CATALOGUE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PLATES 
 
 OF 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 WITH 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 WELCH, BIG E LOW, AND COMPANY, 
 
 JlnibrrsiUi }Jtrss. 
 I8 74 . 
 
CATALOGUE 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PLATES 
 
 OF 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 WITH 
 
 AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY, 
 (Hntbcrsitu ^prcss. 
 
 l8 74 . 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 f ^?S-g^^ #HE collection of engravings from designs by Turner 
 
 ^—4 ■ > 
 
 !JS&lh known as the Liber Studiorum, or Book of Studies, 
 t^r^r:/} is probably the work on which, hereafter, the fame of 
 <>,vrfT7 f ; u ~.f the greatest of landscape painters will mainly rest, and 
 from which the student will gather the fullest and most 
 exact conception of the nature of his unparalleled genius. To this work 
 Turner gave himself for a series of years at the period of his mature 
 power. He apparently intended it for a comprehensive exhibition of the 
 range and quality of his art. And, so far as success was possible, he suc- 
 ceeded. He was compelled by the limits of the resources of engraving 
 to content himself with the mere suggestion of those effects of color of 
 which he was the most consummate master. But the careful student 
 of the Liber Studiorum will find his admiration constantly increasing at 
 the skill with which Turner has used the tints of his engraving to indicate 
 the color which could not be directly presented. The Liber Studiorum 
 is essentially the work of an unrivalled colorist. 
 
 The readers of Mr. Ruskin's books have already the 'best introduction 
 to the understanding and enjoyment of these plates. The whole literature 
 of art affords nothing to compare in value, as a body of criticism, with his 
 
4 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 illustration of Turner's work. The sympathy of corresponding genius not 
 only gave him insight into the qualities and characteristics of the master's 
 work, but made the study of that work an investigation of the general prin- 
 ciples of art, of the relation between nature and art, and of the character- 
 istics of nature herself. 
 
 The most important passages in Mr. Ruskin's various books which 
 have direct reference to the Liber Studiorum are brought together in the 
 following pages. 
 
 In 1872 the Burlington Fine Arts Club in London held an " Exhibi- 
 tion illustrative of Turner's Liber Studiorum," intended to display the work 
 in its full strength by gathering together from different collections the 
 choice impressions and the unique proofs of each plate. The following 
 account of the work is from the Catalogue of this interesting Exhi- 
 bition : — 
 
 " The full title which Turner chose for his work was ' Liber Studiorum : illustrative of 
 Landscape compositions, viz. Historical, Mountainous, Pastoral, Marine, and Architectural.' 
 It has been sometimes supposed that we owe its appearance to Turner's emulation of Claude, 
 and especially to his desire to surpass the Liber Veritatis of that artist. If such were his 
 motives, one must at once avow that the contest was unequal ; for the studies after Claude 
 which he aimed to excel were not selected and arranged to display the range of that painter's 
 genius, and they were executed long after his death, whilst Liber Studiorum owes its greatest 
 force to the careful preparation of the plates by the artist himself, and the constant supervision 
 which the painter maintained over the engraver's work. 
 
 "The issue of Liber Studiorum began in the year 1807. Its publication was fitful, irreg- 
 ular, and unbusinesslike. Turner employed no professional publisher to pu f forth the work 
 for him. There is, indeed, so far as we have been able to ascertain, no trace of any prospec- 
 tus or advertisement intended to recommend the work to the public. Five plates were issued 
 together in a part, and it is supposed that the work, according to the original plan, should 
 have extended to twenty such parts, that is, one hundred plates. 
 
 " The first four #parts were issued under an arrangement with Charles Turner, the 
 engraver, according to which he was to engrave all the plates. On all but a few of the 
 earliest of these his name appears as publisher, as well as engraver, and it has been suggested 
 that the original design of the work was partly due to him. Rather a hard bargain is said to 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 5 
 
 have been struck by the painter with his namesake for the performance of these twofold 
 duties. However that may be, the engagement between them terminated not very amicably 
 after the appearance of twenty plates, and thenceforward Turner, the painter, became his own 
 publisher, arranged the work himself, and sold the copies at his own house. 
 
 "Whether the rupture arose entirely out of pecuniary differences may be questioned, since 
 certain remarks of the painter to be found on a touched proof of No. 14, noticed in the Cata- 
 logue, indicate dissatisfaction and irritation against the engraver on account of the manner in 
 which his work had been done. After the dispute the publication of the series, which had 
 before been irregular, became much more so, and intervals of even three and four years elapsed 
 without the issue of a single part. Turner thenceforward employed different engravers, and 
 we find no less than twelve names appended to the remaining plates. The following are the 
 names of these gentlemen, with the number of plates confided to their hands : W. Say, 1 1 ; 
 T. Lupton, 4 ; H. Dawe, 4 ; R. Dunkarton, 5 ; T. Hodgetts, 3 ; S. W. Reynolds, 2 ; (1. Clint, 
 2 ; F. C. Lewis, 1 ; W. Annis, 1 ; J. C. Easling, 3 ; and Charles Turner, 3. Another plate, 
 the Mildmay Marine, was the joint work of Annis and Easling ; and ten were reserved by the 
 painter to himself. The Frontispiece records the names of all these engravers except Mr. 
 Lupton and Mr. Lewis, the former of whom — as he had so large a share in the production 
 of the latter portion of the work and of the plates which were never published — it 
 may be supposed was not called in to assist until after the issue of the Frontispiece in 
 18 1 2. It will be observed that Charles Turner's name was attached to four plates after the 
 breach of the engagement already mentioned ; so that we may well believe that no quarrel 
 took place such as has been described by a "biographer of Turner, who asserts that the two 
 men did not speak for nineteen years. It is impossible for us to regret this rupture, which no 
 doubt led to Turner's taking so many plates into his own hands, and gave us the rarest orna- 
 ments of the series. 
 
 " Liber Studiorum was originally issued in parts, each containing five plates. They were 
 stitched together in a blue-gray cover, with a badly printed title, and with no accessory to 
 recommend them, or to suggest that their author wished the public to believe that within those 
 slovenly wrappers lay some of the finest work of his genius. The price asked for the first 
 numbers was, Prints, \$s. ; Proofs, £1. $s. ; ' to be paid for on delivery' ; but it was afterwards 
 raised to, Prints, £ 1. i;. ; Proofs, £2. 2s. It is to be feared that the difference between 
 these two classes of impressions consisted wholly in the price. 
 
 "There is reason to suppose that the work never proved remunerative, and it is said that 
 its abandonment was thought of more than once. When the publication did cease - after the 
 issue of the fourteenth part — we may doubt whether its cessation w%s premeditated, or 
 whether the publication simply fell off because the painter had occupied himself with other 
 work and found little leisure for the direction of this. Before the cessation of Liber Studi- 
 orum, other serial works in which he was largely concerned, including The Southern Coast, 
 
6 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 began to appear; and before that time such pictures as Mercury and Herse, Dido and 
 yEneas, The Building of Carthage, Crossing the Brook, and The Fall of Carthage, had been 
 shown at the Academy. Seventy plates, as we have said, besides the Frontispiece, were pub- 
 lished ; and of the thirty required to complete the full measure of the work, twenty are known 
 to us to have been left more or less finished. These form the unpublished plates, so highly 
 prized by connoisseurs, many of them for their exceeding rarity, but many also for their high 
 intrinsic merits. In addition to these, several drawings exist, in the British Museum and 
 elsewhere, evidently designed for the continuation of Liber, but which never appear to have 
 been even etched. 
 
 " Liber Studiorum may be said to belong to the second period of Turner's art life. It 
 began to appear in 1807, when he was thirty-two years old, and had already for five years 
 enjoyed the full honors of the Royal Academy. He had already, judging by the subjects of 
 his exhibited pictures, travelled on the continent several years before, and began to use foreign 
 subjects in the first part of this work. But the list of his plates in Liber Studiorum shows that 
 his mind was still dwelling on those subjects of English landscape to which he devoted in his 
 early years so much of love and labor. The abbeys and castles, the gloomy valleys and wild 
 mountains, the rivers and sea-shore of his native land still powerfully attracted his pencil. 
 The subjects treated in Liber Studiorum are very varied in character, and illustrate grandly, 
 as Turner no doubt designed they should, the vast range of his pictorial power. He classified 
 his subjects, as the title-page we have already quoted shows, under six heads, and in the 
 published portions of the work they are found in the following proportions : Pastoral, 14 ; 
 Elegant Pastoral, 14; Mountainous, 14; Historical, 8; and Architectural, 11 • the class to 
 which each plate belonged he showed by initial letters placed over the top. 
 
 "The plates of Liber Studiorum are executed for the most part in mezzotinto, an art in 
 which Turner ranks exceedingly high. This style of engraving was largely used by the painter 
 for the translation of his works in the first half of his life, but he discontinued it not many 
 years after the stoppage of the Liber series. It was obviously less suited to render the quality 
 of the works of his later time. In the series before us he combined deeply bitten etching with 
 the mezzotint. Mr. Hamerton says, ' It is very curious that, in spite of the value now attached 
 to the prints in the Liber Studiorum, this marriage of two arts so naturally complimentary has 
 not been more frequently repeated ' ; but were it not for the ill success, pecuniarily, of the 
 work before us, we might also express surprise that Turner, whose first use of the two com- 
 bined arts was found in this series, never resumed the practice. All his other mezzotint works 
 depend on that art alone. 
 
 " Nearly all the etchings are the work of Turner's own hand, and the following remarks 
 bearing upon the technical qualities of his work, which we borrow from Mr. Hamerton's 
 'Etching and Etchers' (p. 81 and following pages), will probably be found interesting and to 
 many instructive : — 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 7 
 
 " 'Turner was-a first-rate etcher au trait, but he did not trust himself to carry out chiaroscuro in 
 etching, and habitually resorted to mezzotint for his light and shade. His etchings were always done 
 from the beginning with reference to the whole arrangement of the chiaroscuro, and he never laid a 
 line with the needle without entire understanding of its utility in effect. Hut the effect itself, in 
 Turner's etchings, is always reserved for mezzotint, and it results from this habit of his that Turner is 
 not so good an example for etchers, or so interesting a master to study, as if he had trusted to pure 
 
 etching for everything When etching and mezzotint are used in combination on the same plate, 
 
 the etching is done first, and in simple lines, which are bitten in more deeply than they would be if 
 
 the plate were intended to remain a pure etching The difference between etching with a view 
 
 to mezzotint, and etching with no such intention, is very great. The etcher for mezzotint is satisfied 
 with selecting and laying down the most necessary and expressive lines, — the great guiding-lines, — 
 and does not trouble himself about shading, except so far as to leave the plate in a condition to be 
 shaded properly in mezzotint : whereas the worker in pure etching not only gives the selected and 
 expressive guiding-lines, but portions of shade along with them, and at the same time ; and the more 
 skilful he is as an etcher, the more simultaneous he is in method, giving shade and line together from 
 the beginning, especially if he works in the acid. The power of Turner as an etcher was his power of 
 selecting main lines, and drawing them firmly and vigorously. In this respect no landscape etcher 
 ever surpassed him ; and if his etchings arc studied as examples of line selection, they can do nothing 
 but good, if we only bear in mind that they are preparations for mezzotint. 
 
 " ' Another point that we cannot safely lose sight of is, that they were not intended to be printed in 
 black, but in a rich reddish brown, so that the fear of over-biting was considerably lessened, and in 
 the heavy foreground markings Turner did not hesitate to corrode the lines to such a depth that the 
 paper was really embossed in the printing, and a student of art who had become blind might recognize 
 a particular plate by passing his fingers over the back of the impressed proof. One of the most 
 curious instances of this is the Jason in the Liber Studiorum. There is a shadow under the tree to 
 the left which is like the bars of a portcullis. The scales of the dragon, the heavy indications of trees, 
 the foreground markings of vegetation, are all so bitten that the paper shows them behind in deeply 
 sunk hollows. From these tremendous corrosions Turner passed to light indications of distance, as 
 for instance, in the unpublished plate of Dumbarton, which gives one of the most delicate and charm- 
 ing distances ever etched. There is a small rough etching of Eton (Unpublished, No. 79), with a man 
 ploughing, without mezzotint, which is a good instance of Turner's tendencies in biting, and is one of 
 the most interesting of his attempts, because it shows in exaggeration the sort of quality he aimed at 
 
 in etching Turner never relied upon etching to render effect, and docs not seem ever to have 
 
 studied it as an independent art. The kind of work he aimed at in etching was an indication of form, 
 like pen-work, with which he would often add firmness and precision to a sepia drawing. The u.ish 
 with the brush was to be imitated in mezzotint, and the difference between his combination of mezzo- 
 tint and etching was chiefly a difference in the order of procedure. When he worked 011 paper, the 
 broad washes were first given, and the pen markings added at the last ; but when he worked on 
 copper, the lines were etched first, and then the shades added by himself or another engraver. This 
 reversal of method offered, of course, no difficulty whatever to Turner, who, having a perfect hold of 
 his subject, could treat it in any way he liked ; and what 1 infer from his choice of this combination 
 is, that Turner was not really anxious to produce etchings as etchings, but merely used etching and 
 
s 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 mezzotint as the most convenient processes for rendering his sepia studies. In this want of an 
 etcher's ambition lies the distinction between Turner and some other great men who have etched. He 
 made use of etching as an auxiliary, and etched well within the limits of the sort of etching he pro- 
 posed to himself, but he never tried what the process was capable of.' 
 
 " The plates of Liber were found, in printing, to suffer the most rapid deterioration. 
 Only about twenty-five first impressions were taken from them, and by that time the richness 
 of their effect was so much diminished that retouching became necessary before further impres- 
 sions could be taken. Here the skill of the master hand came into use ; he touched and 
 retouched the plates for the second and after states, altering the effects in such parts as most 
 needed it, especially modifying the sky and cloud effects, — sometimes carrying them on to an 
 eighth or a ninth state. There is an instance, indeed, in the plate of the Calm, in which a 
 certain sunniness of effect, which Turner was able to introduce into the fading plate, renders it, 
 in the opinion of many connoisseurs, the finest of all. All the retouches, it must be remem- 
 bered, for the after states were executed by Turner himself. 
 
 "The original drawings for Liber Studiorum were all drawn in sepia. They were made 
 expressly for the guidance of the engraver, and do not properly answer the description of either 
 sketch or finished drawing. The great majority of those done for the published plates — fifty 
 in number — are to be found in the Kensington Museum. Of one drawing exhibited there 
 with the rest there is no engraving among the published series, nor, so far as we know, any 
 representation of it amongst the unpublished plates. It is a Claude-like, classical landscape, 
 reminding one to some extent of the Premium Landscape, and passes in the Museum 
 Catalogue as a ' Pastoral ' Scene. Many of the other drawings are scattered in private 
 collections, but the home of some is quite unknown." 
 
 In regard to the original sketches in sepia for the Liber Studiorum, 
 Mr. Ruskin (Preface to Notes on the Turner Collection, Fifth Edition, 
 1857, p. iv.) says, they "are not to be considered as Turner drawings 
 at all. They are merely hasty indications of his intention, given to the 
 engraver to guide him in his first broad massing out of the shade on 
 the plate. Turner took no care with them, but put his strength only 
 into his own etching on the plate, itself, and his after touching, which 
 was repeated and elaborate, on the engraver's work. The finer impres- 
 sions of the plates are infinitely better than these so-called originals, in 
 which there is hardly a trace of Turner's power, and none of his manner. 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 9 
 
 The time bestowed in copying them by some of the students is wholly 
 wasted ; they should copy the engravings only ; and chiefly those which 
 were engraved, as well as etched, by Turner himself. The best of the 
 series are the Grande Chartreuse, Source of Arveron, Ben Arthur, 
 v^Esacus, Cephalus, Rizpah, Dumblain, Raglan, Hind Head, and Little 
 Devil's Bridge, with the unpublished Via Mala and Crowhurst, not gen- 
 erally accessible. The Via Mala, ^isacus, Arveron, and Raglan were 
 engraved by Turner." * 
 
 * In his Elements of Drawing (London, 1857), p. 133, Mr. Kuskin says, "Get, if you have the 
 means, a good impression of one plate of Turner's Liber Studiorum," and he goes on to give 
 directions for its use. In a note he says, "The following are the most desirable plates: — 
 
 Grande Chartreuse. Pcmbury Mill. 
 
 /Esacus and Hesperie. Little Devil's Bridge. 
 
 Cephalus and Procris. River Wye {not Wye and Severn). 
 
 Source of Arveron. Holy Island. 
 
 Ben Arthur. Clyde. 
 
 WatermilL Lauffenbourg. 
 
 Hind Head Hill. Blair Athol. 
 
 Hedging and Ditching. Alps from Grenoble. 
 
 Dumblain Abbey. Raglan (subject with quiet brook, trees, 
 
 Morpeth. and cattle on the right). (No. 58.) 
 
 Calais Pier. 
 
 " If you cannot get one of these, any of the others will be serviceable, except only the twelve fol- 
 lowing, which are quite useless. 
 
 1. Scene in Italy, with goats on a walled road and trees above. (No. 43.) 
 
 2. Interior of church. (No. 70.) 
 
 3. "Scene with bridge and trees above, figures on left, one playing a pipe. (No. 13.) 
 
 4. Scene with figure playing on tambourine. (No. 3.) 
 
 5. Scene on Thames with high trees, and a square tower of a church seen through them. (No. 63.) 
 
 6. Fifth Plague of Egypt 
 
 7. Tenth Plague of Egypt 
 
 8. Rivaulx Abbey. 
 
 9. Wye and Severn. (No. 28.) 
 
 10. Scene with castle in centre, cows under trees on the left. (No. 8.) 
 1 [. Martello Towers. 
 12. Calm. 
 
 " It is very unlikely that you should meet with one of the original etchings : if you should it will 
 
 2 
 
IO 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 The wide range of subjects in the Liber Studiorum not only exhibits 
 the breadth of Turner's sympathy, and the vivacity of his imagination, 
 but the extraordinary resources at his command, the result of unwearied 
 industry, constant practice, and faithful discipline of hand and eye. Mr. 
 Ruskin, speaking {Modem Painters, Vol. I. p. 123) of the force of national 
 feeling as shown in Turner's work, says : — 
 
 " I do not know in what district of England Turner first or longest studied, but the 
 scenery whose influence I can trace most definitely throughout his works, varied as they 
 
 are, is that of Yorkshire It is, I believe, to the broad wooded steeps and swells of 
 
 the Yorkshire downs that we owe in part the singular massiveness that prevails in Turner's 
 mountain drawing, and gives it one of its chief elements of grandeur. Let the reader open 
 the Liber Studiorum and compare the painter's enjoyment of the lines in the Ben Arthur 
 with his comparative uncomfortableness among those of the aiguilles about the Mer de 
 Glace. 
 
 " ' I do not know,' Mr. Ruskin continues, ' at what time the painter first went abroad,' 
 but 'among the earliest of the series of the Liber Studiorum (dates 1808, 1809) occur 
 the magnificent Mont St. Gothard and Little Devil's Bridge. Now it is remarkable that 
 after his acquaintance with this scenery, so congenial in almost all respects with the energy 
 of his mind, and supplying him with materials of which in these two subjects, and in the 
 Chartreuse, and several others afterwards, he showed both his entire appreciation and 
 
 be a drawing-master in itself alone, for it is not only equivalent to a pen-and-ink drawing by Turner, 
 but to a very careful one ; only observe the Source of Arveron, Raglan, and Uumblain were not 
 etched by Turner ; * and the etchings of those three are not good for separate study, though it is 
 deeply interesting to see how Turner, apparently provoked at the failure of the beginnings in the 
 Arveron and Raglan, took the plates up himself, and either conquered or brought into use the bad 
 etching by his marvellous engraving. The Dumblain was, however, well etched by Mr. Lupton, 
 and beautifully engraved by him. The finest Turner etching is of an aqueduct with a stork stand- 
 ing in a mountain stream, not in the published series ; and next to it are the unpublished etchings 
 
 of the Via Mala and Crowhurst Of the published etchings the finest are the Ben Arthur, 
 
 jEsacus, Cephalus, and Stone Pines with the girl washing at a cistern ; the three latter are more 
 generally instructive. Hind Head Hill, Isis, Jason, and Morpeth are also very desirable." 
 
 * Of No. 55, Entrance to Calais Harbor, no etching exists. Besides the plates mentioned above, No. 70, 
 Interior of a Church, was also not etched by Turner. Mr. Ruskin is in error in stating that die etching of 
 Dumblain Abbey is not by Turner. See Burlington Fine Arts Club Catalogue, p. 39. 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 command, the proportion of English to foreign subjects should in the rest of the work 
 be more than two to one ; and that those English subjects should be, many of them, of 
 a kind peculiarly simple and of every-day occurrence ; such as the Pembury Mill, the Farm- 
 yard composition with the white horse, that with the cocks and pigs, Hedging and Ditch- 
 ing, Watercress Gatherers (scene at Twickenham), and the beautiful and solemn rustic 
 subject, called A Watermill : and that the architectural subjects, instead of being taken, 
 as might have been expected of an artist so fond of treating effects of extended space, 
 from some of the enormous continental masses, are almost exclusively British ; Rivaulx, 
 Holy Island, Dumblain, Dunstanborough, Chepstow, St. Catherine's, Greenwich Hospital, 
 an English Parish Church, a Saxon Ruin, and an exquisite reminiscence of the English 
 lowland castle, in the pastoral with the brook, wooden bridge, and wild duck ; to all of 
 which we have nothing foreign to oppose but three slight, ill-considered, and unsatisfactory 
 subjects, from Basle, Lauffenbourg, and Thun : and farther, not only is the preponderance 
 of subject British, but of affection also ; for it is strange with what fulness and completion 
 the home subjects are treated in comparison with the greater part of the foreign ones. 
 Compare the figures and sheep in the Hedging and Ditching, and the East Gate, Winchel- 
 sea, together with the near leafage, with the puzzled foreground and unappropriate figures 
 of the Lake of Thun ; or the cattle and road of the St. Catherine's Hill, with the fore- 
 ground of the Bonneville ; or the exquisite figure with the sheaf of corn in the Watermill, 
 with the vintagers of the Grenoble subject. 
 
 " In his foliage the same predilections are remarkable. Reminiscences of English wil- 
 lows by the brooks, and English forest glades, mingle even with the heroic foliage of the 
 ./Esacus and Hesperie, and the Cephalus 
 
 " I adduce these evidences of Turner's nationality (and innumerable others might be 
 given if need were), not as proofs of weakness, but of power ; not so much as testifying want 
 of perception in foreign lands, as strong hold on his own ; for I am sure that no artist 
 who has not this hold upon his own will ever get good out of any other. Keeping this prin- 
 ciple in mind, it is instructive to observe the depth and solemnity which Turner's feeling 
 acquired from the scenery of the continent, the keen appreciation up to a certain point 
 of all that is locally characteristic, and the ready seizure for future use of all valuable 
 material." 
 
 On the following page Mr. Ruskin continues : — 
 
 "The effect of Italy upon his mind is very puzzling. On the one hand it gave him the 
 solemnity and power which are manifested in the historical compositions of the Liber Studi- 
 orum, more especially the Rizpah, the Cephalus, the scene from the Fairy Queen, and 
 the ^isacus and Hesperie ; on the other he seems never to have entered thoroughly into 
 the spirit of Italy, and the materials he obtained there were afterwards but awkwardly 
 introduced in his large compositions. 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 " Of these there are very few at all worthy of him ; none but the Liber Studiorum sub- 
 jects are truly great, and these are great because there is in them the seriousness, without 
 the materials, of other countries and times. There is nothing particularly indicative of 
 Palestine in the Barley Harvest of the Rizpah, nor in those round and awful trees ; only 
 the solemnity of the south in the lifting of the near burning moon. The rocks of the 
 Jason may be seen in any quarry of Warwickshire sandstone. Jason himself has not a 
 bit of Greek about him ; he is a simple warrior of no period in particular, nay, I think 
 there is something of the nineteenth century about his legs. When local character of this 
 classical kind is attempted, the painter is visibly cramped ; awkward resemblances to 
 Claude testify the want of his usual forceful originality ; in the Tenth Plague of Egypt he 
 makes us think of Belzoni rather than of Moses ; the Fifth is a total failure ; the pyra- 
 mids look like brick-kilns, and the fire running along the ground like the burning of 
 manure." 
 
 Concerning the moral temper of the artist as shown by the designs 
 of the Liber Studiorum, and the qualities of feeling and imagination dis- 
 played in them, Mr. Ruskin says {Modern Painters, Vol. V. p. 336): — 
 
 " None of the great early painters draw ruins, except compulsorily. The shattered 
 buildings introduced by them are shattered artificially, like models. There is no real sense 
 of decay ; whereas Turner only momentarily dwells on anything else than ruin. Take up the 
 Liber Studiorum and observe how this feeling of decay and humiliation gives solemnity to 
 all its simplest subjects ; even to his view of human labor. I have marked its tendency in 
 examining the design of the Mill and Lock, but observe its continuance through the book. 
 There is no exultation in thriving city, or mart, or in happy rural toil, or harvest gathering. 
 Only the grinding at the mill, and patient striving with hard conditions of life. Observe 
 the two disordered and poor farm-yards, cart, and ploughshare, and harrow rotting away ; 
 note the pastoral by the brookside, with its neglected stream, and haggard trees, and 
 bridge with the broken rail, and decrepit children — fever-struck — one sitting stupidly by the 
 stagnant stream ; the other in rags, and with an old man's hat on, and lame, leaning on 
 a stick. Then the Hedging and Ditching, with its bleak sky and blighted trees, — hacked, 
 and bitten, and starved by the clay soil into something between trees and firewood ; its 
 meanly-faced, sickly laborers, — pollard laborers, like the willow trunk they hew; and the 
 slatternly peasant-woman, with worn cloak and battered bonnet, — an English Dryad. Then 
 the Watermill, beyond the fallen steps overgrown with the thistle : itself a ruin, mud-built at 
 first, now propped on both sides ; the planks torn from its cattle-shed ; a feeble beam, splin- 
 tered at the end, set against the dwelling-house from the ruined pier of the water course ; 
 the old millstone — useless for many a day — half buried in slime, at the bottom of the 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 13 
 
 wall ; the listless children, listless clog, and the poor gleaner bringing her single sheaf to be 
 ground. Then the Peat bog, with its cold, dark rain, and dangerous labor. And last 
 and chief, the mill in the valley of the Chartreuse. Another than Turner would have 
 painted the convent ; but he had no sympathy with the hope, no mercy for the indolence, 
 of the monk. He painted the mill in the valley, precipice overhanging it, and wildness 
 of dark forest round; blind rage and strength of mountain torrent rolled beneath it, — 
 calm sunset above, but fading from the glen, leaving it to its roar of passionate waters 
 and sighing of pine branches in the night. 
 
 " Such is his view of human labor. Of human pride, see what records : Morpeth tower, 
 roofless and black ; gate of old Winchelsea wall, the flock of sheep driven round it, not 
 through it ; and Rivaulx choir and Kirkstall crypt ; and Dunstanborough, wan above the 
 sea ; and Chepstow, with arrowy light through traceried windows ; and Lindisfame with 
 failing height of wasted shaft and wall ; and last and sweetest, Raglan, in utter solitude, 
 amidst the wild wood of its own pleasance ; the towers rounded with ivy, and the forest 
 roots choked with undergrowth, and the brook languid amidst lilies and sedges ; legends of 
 gray knights and enchanted ladies keeping the woodman's children away at the sunset. 
 
 "These are his types of human pride. Of human love: Procris dying by the arrow, 
 Hesperie, by the viper's fang ; and Rizpah, more than dead, beside her children. 
 
 " Such are the lessons of the Liber Studiorum. Silent always with a bitter silence, dis- 
 daining to tell his meaning, when he saw there was no ear to receive it, Turner only indi- 
 cated this 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 rest. ' What 
 is the use of them,' he said, ' but together ? ' The meaning of the entire book was 
 symbolized in the frontispiece, which he engraved with his own hand : Tyre at sunset, 
 with the Rape of Europa, indicating the symbolism of the decay of Europe by that of Tyre, 
 its beauty passing away into terror and judgment (Europa being the mother of Minos and 
 Rhadamanthus)." 
 
CATALOGUE. 
 
 *** The letters at the top of the plates a"'' printed in the margin of the Catalogue, have the following mean 
 ings : — P., pastoral; E. P., elegant pastoral ; M. and M. S., mountainous; M., marine; H., historical; 
 A., architectural. 
 
 The names in the Catalogue are taken from the plates so far as they appear upon them. For the plates which 
 bear no name the commonly accepted name is given in parentheses. 
 
 THE PUBLISH III) PLATES. 
 
 No. 1.— THE FRONTISPIECE TO LIBER STUDIORUM is most 
 respectfully presented to the Subscribers by J. M. W. Turner. 
 Published May 23, 181 2. 
 
 The picture in the centre, the Rape of Fairopa, was engraved by Turner himself. . 
 The contrast between its beauty and the clumsy and unmeaning framework in which it 
 is set is striking. 
 
 PART I - PUBLISHED JANUARY 20 1807. 
 
 No. 2. — (BRIDGE AND COWS.) 
 P. 
 
 No. 3. — (WOMAN WI TH TAMBOURINE.) 
 
 E. P. " All the worst and feeblest studies in the book, as the pastoral with the nymph 
 
 playing the tambourine, that with the long bridge seen through the trees (No. 13) and 
 with the flock of goats on the walled road (No. 43), — owe the principal part of their im 
 becilities to Claude." — Ruskin, Modern Painters^ Vol. III. p. 324 
 
 In spite of its weak artificiality, the composition is in parts exquisite. 
 
i6 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 NO. 4. — (SMUGGLERS, FLINT CASTLE.) 
 
 M. 
 
 No. 5. — BASLE. 
 
 A. 
 
 No. 6. — JASON. 
 
 H. Mr. Ruskin, in his chapter " Of Imagination Penetrative " {Modern Painters, 
 
 Vol. II. p. 166), says, "Take up Turner's Jason, Liber Studiorum, and observe how the 
 imagination can concentrate all this, and infinitely more, into one moment. No far 
 forest country, no secret paths, nor cloven hills ; nothing but a gleam of pale, hori- 
 zontal sky, that broods over pleasant places far away, and sends in, through the wild 
 overgrowth of the thicket, a ray of broken daylight into the hopeless pit. No flaunt- 
 ing plumes nor brandished lances, but stern purpose in the turn of the crestless helmet, 
 visible victory in the drawing back of the prepared right arm behind the steady point. 
 No more claws, nor teeth, nor manes, nor stinging tails. We have the dragon, like 
 everything else, by the middle. We need see no more of him. All his horror is in 
 that fearful, slow, griding upheaval of the single coil. Spark after spark of it, ring 
 after ring, is sliding into the light, the slow glitter steals along him step by step, 
 broader and broader, a lighting of funeral lamps one by one, quicker and quicker ; a 
 moment more and he is out upon us, all crash and blaze, among those broken trunks ; 
 
 but he will be nothing then to what he is now 
 
 " Now observe in this work of Turner that the whole value of it depends on the 
 character of curve assumed by the serpent's body ; for had it been a mere semicircle, or 
 gone down in a series of smaller coils, it would have been, in the first case, ridiculous, 
 as unlike a serpent, or, in the second, disgusting, nothing more than an exaggerated 
 viper; but it is that coming straight at the right hand which suggests the drawing forth 
 of an enormous weight, and gives the bent part its springing look, that frightens us. 
 Again, remove the light trunk on the left, and observe how useless all the gloom in the 
 picture would have been if this trunk had not given it depth and hollowness. Finally, 
 and chiefly, observe that the painter is not satisfied even with all the suggestiveness thus 
 obtained ; but to make sure of us, and force us, whether we will or not, to walk his 
 way, and not ours, the trunks of the trees on the right are all cloven into yawning and 
 writhing heads and bodies, and alive with dragon energy all about us. Note espe- 
 cially the nearest, with its gaping jaws and claw-like branch at the seeming shoulder ; a 
 kind of suggestion which in itself is not imaginative, but merely fanciful ; but it is imagi- 
 native in its present use and application, for the painter addresses thereby that morbid 
 and fearful condition of mind which he has endeavored to excite in the spectator, and 
 which in reality would have seen in every trunk and bough, as it penetrated into the 
 deeper thicket, the object of its terror." 
 
 In the five subjects of which Part Lis composed, — and something of the same 
 sort may be observed in the subsequent parts, — Turner seems to have intended to 
 express the variety of his sympathies and the breadth of his art. From the sim- 
 plest bit of Fnglish landscape and life we pass to the Arcadia of the classic land- 
 scapists ; thence back to nature and man in another aspect, the sea and the smugglers, 
 in sharp contrast to the rural tranquillity of the first pastoral scene. Then we have the 
 literal view of a picturesque city, with nature in sky and river, and at length, for a close, 
 the pure imaginative power of the ideal landscape and incident of the Jason. Any 
 one who knows what English landscape art was generally in 1807 will recognize the 
 astonishing novelty of this wide reach and strong grasp of Turner. These were original 
 and fresh gifts of art. In painting he was at once the Wordsworth and the Byron of 
 his generation. 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 17 
 
 PART II. — PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 20, 1808. 
 
 No. 7. — (A STRAW YARD.) 
 
 P. One of the least interesting and instructive of the series ; a study from nature, 
 
 without felicity of composition. 
 
 No. 8. — (OKEHAMPTON CASTLE.) 
 
 E. P. In Turner's " Picturesque Views in England and Wales," 1828, is a much fuller and 
 
 grander view of Okehampton, but wanting in the dignity and serenity which make this 
 plate rich in poetic suggestion. Still another and very different view is given in the 
 " Rivers of England," Plate 10, 1825. 
 
 No. 9. — MT. ST. GOTHARD. 
 
 M. S. "The difference between rock curvature and other curvature I cannot explain ver- 
 bally ; .... let the reader study the rock drawing of the Mont St. Gothard subject, in 
 the Liber Studiorum, and compare it with any examples of Salvator to which he may 
 happen to have access." — Modern Painters, Vol. I. p. 306, note. 
 
 No. 10 — (SEA PIECE.) In the possession of the Earl of Egremont. 
 M. 
 
 No. 11.— HOLY ISLAND CATHEDRAL. 
 
 A. 
 
 PART III. — PUBLISHED JUNE 10, 1808. 
 
 No. 12. — PEMBURY MILL, KENT. 
 
 P. In later states of the plate the name was altered to Penbury Mill. 
 
 No. 13. — (BRIDGE IN MID DISTANCE.) 
 
 E. P. See note on No. 3. The sky in this plate is executed in aquatint. 
 
 No. 14. — DUNSTANBOROUGH CASTLE. 
 
 A. "The upper part of this plate, down to the rocks, is executed in aquatint. That 
 
 this was done by the engraver without the painter's sanction seems to be proved by the 
 3 
 
i8 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 following remark of Turner's upon one of the touched proofs in the possession of Mr. 
 J. E. Taylor : ' Sir, you have done in aquatint all the castle down to the rocks ; did I 
 ever ask for such an indulgence?'" — Burlington Fine Arts Club Exh. Cat. 
 
 This subject was a favorite one with Turner through his life. In 1798, when he 
 was twenty-three years old, he exhibited a picture of it in the Royal Academy, under 
 the name of Sunrise after a Stormy Night. Many years later he made an elaborate 
 drawing in water-colors of the same composition, which was engraved for the England 
 and Wales series. The contrast between the proud and the humble conditions of life, 
 the ruin of the vast stronghold and the permanence of the hut of the fisherman, 
 while nature with unchanged aspect remains untouched by human vicissitude, explains 
 the power of this scene over Turner's imagination. 
 
 Dunstanborough Castle, in Northumberland, was built about 13 15, and was de- 
 stroyed in the wars of York and Lancaster, in 1463. The area of the ruins is of nine 
 acres. 
 
 No. 15. — LAKE OF THUN, SWISS. 
 
 M. 
 
 No. 16. — THE FIFTH PLAGUE OF EGYPT. The picture late 
 H. in the possession of W. Beckford, Esq. 
 
 The picture of this subject was exhibited in the Royal Academy in 1800, with the 
 quotation in the Catalogue from Exodus ix. 23. " And Moses stretched forth his hands 
 towards heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along the ground." 
 
 PART IV. — PUBLISHED MARCH 29, 1809. 
 
 No. 17. — (FARMYARD AND COCK.) 
 P. 
 
 No. 18. — DRAWING OF THE CLYDE. In the possession of J. M. 
 E. P. W. Turner. 
 
 Picture exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1802, with a reference in the Catalogue 
 to Akenside's Hymn to the Naiads. 
 
 No. 19.— LITTLE DEVIL'S BRIDGE OVER THE RUSS, ABOVE 
 M.S. ALTDORFT, SWISS D . 
 
 On a proof sent him by the engraver, Charles Turner, Turner wrote, "The light 
 must be sharp and brilliant, particularly upon the front trees, bones, rock, &c, and if 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 n 
 
 my etching is in your way, viz. the bird and top of the tree, scrape out or beat up the 
 copper. Be careful about the distance. It wants air and light scraping to render it 
 like the place." 
 
 On another proof he wrote, "This sky is much better, but do not understand the 
 spots amongst the light part. A slight indication of a ray of bursting light under the 
 
 bridge would improve that part Put a shade upon the top of the bridge and 
 
 under the arch." Such notes as these are of interest as showing the minute care which 
 Turner bestowed on the work, and his honest attempt to make it as good as patience 
 and attention could make it. There was no indifference, or ignorant waiting on chance, 
 in him. He knew what he wanted, and he took the only certain means to secure it. 
 His work is a continual illustration of painstaking. 
 
 No. 20. — ORIGINAL SKETCH OF A PICTURE FOR W. LEAD- 
 M. ER, Esq. (Sometimes called The Guard-Ship at the Nore.) 
 
 A comparison between this piece and Sheerness as seen from the Nore, in the 
 " Harbours of England," is interesting and instructive. The same theme is treated in 
 each, but in the two scenes the wind is from the opposite quarter, the course of the waves 
 and of the clouds is in different direction. In the Sheerness the guard-ship is in shadow, 
 the sloop in light. This play of the visual imagination around a subject, beholding it 
 in one aspect and then another and another, is one of the most marked and extraordi- 
 nary characteristics of Turner's genius. To him the actual scene seems always to have 
 presented itself as but one effect out of many, each of which was as vivid and real to 
 his imagination as that which imaged itself upon his outward eye. He constantly worked 
 over the same subject, having seen it but once, and made but one sketch directly from 
 it, with variations of effect, — changes in light, in color, in weather, in season of the day 
 or year. He knew nature so well that he could see her winter aspect in summer, or her 
 noonday brightness in the dawn of a stormy morning. 
 
 No. 21. — MORPETH, *NORTH D . 
 
 A. On a touched proof exhibited at the Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, Turner 
 
 had written, " I think the whole sky would be better a tone lighter, besides the light 
 clouds, which will make the hill more solid. The whitewashed house cannot be too 
 white, or the linen upon the stall. The etching line at the corner of the house, and 
 some brighter (sic) upon tiling of the houses." 
 
 PART V. — PUBLISHED JANUARY 1, 1811. 
 
 No. 22. — JUVENILE TRICKS. 
 
 P. Mr. Ruskin, in his chapter "Of Truth of Vegetation" [Modern Painters, Vol. I. 
 
 p. 388), refers to this plate as one of those in the Liber Studiorum which afford a marked 
 example of Turner's truth to woody character in his tree subjects. With pardonable 
 exaggeration, for the exceptions are so rare as hardly to deserve consideration, he says, 
 "The woody stiffness hinted through muscular line and the inventive grace of the 
 
20 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 upper boughs have never been rendered except by Turner ; he does not merely draw 
 them better than others, but he is the only man who has ever drawn them at all." He 
 continues, " Of the woody character the tree subjects of the Liber Studiorum afford 
 marked examples ; the Cephalus and Procris, scenes near the Grande Chartreuse and 
 Blair Athol, Juvenile Tricks, and Hedging and Ditching, may be particularized." 
 
 The subject of this piece affords Mr. Ruskin an illustration in one of his most im- 
 pressive general statements concerning Turner's genius. " I do not, of course, mean to 
 say," he writes {Modern Painters, Vol. IV. p. 15), "that Turner has accomplished all 
 to which his sympathy prompted him ; necessarily the very breadth of effort involved, in 
 some directions, manifest failure, but he has shown in casual incidents and by-ways a 
 
 range of feeling which no other painter, so far as I know, can equal Just glean out 
 
 of his works the evidence of his sympathy with children ; look at the girl putting her 
 bonnet on the dog in the foreground of the Richmond, Yorkshire ; the Juvenile Tricks 
 and Marine Dabblers of the Liber Studiorum ; the boys scrambling after their kites 
 in the woods of the Greta and Buckfastleigh ; and the notable and most pathetic draw- 
 ing of the Kirkby Lonsdale churchyard, with the school-boys making a fortress of their 
 larger books on the tombstone, to bombard with the more projectile volumes ; and, pass- 
 ing from these to the intense horror and pathos of the Rizpah, consider whether there 
 was ever any other painter who could strike such an octave. Whether there has been 
 or not, in other walks of art, this power of sympathy is unquestionably in landscape 
 unrivalled." 
 
 NO 23.— (HINDOO WORSHIPPER.) 
 E. P. 
 
 No. 24. — COAST OF YORKSHIRE, NEAR WHITBY. 
 
 Mr. Ruskin {Harbours of England, p. 30) speaking of some of the qualities of Turn- 
 er's composition, says, "Turner knew better than any man the value of echo, as well 
 as of contrast ; of repetition, as well as of opposition." His use of echoing lines may be 
 studied in many of the plates of the Liber Studiorum ; and it is conspicuous in the 
 present design, in the forms of the rocks, in the two masts, in the three figures with 
 uplifted hands repeating the vertical lines of the masts, and in other minor details. 
 
 " He hardly ever painted a steep rocky coast without some fragment of a devoured 
 ship grinding in the blanched teeth of the surges, just enough left to be a token of utter 
 destruction." — Harbours of England, p. 23. 
 
 No. 25. — HIND HEAD HILL, on the Portsmouth Road. 
 M. 
 
 No. 26. — LONDON, FROM GREENWICH. 
 
 A. 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUPIORUM. 
 
 PART VI. — PUBLISHED JUNE 1, 1811. 
 
 No. 27. — (WINDMILL AND LOCK). From a picture in the pos- 
 session of J. M. W. Turner, R. A. 
 
 P. 
 
 In "Modern Painters " (Vol. IV. p. 7, Plate 19), Mr. Ruskin has chosen this Wind- 
 mill for a comparison with one by Stanfield, in his Coast Scenery. He says, "The 
 essence of a windmill, as distinguished from all other mills, is, that it should turn round, 
 and be a spinning thing, ready always to face the wind ; as light, therefore, as possible, 
 and as vibratory. Now observe how completely Turner has chosen his mill so as to 
 mark this great fact of windmill nature ; how high he has set it ; how slenderly he has 
 supported it ; how he has built it all of wood ; how he has bent the lower planks so as 
 to give the idea of the building lapping over the pivot on which it rests inside ; and 
 
 how, finally, he has insisted on the great leverage of the beam behind it And he 
 
 has done all this fearlessly, though none of these elements of form are pleasant ones in 
 themselves, but tend, on the whole, to give a somewhat mean and spider-like look to 
 the principal feature in his picture ; and then, finally, because he could not get the 
 windmill dissected, and show us the real heart and centre of the whole, behold, he has 
 put a pair of old millstones, lying outside, at the bottom of it. These — the first cause 
 and motive of all the fabric — laid at its foundation ; and beside them the cart which is 
 to fulfil the end of the fabric's being, and take home the sacks of flour." 
 
 After speaking of the spirit manifest in the work of Stanfield, Mr. Ruskin con- 
 tinues, " Not so Turner. His mill is still serviceable ; but, for all that, he feels some- 
 what pensive about it. It is a poor property, and evidently the owner of it has enough 
 to do to get his own bread out from between its stones. Moreover, there is a dim type 
 of all melancholy human labor in it, — catching the free winds, and setting them to turn 
 
 grindstones Turner has no joy of his mill. It shall be dark against the sky, 
 
 yet proud, and on the hill-top ; not ashamed of its labor, and brightened from beyond, 
 the golden clouds stooping over it, and the calm summer sun going down behind, far 
 away, to his rest." 
 
 No. 28. — (JUNCTION OF THE WYE AND THE SEVERN.) 
 
 K. P. This is the first plate of the series which the painter executed from first to last 
 
 himself, and well exhibits his mastery as an engraver. 
 
 No. 29. — MARINF DABBLERS. 
 
 M. 
 
 No. 30. — NEAR BLAIR ATHOL, SCOTLAND. 
 
 M. Mr. Ruskin notices this plate {Modern Painters, Vol. I. p. 388) as affording a 
 
 marked example of the excellence of Turner's tree-drawing. 
 
22 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 NO. 31. — LAUFFENBOURGH ON THE RHINE. 
 
 A. " Another group [of designs in the Liber Studiorum] (Solway Moss, Peat Bog, 
 
 Lauffenbourgh, etc.) is taken, with hardly any modification by pictorial influence, straight 
 from nature." — Modern Painters, Vol. III. p. 324. 
 
 The composition of the group of figures is referred to as an illustration of formative 
 arrangement. — Modern Painters, Vol. V. p. 174. 
 
 PAET VII. — PUBLISHED JUNE 1, 1811. 
 
 NO. 32. — YOUNG ANGLERS. 
 
 P. In " Modern Painters," Vol. V. p. 71, Mr. Ruskin has given a fac-simile of a piece 
 
 of the Pollard Willow in this plate. He says : " A branch is not elastic as steel is, neither 
 as a carter's whip is ; it is a combination, wholly peculiar, of elasticity with half-dead 
 and sapless stubbornness, and of continuous curve, with pauses of knottiness, every 
 bough having its blunted, affronted, fatigued, or repentant moments of existence, and 
 mingling crabbed rugosities and fretful changes of mind with the main tendencies of its 
 growth. The piece of Pollard Willow from Turner's etching of Young Anglers has all 
 these characters in perfectness, and may serve for sufficient study of them." 
 
 No. 33. — ST. CATHERINE'S HILL, NEAR GUILDFORD. 
 
 E. P. A very different view of this subject is to be found in the England and Wales 
 
 series. 
 
 No. 34. — MARTELLO TOWERS NEAR BEXHILL, SUSSEX. 
 
 M. " This plate was afterwards copied in the series of the Southern Coast, one of the 
 
 very rare instances (if not a solitary case) of Turner's repeating an already published 
 plate." 
 
 No. 35. — INVERARY-PIER, LOCH FYNE. — MORNING. 
 
 M. This beautiful plate is wholly the work of Turner. 
 
 Mr. Hamerton (Etching and Etchers, p. 88) says : "This view of Inverary shows as 
 well as anything in the Liber Studiorum what sort of duty Turner intended his coarse 
 etched lines to do. The combination of etching with mezzotint was a marriage of two 
 opposite arts. Turner, therefore, avoided in his work with the needle every kind of 
 labor which might intrude upon the domain of mezzotint ; he even did more than this, 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 23 
 
 and purposely sought in every etched line a quality the very opposite of that softness 
 and tenderness of tint which became his chief objects when he took up the tools of 
 the engraver. The striking contrast between methods of work in this plate is focused 
 in the very centre of it. The pale mountain towards Glen Falloch is engraved with 
 aerial delicacy, the morning shadows fall in soft gradations from the risen wreaths of mist, 
 and against the very tenderest passage of all, the opening of the distant glen, comes the 
 stiff mast and coarse sail of a fishing-boat, of the firmest and boldest execution. The 
 heavily etched anchor rising out of the shallow water in the foreground sets its iron 
 rigidity, by a similar contrast of method, against the soft and liquid surface. To the 
 left this coarseness loses itself more gradually in greater manual refinement, and the 
 transition from the dark boat under the pier to the far trees on the edge of the wooded 
 hill is managed by a subtle blending and shallower bitings with rich full shades of 
 mezzotint." 
 
 No. 36. — FROM SPENSER'S FAIRY QUEEN. 
 
 H. A fancy suggested by Spenser, rather than an illustration of any special passage in 
 
 the Fairy Queen. 
 
 PART VIII. — PUBLISHED FEBRUARY 1, 1812. 
 
 NO. 37. — WATER MILL. 
 
 No. 38. — (WOMAN AT A TANK, or HINDOO ABLUTIONS). 
 
 E. P. Concerning the etching of this plate see Introduction, p. 10. 
 
 No. 39.— (CRYPT OF KIRKSTALL ABBEY.) Original Drawing 
 in the possession of John Soane, Esq., R. A., Professor of Archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 A. Engraved as well as etched by Turner. 
 
 A drawing by Turner of the same subject, treated in a very similar manner, was en- 
 graved in 1 8 14, for Pritton's Architectural Antiquities. 
 
 NO. 40. — (COAST SCENE. SUNSET.) Picture in the possession 
 M. of Sir John Mildmay, Bart. 
 
24 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 No. 41. — PROCRIS AND CEPHALUS. 
 
 Procris and Cephalus were beloved each of the other, but the jealous Gods wrought 
 harm for them, and Cephalus slew his love with an unerring spear that she had given 
 to him. 
 
 H. "I know of no landscape more purely and magnificently imaginative, or bearing 
 
 more distinct evidence of the relative and simultaneous conception of the parts. Let 
 the reader first cover with his hand the two trunks that rise against the sky on the right, 
 and ask himself how any termination of the central mass so ugly as the straight trunk, 
 which he will then painfully see, could have been conceived or admitted without simul- 
 taneous conception of the trunks he has taken away on the right. Let him again con- 
 ceal the whole central mass, and leave these two only, and again ask himself whether 
 anything so ugly as that bare trunk in the shape of a Y could have been admitted with- 
 out reference to the central mass? Then let him remove from this trunk its two arms 
 and try the effect ; let him again remove the single trunk on the extreme right ; then let 
 him try the third trunk without the excrescence at the bottom of it ; finally, let him con- 
 ceal the fourth trunk from the right with the slender boughs at the top : he will find in 
 each case that he has destroyed a feature upon which everything else depends ; and if 
 proof be required of the vital power of still smaller features, let him remove the sun- 
 beam that comes through beneath the faint mass of trees on the hill in the distance. 
 
 "It is useless to enter into further particulars ; the reader maybe left to his own 
 close examination of this and of the other works of Turner, in which he will always find 
 the associative imagination developed in the most profuse and marvellous modes." • — 
 Modern Painters, Vol. II. p. 155. 
 
 " I suppose few, in looking at the Cephalus and Procris of Turner, note the sym- 
 pathy of those faint rays that are just drawing back and dying between the trunks of the 
 far-off .forest, with the ebbing life of the Nymph, unless, indeed, they happen to recollect 
 the same sympathy marked by Shelley in the Alastor." — Id., p. 201. 
 
 " The etching of this subject is one of the four to which Mr. Ruskin gives the prefer- 
 ence, and the plate is praised by him as an example of the excellence of Turner's draw- 
 ing of the trunks of trees {Modem Painters, Vol. I. p. 388) ; and as showing Turner's 
 ' magnificent power of elaborating close foliage ' (p. 394)." 
 
 PART IX. — PUBLISHED APRIL 23, 1812. 
 
 No. 42. — WINCHELSEA, SUSSEX, 
 p. 
 
 No. 43. — (BRIDGE AND GOATS.) 
 
 E. P. This plate is engraved in aquatint, and the only one of the series wholly executed 
 
 in that manner. It is one of the feeblest of the designs alike in conception and 
 execution. 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 25 
 
 No. 44. — CALM. 
 
 M. The fifth state of this plate, which renders a more sunny effect than the early im- 
 
 pressions, is esteemed the most beautiful of all. 
 
 No. 45. — PEAT BOG, SCOTLAND. 
 
 M. See note to No. 31. 
 
 NO. 46. — RIZPAH. 2d Book of Samuel, Chap. XXI. 
 
 H. There was a famine in the days of David, three years, year after year, because Saul 
 
 slew the Gibeonites. And to make atonement, that the famine might cease, the king 
 took the two sons of Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, whom she bare unto Saul, and the 
 five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, " And he delivered them into the hands of the 
 Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill before the Lord : and they fell all seven 
 together, and were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, in the beginning 
 of barley harvest. 
 
 " And Rizpah, the daughter of Aiah, took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the 
 rock, from the beginning of harvest until water dropped upon them out of heaven, and 
 suffered neither the birds of the air to rest upon them by day nor the beasts of the field 
 by night." 
 
 PART X. — PUBLISHED MAY 23, 1812. 
 
 (The Frontispiece was'givcn to subscribers with this Part.) 
 
 No. 47. — HEDGING AND DITCHING. 
 
 P. See note on No. 22. 
 
 NO. 48. — RIVER WYE. 
 
 E. P. The effect on the imagination, as well as the picturesque effect of the ruins of great 
 
 buildings standing dark against the sun, and contrasted with the peaceful permanence 
 of rural life, seems frequently to have determined Turner's treatment of a scene like 
 this ; the transientness of the glory, the strength, and the pride of men, and the abiding- 
 ness of the humble and laborious forms and conditions of life are the simple but deep 
 elements of the pathos and the power of many of his noblest landscapes. He paints 
 almost invariably the landscape of human interests. In the next plate but one, the Mer 
 de Glace, a scene where no human sympathies or associations could exist to touch his 
 imagination, his rendering is cold, and its qualities indicate his want of interest in the 
 work. 
 
 4 
 
2 5 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 NO. 49.— CHAIN OF ALPS, FROM GRENOBLE TO CHAMBERI. 
 
 M. The distant mountains in this plate are among the marvels of Turner's art. 
 
 No. 50. — MER DE GLACE — VALLEY OF CHAMOUNI — 
 SAVOY. 
 
 M. See Introduction, p. io. 
 
 NO. 51. — RIVAULX ABBEY, YORKSHIRE. 
 
 A. There is a splendid view of Rivaulx Abbey in the England and Wales. 
 
 PART XI. — PUBLISHED JANUARY 1, 1816. 
 
 No. 52. — SOLWAY MOSS, 
 p. 
 
 NO. 53. — (SOLITUDE, or READING MAGDALEN.) 
 
 E. P. 
 
 NO. 54. — MILL, NEAR THE GRANDE CHARTREUSE; DAU- 
 PHINY. 
 
 M. There is no record on this plate, as on most of the others, of the etching being the 
 
 work of Turner. 
 
 See Note on No. 22. 
 
 "The structure and expression of the entrance to one of them [Alpine ravines] 
 have been made by Turner the theme of his sublime mountain study. (Mill near the 
 Grande Chartreuse.)" — Modem Painters, Vol. IV. p. 266. 
 
 NO. 55. — ENTRANCE OF CALAIS HARBOR. 
 
 M. No etching of this plate is known to exist. The engraving was executed by 
 
 Turner. 
 
 No. 56. — DUMBLAIN ABBEY, SCOTLAND. 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 2 7 
 
 PART XII. — PUBLISHED JANUARY 1, 1816. 
 
 No. 57. — NORHAM CASTLE ON THE TWEED. 
 
 P. The subject was a favorite one with Turner. It is repeated in the Rivers of Eng- 
 
 land from the same point of view and with a similar effect of light. A different view is 
 given in the illustration to Scott's Prose AVorks, Vol. VII., and a third is the subject of a 
 separate engraving published in 1827. In 1798 Turner exhibited at the Royal Acad- 
 emy a picture of " Norham Castle, Summer's Morn," with the following lines in the Cata- 
 logue : — 
 
 " But yonder comes the powerful King of Day 
 Rejoicing in the Kast ; the lessening cloud, 
 The kindling azure, and the mountain's brow 
 Illumined, — his near approach betoken glad." 
 
 Thomson s Seasons. 
 
 No. 58. — (RAGLAN CASTLE.) 
 
 E. P. See Introduction, p. 10, note, for remark on the engraving. 
 
 " There seems to be no warrant for giving the name of Raglan Castle to this sub- 
 ject ; it is said to have much more resemblance to Berry Pomeroy." 
 
 No. 59. — VILLE DE THUN, SWITZERLAND. 
 
 A. 
 
 No. 60. — THE SOURCE of the ARVERON in the VALLEY 
 OF CHAMOUNI, SAVOY. 
 
 M. Not etched by Turner. See Introduction, p. 10, note. 
 
 In " Modern Painters," Vol. IV. Plate 49, Mr. Ruskin has given in fac simile the 
 stones from the foreground of this plate, and those from the foreground of the Ben 
 Arthur, contrasting them with foreground rocks by Claude. He says (p. 315), " I think 
 'the reader cannot but feel that the blocks in the upper two subjects are massy and pon- 
 derous ; in the lower, wholly without weight. If he examines their several treatment, 
 he will find that Turner has perfect imaginative conception of every recess and projec- 
 tion over the whole surface, and feels the stone as he works over it ; every touch, more- 
 over, being full of tender gradation Turner's way of wedging the stones of the 
 
 glacier moraine together in strength of disorder .... will hardly he appreciated unless 
 the reader is fondly acquainted with the kind of scenery in question.'' 
 
 In the fifth volume (p. 83), in his remarks on the character of the pine, Mr. Ruskin 
 refers again to this plate : ft Especially at edges of loose cliffs, about waterfalls, or at 
 glacier-banks, and in other places liable to disturbance, the pine may be seen distorted 
 and oblique ; and in Turner's Source of the Arveron he has, with his usual unerring per- 
 ception of the main point in any matter, fastened on this means of relating the glacier's 
 history. The glacier cannot explain its own motion ; and ordinary observers saw in it 
 only its rigidity ; but Turner saw that the wonderful thing was its non-rigidity. Other 
 ice is fixed, only this ice stirs. All the banks are staggering beneath its waves, crum- 
 
28 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 bling and withered as by the blast of a perpetual storm. He made the rocks of his fore- 
 ground loose-rolling and tottering clown together ; the pines smitten aside by them, their 
 tops dead, bared by the ice-wind." 
 
 No. 61. — TENTH PLAGUE OF EGYPT. 
 
 H. In 1802 Turner exhibited in the Royal Academy the picture of this subject. 
 
 " And it came to pass that at midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the 
 land of Egypt. 
 
 " And Pharaoh rose up in the night, he and all his servants, and all the Egyptians ; 
 and there was a great cry in Egypt ; for there was not a house where there was not one 
 dead." — Exodus xii. 29, 30. 
 
 PART XIII. — PUBLISHED JANUARY 1, 1819, 
 
 NO. 62. — WATER CRESS GATHERERS. Rail's Head, Ferry 
 Bridge, Twickenham. 
 
 P. 
 
 No. 63. — (TWICKENHAM.) 
 
 E. P. 
 
 No. 64. — BONNEVILLE, SAVOY. 
 
 M. Turner exhibited a picture of Bonneville in 1803. 
 
 The snow-mountain in the distance is Mont Blanc. 
 This plate was not etched by Turner. 
 
 NO. 65.— INVERARY CASTLE AND TOWN, SCOTLAND. 
 
 M. Mr. Ruskin has given a woodcut (Modem Painters, Vol. V. p. 67) of the two fir- 
 
 trees to the left in this plate, enlarged to four times the size of the original, "in order 
 to show the care and minuteness of Turner's drawing on the smallest scale " ; and of 
 the trees he says, " They are both in perfect poise, representing a double action : the 
 warping of the trees away from the sea-wind, and the continual growing out of the 
 boughs on the right-hand side, to recover the balance." 
 
TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 29 
 
 NO. 66. — y^SACUS AND HESPERIE. Vide Ovid, Mets., Book XI. 
 
 This is the last of the published plates that was engraved as well as etched by 
 Turner ; and perhaps it is the most marvellous of all. 
 
 Mr. Hamerton says of it {Etchers and Etching, p. 86) : " Of all Turner's etchings 
 this is the most remarkable for the grace and freedom of its branch drawing. It is a 
 piece of simple brook scenery, and materials not less graceful exist in abundance in all 
 northern countries which are watered by running streams, ./Esacus, the son of Priam, 
 sought Hesperie in the woods yEsacus still unperceived by her has just dis- 
 covered her Over the head of the nymph bends a boldly slanting tree, and where 
 
 its boughs mingle [sic] to the left, there is a passage of such involved and wild intricate 
 beauty that I can scarcely name its equal in the works of the master etchers. Over the 
 head of ^Lsacus, and between the trunks of the two principal trees, is a glade so full of 
 tender passages of light, which are chiefly due to the work in mezzotint, that this plate 
 may be taken as a transcendent example of Turner's power in both arts. The brilliant 
 freedom of the etched branches, the mellow diffusion of light in the tinted glade, are 
 both achievements of the kind which permanently class an artist." 
 
 " Of the arrangement of the upper boughs," says Mr. Ruskin, in speaking of 
 Turner's tree-drawing {Modern Painters, Vol. I. p. 389) the /Esacus and Hesperie is 
 perhaps the most consummate example ; the absolute truth anil simplicity, and freedom 
 from everything like fantasticisrn or animal form, being as marked on the one hand as 
 the exquisite imaginativeness of the lines on the other." 
 
 " It is impossible to tell whether the two nearest trunks of the /Ksacus and Hesperie 
 of the Liber Studiorum, especially the large one on the right with the ivy, have been in- 
 vented or taken straight from nature ; they have all the look of accurate portraiture. I 
 can hardly imagine anything so perfect to have been obtained except from the real 
 thing ; but we know that the imagination must have begun to operate somewhere, we 
 cannot tell where, since the multitudinous harmonies of the rest of the picture could 
 hardly in any real scene have continued so inviolately sweet." — Modern Painters, Vol. 
 
 H. 
 
 " Non agreste tamen, nec inexpugnabile Amori 
 Pectus habens, sylvas captatam srcpe per omnes 
 Adspicit Hespcrien patria Cebrenida ripa, 
 Injectos humeris siccantem sole capillos. 
 Visa fugit Nymphe." — vv. 767 - 771. 
 
 II. p. 157. 
 
 PART XIV. -w PUBLISHED JANUARY 1, 1819. 
 
 No. 67. 
 
 EAST GATE, WINCHELSEA, SUSSEX. 
 
 i'. 
 
 No. 68. 
 
 ISIS. 
 
 E. P. 
 
3Q 
 
 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 No. 69. — BEN ARTHUR, SCOTLAND. 
 
 M. The etching of this plate Mr. Ruskin considers one of the four finest of the pub- 
 
 lished series. 
 
 " The clouds in the Ben Arthur, Source of Arveron, and Calais Pier, are among the 
 best of Turner's storm studies." — Elements of Drawing, p. 192. 
 See note to No. 60. 
 
 No. 70. — INTERIOR OF A CHURCH. 
 
 A. " The effect of this plate was apparently originally intended to have been daylight, 
 
 but for some reason, probably arising out of the state of the plate, candles were placed 
 in the chandelier, and the church appears illumined by their light only." 
 
 No. 71. — CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. 
 
 H. 
 
UNPUBLISHED PLATES. 
 
 HESE plates are twenty in number, and were left by Turner 
 in various states of completeness, some not having been car- 
 ried beyond the etching. - They are of great rarity, and a 
 single one of them, the Dumbarton, has been sold at auction for £ 80. 
 The following list is from Mr. Stokes's Catalogue. 
 
 No. 72. — The Premium Landscape. 
 
 NO. 73. Gl.AUCUS AND SCYLLA. 
 
 No. 74. — Sheep-Washing. 
 
 A fac simile of the left-hand half of the etching h is been given in Mr. Ruskin's 
 Elements of Drawings p. 1 26. 
 
 No. 75. — Dumbarton. See Introduction, p. 7. 
 
 No. 76. — Crowhurst. 
 
 No. 77. — Temple ok Jupiter, .Eoina. 
 
 No. 78. — Swiss Bridge, Mom St. Gothard, ok Via Mala. 
 
 No. 79. — Ploughing, Eton. 
 
 No. 80. — Pan and Syrinx. 
 
 No. 81. — Stonehenge at Daybreak. 
 
32 TURNER'S LIBER STUDIORUM. 
 
 No. 82. — The Felucca. 
 
 No. 83.— Stork and Aqueduct. See Introduction, p. io. 
 No. 84. — Storm over the Lizard, or the Shipwrecked Man. 
 No. 85. — Moonlight at Sea. The Needles. 
 No. 86. — Moonlight on River, with Barges. 
 No. 87. — The Thames, near Kingston. 
 NO. 88. — The Deluge. 
 
 No. 89. — Flounder Fishing, near Battersea. 
 No. 90. — Narcissus and Echo. 
 No. 91. — Cows on Bank. 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The value of the plates of the Liber Studiorum has been rapidly rising 
 during late years, and owing to the fact that but a comparatively small 
 number of good impressions of each engraving exist, and that the cop- 
 perplates have been destroyed, it is probable that they will continue to 
 rise in price. 
 
 In March, 1873, an auction sale was held by Messrs. Christie, Man- 
 son, and Woods, in London, of all the stock of the Liber Studiorum that 
 had been in Turners possession at the time of his death. No more 
 copies remain to be brought into the market. Of original impressions 
 of the complete work there were but twenty -two copies, and these 
 brought prices ranging from 850 to 270 guineas. A few copies on 
 thick paper, taken off after the plates had become deteriorated, brought 
 much lower prices. Fine impressions of single plates brought from fifteen 
 to fifty pounds apiece. Seventy-one etchings of some of the unpublished 
 plates were sold at an average of over £2$ apiece. The whole sale 
 realized more than ,£20,000.