astonish the reader and compel him to give them his 
 attention. Exactly the same may be said of the violent 
 language used by Victor Hugo, and of the calculated 
 brusqueness and crudity of Browning.f 
 
 * Edmond Scherer, in the Temps. 
 
 t Or of Madame de Stael's perpetual seeking for effect. " She was 
 always," said Byron, "aiming to be brilliant — to produce a sensation, no 
 matter how, when, or where. She wanted to make all her ideas, like 
 figures in the modern French school of painting, prominent and showy — 
 standing out of the canvas, each in a light of its own." 
 
330 
 
 TJie Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 If the reader is interested in seeing a great literary 
 artist at work for the purpose of producing a very strong 
 effect upon the public mind, let him follow me through 
 the next page or two. He knows already — we all know 
 — how kindly Turner was encouraged when a young 
 man, how well and how early he was received in the 
 Academy, and how he enjoyed the friendship and sym- 
 pathy of intelligent men such as Lord Egremont, Mr. 
 Rogers, and many others, at a time when he was in the 
 full enjoyment of his powers. Now it suited Mr. Ruskin's 
 artistic purpose — at the close of a lecture at Edinburgh, 
 which was to be very pathetic and awaken deep feeling in 
 the hearts of his audience — to say, in order to prepare 
 the people for the sad account of Turner's death, that he 
 had incurred neglect until late in life. Even this mild 
 assertion would have been untrue. The exact truth is, 
 that Turner was not neglected during life, but that in his 
 case, as in many other cases, the fame of the artist when 
 living was less splendid than it has since become. But 
 now observe how Mr. Ruskin "forces the note." He 
 does not simply say that Turner was comparatively 
 neglected ; that would not be enough, the audience would 
 feel no thrill. These are the words used : 
 
 " Imagine what it was for a man to live seventy years 
 in this hard world, with the kindest heart and the noblest 
 intellect of his time, and never to meet with a single word 
 or ray of sympathy until he felt himself sinking into his 
 grave. From the time he knew his true greatness all the 
 world was turned against him : he held his own, but it 
 could not be without roughness of bearing and hardening 
 
The Love of Effect. 
 
 331 
 
 of the temper, if not of the heart. No one understood him, 
 no one trusted him, and every one cried out against him. 
 Imagine, any of you, the effect upon your own minds, if 
 every voice that you heard from the human beings around 
 you were raised, year after year, through all your lives, 
 only in condemnation of your efforts and denial of your 
 success." 
 
 This passage is admirable as an appeal to the feelings. 
 It is the work of a consummate artist in words, and so 
 deeply pathetic, that if well delivered in the lecture-room 
 it must have touched the hearts of men and moistened the 
 eyes of women. I admit and admire its excellence, but I 
 say that whilst Mr. Ruskin was writing it and during the 
 whole space of time between the writing and the delivery 
 of the lecture, the critic in him must have been silenced 
 or asleep. 
 
 Many years before Turner died was there not a great 
 meeting at Somerset House, attended by Sir Robert Peel, 
 Lord Hardinge, and many others .-• and did not all these 
 gentlemen confer upon Turner the very exceptional and 
 very substantial compliment of subscribing five thousand 
 pounds to buy two pictures of his for the National Gallery.? 
 Did not Archdeacon Fisher, a good judge of landscape, 
 with considerable social influence, declare, so early as the 
 year 18 13, that in his opinion the Frost by Turner was the 
 best landscape in the Royal Academy Exhibition } Did 
 not Lockhart, a very influential Scotchman, express his 
 opinion publicly, a year or two later, that Turner was 
 simply the greatest of all living landscape-painters } Was 
 not Turner selected to illustrate the greatest contempo- 
 
332 
 
 The Life of y. M. VV. TtLvner. 
 
 rary poets ? and did not Scott (who died in 1832) say that 
 Turner was "all the fashion;" so much the fashion in- 
 deed, that, by sheer weight of reputation, he was imposed 
 on the great novelist against his will ? Did not Constable 
 write on the 14th of January, 1832 : " I remember most of 
 Turner's early works ; amongst them was one of singular 
 intricacy and beauty ; it was a canal with numerous boats, 
 making thousands of beautiful shapes, and I think the 
 most complete work of genius I ever saw " ? We know 
 how passionately Constable admired Claude, yet in the 
 very next sentence he calls one of Claude's pictures 
 "grand and solemn, diit cold, dull, and heavy." Had Mr. 
 Ruskin listened to critical suggestions like these, he would 
 have had either to suppress a capital passage (always 
 most painful to the author), or else weaken it to such a 
 degree that all its influence would have been lost. The 
 greatest objection to Mr. Ruskin's system of teaching lies 
 in this nutshell. The artist, in him, is so powerful as to 
 act independently of the critical faculty, whether the criti- 
 cal faculty be in itself positively strong 6r feeble. Such 
 a condition of mind is often highly favorable to the pro- 
 duction of painting or poetry, the function of those arts 
 being not to preach truth, but to produce emotion. In 
 critical writing the case is altered. Here it is not emo- 
 tional influence that is needed, but a judgment so 
 masterful that it steadily restrains the pen, and a love of 
 truth so watchful that it refuses the aids of exaggeration. 
 It is not my intention to enter into an examination of 
 Mr. Ruskin's teaching generally. Such an inquiry would 
 of itself occupy a volume, and it would lead us away from 
 
Ciracmstances of Tiinier s Death. 
 
 333 
 
 our present subject — the life and genius of Turner. But 
 it is quite within my province to examine a few of Mr. 
 Ruskin's statements about Turner himself, and about the 
 arts which he practised, or which have been used for the 
 dissemination of his works. I have begun with the state- 
 ment that Turner never met with a single word or ray of 
 sympathy until he felt himself sinking into his grave ; 
 that no one trusted him ; that no one understood him. 
 All this was intended to prepare Mr. Ruskin's hearers for 
 a most touching and pathetic account of Turner's death. 
 
 " He received no consolation in his last years, nor in 
 his death. Cut off in great part from all society — first 
 by labor, and at last by sickness — hunted to the grave by 
 the malignities of small critics, and the jealousies of hope- 
 less rivalry — he died in the house of a stranger — one 
 companion of his life, and one only, staying with him to 
 the last." See with what admirable art the idea of deso- 
 lation is here conveyed, and what a sad ending it is ! how 
 solitary ! how bereft of human sympathy and kindness ! 
 He dies in the house of a stranger — one companion, and 
 one only, stays with him to the last. He receives no con- 
 solation. It is a perfect picture ; the scene is admirably 
 described in a few pathetic words ; the emotion intended 
 to be excited very probably was excited. But is the 
 picture true "i No, the appeal to the feelings is founded 
 upon a fiction. Turner was not abandoned by his friends 
 — it was he who abandoned them. Many of the Royal 
 Academicians were anxious about him, and, besides the 
 members of his own profession, there were numbers of 
 other people in London who would have been delighted 
 
334 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 to render him a service. In spite of his habitual in- 
 civihty in not answering letters, he was constantly receiv- 
 ing invitations. He had a morbid fancy for hiding 
 himself, and would not let anybody know where he really 
 lived. It is true that he died in the house of a stranger, 
 but he did so by the capricious exercise of his own free 
 will. There can be no necessity for a man to die in the 
 house of a stranger in the very city where he possesses an 
 excellent mansion of his own, with money enough to live 
 there in the most perfect comfort, and even luxury. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin's pathetic appeals to our commiseration on 
 behalf of Turner have produced some effect on other 
 writers, and may ultimately create a fabulous legend, like 
 the French legend about Napoleon's poverty at St. 
 Helena. Mr. Thornbury says, "he left the nation that 
 neglected him ;!^i40,ooo." If the nation neglected him 
 where did he get the money .'' In the very next sentence 
 Mr. Thornbury says that he was not unaccustomed to the 
 society of men of wealth and rank. Good evidence, again, 
 that he was not neglected. 
 
 The same tendency to excessive statement which we 
 have noticed in Mr. Ruskin's description of Turner's 
 melancholy isolation, will be found in his account of 
 Turner's performance as an artist. The simple truth is 
 wonderful enough, but the desire to produce a strong 
 effect upon the reader's mind has generally carried the 
 author of " Modern Painters " far beyond its boundaries. 
 
 "J. M. W. Turner is the only man who was ever given 
 an entire transcript of the whole system of nature, and is, 
 
Mr. Ruskins Estimate of Turner, 
 
 335 
 
 in this point of view, the only perfect landscape-painter 
 whom the world has ever seen." 
 
 An entire transcript of the whole system of nature ! 
 The system of nature is infinite ; man's time and strength 
 in tttis world are finite. It is not possible for finite man 
 to transcribe infinite nature entirely. The great army 
 of all the artists who have ever lived have still left plenty 
 of fresh material in nature for their successors. But it is 
 quite unnecessary for me to answer the author of " Modern 
 Painters," since the author on " Notes on some of the 
 Principal Pictures exhibited in the Rooms of the Royal 
 Academy " answered him so effectually in the year 1858, 
 
 " Nobody has ever painted heather yet, nor a rock 
 spotted richly with mosses ; nor gentians, nor Alpine 
 roses, nor white oxalis in the woods, nor anemone nemo- 
 rosa, nor even so much as the first springing leaves of 
 any tree in their pale, dispersed, delicate sharpness of 
 shape. Everything has to be done yet y 
 
 I may be told that this referred specially to the Pre- 
 Raphaelite method ; that what the writer intended to say 
 was, that no artist had painted these things with the 
 minute skill and attention of the Pre-Raphaelites, and 
 that the sentence bore no reference to Turner's transcript 
 of nature which was altogether different. Such an ob- 
 jection falls to the ground at once before Mr. Ruskin's 
 declaration that Turner was himself a Pre-Raphaelite. 
 
 But this is not all. It is evident from some preceding 
 lines of the same note, that in the year 1858 Mr. Ruskin 
 
336 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 considered even Turner's transcript of natural effects as 
 insufficient, since he was looking forward to a more satis- 
 factory rendering of the transcience of nature by hands 
 trained in thorough Pre-Raphaelite study. After speaking 
 of familiar and homely foreground subjects, he continued 
 as follows : 
 
 " But what shall we say when the power of painting, 
 which makes even these so interesting, begins to exert 
 itself, with the aid of imagination and memory, on the 
 splendid transcience of nature, and her noblest continu- 
 ance ; when we have the courses of heaven's golden 
 clouds instead of squares of blue through cottage case- 
 ments ; and the fair river mists, and mountain shrouds 
 of vapor instead of cottage smoke; — pine forests as well 
 as banks of grass, and fallen precipices instead of heaps 
 of flints. All this is yet to come ; nay, even the best of 
 the quiet, accessible, simple gifts of nature are yet to 
 come. " 
 
 We will recur, a little later, to the dogma that Turner 
 was a Pre-Raphaelite; for the present it is enough to 
 note that although a Pre-Raphaelite, and the very head 
 of Pre-Raphaelitism, he had left so much both of fore- 
 ground detail and distant effect entirely unrecorded. * 
 
 Whatever Turner may have left undone, the author of 
 " Modern Painters " expressed unbounded faith in all that 
 Turner actually did. 
 
 " In all that he says, we believe ; in all that he does, we 
 trust. It is therefore that we pray him to utter nothing 
 
Mr. Ruskins Estimate of Turner. 
 
 337 
 
 lightly, to do nothing regardlessly. He stands upon an 
 eminence from which he looks back over the universe of 
 God and forward over the generations of men. Let 
 every work of his hand be a history of the one, and a 
 lesson to the other. Let each exertion of his mighty 
 mind be both hymn and prophecy ; adoration to the 
 Deity, revelation to mankind." 
 
 This is simply the artistic exaggeration of a teacher 
 who, to make others believe, professes a much more fer- 
 vent faith than that which is fundamentally his own. 
 Even when Mr. Ruskin wrote the first volume of "Modern 
 Painters " in the ardor of early manhood, he was not, in 
 other moods, an absolute believer in Turner's infallibility. 
 We know this by the following plain-spoken criticism of 
 some of Turner's most important works. 
 
 " The Caligula s Bridge, Temple of yupiter, Departure 
 of Regulus, Ancient Italy, Cicero s Villa, and such others, 
 come they from whose hand they may, I class under the 
 general head of "nonsense pictures." There never can 
 be any ■wholesome feeling developed in these preposterous 
 accumulations, and where the artist's feeling fails, his art 
 follows ; so that the worst possible examples of Turner's 
 color are found in pictures of this class. Neither in his 
 actual views of Italy has Turner ever caught her true 
 spirit, except in the little vignettes to Rogers' poem. 
 The Villa of Galileo, the nameless composition with 
 stone-pines, the several villa moonlights, and the convent 
 compositions in the Voyage of Cohimbus, are altogether 
 exquisite; but this is owing chiefly to their simplicity, 
 and perhaps, in some measure, to their smallness of size. 
 
338 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 None of his large pictures at all equal them ; the Bay of 
 Baice is encumbered with material, it cofttaijis ten times as 
 much as is necessary to a good picture, and yet is so crude 
 in color as to look tmfinished. The Palestrina is full of raw 
 white, and has a look of Hampton Court about its long 
 avenue ; the Modern Italy is purely English in its near 
 foliage ; it is composed from Tivoli material, enriched and 
 arranged most dexterously, but it has not the virtue of the 
 real thing." 
 
 Notwithstanding these criticisms, the rank assigned by 
 Mr, Ruskin to Turner jvas that of the greatest painter of 
 all time. 
 
 " We have had, living with us, and painting for us, the 
 greatest painter of all time ; a man with whose supremacy 
 of power no intellect of past ages can be put in compar- 
 ison for a moment." 
 
 The reader will observe that Turner's supremacy is not 
 restricted to landscape, his own department of art. He 
 is not the greatest landscape-painter, but the greatest 
 painter. 
 
 Was he indeed really the Prince of painters, or is this 
 only an artistic exaggeration intended to awaken the 
 reader to a sense of the simple truth by asking him to 
 believe much more .■• 
 
 It is now time to discuss briefly Mr. Ruskin's affirma- 
 tion that Turner was the true head of Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
 The difficulty in arguing about this lies in the prudent 
 care with which the leaders of the Pre-Raphaelites always 
 
Tiiriier and Pre-Raphaelitism. 
 
 339 
 
 avoided any definition of their doctrines. They very 
 properly confined themselves to their own business of 
 painting, and left the talking to their friends and enemies 
 in the press. Pictures, however, speak in their own way, 
 and the real Pre-Raphaelite pictures, those painted when 
 the sect was still a power and attracting public attention, 
 were as different from Turner's work as it is possible for 
 one kind of art to be from its opposite. It may be worth 
 while to note the principal points of difference, because 
 they will help us to understand still more clearly the 
 peculiarities of Turner's system. 
 
 The Pre-Raphaelite pictures were full of details pain- 
 fully studied from nature, on the principle, apparently, of 
 the most minutely accurate portraiture. Mr. Ruskin 
 himself confirmed this by saying that the one principle 
 of Pre-Raphaelitism was absolute, uncompromising truth, 
 " obtained by working everything, down to the most 
 minute detail, from nature, and from nature only." He 
 said that every Pre-Raphaelite landscape background was 
 painted to the last touch in the open air from the thing 
 itself, and that every minute accessory was painted in the 
 same manner. 
 
 We may assume, then, that accurate portaiture of 
 objects was a leading Pre-Raphaelite principle. But 
 Turner's principle was to avoid accurate portraiture. I 
 might • insist upon the difference of practice between 
 artists who always worked from nature and a painter who 
 never took a picture into the open air, but that is not the 
 essential point. A man might paint from memory, if his 
 memory were excellent, so as to make his work look as if 
 
340 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 it had been done from nature. He might report nature 
 as Woodfall reported the debates in the House of Com- 
 mons before shorthand writers took them down on the 
 spot. Turner did nothing of the kind. His paintings 
 are not reports, but works of fiction. He would not even 
 condescend to make an accurate portrait of so large an 
 object as a Highland mountain, nor of so interesting an 
 object as a feudal castle ; still less would he devote atten- 
 tion to truth of portraiture in matters of minor detail. 
 The popular impression is not always right, but it was 
 right in feeling the vastness of the difference between 
 Turnerian and Pre-Raphaelite work. There is nothing 
 naif in Turner's work; it is consummately artificial, full 
 of all the craft and subtlety of the ripest art, in which 
 truth is constantly sacrificed to beauty a.nd detail to gen- 
 eral effect. The Pre-Raphaelites rejected the subtlety 
 and cunning of the artist's craft to go back to the truth 
 of nature. How far they succeeded in this enterprise we 
 have not to consider, but we may close the subject by 
 remarking that there zs a Pre-Raphaelite landscape in the 
 National Gallery, the yerusalem of Thomas Seddon. 
 Future generations may conveniently compare that with 
 Turner's work, and see the difference. The Pre-Raphael- 
 ite landscape is all clear, measurable, ascertainable fact ; 
 it is full of the most resolute object study, every object a 
 distinct and separate motive for the artist's effort. He 
 paints tree by tree, hillock by hillock, house by house, 
 and in the foreground sheep by sheep and goat by goat. 
 He paints the man in the corner exactly as he would have 
 painted him if there had been no landscape, and the 
 
Turner and Pre-Raphaelitistn. 
 
 341 
 
 landscape as if there had been no figure. You may 
 remove an object from any part of the work, and the loss 
 will not be felt ; the bits of study are as independent of 
 each other as the short paragraphs of general intelligence 
 in a newspaper. It is, in short, a kind of map, drawn 
 and colored with the most pains-taking accuracy, and, no 
 doubt, quite closely resembling the unlovely but interest- 
 ing reality. Precious work oi its kind, and work which 
 we may be thankful for, but divided from that of Turner 
 by a gulf as impassable as the abyss between the earth 
 and the sun. The Pre-Raphaelite landscape is full of 
 truthful object portraiture; hundreds of different objects 
 are portrayed side by side as accurately as the artist 
 could achieve it by the closest observation on the spot ; 
 in the Turnerian landscapes you cannot find a single 
 accurate portrait of any hill, or tree, or building under 
 heaven. In Seddon's work there is no composition ; in 
 Turner's all the material is arranged in clusters and 
 groups, which again in their turn are grouped together 
 into a pictorial whole. The Pre-Raphaelite works entirely 
 from observation, Turner always from more or less suc- 
 cessful invention. Seddon does nothing but analyse, 
 Turner synthetises always, in the smallest of his vignettes 
 as in the largest pictures in his gallery. 
 
 It would have been pleasant and satisfactory, had it 
 been possible, to place art criticism on so positive and 
 secure a foundation as that of truth, for the truth of 
 nature is really, in most things, ascertainable by the kind 
 of labor which Mr. Ruskin so courageously bestowed on 
 mountains and vegetation. We should then have had a 
 
342 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 criterion, and there would have been some possibility that 
 the fame of dead artists, and the incomes of living ones, 
 might have been less precarious, whilst criticism itself 
 might have attained the respectable position of a science. 
 The hope of such a generally satisfactory state of 
 things as this was entertained for a time by many intelli- 
 gent Englishmen, but it had no foundation in the essen- 
 tial nature of art. 
 
 " We must have the courage to declare," says J. 
 Milsand, with a just sense of what art is and is not, 
 *' we must have the courage to declare, even at the risk of 
 being misunderstood, that truth in the ordinary sense of 
 the word will never be the aim of art, that the value 
 which a picture may happen to possess as a means of 
 making us understand the nature of realities, will never 
 have anything in common with its value as a work of art. 
 Let us be on our guard against the notion that truth is 
 the pictorial element of painting ; it is, on the contrary, 
 the side by which pictures address themselves to the 
 ordinary intelligence, to all the general faculties which the 
 artist possesses in common with other men, but which 
 are not his own soul as an artist, not that part of human 
 nature which he undertakes to express when he takes up 
 his palette. If he teaches us to see better because he 
 himself sees better than we do, we shall, no doubt, be the 
 gainers, so long as he renders us this service without 
 neglecting his special task ; and it is a sort of negative 
 duty for him not to shock our intelligence by remaining 
 below the familiar conception of nature which may be 
 prevalent in his time amongst the public. But as for 
 estimating his merit as an artist according to his instruc- 
 
The Criterion of Truth. 
 
 343 
 
 tiveness, as for requiring him to rectify and complete our 
 conceptions, nothing could be more false or dangerous 
 than such a requirement. And this for two principal 
 reasons : the first is, that if his productions are lessons of 
 observation, the effort they require in order to be under- 
 stood will no longer allow the spectator to be moved ; the 
 second, which is still more serious, is, that the painter 
 himself, if governed by a didactic intention, will no 
 longer be inspired by his own emotions." 
 
 All this is excellent, especially the concluding sentences, 
 which account fully and sufficiently for the undeniable 
 fact that all scientific illustrations, however admirably 
 executed, however rich in truth, invariably fail to produce 
 in us the pleasure excited by works of art, and also that 
 the nearer a picture approaches to the character of a 
 scientific illustration the less our artistic sense is gratified 
 by it. The disappointment of many young artists of the 
 present generation, who have thrown all their effort into 
 the acquirement and expression of mere knowledge, with 
 the smallest possible effect upon the public mind, might 
 have been prevented if the nature of art, as distinct from 
 science, had been rather better understood. They were 
 truthful and sincere when truth was not always wanted, 
 and even sincerity might be out of place. " What ! " the 
 reader may ask in surprise, "can good art ever be insin- 
 cere t " Yes, in a certain sense, it undoubtedly can. The 
 artist may set aside or dissemble his personal convictions 
 out of consideration for the charm or power with which 
 he thinks it necessary to endow his work of art. Shall I 
 give an instance .'' Byron was a great artist, and now 
 
344 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 see the contrast between his private opinion as a man, 
 and his published work as an artist. Here it is, in his 
 own words. 
 
 " I have always had a great contempt for women ; and 
 formed this opinion of them not hastily, but from my 
 own fatal experience. My writings, indeed, tend to exalt 
 the sex ; and my imagination has always delighted in 
 giving them a beau id^al likeness, but I only drew them 
 as a painter or statuary would do — as they should be." 
 
 This is plain and clear. In this case the artist frankly 
 admits that he was not faithful to his own experience. 
 Raphael admitted as much when he said that he repre- 
 sented human figures not as they are but as they ought to 
 be, and he admitted it still more frankly by the contrast 
 between his drawings from nature (plain evidence that he 
 knew what nature was) and the same figures, idealised, in 
 his compositions. 
 
 At the close of Mr. Ruskin's preface to the second 
 edition of his first volume, he says : " My opponents yield 
 me the field at once. One (the writer for the Athencemn) 
 has no other resource than the assertion ' that he dis- 
 approves the natural style in painting. If people want to 
 see Nature let them go and look at herself. Why should 
 they see her at second-hand on a piece of canvas.?' The 
 other {Blackwood), still more utterly discomfited, is re- 
 duced to a still more remarkable line of defence. ' It is 
 not,' he says, * what things in all respects really are, but 
 how they are convertible by the mind into what they are 
 not, that we have to consider." Mr. Ruskin thought 
 
Distinction between Nature and Art. 
 
 345 
 
 these remarks absurd, and yet the writers in the Athe- 
 ncEiLin and Blackwood had grasped two of the greatest 
 principles of sound aesthetics. There is an excellent little 
 poem by Jules Breton, the eminent French rustic painter, 
 which illustrates what the Athen(2iiin said. In this little 
 poem a landscape-painter is at work upon an oak; a 
 peasant comes to see what he is doing, and laughs at 
 him for being at so much pains to make a sham oak-tree 
 in paint, when anybody can easily get to see a real one. 
 The writer concludes with the lesson that with reference, 
 to the art which merely copies nature the peasant was 
 perfectly right. If painting were simply true, and no 
 nore, there would be no reason for painting what can be 
 easily seen in nature, and yet how many of the very best 
 aictures have been made from commonplace materials ! 
 Blackwood's line of defence is simply the true description 
 of the mental operation which produces art, and which 
 really and unquestionably does convert things into what 
 they are not. I may be excused for. introducing a little 
 mecdote as an illustration of what the writer in Black- 
 vood so judiciously observed. I happened to be with a 
 well-known picture-dealer when he gave some friendly 
 advice to a young artist whose works were full of the 
 nost painstaking fidelity, yet had not the slightest artistic 
 :harm, "You paint things as they are," he said ; " and 
 hat is a great mistake. All successful artists paint 
 hings as they are 7tot." The remark struck me by its 
 )oldness, by the speaker's complete emancipation from 
 he common delusion about truth, and all subsequent 
 Experience has convinced me that he was right. 
 
346 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 The reader may now reasonably feel disposed to ask 
 me a question of this kind : " If you reject truth as the 
 test and criterion of art, what other criterion have you?" 
 The answer, the candid answer, is that there is no posi- 
 tive criterion for the really artistic element in a work of 
 art. Almost everything in a picture may be tested except 
 its artistic quality, but this subtly eludes all measuring 
 and analysis. You can test truth of various kinds by the 
 help of the sciences, but a picture may have been exe- 
 cuted in the strictest conformity to science and still be 
 perfectly worthless as fine art ; and when we come to that 
 artistic element itself which excuses so many errors, and 
 without which all the knowledge in the world is vain, wej 
 can only feel its presence for ourselves, we cannot prove 
 it to another. What we really can do is to tell others 
 how the artistic pov/er has affected ourselves, and this is 
 one of the most useful functions of the writer upon art. 
 It is this which is valuable in Mr. Ruskin's writings about 
 Turner, even in the utmost excesses of his statements. 
 After all deductions, the wonderful fact remains that 
 Turner, during his lifetime, found one admirer, a man of 
 genius, a man of wide culture and very exceptional in- 
 dustry, who seriously believed that his intellect was 
 unequalled, and that he was the greatest painter of all 
 time. 
 
 After this, any more moderate estimate must of neces- 
 sity appear lukewarm and spiritless, but, notwithstanding 
 this unfortunate effect of contrast, we will try to render a 
 candid account of Turner's position in art. 
 
 The first question about any painter — not the highest 
 
Turner s Position in Art, 
 
 347 
 
 or most important question, but the first in order — con- 
 cerns his technical excellence. Was Turner an excellent 
 painter, technically ? This has been already answered at 
 various times in the present biography. He was excel- 
 lent in some points, but unequal and unsafe. It is very 
 iifficult to classify him justly, he lies so much outside of 
 the good sound work of the great masters. It is probable 
 that he was himself aware of this, as when he said of Van- 
 develde : " I can't paint like him ; " and the desire to 
 execute works in the manner of his celebrated predeces- 
 sors, which remained with him until his originality had 
 fully developed itself, implies an uneasy preoccupation 
 about his technical powers, and a wish to ascertain, by 
 experiment, if they were equal to the ambitious task be- 
 fore him. There is a certain satisfaction in seeing work 
 thoroughly well done which the reader must have felt for 
 himself in the presence of the soundest and best work of 
 the old masters, and which Turner's work in oil does not 
 afford.* It seems as if, after having tried to paint soundly 
 in early life, he had given up the pursuit of technical 
 
 * Just as I am finally arranging these sheets for the press a letter reaches 
 me from a very experienced picture-dealer, who writes in the most absolute 
 sincerity, and this is what he says of Turner : 
 
 " I may be wrong, but I must confess to an increasing love for Corot and 
 Constable. Turner is losing his hold upon me. When I group a few 
 pictures, say Matthew Maris, Troyon, Diaz, Millet, Rousseau, James Maris, 
 and Turner, the Turner has the worst of it. That is to say, the Turner 
 is crude, violent, and as a bit of work amateurish in comparison with the 
 others. There can be no doubt as to Turner's genius, but his painting is 
 poor in comparison with the great modern masters." 
 
 The reader will observe how exclusively the objection to Turner, in this 
 quotation, applies to technical power, of which I may observe that picture- 
 dealers, from their constant habit of comparing, are often excellent judges. 
 
348 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 soundness in despair and determined to use painting 
 simply as a means of expression for his imaginative 
 powers, leaving its technical quality to chance. " In ouri 
 time," said Fromentin, " either men paint carefully and 
 not always very well, or else they take no further trouble 
 about it and hardly paint at all. The work is heavy and 
 summary, lively and niglig^, sensitive and rapidly got 
 over, or else it is conscientious, explaining itself every- 
 where, according to the laws of imitation, and nobody, 
 not even those who practise it, would venture to affirm 
 that such painting is any the better for being scrupulous." 
 If you give this admirably candid paragraph the attention 
 it deserves, it will enable you to understand the spirit 
 of Turner's technical practice. He was one of those 
 moderns who " take no further trouble about it ; " his work 
 was "sensitive and rapidly got over," certainly not "con- 
 scientious, explaining itself everywhere according to the 
 laws of imitation." He painted simply to express himself, 
 heedless of the quality of the expression, just as Scott 
 wrote his novels without stopping to study " V art de Men 
 dire.'' The whole condition of his mind, as to technical 
 matters, appears to have been a condition of despairing 
 indifference. He used any new color that the experimen- 
 talizing ingenuity of modern chemistry could invent for 
 the temptation of an artist. He used body-color and oil 
 in the same works, and when pictures were sent by him 
 from Rome in 1829, he said: "If any wet gets to them 
 they will be destroyed." But it is not simply for its want 
 of durability that his painting is unsound. It has not the 
 firmness and substance of thorough work ; it does Jiot 
 
Turner s Position in Art. 
 
 349 
 
 offer to the eye of the spectator that satisfaction which the 
 textures and surfaces of the greatest masters invariably 
 give. Look at a De Hooge, say the Court of a Dutch 
 House, a picture with a good constitution, sound all 
 through, yet painted two hundred years ago. See how 
 brilliant it is ; see how the colors are laid in their places, 
 md how dense and strong is the substance of the paint, 
 /■et how light at the same time, and representative of 
 nature ! I am not going to compare Hobbema's simple 
 talent of observation with Turner's imaginative genius, 
 3ut pray look at Hobbema's Avenue of Middleharnis or 
 lis Forest Scene in the National Gallery, and acknowledge 
 he sound quality of the work, quiet enough in color ; not 
 )rilliant like the De Hooge, but as firm in substance, 
 "onsidered simply as painting, the work of these old 
 Dutchmen is to that of Turner what parchment is to 
 paper. If from Holland you cross over to Italy, and 
 iccustom your eyes for an hour to the quiet splendor of 
 Titian — his rich surfaces, his blended colors, laid on a 
 substantial groundwork of safe dead-color — and then pass 
 :o Turner, you will find a difference like that between 
 :apestry and cotton-print. 
 In water-color the case presents a very different aspect. 
 
 turner was unquestionably, in his best time, the greatest 
 aster of water-color who had ever lived. He may have 
 Deen excelled since then in some special departments of 
 :he art, in some craft of execution, or in the knowledge of 
 5ome particular thing in nature ; but no one has ever de- 
 lerved such generally high rank as Turner in the art of 
 srater-color painting. His superiority even goes so far 
 
350 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turjter. 
 
 that the art, in his hands, is like another art, a fresh dis- 
 covery of his own. The color, in his most delicate work, 
 hardly seems to be laid on the paper by any means known 
 to us, but suggests the idea of a vaporous deposit ; and 
 besides the indescribable excellence of those parts ol 
 Turner's water-colors which do not look as if they were 
 painted at all, there is excellence of another kind in those 
 parts which exhibit dexterities of execution. Nor is the 
 strange perfection of his painting in water-color limited to 
 landscape ; his studies of still life — birds and their plum- 
 age, bits of interiors at Petworth, etc. — are evidence 
 enough that, had he chosen to paint objects rather than, 
 effects, he might have been as wonderful an object- 
 painter as William Hunt was, though in a different and 
 more elevated manner. 
 
 Though Turner was a reckless experimentalist, he was 
 a very brilliant experimentalist, full of ideas and perpetu- 
 ally trying to realize his ideas. In fecundity of concep- 
 tion the old Dutchmen and Venetians are not to be 
 compared with him for an instant. The regular old- 
 fashioned system of painting, the system which enablec 
 the old masters to reach such great technical excellence, 
 was first to learn to paint from a clever man, and ther 
 to apply the art to five or six subjects, to be repeated ir 
 different forms till the artist died of old age. If Turnei 
 had done this, if he had restricted himself to a narrow 
 speciality and paid careful attention to technical matters 
 and had a good technical training at the beginning, hij 
 work might have been as good as that of any old master, 
 but criticism has little concern with what might have 
 
Turners Position in Art. 
 
 351 
 
 been. As it is, criticism can only say that his experi- 
 ments were always interesting, and often in the highest 
 degree astonishing and wonderful, but seldom quite 
 satisfactory, except in parts. 
 
 I have mentioned, as a reason for this deficiency, which 
 it is useless to try to blink, the wide range of Turner's 
 experiments ; but there is another reason for it. He was 
 always trying to paint the unpaintable, which the Dutch 
 and the Venetians most prudently and carefully avoided. 
 This tendency was skilfully hit by Punch with the exag- 
 geration which properly belongs to satire, in the following 
 imaginary title for a Turnerian picture : 
 
 " 34. A Typhoon bursting in a Simoom over the Whirl- 
 Dool of Maelstrom, Norway ; with a ship on fire, an 
 clipse, and the effect of a lunar rainbow, 
 
 " ' O Art, how vast thy mighty wonders are 
 
 To those who roam upon the extraordinary deep I 
 Maelstrom, thy hand is here.' 
 
 From an Unpublished Poem." 
 
 Do not let us be so narrow-minded as to forbid an artist 
 to paint the unpaintable if he likes, but let us remember 
 that when he does so the result rhust inevitably be a mere 
 sign or substitute for the thing represented, a sort of 
 pictorial algebra. De Hooge could paint a Dutchwoman 
 itanding in her backyard, close to her dust-bin, with a 
 iegree of pictorial efficiency incomparably superior to 
 that of Turner when he painted the Angel standing in 
 the Sun. Again, the habit of painting unpaintable splen- 
 dors led Turner into a transcendental treatment of com- 
 mon realities, so that he came at last to paint the groups 
 
352 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 of figures, in his foregrounds as if they had been sunset 
 clouds. 
 
 There is one point, and one only, in which Turner 
 really did excel the artists of all time, and that is in his 
 appreciation of mystery in nature, and his superlatively 
 exquisite rendering of it. 
 
 If Turner deserves honor for the originality which 
 carried art further than it had ever before been carried in 
 this direction, it is simple justice to add that Mr. Ruskin 
 was the first writer on art who ever explained the value 
 of mystery in painting. He touched upon this subject 
 in the first volume of "Modern Painters," especially in 
 the important paragraph which affirms that nature is never 
 distinct and never vacant, and he recurred to it in two 
 chapters on "Turnerian Mystery" in the fourth volume. 
 
 Mystery in nature and art may be defined as that con- 
 dition of things in which they are partially seen, suffi- 
 ciently for us to be aware that something is there, but not 
 sufficiently for us to determine all about it by sight alone, 
 unaided by the inferences of experience. A bad painter 
 would either explain too much, from mere knowledge, or 
 else simplify to get rid of the difficulty ; a painter who 
 knew the value of mystery, and was able to render it, 
 would show just enough of his objects to let the eye of 
 the spectator lose them and find them again as it would 
 in nature with the same uncertainty about what they are. 
 He would render the confusion and abundance of the 
 signs by which the natural landscape expresses itself to 
 the human eye, not giving more of things than nature 
 gives, and trying, as far as possible, never to give very 
 
Mystery. 
 
 353 
 
 much less. I may add that it is perfectly possible (many 
 readers will know this by experience) to have the strongest 
 appreciation of the value of mystery, without being able 
 to give it except under the penalty of feebleness, and it is 
 probably for this reason that so many honest painters 
 have made their work clearer and simpler than nature. 
 Turner could paint strongly and mysteriously at the same 
 time, which gave a great charm to his work for cultivated 
 eyes, though it had the disadvantage of offending the 
 vulgar by not being intelligible by them. 
 
 Mystery, in the art of painting, is most probably a 
 modern object of study and technical ambition. We do 
 not exactly know how Zeuxis and Apelles painted, but 
 iny cultivated critic who knows something of Greek 
 sculpture and Greek literature, and of the interior but 
 still interesting classical paintings found at Pompeii, will 
 feel perfectly satisfied that however admirable ancient 
 Greek art may have been for its drawing, and perhaps 
 even for coloring of a very simple and elementary kind, 
 it cannot possibly have been mysterious. Clearness, the 
 clear presentation of tangible objects, was the Greek 
 conception of art, and you may look in vain through the 
 ancient art of Egypt, Assyria, China, and Japan, for any- 
 thing which indicates in the least that the artist regarded 
 the mystery of nature in any other light than as a mere 
 embarrassment to be got rid of by his own clarifying and 
 simplifying conventionalism, as muddy water is to be 
 filtered to make it limpid, or as the branches of a pine- 
 tree have to be cleared away before it can be brought to 
 the straightness and smoothness of a mast. Follow the 
 23 
 
354 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 history of art downwards through ancient Rome, through 
 mediaeval Italy, Germany, and France, and see how long 
 you have to wait before anything at all resembling the 
 mystery of nature begins to find expression in graphic 
 art of any kind whatever ! Perugino is not mysterious, 
 does not seem to have the least idea that such a quality 
 can ever be desirable, his ideal is a perfectly clear sky 
 with slender trees against it, painted leaf by leaf, and 
 figures with perfect outlines. Van Eyck is clear and 
 positive. Albert Durer has a strong sense of quantity 
 in nature, but none whatever of mystery, and so it is with 
 all the early German and Italian engravers. The pro- 
 found and sombre genius of Rembrandt led him to study 
 a certain kind of mystery, that of things half- seen in 
 graduated obscurity, but he knew little or nothing of the 
 mystery of light. Claude, in his turn, having a poetic 
 sentiment, enjoyed the veiling of distances by atmosphere, 
 but his conception was always simple, and though in a 
 certain sense his distances may be said to be mysterious, 
 his foregrounds are much less so ; even in spite of his 
 fine sense of richness and intricacy in foliage. Even the 
 grand landscape design of Titian is too afifirmative for the 
 evanescence of nature. There is a light sketchiness in 
 the landscape backgrounds of Rubens, and also in those 
 of Watteau, which does duty for mystery, but is not to 
 be compared for fulness of study and knowledge, to the 
 purposeful mystery of Turner, all charged with observa- 
 tion and meaning. It is then the simple truth, without 
 any exaggeration or hyperbole, that Turner was the first 
 artist who made mystery a special object of effort, and 
 
Mystery. 
 
 355 
 
 the first also to attain it in perfection. He was certainly 
 conscious of this peculiarity in his art. When a picture 
 of his went to New York to a Mr. Lenox, he asked Leslie 
 how Mr. Lenox liked it. 
 
 " He thinks it indistinct." 
 
 "You should tell him," Turner replied, "that indistinct- 
 ness is my fault." 
 
 He said this in a good-humored way, but with a tone 
 which clearly implied that he considered mystery an 
 integral part of his art, and that whilst choosing to call it 
 a fault, he did so only in condescension to the taste of 
 the purchaser. Mr. Lenox, it may be well to add, soon 
 
 F.ltered his opinion as he gradually became able to read 
 he mystery of Turner. 
 Though certainly not the inventor of Pre-Raphaelitism, 
 and though educated by the influence of the old masters. 
 Turner was a daring innovator in many things, sometimes 
 fortunately, sometimes very much the reverse. An ex- 
 ample of this in color may be selected as one of those 
 very rare artifices of coloring which are positive enough 
 and simple enough to be discussed in art criticism. Mr. 
 Ruskin says of Turner (" Modern Painters," Part IX. 
 Chapter XI.): 
 
 " His most distinctive innovation as a colorist was his 
 discovery of the scarlet shadow. ' True, there is a sun- 
 shine whose light is golden, and its shadow grey; but 
 there is another sunshine and that the purest, whose light 
 is white and its shadow scarlet' This was the essentially 
 offensive, inconceivable thing, which he could not be 
 believed in." 
 
356 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Now it is quite true that Turner in his later work did 
 actually combine white lights with scarlet shadows, an 
 invention which nobody had ever hit upon before, and 
 therefore, perhaps, in that sense a discovery ; but this 
 invention was certainly not a discovery in nature, where 
 the combination does not exist. Either it was a tech- 
 nical device of Turner's to get a false brilliance, or else 
 he may have been gradually and unconsciously led to it 
 by physical degeneration of the eye. You may watch 
 and wait all your life long to see a natural object which 
 is white in its lights under sunshine and scarlet in its 
 shadows, and you will never see it in this world. It is 
 like watching for the Holy Grail, " rose-red with beatings 
 in it as if alive." 
 
 Mr. Ruskin places Turner amongst the seven supreme 
 colorists of the v/orld, the other six being, in his estimate, 
 Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoret, Corregio, and Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds. It is always interesting to know what 
 a critic thinks about the coloring of a painter, but it is 
 not of the slightest use to argue the matter, as excellence 
 in color cannot possibly be proved by evidence. I should 
 say that Turner's color was often wonderful, often far 
 below his best, and seldom natural. I should say, too, 
 that he produced fine color much less habitually than 
 Giorgione, Titian, and Corregio, that he was often crude 
 and violent, and occasionally hot, heavy, or dull. His 
 unfaithfulness to nature would prove nothing against him 
 as a colorist, but rather imply a possibility in his favor. 
 The color of the great colorists is really nothing but a 
 sort of visible music which has to be brilliant or harmoni- 
 
Turner s Color. 
 
 357 
 
 ous, but which is always sufficiently like nature if it does 
 not offend the spectator. Mr. Ruskin's declaration that 
 color requires especial veracity is simply one of those 
 paradoxes which he throws up now and then like rockets 
 to prevent his readers from falling into a state of inatten- 
 tion, " F'orm," he says, " may be attained in perfectness 
 by painters who, in their course of study, are continually 
 altering or idealising it ; but only the sternest fidelity 
 will reach coloring. Idealise or alter in that, and you are 
 lost. Whether you alter by abasing or exaggerating — 
 by glare or by decline, one fate is for you — ruin. Vio- 
 late truth wilfully in the slightest particular, or at least 
 get into the habit of violating it, and all kinds of 
 failure and error will surround you and hunt you to 
 your fall." 
 
 This is most effective writing, but as misleading as it 
 is effective. The proof that the color of the great color- 
 ists is not natural is that they are all so unlike each other. 
 If they were all faithful copyists of nature, they would 
 resemble one another exactly as photographs would if 
 photography could render color. I have said already 
 that color is visible music; it is so indeed, and since the 
 colorists are musicians who compose for our eyes, they 
 have the same liberty, the same individuality, as the 
 musicians who write operas and oratorios.* "Titian and 
 Corregio," says Veron, in his admirable volume on 
 " /Esthetics," "Rubens and Rembrandt, are no more like 
 
 * It may possibly be due to this affinity between color and music that all 
 painters (Amaury Duval declares that there is no exception to this rule) 
 love music with a sort of second love. 
 
358 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 each other than Beethoven is like Rossini, or Weber hke 
 Mozart, or Wagner like Verdi." And again, in another 
 place, he says with equal truth : " There are very differ- 
 ent ways of understanding color. From Rubens to 
 Giorgione, and from Velasquez to Veronese, there are 
 varieties which prove the immense elasticity of the art of 
 painting, and the astonishing liberty of action which 
 genius can assume without changing its object." There 
 would be no such variety, no such liberty of action, if the 
 colorists onl}'^ rendered truth. What they really did was 
 to discover, each of them, some pleasant chord or chords 
 of color of his own, to master these thoroughly by prac- 
 tice, and then go on applying them as long as they had 
 strength to work. Turner's experiments in color had 
 more to do with art than with nature, and in many of his 
 pictures, especially his later ones, a certain technical 
 purpose manifests itself — the opposition between hot and 
 cold tints in broad masses. A well-known landscape- 
 painter told me that all his own coloring lay finally in the 
 opposition between red and green, almost everything in 
 his works being a passage from one to the other. In 
 Turner the opposition is often between yellow and black, 
 or between scarlet and cold gray. He is said to have 
 declared that yellow was his favorite color. The greatest 
 technical merit of his coloring is his wonderfully brilliant 
 performance in the upper notes. He carried up more 
 color into the regions of light than any other painter. 
 An American critic says that " Turner, being deficient 
 in color, lacked the first element of a painter;" but the 
 word "deficient" seems inaccurate in this case. Turner 
 
Turner s hnagination. 
 
 359 
 
 was empirical, experimental, rash, adventurous to temer- 
 ity, disposed to trust his own genius to 'any extent in 
 wanderings from the beaten track ; but he can hardly 
 even in his failures, be called deficient. His» artistic 
 nature, with all its errors, was one of the most opulent 
 that ever existed. 
 
 I need hardly dwell upon his imaginative power, which 
 IS so evident to any one who can recognize imagination 
 when he sees it that instances are superfluous. Every 
 picture of Turner's, every drawing, almost every sketch, 
 executed after he reached manhood, bears evidence of the 
 action of imagination, which in his works would often 
 amplify a simple theme, or heighten still further the sub- 
 limity of a sublime one. There have been few artists of 
 any kind, there has not been one landscape-painter, in 
 whom the action of the imaginative faculty has been so 
 constant ; and it is the more surprising in his case that 
 his production was so enormous. This incessant action 
 of the imaginative faculty made it impossible for Turner 
 to draw the scenes of nature faithfully ; but what his 
 drawings lose in fidelity they generally more than regain 
 in art. 
 
 A quality in Turner's art which has been much less 
 spoken of than his imagination is his taste, which was of 
 exquisite refinement. It was not infallible, there are 
 compositions by him which seem sadly wanting in taste, 
 compositions overburdened with uninteresting material or 
 spoiled by awkward arrangement ; but notwithstanding 
 occasional failures it is certain, so far as anything about 
 such a disputable subject can be, that Turner had a deli- 
 
360 The Life of J. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 cate and singularly elegant perception of the becoming in 
 the arrangement of his materials, that he gave almost 
 every subject a certain charm, commonly attributed to 
 what people used to call his " magic pencil," but in reality 
 due to the fine choice in selection and rejection, watch- 
 fully exercised by a mind of extraordinary refinement. I 
 have not space to give special instances, but I may say 
 generally that (with very few exceptions) the little vig- 
 nettes seem to me the best examples of taste in all that 
 he did, each a bit of perfected beauty, natural and artifi- 
 cial at the same time. 
 
 " As some rare little rose, a piece of inmost 
 Horticultural art." 
 
 I should say, then, to sum up, that Turner was a land- 
 scape-painter of extraordinary yet by no means unlimited 
 genius, a subtle and delicate but unfaithful draughtsman, 
 a learned and refined but often fallacious chiaroscurist, a 
 splendid and brilliant but rarely natural colorist, a man 
 gifted with wonderful fertility of imagination and strength 
 of memory (though this last is less easy to determine 
 because he altered everything), a student of Nature whose 
 range was vast indeed, for it included mountains, lakes, 
 lowland rivers and the sea, besides all kinds of human 
 works that can affect the appearance of a landscape 
 (castles, abbeys, cities, villages, houses, bridges, roads, 
 etc., etc.), yet not universal, for he never adequately illus- 
 trated the familiar forest trees, and had not the sentiment 
 of the forest, neither had he the rustic sentiment in its 
 perfection. I should say that Turner was distinguished 
 greatly by his knowledge, but still more distinguished by 
 
Rhum^. 
 
 361 
 
 his exquisite taste, and. by the singular charm which it 
 gave to most of his works, though not to all of them ; that 
 he was technically a wonderful but imperfect and irregu- 
 lar painter in oil, unsafe and unsound in his processes, 
 though at the same time both strong and delicate in hand- 
 ling ; that he stands apart and alone in water-color, which 
 in his hands is like a new art; that he was an excellent 
 line-etcher in preparation for mezzotint, and a good 
 engraver in mezzotint besides ; and that with all these 
 gifts and acquirements he was a very great and illustrious 
 artist, but not the greatest of artists. I believe that his 
 fame will last ; that he was as much a poet on canvas as 
 Byron and Shelley were in written language, and that 
 although it is possible that his performance may be after- 
 wards excelled, it will be very difficult for any future land- 
 scape-painter to rival his reputation in his own country. 
 
 The qualities of Turner's art are so various and so 
 great, that there is some danger, especially with the influ- 
 ence of Mr. Ruskin's eloquence and frequent use of hyper- 
 bole, of a national idolatry of Turner, like the Roman 
 idolatry of Raphael, or the French idolatry of Claude. 
 Such a result would be a great evil to landscape-painting 
 in England, and to the aesthetic culture of Englishmen 
 who are not practical artists. Even as it is, the fame of 
 [Turner is injurious to English landscape-painters of merit, 
 who, if inferior to him in range of study or strength of 
 imagination, are often in some respects his superiors, and 
 able to render what they love best in nature with a degree 
 of affectionate fidelity which he certainly could not have 
 equalled. With all my admiration for Turner I should be 
 
362 
 
 The Life of J. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 sorry to contribute to such a result as this. The fame of 
 Claude, of Poussin, and Salvator, arrested the movement 
 of landscape art in France for more than a hundred years, 
 and the regular " classical landscape " on those models 
 (or supposed to be on those models) was until quite 
 recently the only landscape recognized by the official 
 teaching. Deliverance came at last through the modern 
 rustic school and the sylvan influences of the forest of 
 Fontainebleau. An uncritical adoration of Turner might 
 narrow and falsify English landscape-painting if the natu- 
 ral vigor and independence of the English race did not 
 continually re-assert itself. Let us enjoy w^hat is delight- 
 ful in his art, and admire what is admirable, but let us 
 remember that he belongs already to the past, that he is a 
 dead master, that he will soon be an old master, and that 
 an art which would preserve its freshness must work on 
 towards its own future. 
 
 We have lived in an interesting and exciting time in 
 the history of landscape-painting, a time of discoveries 
 which in the nature of things cannot occur again. 
 Modern landscape was really begun by Claude in the 
 direction of idealism, and bv the Dutchmen in the direc- 
 tion of realism. Turner took up the idealism of Claude, 
 imitated it, or followed it up to a certain point, and then 
 diverged into an idealism of his own, which he applied to 
 a much wider range of material. The Pre-Raphaelites 
 tried the experiment of a new realism, not founded on 
 Dutch work as to its technical principles, yet resembling 
 Paul Potter in the close study of separate details. Con- 
 stable set the example of a resolute naturalism, an example 
 
 mmmm 
 
Past and Future of Landscape Paintitzg. 363 
 
 which has had immense influence on modern art. I do 
 not see how it can be henceforth possible for landscape- 
 painting to go into any strikingly new direction, except 
 so far as this, that there will always be a certain fresh- 
 ness and novelty in the work of new men of original 
 genius on account of their personal preferences. Turner 
 may be excelled in many ways by some genius in the 
 future, more richly gifted and more thoroughly trained, 
 for though his art was extensive it was not without limits, 
 land though his skill was great it was not without imper- 
 fection ; but however wonderful may be the work of the 
 future genius, it is most improbable that he will ever win 
 a fame like the fame of Turner. He will not have Tur- 
 ner's opportunities for doing what has not been done 
 before. He will not have a writer of singular eloquence 
 and unlimited devotion to be the priest and prophet of his 
 divinity. He will live in an age of cooled enthusiasms 
 and inherited critical knowledge, which will indispose the 
 public for any eager partisanship in his favor. Even 
 already the first ardor of modern interest in artistic ques- 
 tions has given place to a tranquil philosophy. There is 
 nothing now in Europe like the warfare between the 
 Classics and Romantics, which agitated all the ^lite of 
 Parisian intelligence in 1830, or even like the much 
 feebler excitement which attended the rise of Pre-Raphael- 
 itism in England. There has been some slight commo- 
 tion ^bout the revival of etching, but that is merely the 
 resuming of a process which had been abandoned. It is 
 becoming more and more difficult to create a sensation in 
 art, and without a sensation such a fame as that of Tur- 
 ner is not possible. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 Turner's character and habits. — Turner's rjianners. — Religion and morality. 
 — Temperance and intemperance. — Turner's generosity. — Turner's will. 
 — Works of art left to the nation. — Conclusion. 
 
 ^ I ^HIS ends what I have to say of Turner as an artist, 
 but there are some points in his character as a man 
 which cannot be left unnoticed. 
 
 He was one of the most eccentric Englishmen who 
 ever lived, a perfect British original. Emerson says that 
 Nature is at the greatest pains to protect originalities 
 against hostile influences ; and if so, Turner must have 
 been the object of special precautions on her part. The 
 narrowness of his literary education protected him, for 
 foreign languages, whether ancient or modern, expose the 
 mind to the influence of foreign ideas. It was even a 
 protection to his originality not to be able to write better 
 than he did, for he tried hard to write, long and vainly, 
 and if he had succeeded he would have spent much of his 
 energy in verse. It is easier for a painter to live in 
 eccentric isolation than for a man of letters, whose art it 
 is to use and elevate the common language of the world, 
 and who needs even more than others the common cul- 
 ture, the common experience of mankind. In many 
 respects the eccentricities of Turner had an excellent 
 
 mmrngm 
 
Turner s Character and Habits. 
 
 365 
 
 effect upon his art. Nothing is more astonishing in Tur- 
 ner's life than his prodigious fertility, the enormous 
 quantity of his work, the hundreds and hundreds of 
 pictures that he left behind him, the thousands and thou- 
 sands of drawings and sketches, the mountain of labor 
 represented by the great sum total of his vast and various 
 performance ! Remember, too, that every touch of what 
 bears his name is really and truly his own, that he did 
 not keep a picture manufactory, as Rubens did, with a 
 score of workmen and pupils toiling incessantly under his 
 direction : that he did not despise detail, but finished all 
 his work sufficiently and some of it minutely ; that he 
 wrought for color as much as form, tenderly, delicately, 
 land therefore (however swiftly) without hurry — and then, 
 after taking all these things into consideration, ask your- 
 self how it would have been possible for a man of the 
 world to do with his own fingers such a heap of work as 
 this ! Merely to copy all Turner's works completely, 
 without having any trouble about scheming and inventing 
 them, would occupy a man for a hundred years. He who 
 wrought them could not conform to the customs of " good 
 society." He got up early in the morning as laborers and 
 blacksmiths do, he worked at his trade all day, he wasted 
 no time over his simple meals, he embarrassed himself 
 with none of the cares and troubles of a great establish- 
 ment, and left what Emerson derides as the " cards, cus- 
 tards, and compliments " of society to those who value 
 them and have nothing better to occupy their thoughts. 
 He even carried his nonconformity to such lengths that 
 it is wonderful how people tolerated him at all. He 
 
366 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 seldom answered dinner invitations, but went or not, just as 
 he felt inclined at the last moment. He invited nobody 
 to dinner at his own house in Queen Anne Street, and 
 though not quite so stingy as he has been represented, for 
 he would pay a score liberally at an inn (on rare occa- 
 sions, and partly because it amused him to astonish 
 people) the rule of his life was to shut himself up when at 
 home, and keep his movements secret when he went out. 
 These eccentricities, which look so unsocial, were merely 
 the habits of a workman who protected his own peace. 
 He understood that part of prudence thoroughly. He 
 saved money at first to win his artistic independence, the 
 liberty to paint what he liked and on his own artistic 
 principles ; the habit of saving remained with him after- 
 wards, but he never cared for money in comparison with 
 his art, and he did not, in the real and true meaning of 
 the expression, work for money after he became indepen- 
 dent. Most of his eccentricities may be explained by two 
 considerations : the first, that the practice of his art was 
 the delight as well as the labor of his life ; the second, 
 that the art he practised is best pursued in solitude. He 
 bolted the door of his painting-room and kept out critics 
 and gossips, surely a wise decision, unless it can be 
 proved that the critics and gossips would have aided him 
 in his labor.* Even when sketching from nature with a 
 friend, he would go apart for privacy and keep the result 
 of his sitting to himself. It is bad enough to be misunder- 
 
 * This he carried to such an extent that he never admitted even his 
 friend Mr. Fawkes of Farnley into his studio, and yet he loved Mr. Fawkes 
 far more than most men love their brothers. 
 
Turner s Character and Habits. 
 
 367 
 
 stood when your work is done, without being plagued by 
 other people's want of apprehension whilst it is in prog- 
 ress. We have evidence that Turner was painfully sensi- 
 tive to criticism, as many artists are, and that he was 
 tortured by what the newspapers said of him. There was 
 in his mind the apparent contradiction, which has fre- 
 quently been observed in men of genius, between an 
 eager desire for public reputation and an almost morbid 
 passion for privacy of life. Whilst planning schemes for 
 attaining the utmost possible notoriety, he lived in hiding 
 like an insolvent debtor. 
 
 Although a hard-working man, almost entirely absorbed 
 in the laborious practice of his profession, Turner was not 
 a Philistine ; I mean that he was not illiberally indifferent 
 to other kinds of culture than his own ; on the contrary, 
 there is abundant evidence that he took an interest in 
 literature and science, though his mind was so especially 
 and peculiarly constituted for painting that his pursuit of 
 literature was not practically successful, and his scientific 
 studies hardly got beyond the initial stage of intelligent 
 curiosity. Even the titles of his pictures are enough to 
 prove some genuine interest in antiquity ; we have 
 already seen how much his mind was impressed by the 
 story of ancient Carthage. An artist who takes a general 
 interest in painting and architecture is sure to be led up 
 to antiquity through art if not through literature, and 
 Turner's acquaintance with ancient subjects was probably 
 due at first to the suggestions of the old masters. He 
 had at one time serious thoughts of giving himself classi- 
 cal literary culture, by the help of his friend Trimmer, 
 
368 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 and had the courage to attack both Latin and Greek, but, 
 as might have been anticipated, without success — an 
 inevitable consequence of his strange natural incapacity 
 for languages. His own poetry has been examined at 
 some length in this biography, and frequently quoted. It 
 gives evidence of a desire for literary activity, which was 
 not accompanied by any natural literary gift ; still, we 
 ought to remember how much writers gain by culture, 
 especially in verse, and we may recall Byron's assertion, 
 that to make really excellent verses a man ought to have 
 no other occupation. Turner, like most artists, possessed 
 but few books, but it was his custom to have a volume or 
 two with him when he travelled, and it has been ascer- 
 tained that his travelling companions at one time were 
 Young's " Night Thoughts," Izaak Walton, and a transla- 
 tion of Horace. I have mentioned M. Amaury Duval's 
 theory, that all painters without exception have a second 
 love for music, so the reader may be curious to know 
 whether Turner loved music or was indifferent to it. He 
 was at one time an amateur musician, and his instrument 
 was the flute, but I do not l<now that he ever attained 
 any respectable degree of skill. A gamut for a flute was 
 found in one of his note^books, and the flute itself was 
 found in his house after his death. I believe that we 
 shall not be unjust to Turner in considering him a man 
 of one pursuit, who would willingly have extended the 
 range of his culture if he could have found the time, but 
 who did not allow the studies in which he was an amateur 
 to interfere with that one great field of study in which he 
 was so pre-eminently the artist. He had not the facilities. 
 
Turner s Character and Habits. 
 
 369 
 
 in various directions which are given by a good ordinary 
 education in languages and science, that general educa- 
 tion which may not be very much in itself, yet is to its 
 possessor like a bunch of keys, with which at any time he 
 can open the doors of knowledge. Would Turner have 
 been a greater artist with a better general education ? 
 The answer is very doubtful. Scholarship and exact 
 science might possibly have weakened within him that 
 visionary faculty which was the true fountain of his art. 
 To see Nature, to dream of what he had seen and trans- 
 form it as he dreamed, to realise the vision afterwards in 
 color, this was the occupation of his life ; and though 
 he did not despise other knowledge, he left it to its own 
 students. 
 
 A written portrait of Turner cannot be complete 
 without some account of his manners and his morals. 
 He was a person of unprepossessing appearance, short 
 and thick -set, with coarse features and the general ap- 
 pearance of the skipper of some small merchant craft 
 living on shore in the interval between two voyages. He 
 does not seem ever to have set up for being what is called 
 a gentleman, but had the style and manner of the lower 
 middle class. He had a great difficulty in expressing 
 himself properly, which made him very reserved, and he 
 was absolutely incapable of saying kind and polite things 
 in an easy and graceful way, though not at all incapable 
 of doing them. Mr. Ruskin tells a story of his practical 
 kindness in combination with bad manners when out 
 sketching with a friend, who " got into great difficulty 
 over a colored sketch. Turner looked over him a little 
 24 
 
 ai 
 
370 
 
 The Life of y. M. IV. Turner. 
 
 while, then said, in a grumbling way, ' I haven't got any 
 paper I like, let me try yours.' Receiving a block book, 
 he disappeared for an hour and a half. Returning, he 
 threw the book down, wit/i a growl, saying : * I can't 
 make anything of your paper.' There were three 
 sketches on it, in three distinct stages of progress, 
 showing the process of coloring from beginning to end, 
 and clearing up every difficulty which his friend had got 
 into." This story exactly coincides with everything that 
 we authentically know of Turner ; he was at the same 
 time kind in deed and rude in manner. There was no 
 necessity, after borrowing the block-book, to throw it 
 down with a growl ; he might have handed it back to the 
 lender with a word of thanks. It has sometimes seemed 
 to me that many things in Turner's character are only 
 exaggerations of English characteristics. The typical 
 Englishman is shy, reserved, fond of privacy ; Turner 
 had these peculiarities in excess. The typical English- 
 man has plain manners; Turner's manners were plain 
 to gruffness. The typical Englishman loves money and 
 yet is generous at the same time; Turner was habit- 
 ually avaricious, yet could be splendidly liberal when it 
 suited him. It is a well-known peculiarity of the English 
 character to shrink from the expression of noble senti- 
 ments, and from all language which by any possibility 
 could be called high - flown ; Turner had this kind of 
 mauvais^ Jwnte to such a degree that he could not say 
 the civil things which are usual even amongst English- 
 men, and his conversation had not even that simple kind 
 of elegance which English usages permit. The English- 
 
Turner s Manners. 
 
 371 
 
 man dresses plainly ; Turner carried this to the extent of 
 shabbiness. English workmen work harder and better 
 than those of other nations ; Turner was pre-eminent for 
 [his power of toil. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin has mentioned irritability as one of Tur- 
 ner's charactenstics. Here is an instance"which seems 
 to prove it. " On one occasion," says Mr. Rose, " I had 
 the audacity to ask him if he painted his clouds from 
 nature. One has heard of 'calling up a look.' The 
 words had hardly passed my lips when I saw my 
 gaucherie. I was afraid I had roused a thunderstorm ; 
 however, my lucky star predominated, for, after having 
 eyed me for a few moments with a slight frown, he 
 growled out, ' How would you have me paint them .'' ' then 
 seizing upon his fishing-rod and turning upon his heel, he 
 marched indignantly out of the house to the water's- 
 edge." There was no necessity for being angry; the 
 question was not an insult, nor was it even foolish. Some 
 artists (Constable, for example) have painted their studies 
 of skies rapidly in oil ; others have contented themselves 
 with pencil memoranda from nature. Turner was always 
 ready to resent either a question or a request as an 
 
 unwarrantable liberty. " Mrs. R had a pet spaniel 
 
 which was one day lying in her lap ; Turner was seated 
 close by, reading; a sudden impulse induced her to ask 
 him to make a drawing of her favorite. The R.A. 
 opened _ his eyes with astonishment, at the same time 
 replying, ' My dear madam, you do not know what you 
 isk.' " Here is an account of a visit to Turner paid by 
 Dr. Shaw, a relation of his on his mother's side. 
 
 a 
 
372 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 " Of a sudden the great artist made his appearance. 
 I bowed, not too obsequiously nor too low, putting a 
 question to him immediately after the salutation as fol- 
 lows : ' May I ask if you are the Mr. Turner who visited 
 at Shelford Manor, in the county of Nottingham, in your 
 youth ? ' 'I am,' he answered, in a tone and manner full 
 of dignity, evidently evincing feelings of an untoward 
 nature. He was clearly paving the way for a magnificent 
 outburst of passion — the thunderstorm was gathering. 
 To appease him I became somewhat bland in manner. I 
 tried to throw oil upon the troubled waters. Assuming a 
 manner which perhaps might be denominated one of a 
 more winning kind, I said : ' May I take the liberty of 
 asking you whether your mother's name was Marshall ? ' 
 He replied, in a tone of voice accompanied with the look 
 of a fury, clearly showing that the flash of lightning had 
 appeared to warn me that the storm was about to break. 
 After this I began to feel uneasy. I felt half inclined to 
 say something monstrously uncivil to him for his bearish 
 manners. I waited, however, for him to begin the attack, 
 which soon followed. He drew himself suddenly into the 
 most dignified attitude I ever beheld, even from a clever 
 actor or an infuriated duke. His manner was full of 
 majesty, accompanied with a diabolical look. He said 
 ' I consider, sir, that you have taken a most unwarrant- 
 able liberty with me by the manner in which you have 
 obtruded yourself upon me.' " 
 
 This was the peculiar character of Turner's irritability 
 — a disposition to resent anything resembling intrusion, 
 and to consider every attempt to open communication 
 with him as necessarily intrusive. The origin of this 
 
Religion and Morality. 
 
 373 
 
 state of mind was probably nothing but an early practical 
 wisdom, a keen sense of the value of time, and of the 
 injury inflicted on an industrious man by the inter- 
 ruptions of idlers. We ought to remember that an artist 
 is not, like a shopman, in the constant habit of talking to 
 people in the way of business ; his work advances best in 
 solitude, and every interruption is a definite injury to him 
 unless it brings with it some acceptable compensation. 
 In Turner the horror of interruption grew to a morbid 
 excess, so that visitors found him irritated beforehand, 
 and the slightest maladresse on their part was enough to 
 kindle his impatience into anger. 
 
 Of Turner's religion I know really nothing, except 
 that (like Milton) he did not generally go to church, 
 though he went there with his friends when he visited 
 them in the country. Mr. Ruskin, who knew him per- 
 sonally, speaks of his "infidelity" and his "faithless- 
 ness ; " but I am quite unable to give the reader any 
 authentic account of Turner's opinions in detail, and yet 
 a biography of him cannot be complete without some 
 reference to the subject. His extreme brevity in letter- 
 writing, his reserve in conversation, and his general 
 weakness in those intellectual faculties which express 
 themselves in words, made him a most unlikely person to 
 utter his mind at all copiously on theological subjects, and 
 we must remember that in his day heterodox opinions 
 were less freely circulated than they are now. All we 
 know is that Turner did not profess to be a member of 
 any visible church. Mr, Thornbury, in his biography, 
 said something to the effect that he was oppressed in his 
 
 M 
 
374 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Ticrner. 
 
 latter years by the despairing fear of annihilation ; but I 
 do not know that Mr. Thornbury had any authority for 
 this beyond an induction which may have been erroneous. 
 There are unbelievers (like Theodore Parker) who have 
 the most perfect confidence in a future life, and others 
 who (like Stuart Mill) have not that confidence absolutely, 
 yet meet their end without despairing fear. Turner may 
 have belonged to one of these categories, though it is not 
 probable that his opinion had any profound philosophical 
 character. It is more likely that he simply found diflEi- 
 culties in believing, and stayed away from church without 
 going very deeply into theological or philosophical ques- 
 tions of any kind. From what we know of Turner's 
 intellect, it appears to have been entirely incapable of any 
 sustained critical investigation. 
 
 I find it difficult to speak of Turner's morality with 
 perfect justice to his memory, not because we have no 
 facts to argue upon, but because he has been unlucky in 
 the publicity given to them, and in a certain inelegance 
 which makes his errors appear more coarse and gross 
 than those of the old Italian masters. We all know the 
 pictures of Titian and his mistress, and his portraits of 
 her, yet nobody talks of the immorality of Titian ; but 
 Turner's domestic arrangements with Mrs. Danby and 
 Mrs. Booth give more acute pain to our sense of pro- 
 priety because they seem more degrading. We all make 
 distinctions of this kind, and we cannot help it. Lord 
 Byron's liaisoi with the elegant and accomplished young 
 Countess Guiccioli shocks us less than his intimacy with 
 the vulgar Venetian woman who preceded her. In Tuf- 
 
Temperance and hitemperance. 
 
 375 
 
 ncr's conduct in this respect there were two offences, one 
 against morality and the other against good taste. I am 
 not going to defend or excuse either of these offences, but 
 in justice to Turner I wish them to be clearly separated. 
 Again, I think it is only fair to point out that Turner has 
 been singularly unfortunate in the evil reputation which 
 has attached itself, in quite a peculiar and especial 
 manner, to his conduct in this respect. I do not know 
 why — except that he was a man of genius and therefore 
 exposed to the envy and malice of his inferiors — Turner 
 should be singled out for especial opprobrium in such a 
 city as London, which is not visibly any more moral since 
 he has been laid in his grave. Unless people are reso- 
 lutely determined to shut their eyes to what passes 
 continually before their faces, they must be well aware 
 that Turner's conduct, though blamable, was not very 
 unusual. It is said that he left behind him four illegi- 
 timate children, but there is no evidence that he ever 
 seduced an innocent girl or disturbed the peace of a 
 household. 
 
 Turner's way of living was habitually simple and tem- 
 perate, but he drank occasionally more than his usual 
 quantity, and towards the close of his life he is said to 
 have stimulated sluggish or failing powers with frequent 
 glasses of sherry. It is not fair to represent him as a 
 drunken sensualist for this. Thousands of overworked 
 professional men have done as much, to the detriment, no 
 doubt, of their health, and perhaps even in the long-run 
 to the disadvantage of their work as well ; but in such 
 cases let us be charitable, and admit that the habit does 
 
376 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner . 
 
 not originate in sensuality. When the powers of produc- 
 tion fail, the producer too often tries to recover them for 
 the hour that he toils at his task even at the cost of some 
 after depression. Turner's occasional excesses when in 
 perfect health may be explained by the habits of his age. 
 In the days of George the Fourth many Englishmen got 
 tipsy from time to time, and nobody thought the worse of 
 them, and when they did not get tipsy they drank abun- 
 dantly still. Mr. Cyrus Redding, who travelled with 
 Turner in Devonshire, said " he was much attached to 
 vulgar porter, and discarded wine, at least with dinner, 
 although afterwards he would take his glass freely, as was 
 much more the custom in those days than at present." 
 This, I believe, is a fair and honest way of stating the 
 matter. Few Europeans in those days were water- 
 drinkers. Even the moderate ones, men such as Scott 
 and Goethe, drank in their quiet way enough to astonish 
 a modern teetotaller.* That Turner was never exces- 
 sively addicted to sensual gratification of any kind is 
 sufificiently proved by the enormous amount of delicate 
 work that he accomplished, and by the singularly fine 
 condition of his nervous system. I may remind the 
 reader that Turner painted habitually without a mahlstick, 
 which proves wonderful sureness of hand ; that his work 
 
 * " Lest this statement should convey a false impression I hasten to recall 
 to the reader's recollection the habits of our fathers in respect of drinking. 
 It was no unusual thing to be a " three-bottle man " in those days in Eng- 
 land, when the three bottles were of port or Burgundy; and Goethe, a 
 Rhinelander, accustomed from boyhood to wine, drank a wine which his 
 English contemporaries would have called water. The amount he drank 
 never did more than exhilarate him ; never made him unfit for work or for 
 society." — Lewes' Life of Goethe. 
 
Temperance and Intemperance. 
 
 Z77 
 
 on a small scale is more delicate than that of any other 
 landscape-painter ; and that he could bear a volley from a 
 battery of artillery close to him, and quite unexpected, 
 without betraying the very slightest disturbance. He 
 was equal to any kind of travel, walked his twenty miles 
 and more with perfect ease, and was superior to sea-sick- 
 * This does not indicate habitual intemperance. 
 
 ness. 
 
 We get a glimpse of him on the Margate boat in the 
 biography by Mr. Alaric Watts, which exhibits temperance 
 and economy at the same time : 
 
 " Mr. Turner was very fond of Margate, and in the 
 summer often went there on Saturday morning by the 
 Magnet or King William steamer. Most of the time he 
 hung over the stern, watching the effects of the sun and 
 the boiling of the foam. About two o'clock he would 
 open his wallet of cold meat in the cabin, and, nearing 
 himself to one with whom he was in the habit of chatting, 
 
 * " The sea had that dirty puddled appearance which often precedes a 
 hard gale. We kept towards Rame Head to obtain an offing, and when 
 running out from the land the sea rose higher, until off Stokes Point it 
 became stormy. We mounted the ridges bravely ; the sea in that part of the 
 Channel rolls in grand furrows from the Atlantic, and we had run about a 
 dozen miles. The artist enjoyed the scene. He sat in the stern-sheets 
 intently watching the sea, and not at all affected by the motion. Two of 
 our number were sick. The soldier, in a delicate coat of scarlet, white, and 
 gold, looked dismal enough, drenched with the spray, and so ill that at last 
 he wanted to jump overboard. We were obliged to lay him on the rusty 
 iron ballast in the bottom of the boat, and keep him down with a spar laid 
 across him. Demaria was silent in his suffering. In this way we made 
 Bur Island ; the difficulty was how to get through the surf, which looked 
 unbroken. At last we got round under the lee of the island, and contrived 
 to get on shore. All this time Turner was silent, watching the tumultuous 
 scene." — Mr. Cyrtis Redding's Autobiography. 
 
378 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 would beg a clean plate and a hot potato, and did not 
 
 refuse one glass of wine, but would never accept two. It 
 
 need hardly be added that he was no favorite with the 
 waiters," 
 
 The same economical disposition, combined with tem- 
 perance, may be detected in an item which frequently 
 occurred in his accounts of his travelling expenses under 
 the title " Boxing Harry," a piece of slang which Turner 
 probably picked up from the commercial travellers, and 
 which means a meat tea, or the combination of dinner 
 and tea in a single repast, certainly not one of the 
 happiest inventions of economists. 
 
 The best point in Turner's character was his gene- 
 rosity, not in money matters only, but in the general 
 condition of his feelings. It may seem strange that such 
 a quality should have been compatible with what we know 
 of Turner, with his grasping habit in money matters, for 
 he clutched at shillings and sixpences, his gruff manners, 
 and his constant anxiety about his own position in the 
 world of art ; all that can be said is that we have .here one 
 of those apparent anomalies in character which are not 
 very rare, though they invariably astonish us when they 
 occur. Victor Hugo once explained that the secret of the 
 interest inspired by some of his best-known inventions 
 was, that he purposely endowed repulsive or uninterest- 
 ing characters with some splendid virtue which overcame 
 the reader's dislike to them, and produced in his mind a 
 glow of reaction in their favor. Turner was a character 
 of this kind. Though unpolished, and even from the 
 point of view of any severe social criticism positively un- 
 
Turner s Generosity. 
 
 379 
 
 civilized, though not (in the social sense) a gentleman, 
 or anything resembling a gentleman, Turner had a 
 nobility of heart as much above ordinary gentlemanhood 
 as true poetry is above mere versification. All who knew 
 him are agreed that he never was heard to speak in de- 
 preciation of any of his contemporaries, but there are 
 several instances of his kindness in rendering them ser- 
 vices, and in saying what could fairly and truly be said in 
 their favor. This reticence is a rare virtue amongst 
 artists, not only because they are often (and very natur- 
 ally) jealous of each other, but because they often con- 
 scientiously disapprove of each other's work, believing it 
 to be positively harmful to public taste. Mr. Trimmer 
 once happened to be fishing with Turner, who took with 
 him Campbell's "Pleasures of Hope." There were illus- 
 trations in the book, and he showed one of them to his 
 companion, saying, "That is pretty." Mr. Trimmer 
 answered, " Nothing first rate, is it .-* " Turner repeated 
 his word of praise " It is pretty, and he is a poor man 
 with a large family." Observe how carefully Turner 
 avoided saying anything, or even assenting to anything 
 unfavorable to his less fortunate contemporary. Here is* 
 another anecdote of his generous recognition of an artist 
 inferior to himself. "There was a painter of the name of 
 Bird, and when Bird first sent a picture to the Academy 
 for exhibition. Turner was on the hanging committee. 
 Bird's picture had great merit ; but no place for it could 
 be found. Turner pleaded hard for it. No, the thing 
 was impossible. Turner sat down and looked at Bird's 
 picture a long time ; then insisted that a place must be 
 
38o 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Tttrfter. 
 
 found for it. He was still met by the assertion of im- 
 practicability. He said no more, but took down one of 
 his own pictures, sent it out of the Academy, and hung 
 Bird's in its place." * Now, is not that a lovely little 
 anecdote, a story to be told to the very angels in heaven '^ 
 It is as sweet and acceptable to our moral sense as the 
 fragrance of the lily of the valley to our nostrils in the 
 spring. We know how attached Turner was to the Royal 
 Academy, he loved it as people love their families and 
 their homes, and Haydon's attack oh the Academy so 
 hurt Turner's feelings that he declared Haydon had 
 stabbed his mother. " He stabbed his mother, he stabbed 
 his mother!" Nevertheless, Turner could so control his 
 own irritability that he did justice to the violent figure- 
 painter, who frankly acknowledged it : " But Turner 
 behaved well, and did me justice." 
 
 We may now pass to his actual generosity in money. 
 He was very exacting in money matters, very close, and 
 sometimes almost mean in his closeness, as when he 
 would ask for small advantages when he received consid- 
 erable sums. At the same time, where his affections or 
 his sympathies were touched (and his nature was really 
 rich in both), he could be nobly and effectually generous. 
 The following true story, narrated by Mr. Ruskin, is prob- 
 ably but one example out of many : 
 
 "At the death of a poor drawing-master, Mr. Wells, 
 whom Turner had long known, he was deeply affected, 
 
 * I give the story in Mr. Ruskin's words. See " Lectures on Architec- 
 ture and Painting. Lecture iii." 
 
Turner^ s Generosity. 
 
 381 
 
 and lent money to the widow until a large sum had accu- 
 mulated. She was both honest and grateful, and after a 
 long period was happy enough to be able to return to her 
 benefactor the whole sum she had received from him. 
 She waited on him with it; but Turner kept his hands in 
 his pocket, "Keep it," he said, "and send your children 
 to school and to church." He said this in bitterness ; he 
 had himself been sent to neither." 
 
 Mr. Thornbury, in his biography, informs us that 
 Turner once returned to Mr. Charles Heath bills to the 
 amount of ;!^iooo, because Mr. Heath's affairs were not 
 in a prosperous condition. Of course, had Turner been 
 as selfish as most people, that would have been the 
 strongest possible reason for getting the bills discounted 
 at once. But this is a mere trifle to another deed of 
 Turner's, also narrated by Mr. Thornbury, who affirmed 
 that it was "thoroughly proved," 
 
 " An early patron of Turner, when he was a mere in- 
 dustrious barber's son working at three-shilling drawings 
 in his murky bedroom, had seen some of them in a window 
 in the Haymarket, and had bought them. From that 
 time he had gone on buying and being kind to the rising 
 artist, and Turner could not forget it. Years after he 
 heard that his old benefactor had become involved, and 
 that his steward had received directions to cut down some 
 valued trees. Instantly Turner's generous impulses were 
 roused ; his usual parsimony (all directed to one great 
 object) was cast behind him. He at once wrote to the 
 steward, concealing his name, and sent him the full 
 amount; many, many thousands — as much as ;i^20,ooo, 
 
382 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 I believe. The gentleman never knew who was his bene- 
 factor ; but in time his affairs rallied, and he was enabled 
 to pay the whole sum back. Years again rolled on, and 
 now the son of Turner's benefactor became involved. 
 Again the birds of the air brought the news to the 
 guardian angel of the family ; again he sent the necessary 
 thousands anonymously ; again the son stopped the leak, 
 righted himself, and returned the whole sum with thanks," 
 
 It is also affirmed that Turner used to say to one of 
 his intimate friends : " Don't wish for money ; you will 
 not be the happier ; and you know you can have any 
 money of me you want." 
 
 He had tenants in Harley Street who had been in 
 arrears for two years, but he would not allow his lawyer 
 to distrain. 
 
 These scraps of anecdote are some evidence of the in- 
 "nate nobility and benevolence of the man; but since we 
 know the secretiveness of his disposition we may reason- 
 ably infer that most of his acts of kindness remained un- 
 known to all except the recipients. 
 
 One great project of his is known to us — his scheme 
 for bettering the condition of the unfortunate in his own 
 profession. Though successful in art himself, he had the 
 keenest sense of its difficulty and precariousness ; and 
 whilst he never criticised an unsuccessful fellow-workman, 
 he knew how many artists led lives of constant anxiety, 
 deepening at last into final poverty and failure. Instead 
 of scorning his humbler brethren for their incapacity to do 
 what he had done, he occupied his solitary musings with 
 the problem how to so order matters that his success might 
 
Turner s Generosity. 
 
 383 
 
 be made to operate as some alleviation of their misfortune. 
 I have already sufificiently drawn attention to the one de- 
 duction which may be made from Turner's generosity ; 
 there can be no doubt that it was part of a great project 
 for the perpetuation of his name and fame, the bequest to 
 the National Gallery, and the Turner medal, being also 
 part of the same project. But although this desire for 
 fame is visible enough, we ought to remember, in justice 
 to Turner, that it has been shared by many other benevo- 
 lent persons who have not thought it necessary to hide 
 their lights under a bushel. George Heriot, of Edin- 
 burgh, immortalized himself in Heriot's Hospital, Mr. 
 Peabody has recently immortalized himself in the admir- 
 able and fruitful project which bears his name, and a 
 thousand other benefactors of minor note have preserved 
 their names for posterity in less conspicuous places. We 
 need not then blame Turner because he obeyed the im- 
 pulses of an instinct which is common to so many, and 
 desired to be remembered with gratitude for his benevo- 
 lence, as well as with admiration for his genius as an 
 artist. The benevolence was real ; there can be no doubt 
 that Turner enjoyed a real satisfaction in the conviction 
 that every sovereign he put by would lessen the burden 
 of some future distress. Let us rejoice that his kind 
 heart enjoyed the happiness of this illusion during the 
 long days of his solitary labors. It must have been sweet 
 to him, it must have enabled him to look forward to the 
 close of his own life with the enviable assurance that it 
 would be the beginning of a new usefulness in the world. 
 And why, with a resolution in his mind so long cherished, 
 
384 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 so firmly rooted there, could not Turner ensure the exe- 
 cution of his desire ? How does it happen that no 
 distress is to be alleviated by the money which he 
 accumulated for the purpose, that there is to be no 
 " Turner's Gift," that the old age of unfortunate English 
 artists is still to be wretched and uncared for ? Was not 
 Turner's intention plain ? The reader shall judge of this 
 for himself. Here is an extract from his will : 
 
 " It is my will and I direct that a Charitable Institution 
 be founded for the maintenance and support of Poor and 
 Decayed Male Artists being born in England and of 
 English parents only and lawful issue. And I direct that 
 a proper and suitable Building or Residence be provided 
 for that purpose in such a situation as may be deemed 
 eligible and advantageous by my Executors and the 
 Trustees to the said Charitable Institution." (Here follow 
 directions about the appointment of trustees.) " And I 
 declare that they shall be at liberty and have power in 
 case they shall think it necessary for the more effectually 
 and better establishment of the (Charitable) Institution to 
 sell only part of the principal of the said Stock for the 
 purpose of building a proper and fit house for the recep- 
 tion of the objects or the said Institution or that the said 
 Trustees shall or may rent a proper house and offices for 
 that purpose as they shall think fit and as shall be allowed 
 by law but so that there shall always remain a sufficient 
 amount of Stock to produce dividends and interest equal 
 to the full maintenance and support of the respective in- 
 dividuals and the houses or buildings and premises before 
 mentioned and which (Charitable) Institution I desire 
 shall be called or designated " Turner's Gift " and shall at 
 
Turner s Will. 
 
 385 
 
 all times decidedly be an English Institution and the per- 
 sons receiving the benefits thereof shall be English-born 
 subjects only and of no other Nation or Country what- 
 
 ever. 
 
 Here we have Turner trying to imitate the technical 
 language of the lawyers, and it appears that he was not 
 successful in his imitation, for the lawyers decided that 
 the words which the reader has just been perusing did 
 not convey to their minds the idea that Turner intended 
 to found a charitable institution for decayed male artists, 
 A writer of books may not understand legal mysteries, 
 but he may have an opinion about the intelligibility of a 
 page, and I appeal to the reader whether the above quota- 
 tion does or does not convey the idea that Turner intended 
 to found some sort of institution to be called " Turner's 
 Gift," in which decayed male artists of English blood 
 were to find a refuge in their poverty and distress ? 
 Every candid reader going by the plain meaning of the 
 words will at once admit that such was Turner's intention, 
 and he will feel astonished that it was not carried out. 
 Not only was this his intention, but it was his main in- 
 tention, his great purpose, so far as his money was con- 
 cerned. The lawyers, however, decided otherwise, and 
 settled the matter in their own way. They followed the 
 will on three points which were certainly not more plain 
 than the foundation of "Turner's Gift." They gave the 
 pictures to the National Gallery, a thousand pounds for 
 the erection of a monument in St. Paul's Cathedral, and 
 twenty thousand pounds to the Royal Academy. These 
 25 
 
386 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Ttirner. 
 
 were really bequests of Turner's, but then the legal 
 authorities passed over the charitable institution for de- 
 cayed artists as a thing not really intended by Turner, 
 and did not even attempt a partial realization of his idea, 
 but decided that the real estate was to go to the heir-at- 
 law and the remainder to the next-of-kin. Such was the 
 result of a great Chancery suit, which occupied four years, 
 during which the lawyers and their clerks industriously 
 covered an enormous weight of paper, which nobody will 
 ever read and which had to be paid for out of the paint- 
 er's savings, a singular consequence of his own parsimony 
 and love of secrecy which had prevented him from pro- 
 curing competent legal assistance during his lifetime. 
 
 After the settlement of the will and the annihilation of 
 Turner's charitable schemes, the most important matter 
 as affecting the public was the disposal of the pictures 
 left to the nation. They were first exhibited in Marlbo- 
 rough House, and when that residence had to be prepared 
 for the Prince of Wales, rooms for their reception were 
 erected at South Kensington, at a cost of ten thousand 
 pounds. Turner's will had required that rooms should be 
 provided in the National Gallery within ten years after 
 his death, and although during their stay at Kensington 
 the pictures were under the control of the trustees of the 
 National Gallery, and were supposed to belong to it, still 
 they were not actually housed in the same building with 
 the old masters, which was evidently Turner's desire. It 
 therefore became necessary to find room for them in 
 Trafalgar Square, and this was done (October, 1861) in 
 accordance with a plan devised by Mr. Wornum, then the 
 
Works of Art Left to the Nation. 
 
 387 
 
 <^ceper of the National Gallery, who lodged them to the 
 vest of the building, where they were well lighted and 
 ioLild be studied with great facility. Since then the 
 ^oyal Academy has removed to Burlington House, the 
 ^Jational Gallery has been greatly enlarged, the pictures 
 lave been all re-hung, and a new room has been given to 
 ;he principal Turners, in which, unfortunately, they are 
 lot so well seen as under the former temporary arrange- 
 nent. A very plain room on the ground-floor has been 
 issigned for the preservation of the drawings, a room 
 ^yhich, though sufficiently spacious, is certainly too mean 
 x\. its appearance to contain artistic treasures of such 
 lvalue. Material treasure of greater amount is no doubt 
 iodged in the cellars of the Bank of England, but the fine 
 arts require some degree of elegance in their surroundings, 
 and this room has no more pretension to taste or elegance 
 than a London cellar-kitchen. However, in spite of this 
 unsuitableness of aspect, the place is a safe asylum for 
 these abundant records of Turner's artistic existence, and 
 there they may remain for future generations to refer to 
 them. It is to be regretted that, according to present 
 arrangements, they are not so easily accessible to students 
 as they ought to be. They are only to be seen on special 
 days, with a special order from the keeper. For perma- 
 nent residents in London this is not a great inconveni- 
 ence, because they can distribute their work accordingly; 
 but for visitors from the country, and still more from 
 foreign countries, who can only spend a few weeks at a 
 time in London, the present arrangements amount to a 
 practical prohibition of any continuous study, especially 
 
 B 
 
388 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Ttirner. 
 
 if it happens, as it happened in the autumn of 1876, that 
 the keeper is unwell and the director is travelling abroad. 
 The Turner drawings might be, and ought to be, made 
 as accessible to students as the prints in the British 
 Museum. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin, as one of Turner's executors, asked and 
 obtained permission from the trustees of the National 
 Gallery to arrange the drawings as he thought best for 
 their preservation and for the convenience of students. 
 Nothing could have been better devised, or more ably 
 carried out, than Mr. Ruskin's plan, and the British 
 public owes great thanks to him for his labor, though 
 perhaps it may be surmised that the British public does 
 not, as a body, take any very enthusiastic interest in the 
 collection. Certainly the keeper of the Gallery is not 
 deprived of his natural rest and sleep by public impor- 
 tunity for orders to view the Turnerian treasure. The 
 following is Mr. Ruskin's own account of his labors 
 amongst the immense mass of accumulated material that 
 Turner left behind him : 
 
 " In seven tin boxes in the lower room of the National 
 Gallery, I found upwards of nineteen thousand pieces of 
 paper drawn upon by Turner in one way or another. 
 Many on both sides ; some with four, five, or six subjects 
 on each side (the pencil-point digging spiritedly through 
 from the foregrounds of the front into the tender pieces 
 of sky on the back) ; some in chalk, which the touch of 
 the finger would sweep away ; others in ink, rolled into 
 holes ; others (some splendid colored drawings among 
 them), long eaten away by damp and mildew and falling 
 
Works of Art Left to the Nation. 
 
 389 
 
 into dust at the edges, in capes and bays of fragile decay; 
 others worm-eaten, some mouse-eaten, many torn half- 
 way through ; numbers doubled (quadrupled, I should 
 say) into four, being Turner's favorite mode of packing 
 for travelling ; nearly all rudely flattened out from the 
 bundles in which Turner had finally rolled them up and 
 sc(aeezed them into his drawers in Queen Anne Street. 
 Dust of thirty years' accumulation, black, dense, and 
 sooty, lay in the rents of the crushed and crumpled edges 
 of these flattened bundles, looking like a jagged black 
 frame, and producing altogether unexpected effects in 
 brilliant portions of skies, where an accidental or experi- 
 mental finger-mark of the first bundle unfolder had swept 
 It away. 
 
 "About half, or rather more, of the entire number 
 consisted of pencil sketches, in fiat oblong pocket-books, 
 dropping to pieces at the back, tearing laterally whenever 
 opened, and every drawing rubbing itself into the one 
 opposite. These first I paged with my own hand; then 
 unbound ; and laid every leaf separately in a clean sheet 
 of perfectly smooth writing-paper, so that it might receive 
 no further injury; then, enclosing the contents and 
 boards of each book (usually ninety-two leaves, more or 
 less drawn on both sides, with two sketches on the boards 
 at the beginning and end) in a separate sealed packet, I 
 returned it to its tin box. The loose sketches needed 
 more trouble. The dust had first to be got off them (from 
 the chalk ones it could only be blown off) ; then they had 
 to be variously flattened ; the torn ones to be laid down, 
 the loveliest guarded, so as to prevent all future friction ; 
 and four hundred of the most characteristic framed and 
 glazed, and cabinets constructed for them, which would 
 
390 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 admit of their free use by the public. With two assistants, 
 I was at work all the autumn and winter of 1857, every 
 day, all day long, and often far into the night." 
 
 The cabinets constructed for the four hundred draw- 
 ings, which have been framed and glazed, are models of 
 orderly and judicious arrangement, the drawings being 
 at the same time protected from injury and easily ac- 
 cessible. 
 
 So now most things about Turner have been settled in 
 one way or another. " Turner's Gift," to begin with, has 
 been settled by simple annihilation of the whole project. 
 The reception of his pictures by the National Gallery has 
 been settled by the assignment of certain rooms, and his 
 drawings honored by decent burial in a sort of crypt, 
 where, nevertheless, the exceptionally curious student will 
 find them in such order as Turner himself could never 
 have imagined or desired, thanks to the devotion of Mr, 
 Ruskin. Turner's own mortal remains lie in the cata- 
 combs of St. Paul's, and the monument which he decreed 
 to himself has been erected in the form of a statue. 
 
 Some artists, we are informed by Mr. Thornbury, 
 "wished to put a memorial tablet over the door of the 
 house in Maiden Lane, where he was born, but the 
 Board of Works refused to allow it. 
 
 We have now followed to its last results one of the 
 most remarkable of human -lives, and we may ask our- 
 selves, in quiet final reflection upon this great and 
 singular existence, whether it was enviable or not. It 
 had great elements of happiness, but certain other ele- 
 
Co7tclusion. 
 
 391 
 
 merits, almost equally necessary, were wanting. Seventy 
 years of health, of plain, good, serviceable, robust health, 
 may count for something, for much in the happiness of 
 a human life. Careful habits in money matters and a 
 constantly increasing power of earning money, secured 
 Turner from pecuniary anxiety, one of the most wearing 
 of all mental evils, at a very early age. He was soon 
 independent, and had, what to him was a keen and con- 
 tinual satisfaction, the pleasure of growing gradually 
 richer. He could therefore follow art for itself, with the 
 independence of an amateur united to the skill of an 
 accomplished artist, and this is a great happiness which 
 makes a man very independent of society. He was 
 recognized very early by the Academy, being admitted 
 to its exhibitions in boyhood, to the associateship before 
 youth was past, and to full membership in early man- 
 hood. He was not so fully or generally recognised in 
 his lifetime as he is now, but it is a great mistake to sup- 
 pose that he was always censured, ridiculed, or neglected : 
 on the contrary, he enjoyed when living ten times the 
 fame of a fairly successful artist, and was far more fortu- 
 nate in this respect than any of his most able prede- 
 cessors. Finally, as we have seen, he had the singular 
 good fortune of being abundantly celebrated by a writer 
 on art, who, though he has not the accuracy of a judge, 
 has a quality incomparably more influential, the eloquence 
 of an advocate, a writer who is alone in his power of in- 
 teresting the general public in matters connected with 
 the fine arts, and whose books have a place in literature 
 for their style, which will make them endure when 
 
392 
 
 The Life of y. M. W. Turner. 
 
 sounder aesthetic doctrine, plainly expressed, will be 
 passed over and forgotten. 
 
 But all these elements of good fortune in the life of 
 Turner, health, wealth, and fame, with the happiness of 
 following a beloved art from sunrise to sunset every day 
 and from the dawn to the twilight of existence — all these 
 things were not enough to constitute a happy life. The 
 philosophical reader may answer this with the accepted 
 doctrine that happiness, in all lives, is an unattainable 
 illusion. So it is, no doubt, in any absolute complete- 
 ness, but there are relative degrees of it, and we may say 
 with confidence that Scott, though sorely tried, was a 
 happier man than Byron, and Leslie assuredly a happier 
 man than Haydon. Now, in the ordinary limited sense 
 of the word "happiness," as we all understand it, the con- 
 clusion is that Turner, with all his success, never had his 
 fair share of it. His high special culture, his low general 
 culture, were both causes of isolation, for both knowledge 
 and ignorance isolate us, each in its own way. But the 
 greatest hiatus in Turner's life was that he never knew 
 the happiness of marriage, for which his domestic ar- 
 rangements with his mistresses were not and could not 
 be a compensation. Marriage is not essential to happi- 
 ness ; many a not unenviable life has been passed in 
 celibacy ; but soldiers and priests, amongst whom celi- 
 bacy is most general, have constant fellowship with 
 others in their own calling. Turner, with his solitary 
 pursuit, had little of this fellowship; and a happy mar- 
 riage, had it been his good fortune to make one, would 
 probably have brought him into more natural relations 
 
Conclusion. 
 
 393 
 
 with the human species. With the strong support of a 
 firm and regular home affection, and the constant interest 
 of a legitimate family growing up around him, Turner 
 would have cared less for fame (which, after all, is a poor 
 affair in comparison with these) and he would have been 
 far less sensitive to criticism. He would have thought 
 less about himself and his own greatness, and lived with 
 less eager ambition. The contrast in this respect be- 
 tween Turner's life and that of the late J. F. Millet 
 shows Turner's loneliness in its true light. Millet had a 
 hard fight even for the necessaries of existence, but he 
 lived in perfect dignity in his quiet corner of the little 
 village of Barbizon, sustained by the truest and tenderest 
 affection, or affections, we may well say in the plural, 
 seeing that besides his wife he had nine children to love 
 him, and a few dear friends and. neighbors. No man 
 could be more respected than Millet was, and he lived 
 surrounded by the influence of a home which, notwith- 
 standing his narrow means, was ten times as cheerful as 
 any that Turner ever possessed. I have been in both, 
 and have felt in both the indescribable influence of a 
 human habitation, of the things that surround a man, 
 and the difference was briefly this. Millet had a home 
 in that humble dwelling on the forest border of Fon- 
 tainebleau, and Turner had no home in that dreary, 
 dirty mansion in Queen Anne Street. And what are 
 wealth and fame as motives for exertion in comparison 
 with love and duty } 
 
 THE END. 
 
NOTE. 
 
 MR, RUSKIN S TEACHING. 
 
 From a desire to preserve the unity of the Life of Turner, I determined to 
 notice Mr. Ruskin's teaching only just so far as it directly concerned Tur- 
 ner's biography, or the qualities of his art. There are, however, some gene- 
 ral doctrines which Mr. Ruskin has proclaimed in comparatively recent times, 
 and which affect the reputation of Turner, by including or by excluding his 
 works, or the interpretations of them, so that, though I did not criticise 
 these general doctrines in the body of my book, it is hardly possible to leave 
 them to work their evil effects on the public mind without some sort of 
 protest. 
 
 I. In the Lectures delivered at Oxford, and published at the Clarendon 
 Press in 1870, a passage occurs (Lect. V., 129) in which Mr. Ruskin emphat- 
 ically approves the childish doctrine of Leonardo da Vinci, that the best 
 painting is that which most nearly resembles the reflection of nature in a 
 mirror. The same doctrine is repeated at the end of the lecture on the 
 technics of wood-engraving, when Mr. Ruskin says : " Understand clearly 
 and finally this simple principle of all art, that the best is that which realizes 
 absolutely, if possible. Here is a viper by Carpaccio : you are afraid to go 
 near it. Here is an arm chair by Carpaccio : you who came in late, and 
 are standing, to my regret, would like to sit down in it." 
 
 This is a return to the primitive conception of art, and I need hardly 
 observe that it would exclude Turner's works from the rank of what is 
 best, as nothing could be more remote from the reflection in a mirror, or 
 from the realization which may deceive, than the treatment which Turner 
 applied to the materials which he found in nature. This is true, not only 
 of his landscapes, but even of his studies in still life, which are too refined 
 for realization, and never resemble the reflection of the objects in a mirror. 
 
30 
 
 Note. 
 
 2. Mr. Ruskin said in his lecture on the Technics of wood-engraving, 
 " that fine metal engraving, like fine wood-cutting, ignores light and shade ; 
 and that, in a word, all good engravmg -whatsoever does so" 
 
 I need hardly observe that this- doctrine, if it were true, would exclude 
 from the rank of good engraving the entire series of plates from Turner's 
 works, executed by the most eminent landscape-engravers of this century, for 
 these engravers have never ignored light and shade. Happily, the doctrine 
 is not true. 
 
 3. Mr. Ruskin (who has a bitter enmity against etching) says at the end 
 of his lecture on Design in the German Schools : " Etching is an indolent 
 and blundering method at the best." If this were true. Turner would have 
 been an indolent blunderer when he etched the plates in the " Liber Studi- 
 orum." I need not observe that etching has been practised by some of the 
 most eminent painters who ever lived, and who would not have used a bad 
 process, but I may add that etching is greatly admired and approved of by 
 many most eminent painters who have not time to practise it themselves. 
 I have peculiar opportunities for knowing this through frequent correspon- 
 dence, as Editor of the Portfolio, with many of the greatest artists in the 
 world. Even Mr. Ruskin himself can sometimes forget his animosity 
 against the art, as for example in the following sentence, which is directly 
 contradictory of the assertion that etching is an indolent and blundering 
 method at the best : " The etching of Gerome's Louis XIV. and Moliere is 
 one of the completest pieces of skilful mechanism ever put on metal" 
 
GENERAL INDEX. 
 
 Academic study, the best initiation 
 
 into painting, 25, 26. 
 Academy, Turner as an exhibitor 
 
 at, 176. 
 American criticism, 300. 
 Ampere, the younger, 45. 
 Armytage, his engraving from tlie 
 
 sky in the Slave-Ship, 295. 
 Arnold, Matthew, his topography, 
 
 85- 
 Aristocracy, its hostility to art, 8. 
 Art, its essence. Preface vii. 
 Art, writer on, his function, Preface 
 
 vi. 
 Artistic nature, the, 326. 
 Arveiron, source of, 93. 
 Athenancm, the, quoted, 344. 
 
 BiCKNELL, Mr. Elhanan, 218. 
 Bird, the painter, 379. 
 Birthplace of a landscape-painter, 4. 
 Blackwood's Magazine, quoted, 344. 
 Bohn, Mr., the publisher, and Tur- 
 ner, 280. 
 Bonneville, Savoy, 93. 
 Books in Turner's library, 368. 
 Booth, Mrs., 305, 374. 
 Bowles and Bvron, 240. 
 Brentford, 18.' 
 Bridge, a, with cows, 106. 
 Brou, the church of, 85. 
 Browning, his brusqueness, 329. 
 Buckler, 173. 
 Burger, W., a critic, 207. 
 Burnley, its scenery, 56. 
 Business, Turner's policy in, 279. 
 Byron, 374. 
 Byron and the Countess Guiccioli, 44 
 
 Byron on painting, Preface vii. 
 
 Cadell, the publisher, 234. 
 
 Cardiganshire, 34. 
 
 Carlyle, 329. 
 
 Castles, Scottish, 69. 
 
 Chalk sketching. Turner's, 183, 184. 
 
 Chantrey, Turner's playfulness 
 about, 221 ; a letter to, 222 ; his 
 death, 295. 
 
 Charm of Turner's Rivers of 
 France, 255. 
 
 Chickens, a picture of, 122. 
 
 Claude and Turner, 312. 
 
 Claude, what, he discovered, 11 ; his 
 painting of water, 1 27 ; his pic- 
 ture of Ulysses restoring 
 Chryseis to her Father, 155; 
 his choice of legendary sub- 
 jects, 275 ; his choice of scen- 
 ery, 282 ; his Seaport, and Mill, 
 311; his immense fame, 313; 
 Constable's criticism of one of 
 his pictures, 332. 
 
 Color, Turner's transition to, 176; 
 Turner's unfaithful, 253 ; vari- 
 ous in the great masters, 357. 
 
 Coloring, Turner's, what it really 
 was, 191. 
 
 Colorists, great, inaccurate, 254. 
 
 Connoisseurs and discoverers, 128. 
 
 Constable, his opinion of Turner, 
 
 332- 
 
 Cooke, W. B., the engraver, 151 ; 
 publishes the " Rivers of Eng- 
 land," 200; his dispute with 
 Turner, 213. 
 
 Cox, David, 38. 
 
398 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Cozens, 36. 
 
 Craiganunie, 74. 
 
 Craven, 172; Whitaker's History 
 
 . 9h 55- . . , 
 
 Criticism, not attractive reading, 326 
 Cruachan, Ben, 71, 72, 73. 
 Cumberland, 52. 
 Cuyp, 12. 
 
 Danby, Mrs., 374. 
 
 Daubigny, 244. 
 
 Decline, Turner's, its character, 289. 
 
 De Saussure, his " Voyages dans 
 
 les Alpes," 193. 
 Distances of the old masters, 155. 
 Dreams, resemblance of Turner's 
 
 pictures to, 81 ; Turner's, their 
 
 qualities, 82. 
 Dutch painting, distances in, 157. 
 
 Eccentricity of Genius, 2, 3. 
 
 Edgecumbe, Mount, Turner's ad- 
 miration for, 196. 
 
 Edwards, of Halifax, publisher, 55. 
 
 Egremont, Lord, 120. 
 
 Ely, 35- . 
 
 Embarkation of the Queen of 
 Sheba, by Claude, 312. 
 
 Engravers from Turner, 213. 
 
 Engravings, first separate from 
 Turner's works, 65. 
 
 Enthusiasm, killed by extensive 
 critical experience, 321. 
 
 Etching and Mezzotint, loi. 
 
 £tex, the Sculptor, 178. 
 
 " Faerie Queene," the, 107. 
 
 Fawkes, Mr., of Farnley Hall, 6r. 
 
 Feminine influence, lack of, in Tur- 
 ner's life, 44 ; its only utility to 
 a painter, 46. 
 
 Figure, study of in Academies, 25. 
 
 Figures, Turner's, 279. 
 
 Figurine, the. Turner's use of, 169. 
 
 Fisher, Archdeacon, 331. 
 
 Fountainebleau, trees at, 278. 
 
 Foregrounds, often prosaic, 257. 
 
 Forest scenery, slight study of by 
 Turner, 193. 
 
 Fortuny, 178. 
 
 Foyers, fall of, 196. 
 
 Franz Hals, 318. 
 
 French scenery. Turner's apprecia- 
 tion of, 258. 
 
 Fripp, Mr., his Kilchurn, 76. 
 
 Fromentin, on modern technical 
 execution, 348. 
 
 Genoa, scenery about, 221. 
 Gibson, his Venus and Cupid, 222. 
 Girtin, 35. 
 
 Goethe, his study, 133. 
 Great Britain, effect of its scenery 
 on our desires, 91. 
 
 Halsteads, on Ullswater, 174. 
 Hammersmith, Turner's residence 
 
 at, 119. 
 Hanoteau, rustic painter, 194. 
 Happiness, attainable degrees of it, 
 
 393- 
 Hardinge, Lord, 331. 
 Hardwick, architect, 23. 
 Harley Street, Turner in, 98. 
 Hill, D. O., his vignettes, 231. 
 Holme, the, seat of the Whitakers, 
 
 Howard, the Academician, 129. 
 Hugo, Victor, 329. 
 Human form, the mediaeval ignor- 
 ance of, 63. 
 
 Inness, George, his criticism of the 
 
 Slave-Ship, 293. 
 Isaac and Rebecca, Marriage of, by 
 
 Claude, 313. 
 Italy, Turner's journey to, in 1828, 
 
 221. 
 
 Jew, Turner mistaken for a, 174. 
 Joubert, quoted, 250. 
 
 Kilchurn Casti.e, 66, 70. 
 Knockholt, Turner at, 191. 
 
 Ladyhood, 14. 
 
 Lamartine, his poem " Le Lac," 
 
 230. 
 Landscape art, its complexity, 24. 
 Landscape instinct, the pure, 243. 
 Landscape - painting, its probable 
 
 future, 363. 
 
General Index. 
 
 399 
 
 Lawyers, the, how they carried out 
 Turner's intentions, 385. 
 
 Lead pencil. Turner's common use 
 of, 195. 
 
 Lenox, Mr., purchaser of a picture 
 by Turner, 355. 
 
 Leslie, quoted on water effects, 
 127; his opinion of Turner's 
 Richmond Hill, 170. 
 
 Liber Veritatis, Claude's, 105. 
 
 Literature, English, seeks for strik- 
 ing effects, 328. 
 
 Loch Awe, the head of, 67. 
 
 Lockhart, his early appreciation of 
 Turner, 167 ; his opinion of 
 Turner, 331. 
 
 Macauiay, 318 ; his antithesis, 
 
 329- 
 MacDowell, his statue of Turner, 
 
 .308. 
 Maiden Lane, 20. 
 Malton, perspective draughtsman, 
 
 22. 
 Marine painters, the Dutch, 127. 
 Marriage, Turner's renunciation of, 
 
 44. 
 Marriage, a possible, in 18 15, 161. 
 Marriage, 392. 
 Marshall, Mrs. John and William, 
 
 174. 
 Medal, Turner's, 310. 
 Meissonier, 16S. 
 Memoranda, art of taking, 195. 
 Mer de Glace, 93. 
 Mezzotint and etching, loi. 
 Mill, Stuart, 374. 
 Millet, J. F., 393. 
 Milsand, J., on truth in art, 342. 
 Milton, quotations from, 53, 54. 
 " Modern Painters," Ruskin's, 320. 
 Molloy, Mr. J. L., quoted, 245. 
 Montaigne, his definition of fame, 
 
 317- 
 Mount Edgecumbe, Turner on, 137. 
 Munro, Dr., 35. 
 Mystery, in Art, first explained by 
 
 Ruskin, 352. 
 
 Naylor, Mr. John, 209. 
 Northumberland, 52. 
 
 Offence given by strong work, 
 
 274. 
 Old masters, Turner's opinion of, 
 
 130. 
 Orchay, the river, 67. 
 Orleans, 243. 
 
 Painting, its three elements, 12; 
 the old-fashioned system, 350. 
 
 Parker, Theodore, 374. 
 
 Peel, Sir Robert, 164, 331. 
 
 Pen-sketching, Turner's, 184. 
 
 Pencil - sketching. Turner's, 184, 
 185. 
 
 Perspective, Turner elected Pro- 
 fessor of, 118. 
 
 Picnic, provided by Turner, 137. 
 
 Poetry, Turner's, 139. 
 
 Porden, the architect, 22. 
 
 Portrait, practice of, useful to land- 
 scape-painters, 28. 
 
 Pre-Raphaelite pictures, 339, 340. 
 
 Prose, Turner's, 143. 
 
 Punch, the writers in, and Turner, 
 297. 
 
 QuEENE Anne Street, Turner's 
 house in, 131. 
 
 Range, the French river, 196. 
 Rapidity, cultivated by Turner, 180. 
 Redding, Mr. Cyrus, quoted, 129. 
 Regnault, Henri, 178; on reasoning 
 
 about painting, 324. 
 Remote, the, its fascination, 158. 
 Reynolds, his habits as a painter, 
 
 26. 
 Richmondshire, Whitaker's History 
 
 of. 55' '^IZ- 
 Ritchie, Mr., 240. 
 Roberts, David, 304. 
 Rogers, the poet, 229; anecdote of, 
 
 3-7-. . 
 Rome, visits to, 178. 
 
 Rousseau, Theodore, sylvan painter, 
 194. 
 
 Ruskin, Mr., his birth and educa- 
 tion, 318; less a critic than an 
 artist in words, 321 ; his first 
 argument in favor of Turner, 
 323; not the discoverer of 
 
400 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Tumer. 
 
 Turner, 325; the greatest ob- 
 jection to his system of teach- 
 ing, 332; his account of Turner's 
 death, 333, 334 ; his estimate of 
 Turner, 334; his profession of 
 faith in Turner, 336 ; his ar- 
 rangement of Turner's draw-' 
 ings, 388. 
 Ruysdael, 218; his painting of 
 water, 127. 
 
 Sandycombe Lodge, 149. 
 
 Scenery, uneducated persons insen- 
 sible to, 5. 
 
 Scherer, Edmond, on English litera- 
 ture, 329. 
 
 Scotland, Turner's first visit to, 66 ; 
 Turner's visit to in 1818, 165. 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 235. 236, 332 ; 
 his appreciation of nature and 
 art, 165, 166. 
 
 Seddon, Thomas, his picture of 
 Jerusalem, 340. 
 
 Shaw, Dr., his reception by Turner, 
 372- 
 
 Shelley and Mary Godwin, 44. 
 
 Shelley and Turner, Preface x. 
 
 Shelley, quotation from his '' Revolt 
 of Islam," 159. 
 
 Sincerity, sometimes out of place in 
 art, 334. 
 
 Skye, the Isle of. Turner in, 178. 
 
 Slave-ship, 292 ; controversy about, 
 
 293- 
 Stael, Madame de, 329. 
 Stothard, Turner's admiration of, 
 
 1 34 ; Turner's imitation of, 220 ; 
 
 his vignettes, 231. 
 Swiss scenery, unpopularity of, 281. 
 Switzerland, a journey to, in 1838, 
 
 281. 
 
 Thomson, of Duddingston, 166, 
 201. 
 
 Thomson, the poet, quoted by 
 Turner, 170. 
 
 Thornbury, Mr., on the public neg- 
 lect of Turner, 334. 
 
 Topography, pure, not to be ex- 
 pected from landscape-painters, 
 79- 
 
 Towneley, demesne of, 56. 
 
 Travel, what Turner gained by it, 
 96. 
 
 Trees, large isolated. Turner's way 
 of using them, 277. 
 
 Trimmer, Mr., quoted, 129. 
 
 Truth, the English love of, 322. 
 
 Turner, student and artist, Preface 
 V. ; his self-education. Preface 
 vi. ; advantages of his birth, 7; 
 his mother, 13 ; his ignorance of 
 language, 1 5 ; benefits of his 
 school education, 17 ; in an 
 architect's office, 23 ; a pupil 
 of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 28, 39 ; 
 his first picture in the Academy, 
 29; his early industry, 29; early 
 habits of pedestrianism,'3o; 
 favorite of Fortune, 30 ; his 
 wide range, 34 ; early travels, 
 34 ; his early practice in oil, 
 39; early beginning of his ca- 
 reer, 39 ; his early love affair, 
 42 ; as a drawing-master, 42, 4" 
 his two natures, 47 ; as a Pro- 
 fessor, 49; his interest in dif- 
 ferent kinds of subjects, 53 ; 
 elected A.R.A., 56; his resi- 
 dence in Harley Street, 62 ; his 
 residence in Norton Street, 62 ; 
 not naturally a medisevalist, 63, 
 64 ; his comprehensiveness, 64 ; 
 elected R.A., 88 ; date of his 
 emancipation from topography, 
 89; his literary incapacity, 94; 
 takes his father to live with 
 him, 97 ; as an engraver in mez- 
 zotint, 104; his peculiar skill 
 as an etcher, 103 ; as a Writer 
 on Art and Nature, 123, 124, 
 125,126; his house in Queen 
 Anne Street, 131 ; his poetry, 
 139, 368; his prose, 143; his 
 self-control in sketching, 180 ; 
 his father's death, 226; inscrip- 
 tion on his father's tomb, 228 ; 
 could not be accurate, 251 ; the 
 decay of his art, its peculiar 
 character, 279 ; his death, 305, 
 333 ; his funeral, 306 ; his un- 
 concealed ambition, 308 ; his 
 
General Index. 
 
 401 
 
 care for his own fame, 309 ; 
 his good fortune, 317 ; his rank 
 as a painter, 338 ; ' work con- 
 trasted with Pre - Raphaelite, 
 339; his technical quality as a 
 painter, 347 ; as an experiment- 
 alist, 350 ; superiority in water- 
 color, 350; coloring, oppositions 
 in, 358 ; his imaginative power, 
 359 ; the refinement of his taste, 
 359 ; resume of his qualities, 
 360 ; his fame injurious to 
 other artists, 361 ; his eccen- 
 tricity, 364 ; his habits of in- 
 dustry, 365; reason for his 
 unsociableness, 366; not a 
 Philistine, 367 ; an amateur 
 musician, 368 : his personal 
 appearance, 369 ; his practical 
 kindness, 369 ; his bad man- 
 ners, 369; the English charac- 
 ter of his peculiarities, 370; 
 his irritability, 371, 372 ; his 
 religious views, 373; his mo- 
 rality, 374 ; his degree of 
 temperance, 375, 376; his 
 economical disposition, 378 ; 
 nobility of his character, 379; 
 his generosity, 378, 380, 381 ; 
 his great charitable projects, 
 382 ; his pictures at the 
 National Gallery, 386; his 
 studies and drawings, 388 ; his 
 isolation, 392 ; the greatest 
 hiatus in his life, 392. 
 Twickenham, Turner's house at, 148. 
 
 Unpaintable, the, as material for 
 art, 351. 
 
 Van Eyck, his picture in the Lou- 
 vre, La Vierge an Donateur, 1 55. 
 
 Vathek, the author of, 59. 
 
 Venice, M. Havard's description of, 
 266. 
 
 Vernet, Joseph, 291. 
 
 Veron, his work on Esthetics, 
 quoted, 357. 
 
 Verrex, by Stanfield and Harding, 
 250. 
 
 Viardot, quoted, 314. 
 
 Vignette, the, in Turner's hands, 
 230. 
 
 Vorich, Ben, 71. 
 
 Wales, Turner in, 34. 
 
 Water, Turner's observations on its 
 phenomena, 124, 125. 
 
 Water-colors, use of in Turner's oil 
 pictures, 135. 
 
 Westmoreland, 52. 
 
 Whalley, 172 ; Whitaker's History 
 of, 54. 
 
 Wharfe, the river, beloved by 
 Turner, 60. 
 
 Whitaker, Dr., 54, 55. 
 
 Wilson, rivalry with, 197, 
 
 Work, Turner's habits of, at Pet- 
 worth, 121. 
 
 Yorkshire, first subjects from, 
 1798, 50 ; variety of its scenery, 
 SI. 
 
 ■Bi 
 
INDEX TO TURNER'S WORKS, 
 
 DESCRIBED OR ALLUDED TO IN THE BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 Abbotsford, 236. 
 
 Agrippina landing with the Ashes 
 
 of Germanicus, 282. 
 Amboise, 245. 
 ^sacus and Hesperia, 107. 
 vEneas relating his story to Dido, 
 
 302 
 Alps at Daybreak, vignette, 232. 
 Apollo and Python, 122. 
 Apuleia in search of Apuleius, 150. 
 Arveiron, Source of, a sketch, 186. 
 Avernus, Lake, 264. 
 
 Bacchus and Ariadne, 289 
 
 Bay of Baise, the, 199 
 
 Bible, the, Turner's illustrations to, 
 211 
 
 Birds, studies of, 189 
 
 Bligh Sand, near Sheerness, 151. 
 
 Boccaccio relating the Tale of the 
 Birdcage, 219 
 
 Bolton Abbey, 60. 
 
 Bonneville, Savoy, a sketch, 187. 
 
 Bridge, a Stone, with Goats, 106. 
 
 Brocklesby Mausoleum, 65. 
 
 Brougham Castle, 201. 
 
 Boulevard des Italiens, 242. 
 
 Byron, Murray's edition of, Tur- 
 ner's illustrations to, 211 
 
 Calais Pier, 92, 153, 167. 
 Caligula's Palace and Bridge, 260. 
 Cambridge, 34. 
 Campagna, study of, 189. 
 
 Carthage pictures, the two, 198. 
 
 Carthaginian Empire, Morning of, 
 219 
 
 Cephalus and Procris, 275, 
 
 Chapel, Gothic, vignette, 233. 
 
 Chaplet, the, vignette, 284. 
 
 Chepstow Junction of the Severn, 
 107. 
 
 Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 260. 
 
 Clairmont, 258. 
 
 Colne, river, 201. 
 
 Cologne — the Arrival of a Packet- 
 boat — Evening, 207, 208. 
 
 Columbus, vignette, 233 
 
 Coquet, river, 201. 
 
 Corfe Castle, 151. 
 
 Corriskin, Loch, 234. 
 
 Crossing the Brook, 151, 154. 
 
 Deal, view of, 206. 
 Denbighshire, 35. 
 Derwentwater, vignette, 232. 
 Devil's Bridge, Old, St. Gothard, a 
 
 sketch, 186. 
 Dido and iEneas leaving Carthage 
 
 on the morning of the Chase, 
 
 150. 
 Dido building Carthage, 162, 312. 
 Discord, Goddess of, in the Garden 
 
 of the Hesperides, 153. 
 Dolbadern Castle, Turner's diploma 
 
 picture, 56, 57, 58. 
 Drawings from Nature, 179. 
 Dunblain Abbey, 114. 
 
Index to Tjirners Works. 
 
 403 
 
 Dunstanborough Castle, 114. 
 Dunster Castle, 65. 
 Durham Cathedral, 202. 
 
 Eamont, river, 201. 
 East Cowes Castle, 219 
 Egypt, the Fifth Plague of, 65. 
 Egypt, the Tenth Plague of, 65. 
 Ely Cathedral, 202. 
 England and Wales, series, 201, 
 203. 
 
 Falmouth, 207. 
 Farmyard with Pigs, 107. 
 Fishes, studies of, 189 
 Fishing-Boats bringing a Disabled 
 
 Ship into Port Ruysdael, 303. 
 Fonthill Abbey, 59. 
 
 Garden, the, vignette, 284. 
 Garonnelle, vignette, 232. 
 Golden Bough, the, 264. 
 Greenwich Hospital, 108. 
 Greenwich Hospital, vignette, 233. 
 Greta and Tees, junction of, 237. 
 
 Hakewill's Italian Tour, Turner's 
 
 Illustrations to, 210. 
 Hannibal and his Army crossing 
 
 the Alps, 138. 
 Hannibal, 198. 
 Harbors of England, 205. 
 Hedging and Ditching, 107 
 Hesperides, the Garden of, 98. 
 Holy Family, by Turner, 98. 
 Honfleur, sketch, 187. 
 Hotel de Ville and Pont d'Arcole, 
 
 248. 
 India, Turner's Views of, 211. 
 Italy, Ancient, 282. 
 Italy, Modern, 282. 
 
 Jacqueline, vignette, 232. 
 Jason, 107. 
 
 Jupiter Panhellenius, Temple of, 
 pictures exhibited in 18 16, 164. 
 
 Kirkstall Abbey, 60, 201. 
 
 Lambeth Palace, view of, 33. 
 Land's End, 151. 
 
 Liber Studiorum, the, 104, 106; 
 style of the publication, 108; 
 present cost of, 109; artistic 
 qualities of, no; cost of when 
 published,- 113 ; Turner's com- 
 merce in proofs of, 114; didac- 
 tic purposes, of, 115, 116, 117. 
 
 Light and Color, 299. 
 
 Lincoln, 34. 
 
 Little Devil's Bridge, 115. 
 
 Llandaff, 35. 
 
 Loretto Necklace, the, 224. 
 
 Ludlow Castle, 275. 
 
 Lulworth Cove, 151. 
 
 Lycidas, Shipwreck of, 275. 
 
 Macon, the Vintage at, 92. 
 Malmesbury Abbey, 33. 
 Marly, studies at, 187. 
 Medes, the Army of the, destroyed 
 in the Desert by a Whirlwind, 
 
 65- 
 Melrose, 235. 
 Mercury sent to admonish ^neas, 
 
 302. 
 Mer de Glace, Aiguille Charmoz, 
 
 sketch, 186. 
 Mer de Glace, Chamouni, sketch, 
 
 186. 
 Mercury and Argus, 276. 
 Messieurs les Voyageurs, on their 
 
 return from Italy, 224. 
 Meuse, Entrance of the, with 
 
 Orange Merchant going to 
 
 pieces, 169. 
 Michael's, St., Mount, 151, 275. 
 Millbank, study at, 51. 
 Milton, Turner's illustrations to, 
 
 274. 
 Monmouthshire, 35. 
 Moore's Epicurean, Turner's illus- 
 trations to, 284. 
 Morning of the Chase, 167. 
 Morpeth, 114. 
 Mortlake Terrace, 217. 
 Mustering of the Warrior Angels, 
 
 274. 
 
 Napoleon at St. Helena (Exile and 
 
 Rock Limpet), 297. 
 Nile, the, vignette, 284. 
 
404 
 
 The Life of J. M. W. Turner. 
 
 Norham Castle, io6. 
 Now for the Painter 1 216 
 Okement, river, 201. 
 Orvieto, view of, 223. 
 Oxford Almanac, 54. 
 
 Palestrina, 224. 
 
 Pantheon, after the fire, 33. 
 
 Penmaen Mawr, 202. 
 
 Peterborough, 34. 
 
 Phryne going to the Public Bath as 
 
 Venus, 278. 
 Pilate washing his hands, 234. 
 Plymouth, harbor of, 207. 
 Pont Neuf, the, 247. 
 Poole, 151. 
 Port Ruysdael, 218. 
 Ports of England, 204. 
 Procris and Cephalus, 107. 
 Provincial Antiquities of Scotland, 
 
 Raglan Castle, 106, 115. 
 Rain, Steam, and Speed, 300. 
 Ring, the, vignette, 284. 
 Rivers of England, the, 200. 
 Rivers of France, the, 203, 239 ; 
 
 analysis of Turner's subjects, 
 
 242. 
 Rome from the Vatican, 171. 
 Rome, Modern, 282 ; St. Peter's, 
 
 study of, 1 87 ; study at, 187 ; 
 
 the Alban Mount, a sketch, 
 
 187. 
 Rouen Cathedral, 245. 
 Rouen, distant view of, 257. 
 
 Salisbury, 35. 
 
 Scarborough, 207. 
 
 Scott, Turner's illustrations to his 
 poems, 234; Turner's illustra- 
 tions to his prose works, 237. 
 
 Shade and Darkness, 299. 
 
 Shipwreck, the, 167. 
 
 Sky and Sea, studies of, 187. 
 
 Snow-storm, the, 291. 
 
 Solway Moss, 107. 
 
 Somer Hill, near Tunbridge, 122. 
 
 Staff a, 237. 
 
 St. Julian's, Tours, 257. 
 
 Sun of Venice going to Sea, 269. 
 
 Sun, the, Rising in Mist, 312. 
 
 Sun, the. Rising through Vapor 
 (same picture as the preced- 
 ing), 98, 99, 100. 
 
 Temeraire, the, 286. 
 
 Temptation, the, on the Pinnacle, 
 
 275- 
 Thames, the, at Kingston Bank, 
 
 149. 
 Tivoli, studies of, 188. 
 Tomb, the Visit to the, 302. 
 Trafalgar, the large picture of, 120, 
 
 169. 
 Trojan Fleet, Departure of the, 
 
 302. 
 
 Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, 225. 
 
 Venetian pictures by Turner, their 
 
 power, 269. 
 Venice, late sketches of, 187 ; the 
 
 approach to, 269. 
 Venice ; the Canal of the Giudecca, 
 
 266. 
 Venices, Turner's, 268. 
 Vesuvius from Naples, study of, 
 
 188. 
 Walhalla, the Bavarian, 298. 
 Waterloo, picture exhibited in 1818, 
 
 169. 
 Weymouth, 151. 
 Whalley Bridge, 122. 
 Wight, Isle of, 35. 
 Wilkie, burial of, at sea, 296. 
 
 York Minster, 60. 
 
MR. HAMERTON'S WORKS. 
 
 77/1? style of this writer is a truly admirable one, light and pictur- 
 esque, without being shallow, and dealing with all subjects in 
 a charming way. Whenever our readers see or hear of one of 
 Mr. Hamerton''s books, we advise them to read it J'"' — Springfield 
 Republican. 
 
 THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE. Square i2mo. Price $2.00. 
 
 " Not every day do we take hold of a book that we would fain have always near us, a book 
 Ihat we read only to want to read again and again, that is so vitalized with trnth, so heljiful in 
 its relation to humanity, that we would almost sooner buy it for our friend than spare him oui 
 copy to read. Such a book is 'The Intellectual Life,' by Philip Gilbert Hamerton, itself one 
 pf the rarest and noijlest fruits of that life of which it treats. (Here we must beg the pardon 
 •f our younger readers, since what we have to say about this book is not for them, but for 
 heir parents, and older brothers and sisters, though we can have no better wish for them 
 han that they may soon be wise and thoughtful enough to enjoy it too.) 
 
 " Just how much this book would be worth to each individual reader it would be quite impos- 
 ible to say, but we can hardly conceive of any human mind, born with the irresistible instincts 
 owaid the intellectual life, that would not find in it not only ample food for deep reflection, 
 lut also living waters of the sweetest consolation and encouragement. 
 
 " We wonder how many readers of this noble volume, imder a sense of personal gratitude, 
 ave stopped to exclaim with its author, in a similar position, ' Now the only Croesus that I 
 vy is he who is reading a better book than this.' " — From tlie Childretis Friend. 
 
 'HOUGHTS ABOUT ART. New Edition, Revised, with 
 
 Notes and an Introduction. "Fortunate is he who at an early age knows what 
 art is." — Goethe. Square i2mo. Price J2.00. 
 
 " The whole volume is adapted to j^ive a wholesome stimulus to the taste for art, and to 
 ilace it in an intelligent and wise direction. With a knowledge of the principles, which it sets 
 irth in a style of peculiar fascination, the reader is prepared to enjoy the wonders of ancient 
 fud modern art, with a fresh sense of their beauty, and a critical recognition of the sources of 
 "leir power." — New York Tribune 
 
 " Beginning with a recommendation to capable artists to write on art, and illustrating his 
 lr!;uments on this point by some forcible illustrations, Mr- Hamerton proceeds to discuss the 
 different styles of painting, defines the place of landscape among the fine arts, treats of the 
 leiation between photography and paintmo, makes some curious comparisons between word- 
 painting and color-painting, speaks of the painter in his relation to society, and finally offers 
 some practical and valuable suggestions concerning picture-buying and the choice of furniture 
 of artistic patterns for our houses. All these subdivisions of the general subject are touched 
 lirily and pleasantly, but not flippantly, and the book is delightful from beginning to end." — 
 Vew 1 'ork Commercial A dvertiser. 
 
MR. HAMERTUN'S WORKS. 
 
 A PAINTER'S CAMP. A new edition, in i vol. i6moJ 
 Price ?i. 50. Square 1 2ino. Price $2.00. 
 
 "We are not addicted to enthusiasm, but the little work before us is really so full of good 
 points that we grow so admiring as to appear almost fulsome in its praise. ... It has been 
 many a day since we have been called upon to review a work which gave us such real pie, 
 ure" — Philadelphia Evening Telegraph, 
 
 " If any reader wiiose eye chances to meet this article has read 'The Painter's Camp,' bv 
 Mr. Philip Gilbert Hamerton, he will need but little stimulus to feel assured that the saiu 
 author's work, entitled 'Thoughts about Art,' is worth his attention. The former, I confess 
 was so unique that no author should be expected to repeat the sensation produced by it. Lik 
 the ' Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,' or the ' Swiss Family Robinson,' it brought to mature 
 minds, as those do to all, the flavor of breezy out of-door experiences, — an aroma of poetr 
 and adventure combined. It was full of art, and art-discussions too; and yet it needed n 
 mre technical knowledge to understand and enjoy it." — Joel Beuion. 
 
 "They (' A Painters Camp' and 'Thoughts about Art') are the most useful books tha 
 could be placed in the hands of the American art iniblic. If we wenJ asked where the mos 
 intelligent, the most trustworthy, the most practical, and the most interestina; exposition c 
 modern art and cognate subjects is to be found, we should point to Hamerton s writings" - 
 The Atla7itic Monthly. 
 
 THE UNKNOWN RIVER: An Etcher's Voyage of Discov 
 
 cry. With an original Preface for the American edition, and thirty-seven plate 
 etched by the author. One elegant Svo volume, bound in cloth, extra, gilt, an( 
 gilt edges. Price $6.00. A cheaper edition, square lamo. Price ^2.00. 
 
 " Wordsworth might like to come back to earth for a summer, and voyage with Philip Gilbei 
 Hamerton down some 'Unknown River" ! If this supposition seem extravagant to an 
 man, let him buy and read 'The Unknown River, an Ktclier's Voyage of Discovery,' b 
 P. G. Hamerton. It is not easy to write soberly about this book while fresli from its presence 
 The subtle charm of the very title is indescribable ; it lavs hold in the outset on the deepes 
 romance in every heart ; it is the very voyage we are all yearning for. When, later on, w 
 are told that this ' Unknown River' is the Arroux, in the eastern highlands of France, tha 
 it empties into the Loire, and has on its shores ancient towns of historic interest, we do no 
 quite believe it. Mr. Hamerton has flung a stronger spell by his first word than he knew. 
 
 " It is not too much to say that this book is artistically perfect, perfectly artistic, and a poen 
 from beginning to end ; the phrasing of its story is as exquisite as the etching of its picturi;s 
 each heightens the other ; each corroborates the other ; and both together blend in harmonioui 
 and beautiful witness to what must have been one of the most delicious journeys ever made b; 
 a solitary traveller. The word solitary, however, has no meaning when applied to Hamerton 
 poet, painter, adventurous man, all in one, and with a heart for a dog ! There is no empty o 
 barren sjjot on earth for such as he. The book cannot be analyzed nor described in any wa; 
 which will give strangers to it any idea of its beauty." — Scribner' s Monthly. 
 
 CHAPTERS ON ANIMALS. With Twenty Illustrations bj 
 
 J. Veyrassat and Karl Bodmer. Square i2mo. Price ^2.00. 
 
 " This is a choice book. No trainer of animals, no whipper-in of a kennel, no master ol 
 fox-hounds, no equine parson, could have written this book. Only such a man .is Hamertoi 
 could have written it, who, by virtue of his great love of art, has been a quick and keei 
 observer of nature, who has lived with and loved animal nature, and made friends and com 
 panions of the dog and horse and bird. And of such, how few there are! \\\\ like to amns 
 ourselves for an idle moment with any live thing that has giace and color and strength. Wi 
 like to show our wealth in fine equipages ; to be followed by a fond dog at our heel, to hnn 
 foxes and bag birds, but we like all this merely in the way of ostentation or personal pleasure 
 But as for caring really for animals, so as to study their happiness, to make them, knowing us 
 love us, so as to adapt ourselves to themselves, is quite another thing. Mr. Flamerton ha 
 observed to much purpose, for he has a curious sympathy with the 'painful mystery of bruti 
 
ME. HAMERTON'S WORKS. 
 
 eation,' as Dr. Arnold called it. He recognizes the beauty and the burden ot that life which 
 bounded by so fine and sensitive a mortality. He findj in the uses of the domestic animal 
 tmething supplementary to his own manhood, and which develops both the head and heart of 
 le good master. We have been often reminded of Montaigne in reading this book, as we 
 Iwavs associate him with his cat. We never shall hear the name of Hamerton without think- 
 \Z of that Httle polished skull of the terrier which for so many years Hamerton has preserved 
 II love of the creatures whom God has made but as little lower than man, as He has mad« 
 nan but little lower than the angels." — Boston Courier. 
 
 'HE SYLVAN YEAR. Leaves from the Note-Book of 
 
 Raoul Dubois. With Twenty Etchings by the Author and other Artists. 8vo 
 Cloth, gilt edges. Price $5.50. A cheaper edition, square i2mo. Price $2.00. 
 
 " With every successive book by Philip Gilbert Hamerton, his American audience becoines 
 
 rger and more appreciative. His 'Intellectual Life' has been one of the best read and 
 
 est often quoted books of the last two years, and the quiet charm of his style has won its 
 
 y to a more cordial appreciation than almost any latter-day English essayist has received 
 
 .mong us. . . . The book comprises the account of this year of daily wanderings in search of 
 
 leaiity To artists it will be invaluable, for it will educate them in the habit of minute obser- 
 
 .ation. No writer so detects the changing expressions, as well as the features, of Mother 
 
 Nature, as does Hamerton. He knows the color of every twig and leaf, every bit of moss or 
 
 iciien, the formation of every rock. No light or shade on the face of the day escapes his 
 
 mointed vision, — he sees the soul of things as well as the surface ; and he has tlie rare art to 
 
 nspire others for the time being with the gift of his own clairvoyance." — L. C. M. in tht 
 
 'If. Y. Tribujie. 
 
 The Sylvan Year' is one of Mr. Hamerton's best books; and Mr. Hamerton, at his 
 
 [jest, is one of the most charming modern writers. ... A record rich in intelligent observation 
 
 pf animals, trees, and all the fovest-world ; rich, too, in the literary beauty, the artistic touches, 
 
 ind the sentiment that mark Mr. Hamerton's style." — From the Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 " Among the holiday books there is none more charming than Hamerton's ' Sylvan Year.' 
 
 t attracts at first by its outside, which is imcommonly pretty, and its contents win increasing 
 
 iterest. Its author lived a year in the Val Sainte Veionique, watching the forest through all its 
 
 hanges, and adding to his already large stock of woods lore. He has enough scientific knowl- 
 
 :dge, but, in talking of nature, he adds to that the observation of the artist- and the sentiment 
 
 if the poet and the man of true feeling. Then he knows the literature of the woodsj the 
 
 owers, and the seasons; and his pages are enriched by quotations from Theocritus, Virgil, 
 
 liaucer, and modern poets. The style is very quiet, one reads it with a slow sort of delight 
 
 ;iat notliing else gives, and the enjoyment of it grows with every new book that the author 
 
 rites. These out-door books of Mr. Hamerton are more attractive than liis graver works 
 
 hich treat of the Intellectual Life and of Art, although those are admirable in iheir way. 
 
 lit 'The Unknown River,' ' Chapters on Animals,' and 'The Sylvan Year,' have a simpli • 
 
 ity, a delicacy, a depth of feeling, and a wealth of literary beauty that are very rarely found 
 
 iinited. A new vohmie, just come, 'Around my House,' probably belongs to the same class, 
 
 and promises more days of pleasure in the reading." — Boston Correspondent 0/ the Worcester 
 
 ETCHING AND ETCHERS. Illustrated with Etchings 
 
 printed in Paris under the supervision of Mr. Hamerton. A new, revised, and 
 enlarged edition. 8vo. Cloth, gilt and black. 
 
 Price: 
 
 " We are not in the habit of overpraising publishers or authors, but we have no hesitation 
 Ji saying that Mr. Hamerton's 'Etching and Etchers' will henceforth deserve to have, and 
 :ertainly obtain a place, in every gentleman's library in the cotmtry who can afford to buy the 
 jook. The subject is treated so conscientiously, theie is such a maturity and repose of though; 
 md exposition, and in every page, whether you agree or disagree, so nuich to think over with 
 iixurious reflection, besides which the illustrations are so valuable and delicately chosen for 
 ;he object in view, that the book rather resembles the mediaeval labors of life-long devotion. 
 Jian a nineteenth-century forty-steam-power of ephemeral production. In his 'Painter's 
 
MR. HAMERTON'S WORKS. 
 
 Camp,' a small gem of composition, Mr. Hamerton says somewhere, that his notion of art- 
 study is not rapid travelling, but crawling through a country like a snail with your house on 
 your back. He could not have given a more beautiful illustration of his own ideal, or of th< 
 truth of his theory applied to authorship." — Tfie Spectator. 
 
 ROUND MY HOUSE: Notes of Rural Life in France ir 
 
 Peace and War. Square i2mo. Price $2.00. 
 
 " Whatever the subject he chooses, and he is at home with a good many, Mr. Hamertor 
 is pretty sure to write an entertaining book, and this one, which gives an account of his life ii 
 France, is no exception. He takes the reader into his confidence, and tells him just how hnrc 
 it was to find exactly the sort of house he wanted. . . . After describing this tempting place, 
 the author goes on to give his readers just that full record of what he saw in his daily life 
 which is most interesting and useful to an outsider. The merit of this part is, that it so exactlj 
 resembles the talk of a sensible man whose tact enables him to know just what his hearers 
 would like to hear." — Atlantic MonMy, 
 
 WENDERHOLME: a Tale of Yorkshire and Lancashire, 
 
 Square i2mo. Price $2.00. 
 
 "To those who are familiar with other works by Mr. Hamerton, it maybe sufficient, in a 
 general way, to say that ' Wenderholme ' is characterized by the same thoroughness, the same 
 simplicity, the same artistic flavor that make ' Round My House' so delightful; by the same 
 love of nature ihe same appreciation of the beautiful, the same refinement that mark ' Tlie 
 Unknown River' and ' A Painter's Camp; ' and there are not wanting evidences of the wide 
 reading, the proofs of culture and earnestness that are conspicuous in Intellectual Life.' " — 
 Cincinnati, O., 'J'imes. 
 
 MODERN FRENCHMEN. Five Biographies : Victor Jacque- 
 
 mont, Traveller and Naturalist ; Henri Perreyve, Ecclesiastic and Oratoi ; Franqois 
 Rude, Sculptor ; Jean Jacques Ampere, Historian, Archaeologist, and Traveller ; 
 Henri Regnault, Painter and Patriot. By Philip Gilbert Hamerton. Uni- 
 form with "The Intellectual Life," &c. Square i2mo. Price $2.00. 
 " Philip Gilbert Hamerton has the faculty (not common to all authors) of making every 
 thing he touches interesting. Best known as a writer on art, his works upon that subject have 
 come to be recognized as standards His novels and essays are always full of meat, and his 
 works generally are characterized by a fairness and impartiality which give them peculiar 
 value. His latest work, 'Modern Frenchmen,' is made up of five biographies." — Boston 
 Transcript. 
 
 " We know these men for what they did ; Mr Hamerton tries to make us know them 
 rather for what they were, and his study of their lives is literature of permanent worth, inde- 
 pendently of the importance, or the reverse, of their works in the world. Indeed, we may 
 safely say that Mr. Hamerton has done few things of greater or more lasting value than this." 
 A', y Eve7nng Post. 
 
 Mr. Hamerton's Works (not including "Etchers and Etching") 
 may be had in uniform binding. 8 vols. Square l2mo. Cloth, 
 price $16.00; half calf, price $36.00. 
 
 For sale by all booksellers. Mailed, postpaid, on^eceipt of adver- 
 tised price, by 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS, Publishers, 
 
 Boston. 
 
^3 
 
 Hia:}^' 
 
GETTY CENTER LIBRARV um 
 
 NO 497 T94 H21 . 
 
 c 1 ™^S 
 
 3 3125 00169 5234 
 
 mmmm