Portrait of/ J. .'M. W, Turner (detail) by J. T. Smith,

Yale Center for British Art and British Studies

THE LIFE OF J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Magdalen Tower and Bridge, Oxford.

THE LIFE

OF

J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

PHILIP GILBERT HAMERTON
in
AUTHOR OF "ETCHING AND ETCHERS," "THOUGHTS ABOUT ART,'
" MODERN FRENCHMEN," ETC., ETC,

" II serait inutile d'etre un excellent esprit et un grand peintre, si Ton ne
mettait dans son ceuvre quelque chose que la r£alitg n'a pas. C'est en quoi
1'homme est plus intelligent que le soleil, et j'en remercie Dieu." Fromentin

NEW EDITION

LONDON
SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED
Essex Street, Strand
1895

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 i& 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 realise some purely artistic conception, not

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 colour arrangements, all combinations of light and
shade, all groupings and contrasts of selected and modi
fied 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
the enemies of painting, those who are hostile to it be-

Preface. vii
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 colours, 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 unnatural, 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
that it is intensely artificial, that it is something widely
different from nature. He makes no blundering con-

viii Preface.
¦ 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 candour, 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 imperilling 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 j in
their most trifling works, or in doubtful works attri
buted to them, and in the weakest and worst passages
of those works. But whilst claiming the right to s4y
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 wifh
any affectation of infallibility, because in matters of art
criticism authority has little foundation beyond simple
self-assertion. You can prove scientific matters posi
tively, but the scientific element is not the soul of art,
and when you come to consider the. really artistic

Preface. ix
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
arrangements of forms and colours, blended into those
admirable unities which constitute his pictures.
But who in the world can prove that he was a fine
composer, or a fine colourist ? 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 renounces 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 contribution to that general enlighten
ment which constitutes public opinion. The march of
Humanity is like a procession 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 neces
sary in artistic matters, where so much is artificial, and
where natural truth, even when it is perfectly ascertain
able, is such an insufficient guide.
I owe much to my predecessor Mr. Thornbury, whose
life of Turner, though hastily written, is full of interest
ing material. I have not thought it right to take all
the plums out of Mr. Thornbury's book, which will still

x Preface.
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.
rAGB
Genius and eccentricity. — The birthplace of a landscape-painter. —
Turner's birth and circumstances. — Condition of landscape art. —
Early educational influences. — Turner at school. — Paternal en
couragement. — Beginnings in art. — Early study of architecture. —
Academic training. — Early practice in portrait-painting. — A pro
fessional commencement. — Turner's luck in life . . . i

CHAPTER II.
The young artist. — Dr. Munro. — Girtin and Cozens. — Turner's early ¦
work in oil. — Love and disappointment. — Absence of female in
fluence. — A dual life. — Turner a drawing-master . . , -32

CHAPTER III.
Turner comes of age. — First northern tour. — Dr. Whitaker. — Turner
elected A.R.A. — His diploma picture. — New and Old Gothic. —
Professional position in 1800  49

CHAPTER IV.
Kilchum Castle. — Topography. — Turner's dream pictures. — The
topography of poets  65

xii Contents.

CHAPTER V. PAGE
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 . , .88

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 VII.
He removes to Queen Anne Street, 1812. — Excursion to Devonshire,
1812. — Turner's poetry. — Turner's prose  131

CHAPTER VIII.
Turner at Twickenham. — English coast scenery. — Crossing the Brook.
— Distances in elder art. — The fascination of the remote. — A second
possibility 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  148
CHAPTER IX.
Transition to colour. — Turner as a traveller. — His system of study .175
CHAPTER X.
Rivalry with Wilson. — The Bay of Baiae. — The Rivers of England. —
Provincial Antiquities. — England and Wales. — The Ports of
England. — The ' Cologne.' — Works from sketches by others. —
Separate plates. — Transactions with Cooke. — Pictures exhibited in
1S27  196
CHAPTER XI.
Journey to Italy, 1828. — The Polyphemus. — Death of Turner's
father. — The illustratiens to Rogers. — Scotland revisited, 1830 . 219

Contents. xiii

CHAPTER XII. FACE
The Rivers of France. — Turner's architecture. — Inaccuracy of other
artists. — The Rivers of France — colour. — The Rivers of France —
Tuinerian charm .,  236
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.—
TheAgrippina  Illustrations to ' The Epicurean ' . . .257
CHAPTER XIV.
The Temeraire.— The Bacchus and Ariadne.— The Snow-storm.—
The Slave-Ship. — Latter years of Turner.— Pictures of 1842.— Ten
dency to the formless. — Dregs of life. — Last excursion on the Con
tinent. — Disabled. — Turner's death.— Funeral at St. Paul's.—
Turner's care for his own fame. — Rivalry with Claude . . . 282
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 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 colour. — Turner's imagination.
— Taste. — Resume.— Danger of Turner-worship. — Past and future
of landscape-painting . ."  311
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 . . 3S8
Note.— Mr. Ruskin's Teaching  389
General Index  391
Index to Turner's Works alluded to . . . • -396

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

Magdalen Tower and Bridge, Oxford Frontispiece
Malmesbury Abbey - - 22
Arundel, View over, the Park 38
Calais Pier 92
Goddess of Discord in the Garden of "the
Hesperides 98
Cephalus and Procris 106
Apuleia in Search of Apuleius iio
Dunstanborough Castle 114
SheeptWashing - 116
A Frosty Morning - 148
The Meuse : Orange Merchantman going to Pieces
on the Bar 170
Source of the Arveiron 184
Whitby 204
Bridge over the Moselle, Coblentz 210
Carthage : Dido directing the Equipment of the
Fleet 216

List of Illustrations.

PAGE

Ulysses deriding Polyphemus - 224
Chichester Canal- 232
Pont Neuf, Paris 244
The Sun of Venice going to the Sea 266
The Approach to Venice 270
The Fighting Temeraire tugged to her Last
Berth - 282
Peace : the Burial of Sir David Wilkie 292
Zurich - 346
Yarmouth - 354

THE LIFE OF J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

CHAPTER I.
Genius and Eccentricity, — The Birthplace of a Landscape-Painter. —
Turner's Birth and Circumstances. — Condition of Landscape Art. —
Early Educational Influences. — Turner' at School.— Paternal Encourage
ment. — Beginnings in Art. — Early Study of Architecture. — Academic
Training. — Early Practice in Portrait-Painting. — A Professional Com
mencement. — Turner's Luck in Life.
The 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 tyrannises over him until most of his

The Life of f. 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 unsympatliising 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 authorise, 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
peculiarity 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.

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 of
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 ' ceuvre' as no other landscape-painter ever left
behind him, if both quantity and quality are considered-

The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

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
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
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
marvellous 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 realised
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
windings of their sweet vales. A : foolish Muse might
have fancied that the' lovelier the land round about the

The Birthplace of a Landscape-Paintcr. 5
child, the fairer would be his performance ; that if his
eyes were saturated with beauty through eveiy 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
forever undeveloped if circumstances are unfavourable, 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 favourable 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 land is productive, and
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

6 The Life off. M. W. Turner.
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 f 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
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,

Turner's ^Bfrfh and Circumstances.

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 50 situated that it will meet wi,th, 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
unfavourable, but in reality most favourable, 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
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

The Life off. M. W, Turner.

sense of beauty could never be satisfied by the aspect of
the streets and people. Equally favourable were the
social circumstances 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 labour 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, arid 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.
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

Condition of Landscape Art.

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
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, or rare knowledge, or great thoughts.

IO The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
-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 colour 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 labour 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 favourable 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
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

- Condition of Landscape Art. ii
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
been already struck in the older landscape, that of
homely, rural peace. Cuyp had painted the quiet Dutch
meadow-lands in their own sunshiny, 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

12 The Life of J. M. W. Turner.
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-
colour 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-colour 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 colouring, more
favourable 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 colour.
Turner was born with the poetic faculty, but this would
have been sterile without teachers who could help him in
his advance to skill and knowledge. The circumstances
of his education were in many ways strongly in his
favour, 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

Early Educational Influences. 1 3

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 endeavoured,
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 interest
ing also. A lady is a woman who clearly understands,
and consistently practises, the refinements of a highly-
civilised existence ; and the most real distinction be
tween a lady, and a woman who is not a lady, is that
one is more civilised than the other, and more de
termined to preserve the habits of a high civilisation,
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

14 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 artd 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 civilisation, 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 civilising 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
reason why he was never a perfectly civilised 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,
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

Turner at School. $5

an allegory We might say that on the sword was en
graven the word Diligentia, and on the shield Parsi-
monia. 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, arid sent
him to school at Brentford when he was ten -year<s» 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. ' Hedid not
know any foreign language, and he never mastered1 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 of
the English tongue. ' The ignorance in this department,'
says Professor Seeley, 'of those who leave school at four
teen 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

16 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
smallest degree speculative or generalising, 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 with
out knowing any language whatever. In a lew 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 addition to the general unculture of
his class Turner had a personal difficulty, in his own
mental idiosyncrasy. 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 in
struction 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, not
withstanding 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

Turner at School.

*7

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
possible that he might have remained ignorant, that his
curiosity might never nave 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 wan
dered over the noblest scenery of 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. 2

18 The Life of f. M. W. Tttrner.
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 idealising 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 in
fluences 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 who'
has the landscape instinct knows this by his own ex
perience. 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 be
gan to draw by instinct in his school-days, arid that lie

Paternal Encouragement! 19

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 orie of his father's customers. This beginning
is interesting as a proof that, everi in boyhood, he felt
some reliance upon the faculty -which was the mainstay
of his future work, for without memory a painter of land
scape 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 what
ever help might be attainable. Surely this circumstance,
that his father was a friend and not an enemy to his
genius, counts for much amongst the many favourable
powers which led Turner to Wealth and fame. The
ather 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 unpractical if you take any interest in it
The older Turner, like the Florentine barber in Romola,
lived in a centre of culture, and though Maiden Lane is
not in appearance more beautiful or artistic than some
2—2

20 Tfie Life off. M. W. Turner.
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 Turner 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 unreasonable to suppose
that, at a time when artists lived much nearer to , Coven t
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 hanging little water-
colour 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
exhibition 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

Beginnings in Art. 21
the foundation of. his own future excellence in water-
colour much more securely than if he had tried to copy
one of our brilliant modern water-colour 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 colouring prints : dull
work, perhaps, for two great geniuses as those boys really
were, and yet excellent practice for beginners in the
technical business, of water-colour., Neither of the two
friends Was 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 another, 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
architect, employed him to add water-colour backgrounds
to his architectural designs. When these happened to
be country houses, Turner would have a. certain limited

22 Tlie Life of f. M. W. Turner.
scope for the exercise of his talent in landscape, and we
find that he availed himself of such opportunities very
willingly, 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 was essentially and exclusively artistic.
Scientific perspective is a pursuit which may amuse or
occupy a mathematician, but the stronger the artistic
faculty in a 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 perspective 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 youngartist at this timewas brought into still closer
"connection with architecture. He had already, as we have

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'<¦•.•¦, *<¦ vr^

¦-rcJ'S?."^' i

i
~-<4g&5i^— JESTS'/' / i \
*T/ I '< «
, oil* )
AfiadeMtc Training.

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 em
ployers. A step further in the same direction might
make him an architectural draughtsman, and possibly, 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 circumstances of
his life. The architectural labours, 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. Hard-
wick had a lively appreciation of artistic talent, saw evi
dence of it in his young pupil, and said that he ought to
go and study at the Royal Academy There are differ
ences, 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 land
scape-nature out of doors ; others believe that the work
done in Academies, though it has so little apparent con
nection with landscape, is a better preparation for the
future work of a landscape-painter than the premature
study of trees, and hills, and water. There are reasons in
favour 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 landscape-painting is com
paratively easy, an illusion which is based upon the truth

24 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
that accurate drawing is not essential to a landscape-
painter. There are, however, other qualities than mere
accuracy in good landscape-painting, and other difficul
ties 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 begin with, for he ought to
pass from the simple to the complex ; and besides sim
plicity , 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 dif
ficulties of complexity and changeableness, whilst it

Early Study of Architecture. 25
thoroughly educates the eye ¦ to the perception of line,
projection, and colour. 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
painter's 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
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
colour. 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
colour, 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
Academic 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-

26 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 tech
nical matters from Academic tradition : it was their own
fatal ingenuity m after-life which led them to discover the
arts by which a picture may be so painted that it will be
come a ruin during the lifetime of the artist. The
Academic tradition 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 education of an artist whose works are here
to bear testimony themselves ? Turner began by paint
ing 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 preservation. The pigments used in that portrait, and
the manner of applying them, were alike in accordance
with the Academic tradition of the time. Another

Early Practice "in Portrait-Painting. 27
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
Sand-by, or by making sketches of landscape-nature with
no better guidance than his own imperfect knowledge.
A very distinguished living landscape-painter, whose
works have deservedly won public favour 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 favour of figure-study generally. The art of painting
combines two things, the representation of objects and
the repiesentation 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 organised object, free from the- inconvenience of

28 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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
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 labours 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 veryyoung artist had some chance
of getting a picture into the Academy exhibition, which is
always an immense encouragement in itself, quite indepen
dently 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

Early Practice in Portrait-Painting. 29

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 backgrounds for archi
tects. 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 kind
of study which at that time of his life would be the best
preparation for his future work in landscape.- This topo
graphic business took him to many interesting places,
and amongst others to Oxford. The natural vigour of
his constitution, one of the many blessings which were
favourable 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 riiaterial 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
fortunate 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

30 The Life of f: M. W. Turner.
and sufficient encouragement, the future lying before
him like the vast distances in the real world of his wan
derings, his whole heart in the study of his profession,
this young favourite 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 favourite of Fortune,
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
Beaumont, 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
destruction 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 than 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 arid
everywhere, and he was perfectly indifferent to thos£
arrangements for comfort which artists, usually, consider

Turner's Ltick in Life. 31
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
all other painters find to be necessary. His constitu
tional 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 hin
drance to his progress, if not absolutely destructive to
his originality. Such as Nature made him, and as
Fortune placed him, he was exactly so constituted and
so situated that his success in art, and his happiness in
if, became necessary consequences of that harmony
which has been considered the highest of earthly felici
ties, 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.
When 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 life'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
drawing 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

The Young Artist. 33

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, at an age
when most young men are confined by school or ap
prenticeship. 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, hex
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 en
couragement 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 colour, and not to confine himself to simple
chiaroscuro drawing for the engravers. Before he was
twenty he had penetrated into Wales, very probably
from Bristol, and had drawn the river Monach, near the
Devil's Bridge, in Cardiganshire ; he had also drawn at
Tintern and Great Malvern. In 1794 he exhibited five
works, but the next year he exhibited eight, and the
year following eleven. At twenty he had drawn
Lincoln, Peterborough, arid Cambridge, besides views
3

34 The Life of f M. W. Turner.
in Denbighshire, Monmouthshire, and Cardiganshire,;
At twenty-one he had visited the Isle of Wight, besides
Salisbury, Ely, and Llandaff. His first Continental ex
cursion 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 labours 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 Crcesus, but it was a plea
sant 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 encouragement given by
Dr. Munro, for the pleasant fellowship with Girtin, and
for the frequent opportunities of studying works by pre
vious artists, of which Dr. Munro had been an intelligent
collector. There were several Gainsboroughs in the
house, and many water-colour drawings by the early
men, Paul Sandby and others, whom Turner was des-j
tined 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 drawings 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 magnificent unreality.
But of all the works of art belonging to Dr. Munro at
this time, it is likely that the water-colours of Cozens.

Dr. Munro. 35

would influence both Girtin and Turner the most de
cidedly, 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, sometimes
amounting to solemnity, which would inevitably have
great influence over two such minds as those of Turner
and Girtin. Even Constable, who was so differently
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 suc
cessor, 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 especially interesting to allwho care for
water-colour 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 labour 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
The writerof these pages well remembers that he first
3—2

36 The Life pf f. M. W. Turner.
heard of Girtin from Leslie, who possessed a few works
of his, and greatly valued them. In the ' Handhook 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 familiarised 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 in
stincts of genius to see what he saw in it, and to interpret •
it with a sentiment so exquisite. Leslie considered 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 debilitated 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
panorafna of London. * Sobered tints of exquisite
truth,' said Leslie, ' and broad chiaroscuro, are the pre-

Girtin and Cozens, . 37
vailing characteristics of Girtin. Turner had the
deepest respect for Girtin's genius, and an especial affec
tion 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 comprehen
sive 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
was to draw topographic views for the publishers, he
was, as we have seen, an accepted exhibitor at the

The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

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 supposing that the sunset at. Battersea
was the first landscape experiment in oil, and the Ro
chester the first picture. It is evident, however, that
neither of these is to be considered 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 knpw 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 training 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-colour, 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 words.
At the age of seventeen he was a fairly good painter in
oil, but in a heavy though safe manner, and had over-

Arundel— View over the Park,

Turner's, Early >. Work in Oil. 39
come all the first difficulties, in.. » the career of a portrait-
painter. When he abandoned the intention of making
portraiture his profession, and took to landscape, he
worked in water-colour, 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 land
scape which he; had acquired with pencil and water-
colour. 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-colour, and used
it in preference all his life for work intended to be en
graved In later years he painted much in oil, but the
influence, of his water-colour practice is evident in nearly
all his pictures ; in many of them it is even painfully
evident, so that Constable, not unjustly, called them
'large water-colours.' What interests us for the pre
sent is that Turner's whole career was foreshadowed
in everything before the expiration of his minority.
Whilst yet a minor he was a painter in water-colours, 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 depart
ments, except etching on copper and engraving 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
appears to have been settled for him at the very thresh
old of manhood. It is a commonplace that marriage

40 The Life of f. ' M. W. Turner.
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 favourable. 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 industry ;
it is not a succession of hazardous enterprises, under
taken with the whole energy of extraordinary 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 import
ance 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 pos
sible that he might have contented himself with being
happy, if he had found happiness, and abandoned the
ambition to become great. His fate was settled other
wise; an early disappointment made him give up all

Love and Disappointment. 41
thoughts of .marriage, and left all his peculiarities, in
cluding the peculiarity of being a genius, full liberty to
develop themselves without restraint.
In those early days, when Turner's professional work
was that of a topographical draughtsman, when he in
creased 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 Turner came back he found his betrothed en
gaged to another, to a man for whom she had no affec
tion, and yet she would not break off this new engage
ment because the wedding-day was very near at
hand, and she believed that matters had gone too far
for her to retreat with honour. 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 disappoint
ment. 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 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

43 The Life off M. W. Turner.
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
storiesV.are difficult to criticise. When there are dates,
for example, ,the critic has some ground to go upon, for
heican ascertain from other sources what the subject of
the history was doing at the time fixed; but here we
have no date, except a supposition 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 exhibitions
-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
attachments and disappointments. It is said that the
girl whom Turner loved condemned herself to the life
long misery of an ill-assorted union ; but we know that
the, painter entered upon half a century of celibacy — of
celibacy without chastity — a life in which he formed
fndeed connections with the other sex, but connections

, Absence, .of '} Female- Influence. 43

of a kind which could do nqthingfpr 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 feriiinihe
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
•culture and refinement, who kept their lovers up to a
-better and higher kind of life than they would probably
nave followed without them. This is especially true of
the Countess Guiccioli, who partially reformed Byron

44 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 of 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 companion?
ship 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 can
didly acknowledged it. But now let us try to imagine
how a similar feminine influence could operate upon the
producing faculties of a painter. Clearly as we see how
Shelley or Mill may have gained by it, we can only
obscurely perceive any possible benefit to the work of a
painter like Turner from previous friendly discussion

. Absence of pettiale Influence. * 45
with any lady, however cultivated* A painter's inten-.
tions cannot be discussed until they are already in great
part realised, — 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 colouring
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 colour 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 conteriiporary, 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
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 impro
bable that he would have painted better if married,, and
it is possible that the cares of a family might have pre-

46 The Life off. M. W. Turner.
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 atone 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 comparison
one might feel inclined to substitute Shelley for Keats,
but it may be quite safely asserted, that only amongst
the most ethereal 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
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

The Drawing Master. 47
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 pos
sible 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 arid continue
the story of the Life.
It is possible even, that if Turner had beeri 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
manner which expressed the fulness of his genius.
When a young man, he did little 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

48 The: Life of f. M.W. Turner.
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 analyses things in such a way as to be
favourable 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 experimerits, 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
drawing-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.
In 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,
Staffordshire, 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 cathe
drals, and another drawing of fishermen. This may
have been merely a recurrence to material already accu
mulated, 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
^ie has several Yorkshire subjects ; therefore we may
4

50 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
conclude that he first visited that county, afterwards so
great a favourite of his, in the year 1797. In that year
he exhibited the little picture called 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 favourite with the writer
of this biography for its truth to nature in one thing.
All the ordinary manufacturers of moonlights — and
moonlights, have been manufactured in deplorably large-
quantities 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 courage to make his moonlight warm,
though he had not as yet the skill to express the in
effably 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 Lin-

First Northern Tour. 5.1
colnshire architecture 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 Fountains, 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 com
parison 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 paradise 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 Petrasa ; 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,
of 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
satisfied without seeing everything within his reach ; so
as he thought that the English lakes and the extreme
north of England were riot 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 Exhibition, to which the young artist sends
monastic ruins and valleys of Yorkshire, mountains
and lakes from Cumberland and Westmoreland, and
baronial castles from Northumberland, still standing' by
4—2

52 The Life of ' f. M. W. Turner.
sea or river. In the same 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, Mickleham, 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 charac
teristic 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 appeared in the
* Itinerant,' two towns which were less unpicturesque
then than now. Both ol 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 includes subjects from Wales and Nor
thumberland, as well as two from Salisbury, which he
often recurred to in early life ; but this year he is am
bitious, and paints a marine picture of the Battle of the
Nile, mentioned in the catalogue with a quotation from
' Paradise Lost,' that well-known passage where the

Dr. Whitaker. 53

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 ex
ample, in 1799 he 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. Whit
aker, 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 Lancashire 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 pos
terity, led him to write three of the best local histories
which have ever proceeded from the affectionate industry

54 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
of an archaeologist. 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 his
tory of that remarkably extensive and interesting parish,
and it so happens that his son, who is now about to pub
lish 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 publisher, when the Doctor was
approaching the close of his labours 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 con
scientiously, but with so little talent of any obviously
visible kind, that Dr. Whitaker's fidelity to him, in sub
sequently 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 Wlidlley Abbey,
Clitheroe, and Browsholme, would have entertained the
slightest hope that he could ever produce such designs
as those in the 'History of Richmondshire ;' but it is
possible that Dr. Whitaker may have watched Turner's
development in other publications. Between the 'Whal
ley' and 'Richmondshire' appeared Dr. Whitaker's
' History of Craven,' and to this Turner contributed an
architectural subject. His connection with these his
torical works was of use to him, by making him more

Dr. Whitaker. 55

intimately acquainted with places and people in a very
interesting part of the north of England, The old man
sion 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 Towne
ley, 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 perpen
dicular rock, as high as the sea-cliffs on the wild York
shire coast. On each side of the glen there are gullies
or ravines formed by the watercourses, and at the foot
of one of thse 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, no doubt, than the competitors of a
young aspirant in the present day, so that victory was

5 6 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 recognition. In the present day almost
all the Academicians and Associates are figure-painters,
and their almost invariable 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 land
scape-painter of extraordinary 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 difficulties of his career loom still like moun
tainous 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 Associ-
ateship came like a fair wind to a little boat that is fight
ing against the tide, and not like a breeze to a ship in
port. The subject of Turner's diploma picture was Dolbadem
Castle, inNorth 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 know
the place will remember its marked and peculiar geolo
gical character (blue slate), which no landscape-painter

His Diploma Picture. 57
before our generation would have recognised. Qne 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 geo
logy, with a scientific nomenclature. Turner's Dolbadem
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 con
nection with Llanberis, which is near the little estate that
saved him from utter indigence 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 nature 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 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

58 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 cate
gories 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 becomes 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 building his tov/er 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. 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

New and Old Gothic. 59
(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 ima
gination 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 im
mediate 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 dis-
quietingly short time on horseback. Turner had ever
afterwards the most intense affection for Bolton Abbey
and its neighbourhood, 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 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

60 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
later life all that land became consecrated for him by
orie of the most 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 thoroughly forgetting work and
heartily amusing himself. His favourite recreation was
fishing. The Wharfe is a very good stream for the
angler between Bolton Abbey arid 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 Londoner 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 example, and the other
illustration to ' The Boy of Egremond,' the Strict, 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
in 1796, when Turner was twentyone years old, he went
to live in rooms of his own at the end of Hand Court,
Maiden Lane. In 1800 he went to live in Harley Street,
and either in that year or the next, for there are different

. Professional Position in 1800. 61
accounts of this removal, he removed to 75, Norton
Street, Fitzroy Square. His Sittings appear to have
been the consequences of professional promotion. At
every decided step in advance he took a different
habitation. 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
realise to ourselves quite accurately the professional
position 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 work that he did then and the won
derful performance of his full maturity. Another diffi
culty is that there is not a single artist now living in Eng
land, or in Europe, who occupies exactly the same posi
tion 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
coloured what is distinctively the literature of the nine
teenth century, that it is scarcely 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 mediaeval Renaissance. Turner was not
naturally a mediaevalist ; his modes of thought, and his

62 The Life of f.M. W. Turner.
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 pre
decessors 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
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 in
terest as a Gothic castle or abbey. He drew such
mediaeval remains in a painstaking and prosaic way at

Professional ',, Position in 1800,

the beginning (as at /.Whalley, for example), but as he
improved 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 medlae-
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
his 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 ad
mission to the Academy exhibition, and to get him
elected Associate at a remarkably early age. We have
not in these days any young artists in Turner's position,
because his trade of drawing mediaeval buildings has
been almost annihilated 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 ven-

64 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
ture upon separate engravings from his works. The first
were the Mausoleum at Brocklesby, and Dunster Castle
from the south-west. From that date single plates ap
peared at intervals till his death, and after it. In the
present day the print-publisher would not invest capital
in laboured 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
something of a higher character than usual to its exhi
bition, 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
theiri. 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
bave thought it necessary to send one ambitious Biblical
picture to each exhibition, for in 1801 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 Tenth Plague of Egypt.

CHAPTER IV.
Kilchum Castle. — Topography. — Turner's dream pictures. — The topo
graphy of poets.
IT 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 Kilchum Castle
and the mountains at the head of Loch Awe. The
picture of Kilchum 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 topo
graphy, 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 Kilchum 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 Kilchum 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.
There is no scene in Europe more familiar to me than

66 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
the head of Loch Awe, where Kilchum 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 neighbourhood 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 Kilchum 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, Kilchum 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.
1. The River. — The Orchay flows past Dalmally till '
it comes to within a short distance of Kilchum ; 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 neighbourhood of Kilchurn, finds
itself in a genuine alluvial plain, not of great extent, yet
having all the characteristics of such a plain. The
reader who understands the action of rivers guesses at

Kilchurn Castle. 67

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 Kilchum
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 cha
racter of the river and foreground. He ignored the
existence of the flat 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
manageable, 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 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
5—2

68

The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

the sails in Turner's picture is, that he wanted them to
cut the base-line of his mountain, and throw the moun
tain further back.
2. The Caj&.^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

Kilchurn Castle.

69

mass of the castle. As to the corbel-turrets, he omits
them altogether, though he must have been aware of
their importance to architectural 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
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 recognisable as a chimney in all
his building. To the left hand the artist draws a lower
or minor mass of building, and inserts a semicircular
projection in the middle of it, like the semi-circular

70 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
towers in Roman city walls. There is nothing of this
kind in the reality. A very important picturesque cha
racteristic 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 cha
racter, '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
mark his complete indifference to everything in it that
is interesting, either from the picturesque point of view
or the architectural.
3. The Mountain. — 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

Kilchum Castle. 71

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 Ben 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 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.
* 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 never 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 f. M. W. Turner.
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
side. Ben Cruachan has a real peak, and is isolated
just on that side. I conclude, therefore, that the moun
tain 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, there
fore, 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 ;

Kilchurn Castle.

73

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 ruggedness of it is much reduced by distance.
There are a few humps, or bosses, on its side, it is true,

74 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 neighbour. Turner ignores
Ben Vorich altogether, giving him no separate individu
ality, though some of the 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
Cruachan affords any indication, these distant hills must
be the moorland on and about Craiganunie. I need
hardly observe that they are pure invention. Craig
anunie does not, from any point of view, take those out
lines, nor outlines 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. Never-

Kilchum Castle. 75

theless 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 imme
diate neighbourhood of Kilchurn.
If the reader has had the patience to follow me at
tentively 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
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 truthful
ness. It is as if a writer of travels were to say to him
self, 'Hitherto I have endeavoured to tell the truth
about the places which I have seen, but from this day
forwards, although remaining an honourable 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 endeavour,
in Turner's case, to preserve some particular kind of
local truth — to preserve, for exampls, 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 him
self partially; he emancipated himself entirely; and

76 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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-colour by Mr. G. H. Fripp,
which was engraved by Mr. Wallis for the Art Journal.
It appeared in that 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 recognise.
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 indifference
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

Kilchurn Castle. 77

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 omitted the solitary farm-house near
the Goose's Rock (see ' Painter's Camp,' p. 105, cheap
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 remember 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 be-

78 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
tween a line in the picture and the same line in nature is
from fifteen to twenty degrees. In all probability Mr.
Fripp exaggerated 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 imagination very powerfully, they are not preci
pitously 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 Mr. Fripp's work and nature is, that
he remarkably exaggerates ruggedness. The slopes of
Ben Anea are not, in nature, very rugged ; on the con
trary, that mountain is somewhat remarkable for the fine
rounding of its principal parts. Mr. Fripp prefers rug
gedness to roundness (thinking it more picturesque) and
hews the surface of the mountain into steps and preci
pices ; 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 fore
ground 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 con
scientious artists. They alter nature in order to make
their work look more pictorial, but they do not, as a
general rule, abandon the endeavour to render local
character to the best of their ability. There are great
differences in their success, and differences in the license

Kilchurn Castle. 79

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
portraiture, 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 representation 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 im
pression* We admit then, and consider it a settled
question, that pure topography is not to be expected
from an artist, and we will even admit that such devia
tions 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 character, and try to preserve
it. But what are we to say of Turner ? Is his system,
* The reader is referred to an article on this subject in the Portfolio for
l87S» PaSe 76- Tne 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.'

80 The Life of f M. W. Turner.
or his absence of system, compatible 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 re
semblance was attempted, there would be no deception.
If you order a picture of Adam and Eve in Paradise
you know, without being told, that the figures are not
portraits of Adam and Eve, but that they are either pure
inventions or studies from Academy models ; but il 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 recog
nisable. 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 busi
ness 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

Kilchurn Castle. 81

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 Kilchum 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 importance. You may dream, for example, if
you have been reading about Mont Blanc and St. Paul's
Cathedral, that you see St Paul's in the valley of
Chamouni with Mont Blanc for a background, but that
the Cathedral has neither dome nor belfry, just as
Turner's Kilchurn 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 accurate, we should say
that his memory was singularly defective. The experi
ments of M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran in the ' Education de
la Memoire pittoresque ' have produced results with
which no effort of Turner's memory, of which we have
any evidence, will bear the slightest comparison.* This
* M. Lecoq de Boisbaudran was teacher of drawing at the Ecole 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 astonished
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
6

82 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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
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
general 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 perfection of Turner's mental faculties might
affirm that he remembered everything, but purposely re
jected 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, ia 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
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 imaginative
to have an accurate memory. I believe that accuracy is compatible with
imagination, only when the feelings are not concerned, and feeling is always
present in Turner's work.

Turner's Dream Pictures. 83
so easily; certainly not until you are convinced that
there is strong evidence in its favour. The real opera
tion 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 literature. ' 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 which
you ought to use, and reject for you, without any con
scious trouble on your part, those which would only be an
encumbrance to your work.' Without stopping to con
sider 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
Kilchum Castle to catch the public ; it is the tradesman,
and not the poet, who names the picture. Kilchurn had
not yet 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 moun
tain you please ; it resembles Ben Lomond nearly as
6—2

84 The. Life of f. M. W. Turner.
much as Ben Cruachan : the castle is any castle you
please ; it resembles Ardhonnel more closely than Kil
churn, though Turner 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 everchang-
ing summits, a level wreath of white vapour 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 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 vestige of it shall have utterly dis
appeared. 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 conditions 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.

The Topography of Poets. 85
Had he lived till these days and been acquainted with
bur contemporary literature he might fairly have said,
' Why do literary men find fault with me for my free
use of the poetic license? They take just as great
liberties themselves. Talk of my Kilchurn, 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.' * Clad in Mack, 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 '
In the Church of Brou.

So rest, for ever rest, O princely pair,
In your high church, 'mid the still mountain air.*

86 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 mountains at all, but in the low country, six miles
from the first rise of the Jura hills, and the scenery about
it is 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 11,000 inhabitants,
with an old church of its own ; and it so happens, that
while that of Brou was building there was a bishop at
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

The Topography of Poets. 87
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
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 should love nature as he did, be continually ob
serving her, really know more about natural phenomena
than any of his predecessors,- and yet coolly and de
liberately 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 in
teresting 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.
WHEN 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 perform
ing a simple duty?' His views on this subject were
clearly wrong ; for the rules of good manners very fre
quently require us to thank people for performing simple
duties, and the Academicians were not under any obli
gation 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 eleva
tion 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 abandon
ment of topographic truth in art. The coincidence is
very close. The year when Turner appeared as Rdyal
Academician was the very year in which he exhibited a
picture conceived in absolute disdain of topographic
truth. From that time forwards he may have admitted
some recognisable measure of such truth, to conciliate
publishers or buyers, but his own mental emancipation
from it was complete.

go, The Life of f. M. W. 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 realise the almost incredible
degree of his unfaithfulness to topographic fact, espe
cially if we have a strong attachment to places and a
feeble interest in art.' But the artist in Turner gained
wondrously by the liberation which sacrificed the topo
grapher. From the time of his early maturity he be
came, above and before all other things, artist. It is
not even accurate 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 unfaithfulness. 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 Academician 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 irre
sistible 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

First Continental Excursion. 91
opinion universally 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 out
side of it It is difficult, after seeing our sublime little
northern mountains, to repress the desire for mountain
scenery of a yet sublimer order ; it is difficult, after fol
lowing 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 seaports, 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 conceived 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 Con
tinent immediately followed the first exhibition in
which he had borne the full honours of the Academy :
let us remember this, for it is important. The whole of
Turner's Continental work was done in his maturity,

92 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
arid consequently after his emancipation from topo
graphy. His first impression of Calais was strong enough to
Suggest a very strong picture, the Calais Pier, wuh
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 colouring of it is conceived as if it were intended to
be etched, and not intended to be exhibited perpetually
as a work in colour. The light-and-shade, too, seems to
have been designed for the etcher, with his simple broad
distinctions 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 ex
hibited two years earlier the Academical election would
have seemed more the acknowledgment of success and
less the intelligent 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 composition, full of the sentiment which we
call classic, with its noble river-divided landscape, Ife
elegant trees, its pleasant slopes of land and jdyritis
animated figures. It is, in short, a beautiful fancy "wim
much southern poetry in it, carrying lis hklf-waiy t& itie
Virgilian dreamland, but it is not Macbri. Th£ real

Calais Pier. French Fishermen preparing for Sea. The English Packet arriving.

First Continental Excursion. 93
scenery of Macon is interesting 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 depar
tures from fact, but he also (as at Kilchurn) neglected
important truths of character. In the country near
Macon one of the most striking peculiarities is the per
fect flatness of the land on the left bank of the Sa6ne,
and the boldness of the slopes on the right, yet this
strong contrast is not given. The river is a Turnerian
river, but not the Sa6ne near Macon ; the vine-lands
are Turnerian, they are not the vine-lands of the Ma-
connais. From eastern France our hero crossed over into
Switzerland, and seems to have made a halt at Bonne
ville, on his way to Chamouni — a longer halt than pass
ing tourists usually make there, for he got materials for
two pictures, one of the little town with Mont Blanc,
and the other of the Chateau de St. Michel, at Bonne
ville. He went 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 and impressions during this first journey
among scenery which must have greatly excited him we
know nothing but what may be gathered from his
sketches. We have no ample correspondence, like
Byron's letters from the Continent, giving the succes
sive impressions of scenes when first visited. The feeble
ness of Turner's literary faculty, and the defects of his
education, made writing irksome to him, whilst his total

94 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
ignorance of foreign languages must have kept him,
when abroad, in too isolated a position for any profit
able intercourse with the inhabitants. 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
(Macon), 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 pronounced. 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 interesting letter to his
relations in the old country, the power of the traveller
who can keep an intelligible journal — 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 landscape im
pressions, which immediately transformed themselves 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
picture of the Macon vintage is unlike the reality, and

First Continental Excursion. 95
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
whatever: 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 copyism of particular facts,
such as the shape of this or that rocky pinnacle or but
tress (a shape which would be altered past recognition
by walking a mile in either direction), Turner was im
buing 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 remem
ber painfully the very words of some great man whom
we admire ; but that when our minds' have grown larger
we become indifferent to this kind of accuracy, being
ourselves capable of thinking the thoughts over again,
in our own way. This was Turner's habit with regard
to Nature. He did not care to remember so as to quote
Nature word for word, but he put himself as nearly as
possible in harmony with Nature, so that he might be

96 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
able at any time 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 Turnerian 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 excursion, it is doubtful whether
he ever possessed one accurate 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 contrary, 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

Turner and his Father. 97
readily consented to this, was it not the most delicate
conduct possible under the circumstances ? Old William
Turner had been industrious 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 certainly no real humilia
tion, 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 them became wider. Thus it is precisely when
the painter wins the full honours of the Academy,
honours which give a recognised 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 professional men, bril
liantly successful in the world, whose humble parents
are never by any chance to be met with in their houses,
and are never mentioned by them. Thackeray had
certainly met with such instances, and was thinking of
them when he described Sepio : ' He prances about the
park on a high-bred cock-tail, with lacquered boots and
enormous high heels ; and he has a mother and sisters
somewhere — washerwomen, it is said, in Pimlico.' 7

98 Tlie Life of f. M. W. Turner.
The house to which Turner took his father from
Maiden Lane was No. 64, Hariey Street. The artist
went to live there in the year 1 803. In that year he
exhibited, 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 bio
graphy to give the titles of them all. The Sun Rising
through Vapour, 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 the Hesperides appeared in the British Insti
tution the year before. Both these are notable pictures,
but the Hesperides 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-gal
leries. 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 consider
able power hampering himself with the orthodox classi
cism. 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 predeces
sors did, instead of following blindly in their footsteps.

The Goddess of Discord in the Garden of the Hesperides.

Pictures of 1806 and 1807. 99
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 moun
tain 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 tihie)
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 ignor
ance of natural form and colour 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 greys, 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 of natural beauty. The next year's picture, the
Sun Rising through Vapour, is a direct return to nature,
7—2

ioo The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 inex
perience. 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 fish
ing-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 Hesper
ides) ; 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 realise 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 artists who elected him, returned to his
hands after the close of the exhibition, and remained
for long 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

Turner takes to Etching. 101
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 iriiagined, 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
the beginning of his career. Now painting of any kind,
whether in water-colour or oil, is a rapid process in
comparison with highly-finished etching in complete
chiaroscuro. Turner had been accustomed to paint

102 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 recognise 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
instances of that rencherissement in eulogy which attends
a great reputation. When it becomes fashionable to
admire what a famous man has done, people seek dis
tinction for themselves in praising him, and the art of
discovering 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 anything he has to say seems pale and tame in

Turner takes to Etching. 103
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,
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 mezzo
tint engraver with the very limited amount of practice
which he gave to it. He does not seem to have liked

104 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 pro
fessional 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 mark
ings, 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 him
self a record of his entire oeuvre, 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 of making a loud appeal to the public. His.
Liber Veritatis was a private possession, made public
long afterwards by the engravings of Earlom, but not
intended for publicity. 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

Tfie Liber Studiorum. 105
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 consciously 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 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.

106 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 him
self 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 civilised
world into Americans, Europeans, and Frenchmen.
What Turner originally 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 ex
amine the works themselves, we find that if such an
intention existed it must have been forgotten in the
execution. Norham Castle, for example, is * pastoral,'
but Raglan Castle is ' elegant pastoral.' A Bridge with
Cows is pastoral, a Stone Bridge with Goats is elegant
pastoral. Chepstow function of tfie Severn, is classed
amongst the elegant subjects, whilst a scene of water
cress gathering near Twickenham is not On the other
hand, there is a reason why Solway Moss should not be
elegant ; it is too wild and northern, so it is put amongst
the simple pastorals, with the Farmyard with Pigs and
the Hedging and Ditching. We can see a reason for the

»algr ^ die

p. p

The- Liber Studiorum. 107
classification in some instances, but not in all. It is
probable that if the series of plates had been carried
out to the full extent which Turner intended, the
classical. subjects, for which he had always a predilec
tion, would have been more numerous amongst those
which he called ' 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 Aisacus and Hesperia, fason,
and Procris and Cephalus, and one illustration of a poem
which is certainly not historical, namely, the Faerie
Queene: few Biblical subjects are also included in this sec
tion, and they seem rather strangely associated with those
which we have just mentioned. It is difficult, when we
look over the list of subjects, to understand how Turner
intended the plates to be parts of a great whole, though
his attempted classification proves that the intention was
certainly in his mind. The artist's chief purpose would
appear to have been variety, and yet even this purpose
might have been more fully attained from the sketches
and studies in his possession ; for the mountain subjects
are nearly all from Switzerland and Scotland, with
nothing from Northern England, or Wales. It is very
curious that, with Turner's classical tastes, there should
be nothing classical amongst his architectural subjects in
the Liber, unless Greenwich Hospital \s 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 in
terior of a church, but never a Greek temple, or Roman
aqueduct, or arch of triumph.

108 The Life of f.M. W. Turner.
Turner managed the publishing business of the Liber
Studiorum 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 impres
sions 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 £17 10s. 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 pos
sible into his own pocket, which always characterised
him, and often led him to overreach himself in his un
willingness to let others make profit out of his work,
spoiled the commercial 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 per cent, of it go to the wholesale
and retail printsellers ; but as it happens that the trade
finds purchasers where the artist himself cannot find
therii, the result of publishing through the trade is in
variably better for him in the end. Turner not only em
ployed the engravers himself at the very moderate price
of eight guineas a plate, so long as they would work for
him at that rate,* but he got up the numbers in his own
* The prices paid to engravers were first five guineas, then eight guineas,
and afterwards ten guineas or twelve guineas.

The Liber Studiorum. 109
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 sup
pose that he must have had the trouble of collecting
money from his subscribers, and of keeping the accounts
relating to his publication down to the smallest detail.
The first number appeared in 1807, and its successors
followed irregularly until 18 16, 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
work, composed of choice proofs selected from different
copies, is now worth a small fortune. Prints, however, do
not improve by keeping; and these proofs, which now
sell for so much to connoisseurs, are not better in any
way than those other proofs which the same class of
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 im
provement 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

no The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
would repay the cost of engraving. Unhappily, in the
fine arts, the splendour 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 eighty or a hundred times. The
Liber Studiorum 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 contend with rich people for rarities, may pro
cure fair impressions 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 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 cur
rent 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
* It is difficult to understand on what principle the dealers now regulate
the value of ordinary impressions of the Liber Studiorum plates. The
writer of this note bought a good impression of the Little Devil's Bridge of
one well-known dealer for ^i 8s., and afterwards 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 !

Apuleia. From the Etching by Turner.

The Liber Studiorum. m
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 ex
actly the opposite of all which that word implies. Turner
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 Reynolds meant, and if we did not
his own explanation would make it clear to us. ' This
genius,' he said, 'consists, I conceive, in the power of
expressing that which employs your pencil, whatever it
may be, as a whole : 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 precept of Reynolds. 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-colour. The work with the etching-needle, repre
senting Turner's pen-markings on his drawings, is full of
a masculine economy and strength, like the words of a

112 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
speaker who says little, but always to the purpose ; but
it is not pretty nor amusing, like the clever playing with
the same instrument in the hands of some modern
Frenchmen. The Liber shows a good deal of the in
fluence 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 passion 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 Studiorum 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
painter. Although, as we have seen, the price asked for
the whole work was £17 \os., the early numbers were
charged to subscribers at the rate of \$s. for prints and
£1 Ss- f°r 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

The Liber Studiorum. 113
further complicated by something like downright dis
honesty. ' I am sorry too,' observes Mr. Thombury, ' 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
various states.' If he did this, he is of course inexcus
able ; but as the plates had been worked upon by himself,
he may have thought them as good as new. Mezzotint
wears away fast in the printing, and if a plate has just
been refreshed by added labour 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
one, because the commercial sense of the word ' proof is
an early impression before the plate has been refreshed
by any restoration whatever, whether successful in the
artist's opinion or the contrary. The reader would be
unjust, however, if he inferred that Turner had no con
science. He was grasping, and yet curiously conscien
tious in his own way, and according to his own notions
of what was honourable and just.
Amongst Turner's notes on the margin of the engra
vers' 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
8

114 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 con
sider 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, be
sides the light clouds,' and then comes the reason, * which
will make the hill more solid' Here we have him antici
pating a result quite consciously. So on the margin of
the Dunblain Abbey he writes : ' The sky must be much
lighter and clearer, and until it possesses both the other
parts have not their value.' The reader will observe the
Turnerian grammar in the last sentence, possesses being
used for is ; or else the writer has forgotten that he has
used adjectives in the comparative degree, and is now
thinking of the substantives lightness and clearness. In
the note upon a touched proof of the L ittle 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 th-e stems of the trees! Here again the reason is

The Liber Studiorum. 115

given, and this time it is to prevent scattering, that great
enemy of artistic unity. Curiously enough, on another
touched proof of the same plate the artist had written :
' Be careful about the distance. 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 Kilchurn. Raglan Castle, in the Liber Studiorum,
fared no better. The plate is so unlike Raglan that the
compiler of the Burlington Catalogue 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
author of the Liber Studiorum disliked the sale of sepa
rate plates, because in his own mind there was a certain
connection of significance between the subjects. After
mentioning the castle and abbey subjects, Mr. Ruskin
says : ' 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, 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 rest. ' 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
8—2

n 6 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 ultimately
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 inter
woven 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, ' Frere, il faut mourir !' and
the answer, ' Mourir il faut, frere !' The suggestion of
ideas of this kind, which Turner bitterly 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 sus
ceptible 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 thejr expression than

Sheep washing.
Sepia drawing made for the Liber Studiorum, but not mezzotinted.

The Liber Studiorum. 117
the poorest of spoken dialects. It is probable 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, had he condescended to do so, to make his
thoughts clear enough by the mere titles of his drawings;
but he seems to have enjoyed, in a bitter way, the satis
faction of hinting at obscure meanings and then de
spising his fellow-countrymen for not following him.
The real cause of this temper was simply want of in
tellectual culture, which would have made him perceive,
that when a moralist desires to read solemn lessons on
the fate of nations landscape design is an inadequate
means of expression. Such culture would also have
made Turner awa*e that there was no novelty in his
choice of subjects. Many painters before his time had
sought in ruin and decay the elements of pictorial solem
nity, whilst such motives as ^Esacus and Hesperie,
Cephalus and Procris, and Rizpah, are in the regular
repertory of figure-painters, so that it would be im
possible to ascertain who first painted them, or to fore
tell the time when artists will finally reject them as
outworn.

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.
In the year 1808 Turner added the mysterious letters
' P. P.' to his Academical honours. These have puzzled
some of his admirers in the provinces and foreign parts,
but they mean nothing worse than 'Professor of Perspec
tive.' The choice of the new Professor was at the same
time' wise and riot wise. Turner was utterly incompetent
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
scientific 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 re
present 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 dis
carded 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 neces
sity 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
suggested the policy of a deviation. There was nothing
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 scienti
fically true ; and finally, in colour, where he permitted
himself all manner of violence and aberrations.
The newly-appointed Professor of Perspective per
mitted 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 sometimes three, but they were never very remote

t20 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 Hariey 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 mem
bers of the aristocracy who appreciated either Turner or the
other great contemporary English painters. It is probable
that this Earl, whom we may call anoble earlin a sense very
different from the conventional one, had a character above

First Visit to Petworth, 1809. 121
the vanity of caring to look well in the sight of posterity ;
but it so happens, from his great kindness 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 re
fined in its perception of artistic beauty, and unaffected
to the extreme of simplicity in the ordinary 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 thaj: Turner and the great
Earl got on quite well together ; and this is in favour of
Turner, not because Lord Egremont 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 genuineness. All who
knew Turner personally appear to be agreed that,
although he was not what is called a gentleman 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 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

122 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 characteristic of Turner than to paint,
the same year, Apollo slaying Python with his Arrows,
and Somer Hill, near Tunbridge, the seat of W. F. Wood-
gate, 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
exhibits 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 Studiorum proofs, that they gave evidence of
his conscious exercise of critical reason and judgment.
His notes on his own private memoranda occasionally
prove that he thought out his composition consciously,
and fully understood the importance of those little con-

Turner as a Writer on Art and Nature. 123
trivances 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 reflects, 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 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

124 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 re
flection 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 precisely 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 and transmits all perpendicular objects
lower towards 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

Turner as a Writer on Art and Nature. 125
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
water ' 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 more or less an
angle of incidence.' The water is no longer in right
angles with 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

1 28 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
the spectator, and there is sure to be an angle of inci
dence 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 accoriiplished landscape-painters know very little
that can be unreservedly 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 more clearly accounted for, than they were in the
beginning of this century, and the students of the future
will find a mass of suggestion and exariiple 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

Turner as a Writer on Art and Nature.. 127
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 im
pression 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 illustrated 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 water-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 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

128 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 dis
position to accumulate facts which is said to be peculiarly
characteristic 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 gra
dually 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 Red
ding 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 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

Turner as an Observer and Critic. 129
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 bio
graphy. Turner and Howard, the Academician, stayed
together at Heston, whereof the elder Mr. Trimmer was
Rector, and the two painters had professional conversa
tions, 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 maintained
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
people generally, should have been quite freely com
municative 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 uncon
querable aversion. He appears to have given a good
deal of practical art instruction to this clerical friend of
his, who, in return, tried to teach 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 en-
9

130 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
thusiastically 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 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 prin
ciple from the criticism of living artists in conversation,
knowing 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 com
mon 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 de
scribing his conversation 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 contem
porary.

CHAPTER VII.
He removes to Queen Anne. Street, 1812. — Excursion to Devonshire, 1812.
— Turner's poetry. — Turner's prose.
In 18 1 2 Turner removed from Hariey 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 gallerythen, in a won
derful state of neglect, 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 magnificence 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 colours
and forms which tempts artists like Fortuny to fill their

132 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
studios with Oriental tissues and strange vases from be
yond 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 conse
quence 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 perfectly 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 consideration which
may better excuse the meagreness of the great land
scape-painter's surroundings, and his apparent indif
ference 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 unencum
bered, are excitants of the Muse. Every artist knows
well some favourite retirement And yet the experience
of some good artists has taught them to prefer the
smallest and plainest chamber, with one chair and table,

He Removes to Queen Anne Street, 1812. 133
and with no 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 remark
able 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 belongings of a great
man, but then in Goethe's house the staircase and recep
tion-rooms made a thousand appeals to the mind.
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
of association with past art, the interior of Turner's house
had the defects of ordinary English middle-class in-

134 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
teriors 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
evidently 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 Eng
land.' 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 contem
porary 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
intrusion, 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 hospi
tality, 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
disturbed the action of the imagination by making his
hold upon imaginative conceptions more uncertain and
precarious. But besides this reason for liking to be
alone, there were others connected with the technical

He Removes to Queen Anne Street, 1812. 135
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 experi
ments of which it was as well that they should remain
ignorant. Amongst others, they would have seen the
indiscriminate use of oil and' water-colour 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 examining the tech
nical 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-colour,' 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 dis
may, 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 acquaintance.
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 f. 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 be
long at all to that school of rustic artists who live in the
presence of Nature, still he felt now and then a longing
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
accommodation was not to be had, and leading the cheer
ful life of a pedestrian blest with excellent health and
very economical 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 1812 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 fresh the next morning for new wanderings. The

Excursion to Devonshire, 1812. 137
uncommon strength and soundness of his nervous sys
tem was proved by an unusually severe test. He was on
Mount Edgecumbe with some friends, and engaged in
conversation, 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 singu
larly perfect organisation, 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 provided everything, including wines, on a liberal
scale, whilst he acted his part of host in quite a becom
ing manner. Leslie, in his Autobiography, tells a story

138 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 contra
diction 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 dis
cerning public. He had discovered quite a new and ingeni
ous 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 considerable circula
tion ; but the effect upon the literary world can hardly
have been such as the poet must have desired. The at
tempt 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 project ; nothing remains of it now except the few
extracts in the Exhibition Catalogues. The painter left,

Turner's Poetry. 139

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 riiotto on its
title-page one line of the poet himself —
' Lead me along with thy armonuous verse.'
Such a volume would contain some of the most re
markable specimens of grammar, spelling, and construc
tion, that could be offered as exercises foi correction to .
little boys at school.
' HiU 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 prevail.'
' 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 grammar. The spelling is generally better than might
be expected in such ' armonuous verse.' The versifica-

140 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
tion, 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.
1 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 thinking.
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 bite. It is below the ordinary
level of taste and intelligence amongst boys in English
grammar-schools. Imagine a versifier stupid enough
to write such rubbish as the following !

Turners 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 light
ning, which finishes so that one cannot think of the sub
ject 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 instan
taneous death which allows the breath of supreme good
ness 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 ;

142 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
' 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.'
The meaning of the lines about house property is not
very clear, though one has a vague notion that something
unpleasant has occurred, but the last line seems very
sublime. 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 striking
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,
except 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 'Seasons,'
or another line of a pedestrian kind, which is as good as
the prosaic ones in Wordsworth's ' Excursion.'

-I

' The straining vessel to its cordage yields,
So Britain floats the produce of her fields.'

Turner's Poetry. ' 143

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.'
5. ' The parching heat of summer's solstice o'er.'
6. ' A gloomy lurid interval succeeds.'
t
7. ' Or on the blasted heath or far-stretch'd down.'
c ( ' 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 me
diocrity 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

144 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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.'

'&

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 some
times, by happy accident, could get through a few sen
tences without a blunder. Like most uneducated men,
he disliked 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 diner-out, was on the other hand
frequently disposed to profit by that rule of society which
allows a bachelor to receive hospitality without return
ing 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 obliga
tion 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 anything to the provider of the enter
tainment. 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

Turner's Prose. 145

assertion made at the beginning of this biography, to
the effect that he did not know the English language.
His unsuccessful attempt to learn Latin with Mr. Trim
mer is 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. Hundreds 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 anything 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 worshipping it. Beyond this benefit, which
is not to be despised, we have the other advantage of
knowing how completely, in Turner, the man was sacri
ficed to the artist, as gardeners sacrifice certain fruit-
trees to their fruit. The pruning was not done inten-
10

146 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
tionally 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 perception 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 jealousies 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 gentle
man, 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 faculties. 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 attain
ment 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 our
selves, not to lose our self-respect in their presence, and

Turner's Prose. 147

on the other hand not to attach too much importance to
our own superiorities over them, since they have done so
easily without our 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 18 19. —
Rome from the Vatican. — Whitaker's History of Richmondshire.
One of Turner's important changes of residence took
place probably in 18 13, 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 pur
chased 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.

A Frosty Morning, Sunrise.

Turner at Twickenfiam. 149
The house at 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 Rich
mond 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 neighbour
hood. In 1813 he painted the Thames at Kingston Bank,
and he made a picture of Richmond Hill, which was
exhibited in 18 19. He had a boat at Richmond,
and Mr. Trimmer said that he painted /rom 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 in 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 honourable
burial within the precincts of his garden. It had rather
a sad end, by strangulation in the night, having en
tangled itself in its fastenings, which were chains, used

ISO The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
in consequence of its untowardness. 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. Turner 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
Kingston 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 in
sufficient 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 disposition 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 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 neighbourhood 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 pur
chase was quite recent he seems to have been generally
thinking of something else. In 1 8 14 he exhibited
Dido and Apneas leaving Carthage on the m-orning of
the Chase, and Apuleia in search of Apuleius. His
only traces of Thames influence in these pictures are,

Crossing the Brook. 151
that in the first there are stone pines, which Turner may
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 1 826 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 10s. 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 Sheemess, with Fishing-boats trawling — cloudy
sky. This picture was exhibited in 181 5, a very prolific
exhibition year for Turner, including two of his best-
known and most important pictures — Crossing the Brook,
and Dido building 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

152 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
large dimensions, which was reproduced in the Port
folio for November, 1877, page 175. 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 flat 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 spec
tator. 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 tfie 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

Crossing the Brook. ,153
the National Gallery to compare it with Turner's work
in 1803 or in 1806, dates at which he was already quite
a 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's 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 defects,
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 labour. 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 realise 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 unfaithful
ness 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 emancipa
tion. The Goddess of Discord in the Gardens of the Hes
perides is almost as heavily painted as the Calais Pier,
and as much wanting in the charms of light and colour.
In all such work as this nothing is really luminous, and

154. Tfie Life of f. M. W. Turner.

colour 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 drapery in the later
picture. There are hundreds of old pictures, often by
famous men, which are popularly supposed to be works
in colour, but which in reality are nothing but simple
monochromes in grey or brown, with a little colour here
and there to prevent them from being avowed mono
chromes. By means of this artifice a painter who does
not feel that he has very much colouring power may
gradually work his way from monochrome to real colour,
and conceal the steps of the transition from the observa
tion 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 colour ; for it does
not go beyond the colour-range of the Dutch landscape-
painters, with their greys 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 colour 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 splendour 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 experi
ment 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

Distances in Elder Art. 155
as well as the figurative sense, ' opened for him new
horizons.' It would be premature, in this place, to occupy the
reader's time with a dissertation on the distances which
Turner painted 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
victory 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 laboured 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 au 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

156 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
the painting of distances. Not only are the hills flat
patches of almost equally tinted paint, but even their
outlines have a corresponding want of variety. Follow
the line of the highest mountain, and you will scarcely
find more thought or design in it than would be neces
sary to make the outline 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 traceable 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 delicate 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 land
scape, the same exquisite and loving finish that he

Distances in Elder Art. 157
bestowed on the pearls of the heavenly diadem which
the angels bear to the Virgin. But the details of 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 coloured. These, then, are the two main
divisions of old landscape distances, the simplified and
the minutely detailed : but besides these there was some
clever distance-painting occasionally, in Dutch art, which
deserves separate mention. Of Ruysdael's mountain
distances little is to be said that is favourable. They
are not so well coloured as those of Claude (being really
nothing but disguised 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 poetical as he
advanced in life; and this might in some measure
* There is a fine example of this in the National Gallery now (Wynn-
Ellis collection), the large Ruysdael, with a church and an expanse of open
country beyond.

1 58 The Life oj f. M. W. Turner.
account for his ever-increasing tendency to desert the
foreground, where objects are too near to have much
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 weari
some sea. Be this as it may, the enchantments of land
scape 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 perception, 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, produced
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

The Fascination of the Remote. 159
quotations, but here is just one from Shelley, which owes
most of its effect upon the mind to his perception of two
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 18 17, just about the time when
Turner was passing from his early manner to the sub
limities 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 suscep
tibility 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
description requires less realisation 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 endeavour to overcome there is not one
which tries their powers more severely than the repre-

160 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
sentation of distant effects in landscape. They can never
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 colour 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 picture
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 obser
vation every time they see a fine sunset or a remarkable
cloud in the natural world, and remain as unjust as ever

A Second Possibility of Marriage, 1815. 161
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 per
mitted to interfere between him and the higher mani
festations 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 181 5 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 in
stead 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 masculine humanity, so the end of it all was that he
simply remained a bachelor. This is an odd instance of
those unrealities, so nearly realised, the marriages that
might have been. Perhaps the lady had a happy
escape, for with all our admiration for Turner we may
frankly confess that he had become by this time too
much accustomed to his own way of life to adapt it
readily to feminine exigencies. He was not the sort of
person to associate well with anybody. His temper, in
11

1 62 Tfie Life of f. M. W. Turner.
this respect, is well illustrated 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 biographical narrative has come to an end. The
Dido owes its origin to various causes, — to the painter's
early architectural 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 imagine how it could give him any deeper
or more delicate aesthetic satisfaction. As for intellectual

Dido Building Carthage. 163

satisfactions, 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 ex
ecution. The representation of history so remote that
we have scarcely any data for anythirig can never be
very interesting. 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 have the fine North African
atmosphere, with its perfect light, through which the
colour shows itself, pure and intense, like sapphires and
emeralds through clear glass. Turner did not concern
himself, in this instance, with local beauties or character
istics, but invented a place which might have belonged
to some English nobleman in the Georgian era with a
fancy for stone and mortar and a taste for classic temples
in his grounds. We feel, of course, the skill of the
practised composer; the material is so arranged as to
keep well together, but the lighting is impossible. Mr.
Leslie pointed oUt that the shadows from the projecting
pieces of scaffolding to the left fell in a direction only
possible with a sun much higher than that in the picture.
He was right in this criticism, and might have extended
11— 2

164 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 luminary 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 in
dignant at this raised the price enormously afterwards
by a process of successive doubling. He could do so with
out 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 gentle
men who admired Turner (Sir Robert Peel, Lord Har
dinge, and others) offered £5000 for this and another
picture of Carthage, in order to present them to the
National Gallery. Turner was pleased by this offer, but
adhered to his original intention.
In 1 8 16 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 ex
hibits a large picture, entitled The Decline of the Cartha
ginian Empire. The work was accompanied by both
prose and verse in the Academy Catalogue :

Turner and Scott. 165

' 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,
consented 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 colouring 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 par
ticular pictures to immortalise him and benefit our
selves ; and I heartily endorse Mr. Ruskin's estimate.
' It is, in fact, little more than an accumulation of Aca
demy students' outlines, coloured brown.'
Turner was brought back to less ambitious, but really
much better material, by a tour in Scotland in the year
18 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
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

1 66 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 grey 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 difficulties 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
complimentary 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
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

Oil Pictures of 1818. 167
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
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 sus
tained 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

1 68 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
immense range, he was constantly incurring new risks
in coping with new difficulties. So many things in
terested him that he was always tempted to express his
interest about them in his art— rhaving no other suffi
cient 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 great struggle between England
and Napoleon. He did not, 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 foreboding 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 overthrow ; and this idea im
pelled him to paint repeatedly a vanished city, of which
he knew neither the architecture nor the site. A pecu
liar misfortune attended most of his 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 in
trude upon the domain of art. The same patriotism
produced a Waterloo in the exhibition of 1818, a picture
which only served to exhibit the artist's figure-painting
to painfully manifest disadvantage. Turner has often

Pictures of 1819. 169

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 1819 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 Meuse — Orange Merchant on the Bar,
going to pieces ; Brill Church bearing S.E. by S., Maren-
sluys E. by S. ; but the real suggestion of the picture
would only occur to a colourist The artist had a fancy
for painting oranges bobbing about in sea-water, hence
the picture. The other work, Richmond Hill on the
Prince Regents 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 Thom-

170 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
sOnian 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 ! Not
less remote -these smiling meads and forest glades of
Turner, missing alike the enchantment of imagination
and the refreshment of reality. Leslie judged rightly
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 essen
tial and most beautiful characteristics of English mid
land 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 the general composition, every beauty of that noble
landscape is left, out I remember, in a summer of
unusual drought, when the trees became embrowned and
the grass was burnt up, that the colour 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 1 8 19 Turner went to Rome, one result of which
excursion was the extraordinary picture, exhibited in the

The Meuse. Orange Merchantman going to Pieces on the Bar.

Rome from the Vatican. 171
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 honours. He figured in the
Catalogue 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 perspective 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 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 com
parison with its next neighbour 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

172 The Life of J. M. W. Turner.
the laws of perspective, though it was his office 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 photo
graphy, and they use it much more than is generally
supposed ; in 1820 they had not that resource, but there
was the camera-obscura. Harewell'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. 101), 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 labours. Each of the three
districts — Whalley, Craven, and Richmondshire — is an
inexhaustible mine for a landscape-painter ; but when
Turner was illustrating the two first he was as yet very
little of an artist in the higher sense of the word : he was
a painstaking and tolerably accurate topographer, and
little or nothing more. In the interval between the
Craven and the Richmondshire he became more of an
artist and less of a topographer than any of his brethren.
It is difficult, in the history of the arts, to point to a
more surprising transformation. It is as if some pain
fully 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

Whitaker's 'History of Richmondshire.' 173
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 £10,000 ; 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 the whole work, including the
letterpress, for that sum. However this may have been,
the originals were afterwards sold ; and one of the
principal purchasers was Mr. John Marshall, of Leeds.
These works were kept at Halsteads, on Ullswater, 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 members of this pleasant

174 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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. It has
been said, that when he went to Yorkshire to illustrate
the ' Richmondshire ' he brought a letter of introduction
.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 natural,
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, who
must have needed all the tact of a lady to extricate her
self from such a position ; but it is impossible to regret
her be'vue. It is one of the very finest and most perfect
bevues committed in the first half of the nineteenth cen
tury, the only one quite equal to it being that of the
Empress Marie Louise, when she told a distinguished
statesman that he was one of ' les plus grandes ganaches
de V Empire' believing that ganache meant a Nestor, wise
in council.

CHAPTER IX.
Transition to colour. — Turner as a traveller. — His system of study.
Turner 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 colourist 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 grey and brown, with a patch of red
here and there, to make people believe that it was colour.
In Crossing the Brook we have yellow greys and quiet
greens managed with the taste of a colourist who does
not yet venture to employ the full force of his palette.
The difference between Crossing the Brook and the

176 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
Garden of the Hesperides (which was exhibited at the
British Institution in 1806) is, in principle, absolute ; the
later picture is colourist's work in quiet hues, the earlier
is not colourist's work at all. This great transition having
been accomplished, 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 Balkan 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 trom 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
traveller has left less in the way of written memoranda
or correspondence. His poverty in language amounting
to absolute destitution in foreign tongues, and the un-
communicativeness of his character made his intellect
useless for the study of human nature beyond the limits
of his own country. He was the exact opposite of
such men as Ticknor and Crabb Robinson, who always,
in every foreign city, fell into the very midst of the most
cultivated society, and heard all that was most interest
ing. Intellectual tastes, and enlightened interest in
foreign politics and literature, would have been quite in-

Turner as a Traveller. 177
compatible with the immense amount of professional
labour that he went through ; and as for thrilling adven
tures, we only remember that he once slipped on a very
steep slope of rock, or dSbris, 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, disguises,
glimpses of the highest society and the lowest, sudden
contrasts of splendour 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 interesting 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 intensifica
tion 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 con
querors, in a spirit of perfect artistic tranquillity, con
scious indeed of the miseries of humanity, and partially
saddened by them, yet steadily minding his own busi
ness, which was to observe how cities, and rivers, and
distant mountains, would combine into beautiful com
positions. He had visited Rome in 1813, he revisited
it in 1 8 19, and saw the Rhine in the same year, but we
12

178 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

have no traveller's reminiscences 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 re
mained long in one place. Some of his studies are
elaborate ; but it is a kind of elaboration due rather to a
perfect command of means, and great practice, than to
much time spent upon any one particular sketch. He
was always a painter from 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
nation, is so considerable, that students may find in it
abundant examples of the various kinds of work which
he did in the presence of Nature. Some of these sketches
have been copied for this biography with sufficient
accuracy as to form, and the reader may judge from
them of the degree of elaboration which Turner usually
considered necessary.
The character of Turner's drawings varies considerably
at different periods, and during different tours. Some
times the pencil is cut broad at the end, and the sketches
are very comprehensive in treatment ; at other times a
harder pencil is used, and it is sharpened to a fine point.
The papers vary also, being sometimes white, and. at
other times grey, of various tints and textures. Then,
again, the relations vary between the line and the wash

His System of Study. 179
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 perfectly
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 recognised methods, for he was an
audacious innovator ; I mean, that he worked as if draw
ing, relatively to Nature, were understood to be a summary
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 which
economise time, and which consequently enable an artist
to get much from Nature in one sitting. This habit of
12—2

180 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
economy in time is often much increased by practice in
noting down very transient effects, so that the methods
which an artist has invented for this purpose may be
used by him for things less transient when he is in a
hurry. Having sketched clouds quickly because they
retain their forms only for a few seconds, he may some
times apply similar methods to trees and cities, when
the diligence only allows him ten minutes to make his
sketch. Many things conspired to teach Turner the art
of using time to the best advantage. The effects which
he cared to paint were generally transient, and his eager
search for new impressions prevented him, when on his
travels, from remaining more than an hour or two on one
spot. So far as we can judge, the time given to his
sketches from Nature varied from three or four minutes
to as many hours. The most elaborate of them were
retouched in the house afterwards, but it is probable that
he never, or hardly ever, gave more than one sitting to
the same sketch in the presence of Nature, at least
during his foreign tours. He had several distinct
methods of sketching at command, to be used according
to circumstances, and was perfectly master of each of
them ; so that whenever one seemed likely to take too
much time, another might be immediately adopted.
Exceedingly unmethodical in the ordinary habits of his
life, he was methodical in the extreme when working
directly from Nature ; and this is the more remarkable
that he was not methodical when painting in his studio
at home. The difference may be explained by the
difference of leisure. In the studio he had time to try
experiments ; but there was no time for experimen-

His System of Study \ 181
talising 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, the
studies of this class being strictly notes of form. Even
form, however, is far from being complete ; there is only
just as much of it as the artist thought indispensable.
For example : in architecture, when details were re
peated 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
imitation than the very simplest etching. Sometimes the
loops would be rejected for a comprehensive sketching of
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 in water-colour 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

1 82 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 colour. 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
colour, yellow 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 grey paper. — Turner seems
to have been rather fond of black and white chalk early
in the century, but he afterwards preferred body-colour
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, grey
leaves ; the peculiar ingenuity of the arrangement being
that each leaf has half of one sketch on its front and half
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

His System of Study.- 183
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 grey paper, with white lights in body-
coloiir. — 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-grey paper, almost
brown, then drawn boldly in black chalk, and finally
touched with brush-white.
5. Pen sketches on grey 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
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 grey paper, zvith white lights in

1 84 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
body-colour.— -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-colour in the smallest touches
and sparkles. The paper which Turner preferred for
this sort of sketching was of a blue grey, and he liked
(without using it exclusively) the kind which has a blue
fibre in grey pulp.
7. Pencil sketches on grey paper, with white lights in
body-colour. — 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 grey 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 collec
tion of this class.
8. White paper with aflat wash cf grey. On this a
drawing in black chalk coloured afterwards in water-
colour, with lights obtained either by scraping or by body-
colour. — At first sight the student is likely to imagine
that these studies are done on paper that was grey when
manufactured ; but the work of the penknife shows that
the paper was really white and tinted by Turner him
self. 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-colour as Turner
was would add the washes in an hour. The sketches
of this class are large, and very bold in treatment ; and

Source of the Arveiron.

His System of Study. 185
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. Some
times it is dark, and so warm as to be almost brown ; at
others, it is a yellowish-rgrey, 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 pen
knife 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 colouring. I use the
word colouring, and not colour, intentionally here, because
these sketches are really coloured 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-colour. In the Source of the Arveiron the lights
are obtained in that way, and with the knife also.
9. Water-colour on tinted papers. — Turner was very
fond of tinted papers for water-colour sketching, and
used them of various kinds, a cool blue-grey predomin
ating. The following brief descriptions of a few ex
amples will. show how he dealt with them :
Bonneville, Savoy. Firmly drawn in lead pencil first,

1 86 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
the drawing left very visible, especially in the fore
ground. Washed in water-colour and heightened with
body-colour lights.
Rome, the Alban Mount. Dark grey paper, black
pencil ; abundant washes in water-colour with a full
brush. Studies at Marly and Rouen. Dark grey -brown
paper ; pencil sketch washed with half-colour tints,
rapidly dashed on with a full brush ; lights in body-
colour. Rome. Pearly-grey paper ; drawing with the point of
a hard pencil ; water-colour employed delicately and
partially, especially in the distances. Retouches in
opaque colour.
Rome, St. Peter's. Pearly-grey paper, the first draw
ing in hard pencil ; the second with the brush point
introducing much golden colour under the arches.
Honfleur. Blue-grey paper; all organic lines and
markings in indelible brown ink, afterwards washed over
in water-colour.*
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
much more Turnerian than natural, but extremely in
teresting on account of the plain evidence they give
about the principles of his later manner in water-colbur,
* Turner often used penwork under water-colour, as he did etching under
mezzotint.

His System of Study. 187
more visible in sketches than in more highly-finished
drawings. The paper is a mauve-grey, the pencil work
pale, so as to become invisible under the wash ; and the
wash itself is very broad, and in very pure colours. 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 colour, or with a brush that
is nearly dry. In all these Venice subjects the colouring
is as brilliant as the hues of sunset, and the city 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.
10. Sketches in water-colour 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 pur
posely overpowered by the water-colour. For instance,
in a study of Vesuvius from Naples, firmly drawn
throughout in hard pencil, the water-colour 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 skill in pure transparent
water-colour, the lights of which are all reserved in the
white paper. He disliked the employment of body-
colour in principle, though he used it freely when the

The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

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 colour 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 labour and paint in water-
colour, he should study Turner's fishes on white paper,
his perch, tench, and trout, drawn with the pencil and
coloured with a wondrously small allowance of colour,
but most brilliantly. Turner made 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
comprehend : but it is comprehensive enough to meet
the reader's needs without wearying his patience. A
few words remain to be said about the relation of these
studies to Nature itself.

His System of Study. 189
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 riverie in
the studio. Turner may have tried also to be truthful
as a raw beginner ; but the work of his maturity in the
presence of Nature is true to nothing but his own emo
tions. There is a passage of Mr. Ruskin on this subject
which I will quote with the ungracious intention of ex
pressing 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 in
fluence of its sublimity, but he cared no more about the
truth than Victor Hugo cares. We have already seen
what ' Turnerian Topography ' really was in our analysis
of Kilchurn, and it is unnecessary to say more about it
here except that nobody can place the slightest trust in
the topographic fidelity of any 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

1 90 The Life of J. M. W. Turner.
topography in Turner's work is associated with a reck
less inaccuracy in design.
Passing now from drawing to colour, let me explain
what Turner's colouring was and was not. It was not
an imitation of Nature except in certain studies, chiefly
of still life, done very conscientiously for discipline. It
was really a long series of experiments on the play of
colours themselves. Here is an anecdote in illustration
of his conception of colouring. 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 after
wards 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 collabora-
teurs for the rest, in the following manner. He rubbed
three cakes of water-colour, 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 coloured fingers on his paper. These
directions were gleefully obeyed, as the reader may well
imagine. Turner watched the work of the thirty little
fingers with serious attention, and after the dabbling
had gone on for some time, suddenly called out, ' Stop !'
He then took the drawing into his own hands, added
imaginary landscape forms, suggested by the accidental
colouring, and the work was finished. On another occa
sion, after dinner, he amused himself in arranging some

His System of Study. 191
many-coloured 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 after
wards invented in the same colour-arrangement. The
sugar-plums would have been disguised in landscape
forms in Turner's arbitrary way. Without wishing to
prove too much by a couple of anecdotes* I do think
that every candid reader will agree with me that we have
here a mind seeking colour 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 colourist, was habitual with
him. The drawings for the ' Rivers of France ' are
glaringly false in colour, 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 Turnerian vermilion. The plain truth
is, that when Turner thought that a streak of vermilion
or a blot of cobalt would help the brilliance of his draw
ing he set it there, as a jeweller sets a red stone or a
blue one.
Another result of examining Turner's studies is that
we see both the extent of his knowledge and the limits
of it; we see especially his independent power of dis-
* These anecdotes may be relied upon. They were kindly communicated
to me by Mr. Samuel Palmer.

192 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
covery. 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 learned, and employed, no doubt, the best
engraving talent to be had at that time in Switzerland.
The plates are large — so large that many of them are
twice folded in a quarto volume ; and they are engraved
with much labour and care. They really do express
the most perfect mountain-knowledge which had been at
tained up to the end 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 years of the succeeding century, and
what are they? Nothing but old maps, in which de
fective outlines surround spaces filled with emptiness.
Turner's drawings of the Alps, even the early ones, are
as much beyond those engravings which the learned and
admirable De Saussure approved and published, as
Greek figure-sculpture was beyond Gothic. The evi
dence of Turner's knowledge is not less abundant and
convincing than the evidence of his wilful inaccuracy.
But although his studies prove that he knew much, they
do not prove that he knew everything. He was not
learned in sylvan lore. It is surprising that so great a
landscape-painter should have studied forest scenery so
little. He drew some trees elegantly, but clearly pre
ferred buildings as subjects of study ; and there is no
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

His System of Study. 193
may 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 — Hano-
teau is one of them— whose knowledge of rustic material
is much closer, more intimate, more affectionate than
Turner's. With an immense and unwearied industry,
Turner accumulated thousands and thousands of memo
randa to increase his knowledge of what interested him,
especially in the mountains, rivers, and cities of the Con
tinent, 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 ob
servation 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
Turner's practice as an artist which I have thought it
better not to scatter through the volume, as they illustrate
each 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
13

194 The Life off. M. W. Turner.
where Turner had entered his name in the visitors' book,
and, to make sure of the painter's identity, asked the
innkeeper 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 penal in his hand! When
sketching from nature in the Val d'Aosta with Mr. Munro,
Turner was vexed with himself for having used colour
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 rough
ness 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, can paint from very slight
memoranda, if only they are of the right kind. Mr.
Redding gives us another interesting scrap of infor
mation 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 more than one
sketch, or could not please himself as to the best point.'
It is probable that the real explanation of this would be
that Turner -collected into one and the same sketch a
good deal of material which lay scattered around him in
various directions, for he never troubled himself about
drawing a scene as it appears from a single point of
view. Mr. Redding speaks also of the confused 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-colour occurs in some sketches

His System of Study. 195
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
vicinity 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 memorandum of his observations. Turner men
tioned the Fall of Foyers in Scotland, the Pyreriees,
and the' French river Ranee, which he recommended
as rich in picturesque scenes.

CHAPTER X.
Rivalry with Wils6n.— The Bay bf Baise.— The Rivers of England.— Pro
vincial Antiquities. — England and Wales. — The Ports of England.— The
' Cologne.' — Works from sketches by others. — Separate plates. —
Transactions with Cooke. — Pictures exhibited in 1827.
IN 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 en
couraged 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 pro
poses 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

Rivalry with Wilson. 197
in rivalry with Woollett. 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 with 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 Phaeton.' 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 interesting to note that he
speaks of both Wilson and Woollett as ' powerful anta
gonists,' and says : ' If we fall, we fall by contending with >
giant strength.' This is clear evidence 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 accompanied by certain
misgivings. He proposed, as a first picture, either his
Hannibal or the Morning of the Chase ; and his calcula
tion was that, with the pictures still to be painted, the
whole project might be realised in five or six years.
He expressly excepted the Carthage from a possible
list. The plan was never realised; and it is said
that Messrs. Hurst and Robinson offended Turner by
trying to bargain with him for the two Carthage picT
tures at a time when his own price was a thousand
guineas each.
In that year, 1822, the prices received by Turner for

198 The Life of J. M. W. Turner.
his water-colours were not very considerable. He got
eight guineas each for the Colne, Rochester,- and Norham,
and £8$ for three drawings on the Rhine. But the im
portance 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
Academy, The Bay of Baics. The full title in the
Academy Catalogue was the Bay of Baia, with Apollo
and the Sybil. f Waft me to sunny Baisc'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 gaydelight in the beauty
of ' sunny Baiae,' which is expressed in the motto, is
visible also in the painting, which has been executed
with evident enjoyment. 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 there
fore sacred to the classic muse. The Cumaean Sibyl,

The Bay of Bates. 199
who is seated with Apollo under the' shade of the tall
pine-trees', is famous in old poetry and in the art of the
Italian Renaissance. Notwithstanding his,lack of scholar
ship, one of Turner's strongest characteristics was a taste
for associating his work with places and personages of
historical or : legendary 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 be-*
came 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 himself, 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
materials, for the delicate colouring has not stood well
everywhere. 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

200: The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
engravings were in mezzotint by Reynolds, Lupton,
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 English 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
considered as a small portfolio of subjects which happen
to be 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 Kirk
stall Abbey might belong to a portfolio of ecclesiastical
architecture. 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
publications, or with illustrations to publications under
taken by others. We have already mentioned his
journey to Scotland in 18 18, when he got materials for
the ' Provincial Antiquities.' This publication did not
appear until 1826, when it was published in two volumes,
with descriptive letterpress by Sir Walter Scott. Mr.
Thomson, of Duddingstone, drew some of the illustra
tions. A much more important work employed Turner
at this time, and at intervals for twelve years afterwards
— namely, the ' England and Wales,' including towns,
remarkable buildings, and beautiful scenery. Altogether,
the work includes ninety-nine subjects which were pub-

England and Wales, 201

lished, and 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, Llanberis, Ulleswater, and Winder
mere^ Important, however, as the work unquestionably
is, it cannot be considered, In any complete sense, repre
sentative 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 port
folios. An artist might illustrate England and Wales
in a hundred plates, but he could do it only by carefully
selecting subjects representative of whole classes — a
hamlet, a village, a town, a city, a cathedral, a country
church, an old hall, a castle, and so on, amongst the
works of men ; and a lake, a stream, a river, a mountain,
etc., amongst the 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 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 even 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 com
prehensive titles. They were generally too.comprehensive
or ambitious, as we have seen already in ' The Rivers_of

202 The Life of /. M. W. Turner.
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
mediate position between Turner's early topographic
work, and that in which he drew in complete indepen
dence of the natural scene. Too many of the subjects
were taken from definite buildings and places to permit
the artist a quite absolute liberty. He could not make
the cathedrals of Ely and Durham mere piles of imaginary
architecture, like that which he composed for his pictures
of ancient Carthage ; and it was necessary that Blenheim
House should be clearly recognisable by persons who
take an interest in historic habitations. It is impossible
to look over the index to the ' England and Wales ' with
out seeing at a glance that, from the business point of
view, it is a continuation of the topographic labours of
the artist's youth, that the appeal to public interest is far
more dependent upon locality than upon landscape
character. At the same time Turner put as much art
into his subjects as he possibly could, and elevated some
prosy English towns into the region of Turnerian poetry.
He was by no means over-paid for his labours, as he
received only twenty-five guineas for each of his drawings
and thirty- proofs of the engraving. The drawings have
since risen in the market to eight or ten times their
original value. In 1824 Mr. Tomkinson had given
Turner fifty guineas for two drawings in continuation of

The Ports of England. 203.
his ' Southern Coast,' so that this price seems ;to have
been his rule about that period of his life.
In 1826 Turner issued the prospectus of his series,
' The Ports of England,' a prospectus so unskilfully
worded that it must have been Turner's own work. It
begins as follows : ' Under the patronage and dedicated,
with permission," to His Most Gracious Majesty "George
the Fourth. PORTS OF ENGLAND, from original draw
ings by J. M. W. Turner, Esq., R.A. To be engraved in
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,. 8 J. 6d.; proofs, I2J. 6d. ;
proofs, on India paper, 14s!
Anybody would conclude from this announcement
that the whole work was to be had for 8s. 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
letterpress was to be published, which leads us to infer
that there were to be several volumes, the bewildered
reader soon begins to doubt the possibility of getting so
limitless a work for such a limited sum of money. Not
a word is said about the expected extent of the under
taking; 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 explana
tion of the project, was taken up with appeals to the
patriotic sentiments which might induce Englishmen to
become subscribers. The style and language resemble
those of a civic speech-maker when he proposes a naval

204 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
toast Notwithstanding this magniloquent call upon
national feeling-in others, the artist's own enthusiasm for
his subject was not sufficient to sustain him through
prolonged labours. The work never got beyond twelve
plates, bearing about the same relation to the ports of
England that a former imperfect series had borne to her
rivers, The plates were re-published in 1856 by Mr.
Gambart, with letterpress by Mr. Ruskin, who observes
that Liverpool, Shields, Yarmouth, and Bristol are absent
from the series, whilst it includes some of the least im
portant of English watering-places. There is a slight
difference in title between Turner's prospectus and Mr.
Ruskin's publication. Turner had called his work the
' Ports,' Mr. Ruskin, or Mr. Gambart, decided to call it
the ' Harbours ' of England.' The size of the plates is
not precisely what Turner at first intended them to be ;
they are generally from half an inch to an inch longer.
He got over the artistic difficulty of dealing with piers
and rows of houses, by giving great importance to turbu
lent seas crowded with ships and boats in motion. The
ships were especially useful, because their sails could be
made to hide an uninteresting town, or break a mono
tonous front of cliff. But this is only one of many
artifices to which Turner had recourse in this series in
order to overcome the natural untowardness of his subr
jects. I do not know any connected set of his works in
which he made so much use of the weather. This may
have been partly in sympathy with sailors, who, whether
in port or at sea, are always thinking about the wind ;
but it was probably much more because he found it con
venient to veil what was uninteresting, and exhibit to

3=

The Ports of England. 205
better advantage the more available portions of his sub
jects by 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 of his drawings by means of rain-clouds, and
in the lower by means of waves and shipping. These
plates constitute an excellent set of examples in the art
of furnishing ; even the old Dutchmen, who were very
clever in that department, never went so far. Take, for
instance, the view of Deal. The plate contains about
fifty-six square inches of engraved surface ; in this the
view of Deal measures five and a half inches long by haL'
an inch high, consequently it occupies two square inches
and three quarters of engraved surface. The foreground
is composed of two big waves with the trough of the sea
between them, and there is a group of fishing-boats to 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 that this is
not called a sea subject, but a port. Here is the most
serious objection to the treatment adopted, that it is not
in poetic harmony with the title. Instead of feeling the
comfort of sheltered havens, where ships may quietly
ride at anchor whilst the sea is raging outside, we are
kept tossing uncomfortably on tumultuous waves amidst
a jumble of pitching boats and flapping sails. So it is in
nine subjects out of twelve. In the remaining three (the
Plymouth, Falmouth, and Scarborough) we really feel in
port. The Scarborough, judiciously placed by Mr
Ruskin at the close of the series, is like peaceful music ;
it is even more restful than any music,, for it does not

206 The Life of J. M.. W. Turner.
move and pass, but quietly is what it is, and stays with
us. Painting may even excel nature in the expression of
repose, for in nature there is no perfect rest, and not for
long will the evening light linger on the castled cliff, or
the * old grey church on the shore.'
Turner could paint repose admirably when he liked,
and his great picture in the Exhibition of 1826 was a
magnificent example of it. I well remember the pro
found impression which I received from that noble work
on seeing it for the first time- in 1857, at the Manchester
Art Treasures Exhibition. The title was simply,
Cologne — the Arrival of a Packet-boat — Evening, but
there were such unity and serenity in the work, and such
a glow of light and colour, that it seemed like a window
opened upon the land of the ideal, where the harmonies
of things are more perfect than they have ever been in
the common world. I remember reading, with a young
man's indignation, a stupid criticism of this picture by
Monsieur W. Burger, in which he declared that every
thing in the picture was uniformly coloured like the yolk
of an egg. He would have admired it more, very likely,
if he could have seen it on the walls of the Royal
Academy, when Turner had temporarily hidden its
glowing light and colour under a wash of lamp-black, in
order that it might not spoil the effect of two portraits
by Lawrence, between which it happened to be placed.
' Poor Lawrence,' 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

Tfie ' Cologne! 207

that could, affect his reputation, and here we see him
voluntarily exposing himself to harsh, criticism for having
painted a ioul, ill-coloured sky, when that very sky was
one oi the most splendid pieces of harmonious colouring
in the whole range of landscape art. Unluckily for our
estimate ol Turner's unselfishness, there are counter-
anecdotes about his eagerness to crush his neighbours by
heightening the intensity of his colours.
I need hardly observe that M. Burger's assertion about
the uniform -colouring, like yolk of egg, is due, first, to
.his national antagonism. to English art, and, secondly, to
his personal incapacity to see variety in colour. 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 of
its evening lights and shadows. The picture was well
described by an excellent writer in the Manchester
Guardian :
' It represents,' he said, ' the Rhine under the walls of
Colbgne,with the "Treckschuyt " arriving, and taking up
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
breaking their line, and running up to a postern, backed
by a taller tower. In the foreground some balks of
timber, and the spider-like arms of a couple of those
fishing-nets, which tourists by the Rhine and Moselle
know so well, reflected in the wet sand, and casting their
evening shadows as well as their reflexions. In the dis
tance you catch a glimpse of the distant bridge of boats.
The Sky is being rapt through that rosy change which

208 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
precedes the dying of twilight into dark. The sun is not
seen in the picture, but a cloud lies between it and the
spectator; and from behind this the broad-slanting rays
strike on town and tower, and shoot down to the stream,
flinging on its unruffled face and on the rounded sides of
the " Treckschuyt" the shadows of intercepting edifices ;
while from the lighted water a glow strikes back into the
cool violet shadows cast by wall and steeple, and fills
them with reflected light'
This picture was sold at Mr. Wadmore's sale, in 1854,
for two thousand guineas to Mr, John Naylor ; and Mr.
Ruskin afterwards sent a pang of regret through the
whole art-world of England by announcing that it had
been utterly destroyed in a railway accident ; a calamity
which in reality happened to some other pictures, not by
Turner, but belonging to the same owner.
The incessant industry of the great painter, still
applied itself abundantly to the work of book illustration.
In those days photography was not actively supplying
artists with material, which, however imperfect it may be,
is, at least, impartial, and not distorted by passing
through another mind. In those days a landscape-
painter must either travel to the places he had to illus
trate, or else do what he could with material supplied by
others, such material being usually sketches rather than
studies. It is 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 tra
veller who made it was an artist, he altered nature to suit
the needs of his own individual talent ; and if he was an
amateur, he may have missed important points from

Works from' Sketches by Others. 209-
imperfectly trained observation. In either case, the
material is scarcely to be relied upon. The sketches
of travellers — of African, travellers, for instance — are
constantly made up into showy book illustrations by
clever men who know how to make the best of any
material ; but in these cases the work so done is usually
anonymous, and the clever men who do it have not
to maintain a great and peculiar artistic reputation.
Turner was in a different position. He could not simply
anend, 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 recognise 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 bydrawing the rest over again with Turnerian altera
tions and exaggerations in the recognised Turnerian man
nerism. 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-obscura sketches. In 1825 Murray's octavo
•edition of Byron, in eleven volumes, include i several
illustrations by Turner, some of which were from sketches
-by Mr. Allison ; and in 1833 appeared Finden's ' Illus
trations to Byron,' including works by Turner from
sketches by Reinagle, Allison, and Page. A complete.
edition of Byron's works, with Moore's Biography, ap
peared in seventeen volumes in 1834; and Turner con
tributed to it the same number of illustrations, several of

210 The Life of f. M. • W. Turner.
which, were of places that he had never seen— such as
Athens, Parnassus, Scio, St. Sophia, the Plain of Troy,.
and Corinth — the materials being supplied by Page,:
Barry, and Little. But by far the greatest of Turner's
undertakings iri working up other men's memoranda was;
the series of his illustrations to the Bible. He never
visited Palestine, yet illustrated Jerusalem, Bethlehem,.
Nazareth, Mount Lebanon, the Dead Sea, and many;
other places, his providers being Mr. Barry, Sir A..
Edmonstone, Sir Robert Kerr Porter, Messrs. R. Cock-;
rell, C. J. Rich, J. G. Wilkinson, Gaily Knight, Major
Felix, arid the Rev. R. Master. There is also a set of
views in India — seven in number — chiefly among the
Himalaya mountains, from drawings by Lieutenant
White. I need hardly observe that the mere variety of
the hands which supplied Turner with all these materials
is in itself a source of difficulty and embarrassment.:
Artists of the present day are much happier with photo
graphs, whose peculiarities and imperfections are always
the same, and may be thoroughly understood and regu-^
larly allowed for.
To all these various publications, which were spreading
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-

Y iTfll

M

W

Bridge over the Moselle, Coblentz.

Separate . Plates. 211

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
landscape painting more completely than any other
method. Mezzotint can render the tones of light and
shade with unsurpassable accuracy, but it is never so
lucid and luminous as engraving, and consequently its
effects of atmosphere can never be so pure. Independent
etching, as I have frequently had occasion to observe else- ,
where, may suggest delicate distinctions of tone, but does
not so surely render them as engraving does, and is there
fore not so well adapted for the interpretation of skies.
The influence of Turner upon engraving might supply a
subject for a separate essay. He educated a whole
school of engravers, and a very remarkable school it was ;
he educated 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
qualities as a teacher came from his union of extreme
delicacy with force ; his worst fault, his most evil influence,
came from his reckless desire for brilliance, which made
him always ready to destroy the tranquillity of a plate if
he thought that it did not look effective enough. This
was the same spirit, acting in another direction, which
made him so determined to make his pictures brilliant,
at all costs, on the walls of the Academy ; but there he.
could achieve it with the help of chrome, and cobalt, and
vermilion. On a dull plate he had no resource but- that
14 — 2

212 The Life of f. M, W. Turner.
of glittering lights, which he scattered in profusion ' like
stars on the sea.'
Turner's transactions with his engravers, and with the
publishers of his prints, were not always perfectly
agreeable. Amongst other evidences of this, we have a
long letter from Mr. W. B. Cooke, dated the first of
January, 1827, and proving by its contents that the hope
ful and cheerful associations of New-year's Day had not
power to overcome the engraver's sense of injury and
wrong. The facts appear to have been as follows :
Turner agreed, to make the South Coast drawings for
£7 10s. each, and for the first four numbers of the work
that was what he received. Afterwards an agreement
was made, by which Turner was to receive ^13 2s. 6d.
for each drawing in a future ' Coast.' He seems to have
understood that this increase of price was to have a
retroactive effect, that he was to receive a balanceon the
drawings already done and paid for — drawings which
belonged to the first division of the work called the
' Southern Coast' This Mr. W. B. Cooke did not under
stand to be their agreement at 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
nurrfber, and affirmed that he had faithfully 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 evi
dent by a quotation from a previous letter that, the cor-

Transactions with Cooke. 213
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 endea
vouring 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 £7 \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 applied the terms of the second agreement
to the first. He quotes Mr. Cooke's promise to give
twelve guineas and 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 mental confusion in a grasping tempera
ment. Avaricious and grasping people often make mis
takes in pecuniary transactions, but it may be observed
that a sure instinct always preserves them from making
such mistakes against themselves. The transaction has

214 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
an interest for posterity iri the light it throws on Turner's
prices. He is fifty years old ; he has been a Royal
Academician for twenty years ; he has painted many
important pictures, including three or four unquestion
able masterpieces ; and he is haggling and quarrelling
with an engraver about a miserable 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 to them. Cooke de
clares that Turner gave him a drawing of Neptune's
Trident as a present ; but Turner demands the return of
it, and charges two guineas for the loan. This appears
almost inconceivably mean ; but we must remember two
things which may partially excuse Turner : first, that his
mind was subject to confused changes and irregularities
about all transactions from its own want of method and
clearness ; and, secondly, that to charge for the loan of a
drawing was an old habit with him, contracted in early
life, when it had been one of the chief sources of his in
come as a drawing-master. He 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 1827 — Now for the Painter! — Passengers going
on Board; the word 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

Pictures Exhibited in 1827/ 215
Turner's fun, arid 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, apicibr eximitis, can do ! You have been look
ing at the attempts of my weaker brethren ; now it is my
turn, so just look at mef 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 pos
sessed them. The title was originally suggested by one
of Callcott's, Letting go the Painter. The picture after
wards 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 :
' The picture is by much the most powerful example
of Turner's sea-painting here exhibited, and, irideed,
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 and
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

21,6 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
this quiet and harmless channel sea, than the storm-
lashed surf which is grinding the Minotaur to splinters,'
The same writer had an interesting paragraph on an
other of the pictures exhibited in 1827 — Mortlake Terrace,
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, probably, records of a happy day. The day that
closed as 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 over the golden sward, where a garden-
chair and a portfolio speak of the artist who has just
deft the spot, and the gilded barges and glancing
wherries tell of holiday-makers upon the river, and the
dog has wakened from his doze in the sun to leap upon
the parapet and bark at the passing boats. This dog is
one of the often-quoted examples of Turner's reckless
readiness of resource, and carelessness as to means of
effect. There was no dog in this picture originally.
Turner thought, or somebody suggested to him, that a
dark object on the parapet would throw back the dis
tance, 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-
colours, 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

Carthage. Dido directing the Equipment of the Fleet.

• Pictures Exhibited in 1827. 217
from its harmony with its surroundings, and the rble 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 1 844 It is the later of these pictures which
was etched for the Portfolio (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 afterwards, in 1863, for the large sum
of £igg$ '> proving to him, like many other of Turner's
works, a very good investment for his family.' It is
very probable that, besides the convenience of having a
name of some sort for an imaginary seaport, Turner
may have intended to honour the memory of his pre
decessor in art. He was not one of those artists whose
high opinion of themselves prevents them from respect
ing others ; on the contrary, he had a rather surprising
degree of respect for several old masters whom we con
sider much inferior to him. He saw qualities, in their
works which were by no means -easy to imitate, and he
readily overlooked what our critical fastidiousness con
siders to be their defects. Very few modern landscape
painters admire Ruysdael much. The continental
critics are loud in his praise, of course, being always

218 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 Equipment of the Fleet ; or,
the Morning of tfie Carthaginian Empire. This picture
was originally painted for Mr. Broadhurst, but is now irt
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 Turner's
house in Queen Anne Street. Leslie accused him of
imitating Stothard, which Turner at once admitted,
saying that he wished he could paint like him, and call
ing him ' the Giotto of England.' The comparison, like
all such comparisons, will not bear investigation ; but it.
is interesting as an expression of Turner's admiration
for a contemporary, 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, 1830.
Turner went to Italy again in 1828, and we know by
a letter from him to his friend Jones, the Academician,
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
fellow, Chantrey, that I did think of him then (but not
the first or the last time), of the thousands he had
made out of those marble craigs, which only afforded me
a sour bottle of wine and a sketch : but he deserves
everything which is good, though he did give me a fit of
the spleen at Carrara.'

220 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
On the 6th of November he dates a letter to Chantrey
from No. 12 Piazza Mignanelli, 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 with 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 at
tendance ; 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.,' ' but as the folk here talked that I would show
them not,.! finished a small three-feet-four to stop their
gabbling.' Here is evidence that he did not let people

Journey to Italy, 1828. 221 1
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 grey, and
that the finest flesh colour of a great Venetian was first
prepared in green. The studio haunter comes and criti
cises ; mentally, If not orally, he thinks, * That sky is
dreadfully cold in colour,' '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 apolo
gising 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 Ignorance, or to excuse him
self 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
threeTfeet-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 Oryieto, now in the National Gallery which
exactly measures four feet by three, and was exhibited
at the Academy in 1830*
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 Voyageurs on
* Mr. Wornum described it as a brilliant landscape, with a town in the
distance, 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, 1828, and it speaks of
the picture as already finished.

222 The, Life of f. M. W. Turner.
their return from Italy {par la diligence) in a Snowdrift
upon Mount Tarra, 22nd of fanuary, 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 Praneste,
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 labours of illustration.
From 1828 to 1837 he contributed drawings to the
'Keepsake,' and in 1829 he made drawings of Font
hill for the ' Anniversary.' 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 title is attached to a little
figure-incident in the foreground, 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

The Polyphemus. ~ 223

picture is a great tree, and Mr. Rusldn says of this: 'It
has evideritly 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 subse
quently, to the entire destruction of the composition.'
The great picture, Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, is a
work of higher aim and of more unquestionable achieve
ment. It has been very freely criticised, arid 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 ©f extra
ordinary splendour 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 archaeologically authentic or
not. Any schoolboy, in these -days, can ascertain in
half an hour, from modern, books of reference, the pre
cise 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 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 advancirig rocks, to bring the forms of the land,

224 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 art. And yet,
in order that there might not be a too absolute disso
nance between the naturalness of the sky and the arti
ficial character of the other material in the picture,
Turner has recalled human beliefs and the old Grecian
lime, even amongst the evanescent splendours 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 purposely 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 Algean 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 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 anything more than a , material building of

Ulysses deriding Polyphemus.

Death of Turners Father. 225
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 use
ful in various ways, either by acting as keteper 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 realise 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 en
couraged by his confidence, or rewarded by his fatherly
joy and pride ; and instead of all these solaces and con
solations 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 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 15

226 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
it against the hardships of the common 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 2 1 ST, 1830.
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, could
have occurred to nobody but the author of the ' Fallacies
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

The Illustrations to Rogers. 227
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 interested 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 immortality which few would envy. The pride of a real
poet 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 sub
mitted to illustration in the supposed interest of his pub
lishers. Turner has seldom been so perfectly the poet as in the
illustrations to Rogers. The vignette form may have
15—2

228 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 colours melted into each
other tenderly in his dream-world, and that his sense of
gradation 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 iri 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 very far
removed from the prose of art, whilst it is simply impos
sible 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 composition of the
vignette with that of Stothard, because Stothard was not
a landscape painter, and he had not naturally the faculty

The Illustrations to Rogers. 229

Which arranges things most happily in vignettes ; it is
enough to say that Stothard's contributions to the illus
trated 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 pleasuro
for which I am not ungrateful. They are poetic in feel
ing, 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
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.

230 The Life of J. M. W. Turner.

The vignette of Derwentwater Is one of the best of the
pure landscapes. The sky, with great pale clouds and
the sun in his splendour 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 idealisation of
a lake. The bits of Alpine scenery in ' Jacqueline ' and
'The Alps at Daybreak' are especially admirable for
their expression of that shadowy vastness which so
strongly impresses us in the loftiest ranges. I have
heard artists affirm that even a large picture can give
no' idea of a lofty mountain, 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 por
traiture, which Turner always neglected, but to his know
ledge of mountain structure and effect. Any one who
knows the Alps can see at once that these really are
Alps, twelve thousand feet high at least, though a Cum
berland 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

The Illustrations to Rogers. 231
figure in its simple grandeur, with the old ship for a
pedestal, is one of Turner's rare successes in figure con
ception. There are two particularly successful instances
of the treatment of architecture : one a building seen from
outside, Greenwich Hospital ; the other the interior of an
imaginary Gothic chapel with banners and tombs. The
Greenwich is another excellent instance of largeness ex
pressed 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 lan
tern, 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 !'
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 vapour,
through which a solitary star shines dimly. The
superiority of the drawing to the verses is due, I believe,

232 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 1830 Turner exhibited nothing but Pilate washing
his hands 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 :'
' 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.'
The Melrose is a beautiful piece of lowland river
scenery, the broad Tweed flowing through the plain, the

Chichester Canal.

Scotland Revisited, 1830. 233
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 moun
tains. 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 cart 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,
for Lockhart tells us that during Turner's visit at the
house, Sir Walter and his friends accompanied him on
excursions in the neighbourhood, 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
remembered. 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

234 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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, my 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 labour 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 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
imagination. 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

Scotland Revisited, 1830. 235
nor by its architecture, whilst the Tweed near the house
would be but a very ordinary stream if it had not been con
secrated 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 difficult to make
a fifth for a new purpose. There were forty illustrations
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 autumn
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— colour.— The rivers of France— Tur
nerian charm.
The famous work, the ' Rivers of France,' which in its
latest edition was called Liber Fluviorum 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 conviently into a book, I am unable to
inform the reader, but the matter is of more importance

The Rivers of France. 237
than at first 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 contrary, 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 succes
sive seasons with Mr. Leitch Ritchie, who wrote the
letterpress which now accompanies the illustrations to
the ' Rivers of France,' but that their tastes were very
dissimilar 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 afterwards 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

238 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
answer 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 conferred 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 build
ings 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 ship was
bulged upon them ? There are a thousand rocks and
capes far more picturesque than those of the Acropolis
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 ? 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.'
I am not aware that Turner ever expressed opinions

The Rivers of France. 239
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 abundant evidence that it was unsatisfying to
his mind. It 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 following 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
landscape, 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 Regent Street as an illustration of

240 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

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 encumbered earth and take refuge in
the clouds of heaven.
Now, the theory of Byron and the practice of Turner
assert a truth, which 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
abundance 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 tov/ns, under bridges, by castles
and cathedrals. They pass through leagues and leagues
of the sweetest rural scenery, where he who is indifferent
to landscape beauty will find nothing whatever to in
terest him, but where the true lover of nature will be
quietly gratified by a cons-tent succession of beautifully
grouped trees, or varied forms of shore, changing from
the mountains of the Upper Loire to the coteaux of the
yine-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, and trees, and sky, you catch sight of
some town in the distance with its old church, or, in rare

The Rivers of France. 241
cases, its cathedral, 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 architec
ture 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, instead of leading us
from town to town along the broad, beautiful water-way
of the river, he had got into a diligence in one town and
out of it at the next, like a traveller ' doing ' the principal
localities. Daubigny, who had not Turner's magnifi
cence 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 re
warded 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 on
French Rivers' gives an excellent idea of what I mean. It is rather
long, but so good and true, and so strikingly apropos of our present subject,
that the reader will thank me for not abridging it : —
' Then, far ahead, in a haze of sunset, rose up the indistinct outline of
Blois. ' It was at such times we realised how grand was the Loire — the river of
16

242 Tfie Life of f. M. W. Turner,
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 pic
turesque. The front of Rouen Cathedral is very mag
nificent and impressive, and it is the most favourable
example of architecture in the volume ; but in other sub
jects, such as the castle of Amboise, the inaccuracies are
of a kind which convinces me that the artist was thinking
only of his poetical effect, and did not really care about
architectural construction. As nothing is more unprofit
able than generalities in criticism, we will direct our

ancient cities. Beautiful as the Seine was — ya 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 come out of the solitariness of the river, let the boat drift with the tide,
and turn round 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 symphonies 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 cafe, 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
of the river : for no steamers can ascend above Tours— and Gien, Orleans
Beaugency, Blois, and Amboise, are accessible by land only (except in small
boats); In no way but the way we travelled is it possible to see what these
places really are, and how they are inseparable from the rivers.'

Turner's! Architecture. 243
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 Chdteau of
Amboise, where the architecture is conspicuous, and re
quired 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 Ambrose is not only dif
ferent 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 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
* It is really built upon a rock, encased in walls with towers,
t See page 68. •
1 6 — 2

244 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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. A draughtsman so careless about noble archi
tecture 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

H

Turner's Architecture. 245
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 over
burdened 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 !
Je les cognois, diet Henry Quatre,
Icelles sont du vieulx Paris !'
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 Hdtel
de Ville and the Pont d'Arcole we have three well-known
buildings— 1. Part of the old Hdtel de Ville— 2. The
Church of St. Gervais — 3. The Pump in the river. The
absence of refineriient, 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
Hdtel de Ville with a photograph of the real one, he will
see that the landscape-painter's interpretation entirely
loses the elegance of the original. The Pump was
a very picturespue 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

246 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 were 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 countrymen ; and for a Cretan to tell the truth he
would have needed, not ordinary commonplace virtue,
but that exceptional virtue of the saint or hero which we
admire when we meet with it, but expect from no ordi
nary 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 con
temporaries with any strictness, 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 engraving from Stanfield's
Verrex in the Val d'Aosta with Harding's drawing of
the same place (both exactly from the same point of

Inaccuracy of other Artists. 247
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.* Tur
ner'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 architectural 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 fan
tasy which he can expand or contract at pleasure. Places
that are too real, and persons that are too historical, im
prison his mind and confine his movements.' Such an
object as the tower of St. Jacques, or a wing of the Hdtel
de Ville, is too real to be dealt with by so poetic an artist
as Turner, because he must either think of its awn
beauty too much, or else represent it unsatisfactorily. I
do not think that a faithful representation of the tower
of St. Jacques would have spoiled that particular draw
ing, but I am quite convinced that the objective spirit
* A very able artist, who has drawn architecture in Italy, France, and
elsewhere, for half a century, wrote to me as follows about the drawing 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.

248 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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.
MeVyon's gift was a sensibility to emotion in the presence
of certain buildings, and a power to communicate that
emotion by a very clear representation of them, in which
his own passion betrayed itself more by subtle modula
tions of line, and by a certain morbid intensity of per
ception, than by any very manifest unfaithfulness ;
Turner's poetry was not in clearness at all, but in con
fusion 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 realise 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
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 associ
ate memory and imagination together in our minds, as
if one never weakened the other. We forget Pope's
doctrine, which is the true one :

Inaccuracy of other Artists. 249
' 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 cha
racter. 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 engravings was
much safer when they bore the names of places that
tourists had seen, or might possibly hope to see ; 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.

250 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
It would be of little use to enter into an elaborate
dissertation on the colouring 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
colouring, 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 recognise this kind of fidelity in Turner's
colouring of French scenery. It seems to me that he
coloured 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 personality 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 be
lieved, coloured in the presence of nature ; Turner's more
usual custom having been to sketch from nature in pencil
and dash the colour on his sketch afterwards ; but how
ever this may have been, we know the result, which is
rather the play of a man of genius with his materials
than the sober endeavour to render the real aspects of
the country. If the reader will imagine Turner as a
supremely clever executant in water-colour, who played
with his orange and purple, his red and green, his washes
of cool grey to refresh the eye, and his touches of burn
ing scarlet to excite it, just as a musical composer will

The Rivers of France — Colour. 251

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 colourists who are quiet-minded enough,
or humble enough, for fidelity^ All the splendid
colourists, the men who dazzle and astonish and win
great reputations for their colour-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 colour, with its regular
set scale of tints, so admirably and truly analysed by
Fromentin. Turner was more various, but not less per
sonal, and if I were asked whether his colour 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 colour seemed to me
a compensation for the colouring 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 admiration, whereas the compara^-
tively humble artists who touch our hearts by reminding
us' of the scenes and effects we thoroughly and inti
mately know, make little display, and are seldom ex
tolled for genius, but find their way to our affection.
The reader will please remember that I am speaking
here of colour, and, for the moment, of colour only.
Well, in two words, the drawings for the ' Rivers of
France ' seem to me astonishing curiosities.* No one
* In the chapter on Turner's Studies I went into the subject of his
colouring, and explained how he coloured with a view to obtain certain
chromatic results rather than truth to nature. It is, unfortunately, not

252 The Life of J. M. W. Turner.
but their author could have done them, but they are
simply the play of a consummate artist with the materials
in his colour-box. This free way of playing with chro
matic elements is the true sign of a great colour-faculty,
and the only way to produce splendid results, but though
originally suggested by nature, it leaves nature out in
the cold.
After having denied the truth of Turner's architecture,
and the truth of his colour also, I may be suspected
of saying favourable things merely by way of compensa
tion, and to reconcile myself in some measure with
English public opinion, which left him to sell his draw
ings 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 deductions 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

possible to maintain any argument about colour by giving examples, because
if reproductions were given an opponent could answer (probably with truth)
that the reproductions were not like the originals. If the reader could be
with me with the originals before us I would soon show him what I mean.
Turner as a colourist was splendid and powerful, but utterly unfaithful.

The Rivers of France — Turnerian Charm. 253
object, however important — that his chiaroscuro, though
effective, is arbitrary, and his colour, 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 plea
sure of confessed imagination : the first belongs to ima
ginative 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 criti
cism, 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, ' 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-belief 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
Wordsworth, are the matter-of-fact passages, where the
poetic faculty has not acted with sufficient energy to fuse

254 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
the material. In landscape-painting, this danger is
greatest in proximity to the foreground, and in the
' Rivers of France ' the foregrounds are often prosaic and
unpleasant when the material is of an inconvenient kind,
such as angular steps, logs of wood, and pieces of barren
shore which had to be covered with figures to hide their
want of interest. The distances are always poetical, full
of exquisite invention of distant detail, and of minute
beauties in which the spectator is constantly making
fresh discoveries. The town subjects, in which there is
little or no distance, are the least satisfactory. The St.
fulian's, Tours, in which all the material is matter-of-
fact — a church quite near, a diligence with horses and
people — is a subject unsuited to Turner's genius, pain
fully exhibiting his deficiencies as a draughtsman ; the
distant view of Rouen, with its vastness of extent and
mystery of distance, full of minute indications, all of
which set the imagination to work immediately, is, on the
contrary, precisely one of those subjects in which he has
had no 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
composition ; 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 ex-

The Rivers of France — Turnerian Charm. 255
aggerated, and nothing can surpass the exquisite sense
of mystery with which Turner finds the outline of a
remote rise of land and loses it again. His use of cloud,
of smoke or steam from chimneys or boats, is admirable,
both near and in the distance, and he avails himself of it
in the most cunning manner to lighten masses which
might otherwise appear heavy or monotonous. Sky and
water, under very varied effects, are never less than
exquisite. The system of light-and-shade, as usual with
Turner, is delicate and subtle, but arbitrary. He will
observe most minute distinctions of tone and rely far
more upon them than on vulgar oppositions of black and
white ; but at the same time he will not be bound by
scientific truth. Shadows are cast just where he wants
them, whether there is any 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
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 affec
tionate explorations of the native painters. The chief
distinctions between his work and theirs may be ex
pressed 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 sentiment which
were generally wanting in Turner, who loved elabora
tion quantity, and brilliance. Turner's view of France

256 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
is the view rather of a traveller than a resident. The
view taken by the French landscape-painters themselves
has, in almost 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. —
Illustrations to 'The Epicurean.'
It 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
obviously artificial, too devoid of any true inspiration,
for much aesthetic satisfaction or enjoyment. This
picture was exhibited in 183 1, and it belongs to the
somewhat undecided 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 re'sume' of what was most char-
17

258 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
acteristic of Italian scenery. Such a scheme, notwith
standing 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 frbm even the slight restraint
of his own kind of topography, 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 cata
logue : ' 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 charac
teristic Italian tree, and figures enjoying the sweet warm
southern evening, in the southern manner, with dancing
and festivity iri 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

Turner's Technical Carelessness. 259
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
the5 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 build
ings, and the quiet kind of sublimity which belongs to
ruin always. Soft outlines melting in the distant atmo
sphere ; gentle curves of earth everywhere ; rich masses
of remoter foliage, and luxuriant vegetation iri the fore
ground ; these of themselves would suggest ideas of
beauty, but they are sustained and accompanied by the
tenderest, most delicate execution, and by a fortunate
sureness of taste in the treatment of every detail. Un
happily, 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 iri refinement as
he advanced in art, but it lost in material substance, so
that the heavy early pictures, the brown and grey works
executed when the painter was as yet only feeling his
way timidly to colour, are ofteri the best preserved. In
later life he got into a fatal way of treating oil as if it
had been water-colour, with a recklessness of everything
but the immediate effect, which it would be difficult to
parallel iri the history of the great old masters, though
17 — 2

?6o The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
several moderns have been equally reckless, if reckless in
other ways. Turner's technical sins may be classed in
two categories : he did not care what colours 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 unsafe, 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 picture 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 per
fectly conceals what is beneath it when it is first laid on
will in course of time no longer do so with the same com
pleteness ; and although we may not be able to deter
mine 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 carriere, 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 establishment 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

The Golden Bough. 261
on which his fame depended. The Childe Harold pic
ture has gone to pieces. The changes in certain por
tions 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 dis
similar 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 ^Eneid 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 the day.
' Latet arbore opaca
Aureus etfoliis et lento vimine ramus,
Junoni infernae dictus sacer ; hunc tegit omnis
Lucus et obscuris claudunt convallibus umbra.
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

262 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
happy, for The Golden Bough is as pretty a title as a
landscape-painter could find, whilst Avernus is, at the
same time, interesting for its natural beauty and curiosity,
and just a little awful for its mythological attributes,
even yet not wholly incredible by the cultivated imagi
nation. 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, idealised 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
colour in these pictures, the exquisiteness of the tran
sitions in the lightest passages, and the sustained refine
ment 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

The Venice Pictures. 263
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 another Venice of Turner exhibited in 1833.
These Venices were afterwards succeeded by many
others, for as Turner grew older, his increasing taste for
brilliant colour led him to think more and more of that
splendid city which excels all others so especially in her
colouring. 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 colour. It
may interest the reader to see some notes by an ob
servant 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 descriptions of the
city on the Adriatic from various points of view, descrip
tions always full of colour. Here are three or four of
them. 1. 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.

264 Tfie Life of f. M. W. Turner.
2. A Nearer View. — The forms do not yet appear
with clearness and precision ; there are no exact out
lines, nothing but patches of rose and white which are
relieved against a blue horizon of an exquisite softness
and on the green waves which become silvery in the
sunshine. 3. Nearer Still. — As we approach, all this delightful
chaos becomes less confused ; the campaniles detach
their delicate profiles and the domes their obesity ; the
lace-like balconies and oriental roofs of the palaces are
cut out more clearly, the outlines are more plainly visible,
but the tones remain unchanged. The city preserves
her tints of white and rose, the sky and sea their tints of
blue and green.
The next description brings us within the city, and
we see the great boats with their coloured sails, the
stone quays, and the marble bridges, the red campaniles,
the rose-coloured brickwork and the white marble, all
close at hand. ' It is a marvellous concert of the richest
colours, a 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, ne
gave a short description of Venice without having read
M. Havard's book, and the two descriptions coincide
exactly. After mentioning the advantages of splendid
costume enjoyed by the Venetian painters as a daily
spectacle in the public places, he went on to say :
* Then they had, too, the lovely Italian skies, and the
shining silvery and rose-coloured palaces glancing in the

The Venice Pictures. 265
sun, which, with the emerald waters beneath, were always
in readiness as backgrounds to their compositions.'
Most of Turner's Venice pictures are attempts to
convey, not exactly the sensation of colour given by
Venice itself, but an equivalent sensation ; and although
the Venices purchased by Mr. Vernon are already a
wild extravagance in comparison with the sober but
prosaic work of Canaletto, they were afterwards sur
passed in their own direction by his latest Venices. He
began to exhibit Venetian subjects in 1833, and con
tinued, 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 splendour of colour and carelessness of
form ; the colour being in most instances really founded
upon the true Venetian colour as we have just seen it
repeatedly described, but worked up to the utmost brilr
liance which the palette would allow, the forms simply
sketched, exactly on the principles of the artist's own
free sketching in water-colours. To get the brilliance
the painter is believed to have adopted the following
method, which has been used with success in copying
his pictures of this class. It is believed, and with proba
bility, 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 from the beginning.
On this he afterwards painted thinly in oil or water-
colour, or both, so that the brilliance of the white shone
through the colour and gave it that very luminous quality

266 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
which it possesses. This is simply a return to the early
Flemish practice of painting thinly on a light ground,
with this difference, however, that Turner made a fresh
ground of his own between the canvas and his bright
colours, and that the modelling of the impasto with the
brush was done in this thick white. The result was to
unite the brilliance of water-colour to the varied and
rich surface of massive oil-painting;
The Venice pictures exhibited in the Academy from
1833, and now in the National Gallery, number in all
eleven 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
of that year. The etching has the spirit of the original
picture, and is an excellent reminder for those who have
seen it, but it can, of course, give no idea of the brilliant
colour which is the principal artistic motive of the paint
ing, and which is concentrated in the painted sail of the
fishing-boat An etching of Tfie Approach to Venice, by
M. Brunet-Debaines, appeared in the Portfolio for Sep
tember, 1875. The subject is a view of the canal of the
Giudecca, with Fusina in the distance. The reader may
judge from this etching how Turner treated the materials
of Venice, the spaces of the water, the boats, and the
buildings. The sense of space and distance on water
surface is admirably expressed in this subject ; the boats
are made to serve the artist's purpose in composition,
both by the way he has placed them and by their
reflections, and the buildings are treated in Turner's
usual arbitrary manner with his disdain of architecture
and topography. Some confusion has been created by

The Venice Pictures. 267
giving the title The Approach to Venice to a drawing
from which a picture was painted which is called San
Benedetto, whilst 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 says first that the title is a mistake,
as no such church could be included in the view, and
then he proceeds to recognise a general truth of Venetian
character in it :
' The buildings on the right are also, for the most part,
imaginary in their details, especially in the pretty bridge
which connects two of their masses : and yet, without one
single accurate detail, the picture is the likest thing to
what it is meant for — the looking out of the Giudecca
landwards at sunset — of all that I have ever seen. The
buildings have, in reality, that proportion and character
of mass, as one glides up the centre of the tide stream :
they float exactly in that strange, mirageful, wistful way
in the sea-mist — rosy ghosts of houses without foun
dations ; the blue line of the poplars and copse about
the Fusina marshes shows itself just in that way on the
horizon ; the flowing gold of the water, and quiet gold of
the air, face and reflect each other just so ; the boats rest
so, with their black prows poised in the midst of the
amber flame, or glide by so, the boatman stretched far
aslope upon his deep-laid oar.'
The success of Turner's later method of colouring has
been questioned by some critics, who seem to be especially
offended by the crudeness of the whites. The following
may be taken as a fair example of these criticisms ; it is
from an American writer who has travelled a good deal
in Europe :

268 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
' In these pictures Turner appears to have departed
from all those qualities which make his water-colours
so valuable. There is nothing of Nature in them.
Occasionally 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 sunlight
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 colours, 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 colour 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 colours 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 endeavoured ,
to describe, and he states the reasons for the offence.
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

An American Criticism. 269
the present day they are angry at what is really the
most powerful work. They look upon the fine arts as an
imitation 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 expression 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 im
pression, and that they unquestionably have.
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

270 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
use of oil colour. 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 respectful attention usually given to a great master,
it was the passionate enthusiasm with which highly
educated and very sensitive persons acknowledge a new,
strange, irresistible influence in the fine arts, the sort of
enthusiasm which was awakened by the verses of Byron
and the violin-playing of Paganini. All these French
men, whatever had been their previous speciality in art —
whether they had been etchers of the figure, or of archi
tecture, or of landscape— asked to be employed in the
interpretation of Turner ; and the pictures which they
most desired 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 experi
ments in light and colour which have so often been
spoken of as little better than the freaks of a gifted mad
man. 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 power which excites and arouses
the artistic susceptibilities.
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
speotator. I mean that the partially cultivated spectator,
such as the critic quoted above, will be offended by a

Approach to Venice, looking towards Fusina.

Illustrations to Milton. 271
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 exact
ing 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 as
tronomy and bad figure-drawing, all rendered with that
entire unsatisfactoriness which is the consequence of
setting every natural law and possibility at defiance.
Another lamentable attempt was The Temptation on the
Pinnacle, a most difficult subject to treat, and treated iri
such a manner that one cannot venture to describe the
drawing as it really is. These failures are the more pro
voking that Milton abounds in fine subjects for an
imaginative landscape-painter. How suggestive, for ex
ample, are the lines :
' Far-off from these, a slow and silent stream,
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls
Her watery labyrinth.'

272 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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, arid
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 associa
tion 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 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 funo entrusting to
Argus the guardianship 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

Mercury and Argus. 273
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 re
ferred to it no less than nine times in ' Modern Painters.'
Like Rubens, Turner introduced a rivulet in his land
scape, finding its way over the irregular ground. 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

274 Tfie Life of J. M. W. Turner.
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 harmonised
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 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
spectator, 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
applique", but forms an integral part of the material be
tween the spectator and the horizon.

The Phryne. 275

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 Venus. 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
Fontainebleau, an idealisation 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
subtle etching or engraving would fail to render adequately
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 Phyyne is certainly
one of the very greatest pictures of Turner's full matu
rity. It was first exhibited in 1838, and shows signs
of over-ripeness in the figures more than in anything
else. The decay of Turner's art was of a character quite
peculiar to him. He is the only painter whose scheme
of colour 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
18—2

276 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 favour
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 splendour which is
. already partly created by the architecture of the baths.
Besides this, as Mr. Ruskin has remarked, ' The infini
tudes of gradation, and accurately reflected colour,
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
important series of engravings from his works. In the
biographical sketch by Mr. Alaric Watts, which was pub
lished in Bonn'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,

Turner and Mr. Bohn. 277
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 ,63000, 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, that he had taken care to prevent him from
selling cheap prints from the coppers, adding the expres
sion of a general determination, ' 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 t6 keep the coppers out of your clutches.' So far
mollified, the great artist positively went so far as to in
vite Mr. Bohn to breakfast 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 unreasonable, 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-colour drawings
than in his oil pictures. In the whole catalogue of pictures
exhibited by him at the Royal Academy and the British

278 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
Institution I only find three Swiss subjects : we all know
how much more numerous are his Italian pictures. Not
withstanding 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
effect. Claude, whom Turner imitated and emulated,
painted Italian scenery, and so did the other classical
landscape painters, but they never painted Switzerland.
Jn 1838 and 1839 Italy was quite predoihinant in Turner's
mind. In 1838 he exhibited Ancient Italy — Ovid
banished from Rome, and Modern Italy — the Pifferari.
In 1839 he followed up the idea by painting ancient and
modern Rome under the following rather elaborate
titles :
' ANCIENT Rome. — Agrippina Landing with the Ashes
of Germanicus. The Triumphal Bridge and Palace of the
Ctesars restored. ' " The clear stream,
Aye, the yellow Tiber glimmers to her beam
Even while the sun is setting."

The Agrippina. 279

' Modern Rome.— C«»&/0 Vaccina.
' ' ' 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 touch
ing demonstrations of sympathy and sorrow. The archi
tectural invention in the palace is not very elaborate, and
it may be open to the criticism of architects, but the ideas
of vastness, majesty, and a haughty domination are con
veyed very impressively. The smaller masses are not
altogether so fortunate ; they have an arranged look, like
the architecture in Martin's pictures ; and one of them,
that above the bridge, is in very bad perspective. The
scene is lighted by slanting rays of sunset, which, with
the cast shadows and the mist in the atmosphere, afforded
Turner an opportunity for one of his poetical effects of
light, shadow, and reflection.
The picture will not bear historical criticism. From
the title which Turner gave it, he evidently believed (or
supposed, intentionally, for his own convenience) that
Agrippina landed at Rome. She really landed at
Brundusium, and travelled to Rome by the Appian Way,

280 The Life of J. M. W. Turner.
along which Drusus, with Claudius and the children of
Germanicus, who were in Rome, went as far as Terracina
to meet her. The whole description, as given by Tacitus,
implies an imposing entry into Rome by land on an in
comparably vaster scale than the few groups of figures in
the picture. Turner, with his half-a-dozen people on the
right, his four boats on the left, with people in balconies
and 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.
When Nelson's remains were brought home to England
from Trafalgar, when the body of Napoleon was brought
to Paris from St. Helena, popular emotion iri England
and France did not express itself by loitering groups on
the shores of the Thames and the Seine. The tide of
humanity came out like a flood, by thousands and tens of '
thousands, filling the public place from side to side,
the long avenue from end to end. Yet there was a
poignancy of interest in the ancient event not equalled in
either of the modern ones. Nelson died prematurely, but
was not 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, recentes
in dolore.
In 1839 Turner illustrated Moore's novel, 'The Epicu
rean,' with four vignettes, The Garden, The Ring, The
Nile, and The Chaplet. The Ring may be dismissed at

Illustrations to ' The Epicurean! 281
once as a wild fancy of a man swinging in the void,
surrounded by diabolical apparitions, a subject author
ised by the story, but not well chosen for illustration ;
The 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 ter
races ; and The Garden is an attempt to realise the beauty
of a garden of the Epicureans at Athens, with a lake
down in the hollow, and a view of Athens, with the
Acropolis beyond. There are statues in the garden,
and boats full of pleasure-seekers on the lake ; the whole
scene glowing and glittering in the sunshine of a summer
afternoon. This vignette and that of The Nile are quite
sufficient evidence that, in spite of the failure with the
Milton vignettes three years before, Turner still retained
his remarkable skill in dealing with this kind of design.
The vignette of The Garden, which only measures three
and a half inches by four, is a striking example of the
power by which Art can sometimes concentrate its
materials. There is enough in it to fill a large drawing,
and as for the expression of the artist's conception
(which is the chief purpose of art), this is quite effectual.
It transports us, I will not say to the real Athens, but to
the Turnerian Athens, just as well as a large picture.

CHAPTER XIV.
The Temeraire. — The Bacchus and Ariadne. — The Snow-storm. — The
Slave-Ship.— Latter years ofTurner.— 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.
The great work made public in 1839 was the Timlraire
The entry in the Academy Catalogue is as follows :
' The fighting Ttmiraire tugged to her last berth to be
broken up, 1838.'
• " The flag which braved the battle and the breeze
No longer owns her." '
It is unnecessary to dwell upon the obvious wilfulness
in the lighting of this picture. With the sun and moon
where they are, it would not be possible for the vessels
to be so lighted ; but this may be granted as a painter's
license. Evidently Turner's object in this arbitrary light
ing was to give the Teme"raire a sort of ghostly, unearthly
look, as if already more a melancholy vision of the past
than any present reality. Turner, with his love of the
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 who of
late years have seen so complete a revolution in the
building of war-ships — a revolution unfavourable alike to

The "Fighting Temeraire" tugged to her Last Berth.

The Temiraire. 283

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 guris, 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 sun
set, 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 harmonise well with
the rest, arid not stuck upon the canvas, as often happens
in the works of bad marine painters. The sun sets in
red, and the red, by the artist's craft, is made at the same
time both decided in hue and luminous— always a great
technical difficulty. Golden sunsets are easy in com
parison, as every painter knows. This picture has
more than once been associated by critics with the
magnificent Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, which was
painted ten years earlier. Both are splendid in sky
and water, and both are florid in colour. Mr. Rus
kin's opinion is that the period of Turner's central
power, ' entirely developed and entirely unabated, begins
with the Ulysses and closes with the Tdmiraire! This

284 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 Temiraire was suggested to Tur
ner 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 old vessel that had been taken prisoner at the
Nile and that led the van at Trafalgar. She loomed
pale and ghostly, and was being towed to her last
moorings at Deptford by 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 T/me'raire. The picture
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

The Bacchus and Ariadne. 285
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
1840, 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 composi
tion. 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
unsatisfactory 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 Te'me'raire.
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
recoveries of power, and were due far more frequently to
an 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 said, that although it afforded ample opportuni
ties for the cruelties of criticism, it proved, far more than
the cautious advance of his early manhood, the essenti
ally pictorial quality of his mind. For what in his last
years did he retain, and what did the enfeebled hand

286 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
surrender ? He retained colour, reflection, mystery — the
qualities which only the most cultivated care for or ap
prehend ; 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 con
sequence to a painter than the realities, and the more he
works the less the actual substance affects him. For any
one who understands 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, the later pictures of Turner are full
of pathetic interest, and are far indeed from being either
ridiculous or contemptible. 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. Colour and shade,
light and reflection, are the old painter's latest impres
sions and recollections of that world of mystery and
beauty in which 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
exhibition, were ever anything less than serious per
formances 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 white
wash, the real subject being a steamer in a storm off a

The Snow-storm. 287

harbour-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.
Turner 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
to him, asking " why he minded what they said ?" Then
he 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
been in such a scene on the coast of Holland, was much
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
* His own words to the Rev. W. Kingsley,

288 The Life of J. M. W. Turner.
maintopmast was carried away and the sea-water swilled
down into the engine-room, as nearly as possible ex
tinguishing 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 subjects ; but who are we, to
define and limit his right to paint ? Effects which can
not be imitated may still, as in this instance, be inter
preted ; 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 neces
sity 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.
Typhoon coming on.
' Aloft all hands, strike the topmasts and belay j
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.

Tfie Slave-ship. 289

This picture became the property of Mr. Ruskin, who
wrote a fine description ofc the sea as, Turner here repre
sented it, and referred to the picture eleven times in
1 Modern Painters.' He afterwards sold it, and it went
to America. After being exhibited in New York in
1876, where It ' failed to make the impression expected,'*
it went to Boston, where it created a great sensation
and stirred up an eager and vehefnent controversy. A
Boston correspondent was so kind as to send me some
of the long letters, published during this period of active:
hostilities, which proved that our American cousins can,
take a very lively interest in artistic matters., The fol
lowing opinion, expressed by an intelligent and accom
plished 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 much to do. with human affections and thought
as a ghost. It is not even a fine bouquet of colour. The
colour is harsh, disagreeable, and' discordant.'
This is severe, and I think its severity is partly due to
reaction against Mr. Ruskin's eloquent praises. On the-
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
* This phrase is quoted from ' Harper's New Monthly Magazine.' 19

290 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 colour.
From Mr. Ruskin the colour 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 ex
pressly approves of its strongest passages. It is one of
those compositions in which Turner used the most bril
liant of all his pigments. A lurid splendour was his pur
pose, and he hesitated at nothing for its attainment. It
is hardly possible for any painter to deal with vermilion
and lemon-yellow, in any quantity, without falling into
some degree of crudity. If you compare even the
Te'me'raire with the rich deep harmonies of Titian and
Giorgiorie, 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 be
lieve, carefully observed. The comparatively flat or
simply swelling space between the ridges Of broken sea I

Latter Years of Turner* 291
have often seen in nature, and the sudden leaping of the
spray is no doubt also a reminiscence. The introduc
tion 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 thorough
ness 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 work 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 neces
sity. 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, 1 84 1 , left a great void in Turner's existence. It
is said that when Chantrey 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 puttirig him into low spirits, and predisposing
him to morbid influences. He was very ill in the spring
*- Published in the fourth volume of ' Modern Painters.'
19 — 2

292 Tfie Life off. M. W. Turner.
of 1842, and was shaken by his illness, and had after
wards 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 com
memorate Wilkie's funeral, which had taken place in
June, 1 84 1, off Gibraltar, . but at a distance from the
shore. This picture was etched for the Portfolio hy
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 black
ness of the . sails ; to which the painter answered, "' If ;
there were 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 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
* This etching was published in that periodical for February, J874.

Peace. Burial at Sea of the Body of Sir David Wilkie.

Pictures "jof 1842. 293

tfie 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-
humouredly, 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
generally a permissible weapon in art-criticism. Though
Turner could joke with his friends, he resembled Milton
in liis 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

:294 The Life of f "M. ' W. Turner.
he sometimes. made in dealing with the outer .world was
the picture of the- Bavarian f/ValhaUa, 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
judge the work by its resemblance to a place which he
knew intimately, 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

Tendency* to the Formless. 295
themselves a clear indication of' the direction of his
artistic thinking. For example, in the year when he
exhibited the Walhalla there were two other. pictures. by
him, entitled Shade and Darkness and Light and Colour.
It is evident from these titles that the painter's attention
was much more occupied by light and shade and colour
than by the suhjects 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 fprm-r-or perhaps I ought to say that it was no
longer capable of dealing with natural form — but colour
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 Great Western Railway. The title sufficiently in
dicates 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 realisation, and who
have no indulgence for the art which does not realise.
* The Ml titles of the pictures mentioned in the above paragraph were,
Shade and Darkness— The Evening of the Deluge, and Light and Colour
( Goethe's tieory)— The Morning after the Deluge— 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 republished 'Fal
lacies of Hope.'

.296 Tfie Life of -f. M. W. Turner.
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
I do not for a moment doubt the perfect honesty of
this criticism, and it would be good criticism jf 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 wiat 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 experiment has been
tried — I have seen it tried — by an English painter of
eminence, who is now a Royal Academician. ! At a
time when English art was looking out in Wious
directions for new and unhackneyed material, this painter
thought he would try what could be made of the rail-

Dregs of Life. 297

Ways, and very wisely, instead of trusting to the opinion
of others, he put the question practically, by painting a
locohiotive 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 eriough.
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
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 melancholy 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,

¦298 The Life off ,M.,W, Turner.
/thinking, about- ^Eneas, , and ; Dido, and Mercury, still
quoting verses, from the, 'Fallacies of Hope,' in which old
Troy is mentioned. One of the subjects is, Mercury sent
to admonish jEneas /another, jEneas relating his Story to
Dido ; and a third, Tfie 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.
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 ad
dressed to friends at a distance ; and then think of Turner
.old and solitary, going silently from lake to Jake, from

, Disabled. ' \&gg

city to city, ignorant of the languages of Ihe countries, in
¦which he sojourned,. shunning his own conntryirienwhen
he met them, writing hardly ever, -and then so-. curtly
that his- letters express no thoughts : and yet he, top, was
a poet; a silent brother of those who. wrote ,'. Childe
Harold,' and. ' Endymion,' and ' Alastor.' , , _ r
Qne of the pictures of his old age, exhibited in 1 844,
under the, title, Fishing Boats fringing a Disabled Ship
into Port Ruysdael, seems to foreshadow, like the Teme'-
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
towards 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
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* fol
lowing 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, T could not help looking attentively at
him, peering iri 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 ;

300 Tfie Life of f. M. W. Turner.

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 much stranger thing than Turner's absence from the
meetings of the Academicians was his absence from his
own home. Hi's 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 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, and informed
a Mr. Harper whom she and Turner knew. He went to
the place and found the painter sinking. This was on
the 1 8th of December, 185 1, 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 dyirig
artist.' We naturally seek for some poetic circumstance
to accompany the death of a poet, but this ray of morn
ing sunlight is all we have in Turner's case. The history
of his 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.

. Death. 301
Turner, with that love of secrecy which had always
been one of his characteristics, and-which- in later: years
had become a passion, had gone to hide himself in some
corner of London, where not one of his friends might
find him.' He had discovered a small house at Chelsea
kept by a Mrs. Booth, and had settled there as a lodger,
calling himself Mr. Booth, and in the neighbourhood he
was known as 'Admiral Booth,' for the people really
believed him to be an impoverished old naval officer.
All this is excellent 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 luxuries he cared for ; quits the society of his
fellows, 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 feelings of attachment towards him, his old house
keeper, the group of his old comrades and friends, and
goes to await his end irt a hired lodging, to be tended by
a woman who was a recent acquaintance, and in whose
eyes his principal, 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 prefer obscurity to fame, solitude to society,
and simplicity to splendour?
' Seeing there be many things that, increase vanity,
what is man the better ?'

302 Tfie Life of f. M. W. Turner.
' 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 suc
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 who
loved art and encouraged it, and others who had felt for the
great painter some personal affection with which the fine
arts had no concern, followed him to his last resting-
place. The hearse was preceded to the Cathedral by a
long procession of mourning-coaches' and private car
riages. When the coffin was taken into the building the
choristers chanted the Dead March in ' Saul,' and the
service was read by Dean Milman. It appears from the
contemporary 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 plea.sure.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 th'at -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^a'fid the brooding bee chaunt sweeter tones

Funeral at St. Paul's. 303
than calumny.' There are many humble natUr^-loving
landscape-painters for whom such a grave would be most
fitting ; others should rest beneath the insirieriioriar oaks
of Fontainebleau, or in the recesses v
'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 Hampstead 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, 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 pursuits. 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 church
yard 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-

304 Tfie Life of f M: W. Turner.
classical taste and associations. He drew. Gothic archi
tecture when he had to deal with it as a matter of busi
ness in a view of some English or French city, but
whenever he had to invent architecture for one of his
composed pictures it was invariably classical.
It is characteristic of Turner's care for his own fame
that Ke 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
believed that Turner decreed a statue to himself. There
is, however, a shade of distinction between the general
preoccupation about a monument and the definite order
ing 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 con
sequence of his bequest. I may observe, too, that the
bequest itself implies 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 himself, — ' 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 honour 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 posses-

Turner's Care, fori His own Fame. 305.
sions 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 comfort in their old age to his brethren who
had been less prosperous than himself — even this charit
able project, which in itself deserves nothing but grati
tude and honour, was tarnished by the donor's perpetual
anxiety about the preservation of his name. He ex
pressly stipulated in his will that the charity was to be
called ' Turner's Gift,' as if in, needless apprehension that
the trustees might forget 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 land
scape 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 beforehand 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 toi 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 civilisation 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. 20

306 The Life off. M. W. Turner.
-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
Trustees 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
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 pic
tures painted by Claude, the Seaport and Mill! This
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 flavour, with little misgiving as to the
justice of your decision ; but the comparison of peach
with strawberry would inevitably be an unsatisfactory
exercise of criticism. 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

Rivalry with. Claude. 307

cleverer pastiche, and in such a case it would be a reason
able 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 imitated 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 Baiai and the Childe Harold. But
the essential greatness of Turner lies precisely, in what
is outside of Claude's range, and cannot be compared
with him. It is like comparing Byron with Pope. There
axe 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 comparison 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 enabled him to realise 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 com
parison between his seaport with classical architecture
called Dido building Cartilage, and Claude's seaport With
20 — 2

308 Tfie Life of f. M. W. Turner.

classical architecture, known as the Embarkation of tfie
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
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 an inland landscape, and the sun with a
summer cloud, and a mill with a man-of-war. May the
critics of future generations 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
his fame, whatever may determine that. The fame of

Rivalry with Claude. 309
Claude was, and is, prodigious. It is not enough to say
that his fame in landscape is equal to that of Raphael in
figure-painting, because Raphael has great rivals in his
department of art ; and Claude, as a painter of the
beauty and amenity of landscape, had a celebrity which
until quite recently was considered to be absolutely
above all possibility of rivalry, and which is still so con
sidered by nearly all the connoisseurs of continental
Europe. The reader will please to observe that I am
speaking, not of 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 connection with landscape sub
limity, The fame of Claude is, indeed, so closely asso
ciated with landscape throughout Europe, that if you
know anything whatever about art, if 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 French
man, some very able and clever man, were to leave two
figure-pictures to the Louvre on condition 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.

310 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
' One is still more surprised on seeing this historical
landscape of Turner placed between the two finest works
of the Lorrainer, the Mill 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.'
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
mental condition in which self-admiration had blinded
its victim to the true proportions of things. Claude had
an incomparably magnificent European position ; Turner
nothing but a rising celebrity in his own country. Even
at the present day Turner's name has little weight on
the Continent, where he is generally considered a more
or less successful imitator of the old masters, who
became original 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 effect.
— Circumstances of Turner's death. — Mr. Ruskin's estimate of Turner. —
Turner and Pre-Raphaelitism. — The criterion of truth. — Distinction be
tween nature and art. — Turner's position in art. — Mystery. — Turner's
colour. — Turner's imagination. — Taste. — Resume. — Danger of Turner-
Worship. — Past and future of landscape painting.
I HAVE attempted to mark the distinction between ar
tistic rank, which is simply fame, and merit, which
depends upon faculty and labour. I reserve for a later
page an attempt to estimate the total value of Turner's
.work. It has been considered part by part, as he pro
duced 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. Gobd
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'

312 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 favourable to the development
of the artist. The failure of his marriage project drove
him to a laborious solitude, and left him that liberty of
movement which enabled him to ransack Europe for the
subjects most favourable 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 iri matters connected with the fine
arts, permitted theinselves 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
Remeinber 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

- Celebrationis Mr. Ruskin. 313
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-colour under those masters, without acquiring any
very deep insight into artistic matters. Mr. Ruskin had

314 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
a peculiar and very precocious talent of a practical
kind, consisting, not in the power of composing brilliant
pictures, but in the less ambitious accomplishment of
making 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
landscape-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 comparisons and investigations may be briefly
expressed in a sentence. The young student and travel^
ler became profoundly convinced that Turner's work dis
played 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 defence of his favourite 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 writer, it had expanded itself into a volume,
and before the writer had fully accomplished his purpose

Ruskin's * Modern Painters! 315
the book grew into a great work, in five volumes, accom
panied 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 contem
poraries, when spoken of at all, being dismissed in a sen
tence 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
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

316 The Life of f. M. \V. Turner.
writer's youth, which, had it been known at first, would
probably 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
praised, it was a most extraordinary piece of good for
tune for him that Mr. Ruskin should have become his
advocate. No painter, since the world began, ever had
such an advocate before, and there are excellent reasons
for believing (I will give some of them shortly) that no
painter will ever have such an advocate in the future.
The reader, after this rather strong expression in Mr.
Ruskin's favour, may perhaps conclude that in my
opinion he 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 faculty, and is seldom in the really critical temper
for any length' of time together ; but he is a splendid
artist in words, and down to the present date he is the
only artist in words, of any conspicuous power, who has
written much, and with his best force, about painting.
My reasbns for believing that in the future no painter
will ever have such an advocate again, are founded upon
the natural movement (I do not say progress) of the
human mind. Without burning enthusiasm a Ruskin is
not possible, and enthusiasm itself, in that degree, is pos
sible only in the first freshness of national perception
about art. Anything like extensive critical experience
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

Mr. Ruskin's Literary Powers. 317
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 most
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 of
literature. Again, Mr. Ruskin appealed to the English
love of truth. Previous writers upon art had dwelt much
less on truth than on style, and on those artifices of
arrangement which the ordinary Englishman feels strongly
inclined to despise as tricks of trade, about which no one
but ' the artist and his ape ' need trouble himself The
appeal to the truth of nature would have been met at once,
in France, by $he answer that art and nature were two
entirely different things, and that the artist could at any
time escape from the criterion of truth by claiming the
artistic license, by virtue of which he is authorised to
alter nature iii- compliance with the exigencies of art.
The beginning of Mr. Ruskin's advocacy of Turner
depended upon himself, but the continuation of it
depended 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 monument of a
yOung man's energy and courage. The public, however,
listened so willingly, that the first volume, originally

318 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
published in 1843, reached its fifth edition in 1851, and
the second, which first appeared in 1846, reached its
third edition in 185 1. An audience being thus assured,
the writer had only to go on, and as he had ample means
at his disposal, with perfect freedom from commercial 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 thefaime
of Turner on what he considered a sound and unshake-
able basis.
Nothing could have been more prudent in the begin
ning of Mr. Ruskin's long battle on behalf of Turner than
the appeal to the English love of truth, a love which is
always strong in theory, though in practice it may be
remarked that our countrymen often prefer fiction to
truth, and have even a strong tendency to the fictitious,
by a certain necessity of their imagination* Mr. Ruskin's
first argument was of this kind : ' You say Turner is not
true to nature. I will first give you good evidence that
he is true ; that he is truer than Claude and Salvator and
Gaspar Poussin ever were ; and then at some future time
we will talk about beauty and sublimity.' This line of
argument was addressed to a certain state of the public
mind, and proved successful. Mr. Ruskin did not succeed
in proving that Turner was veracious, but he gave the
public some idea of the painter's enormous knowledge.
If the public of those days, and the brilliant young
Oxonian who addressed them, had really understood the
peculiar nature of poetic art, they would both have at-
* As in legal and constitutional fictions, social fictions, etc., etc.

Mr. Ruskin, and the English Public. 319
tached much less importance to truth, and his elaborate
investigation of the truth of nature would probably, if
undertaken at all, have been undertaken simply as an
independent contribution to a new science, the science of
natural aspects, with very secondary reference to art.
Poetic art is strangely independent both of science
and of veracity, and plainly, in. its own way, refuses to be
tested by science, and even by reason. It is indeed as
nearly as possible useless to apply these tests to art except
for the critic's own personal education or amusement, as
the artist can always so easily escape from them. He
has only to say that he did the thing because the picture
seemed to require it, and there is an end of reasoning.
This was forcibly and justly expressed by Henri Reg-
nault in a letter from Rome. ' If one were to reason
about painting, one would not dare to do anything. If
you choose to reason before the works of the masters, you
will find many things which have no raison d'itre, 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 if
something absurd does well, I see no reason why we
should decline to make use of it'
There are passages in Mr. Ruskin's works which seem
to imply that in bis own opinion his writings revealed
Turner to the world, and : these have been answered by
the clearest evidence (exceedingly easy to get together)
that Turner was a famous and successful man long before
the publication of ' Modern Painters.' It may even be

320 Tfie Life of f. M. W. Turner.
shown, by a simple comparison of dates, that Turner had
been a Royal Academician about seventeen years when
Mr. Ruskin was born, and no artist is ever elected to that
rank unless he is highly esteemed by his brethren. Dayes
said of Turner in 1804 (fifteen years before Mr. Ruskin's
birth) : ' He has overcome all the difficulties of the art,
so that the fine taste and colour which his drawings pos
sess are scarcely to be found in any other, and are accom
panied with a broad, firm chiaroscuro and a light and
elegant touch.' From this and several other opinions
which I shall have to quote in reference to another sub
ject, it is abundantly evident that Mr. Ruskin was not the
discoverer of Turner; but at the same time a certain
aspect of the matter has to be taken into consideration
which may partially explain and. excuse his impression.
I requested an artist who had known the state of the fine-
arts in England for more than fifty years to tell me what
he believed to be the exact truth about Mr. Ruskin's dis
covery of Turner, and his answer (as nearly as I can
remember) was in these words: 'Turner's merits were
perfectly well , known to artists and to a few amateurs
long before the publication of " Modern Painters ;" but in
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 fhe

¦ Criticism and Art in Words. 321
first uses that he generally makes Of it is to question the
decisions of the writer who is trying to teach him. . I ask
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, consciously
or unconsciously, employs his mental gifts and labour in
order to. produce emotion by exciting interest and sym
pathy. He does this by using his own imagination to
appeal to the . imagination of another ; as, for example,
when the novelist invents a situation, or the historian
realises past events as if he had actually witnessed them.
The reader of the novel or history then follows the
imagination of the artist by a slighter and easier effort of
his own, and his pleasure consists precisely in this arous
ing of his own imaginative faculty which gives him new
emotions under a new stimulus. The distinguishing
peculiarity of the artistic nature is that it does not hesi
tate to produce emotion by saying what is not true. I
will give a sirigle instance, just at present, by way of
illustration. 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 tombstones
close to the tower of the church ? My father, my mother,
and my grandfather are buried there." '
. 21

322 The Life of f. M. W.. Turner.

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
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 showingwhat 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

> The Love of Effect. 323
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,
may 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 ungrammatical language or in professional
slang, and still be excellent criticism of the very highest
value.* Now the critical faculty in Mr. Ruskin may have been
naturally strong, but as the artist, in him was incom
parably 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 186 1, f 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
* 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
be mappy:;' ' Mind that your work carries across the room.'
+ Edmond Scherer, in the Temps.

324 Tfie Life off. M. W. Turner.
effects. The reader's mind is to be kept in a state of
incessant 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
artistic 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 literaiy 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*
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 sympathy of in
telligent 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 pur-
pOse—at the close of a lecture at Edinburgh, which was
* 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.'

The Love -of Effect. ' 325
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 in
curred 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 ob
serve 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
rword 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 harden
ing of the temper, if not of the heart No one under
stood 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.

326 The Life off.M, W. Turner.
;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 tin, 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 1813, that in his opinion the
Frost by Turner was the best landscape in the Royal
Academy Exhibition ? Did not Lockhart, a very in
fluential 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 contemporary poets ? and did not
Scott (who died in 1832) say that Turner was 'all the
fashion ;' so much the fashion indeed, 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 com
plete work of genius I ever saw' ? We know how passion
ately Constable, admired Claude, yet in the very next
sentence he calls one of Claude's pictures ' grand and
solemn, but cold, dull, and heavy! , Had Mr. Ruskin

Circumstances of Turner's Death. 327
listened to critical suggestions like these, he would have
had either to suppress a capital passage (always most
painful to an 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 in
dependently of the critical faculty, whether the critical
faculty be in itself positively strong or feeble. Such a condi
tion of mind is often highly favourable to the production 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 emotional 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
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

328 Tfie Life of f. M, W, Turner.
labour, 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 desola
tion 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
consolation. It is a perfect picture ; the scene is admir
ably described in a few pathetic words ; the emotion
intended to be excited very probably was excited. But
is the picture true ? 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 to render him a service. In spite of his
habitual incivility in not answering letters, he was con
stantly receiving 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
op behalf of Turner have produced some effect, on other

Mr. Ruskin's Estimate of Turner. 329

writers, and may ultimately create a fabulous legend, like
the Frerich legend about Napoleon's poverty at St.
Helena, Mr. Thornbury says, 'he left the nation that
neglected him £140,000.' 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 siriiple 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 has ever given
an entire transcript of the whole system of nature, and is,
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'stime and strength
in this world are finite. It is not1 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 of ' Notes on some
of the Principal Pictures exhibited in the Rooms of the
Royal Academy' answered him so effectually in the
year 1858,

330 The. Life of f. M. W. Turner,
'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-
rasa, 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!
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
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 speak
ing of familiar and homely foreground subjects, he con
tinued 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 vapour 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

Mr. Ruskin's Estimate df Turner. 331
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
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 meri. 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 jsimply 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 ardour of early manhood, he was not,
in other moods, an absolute believer in Turner's infalli
bility. We know this by the following . plain-spoken
criticism of some of Turner's most important works,
'The Caligula's Bridge,. Temple of fupiter, Departure
of Regulus, Ancient , Italy, Cicero's Villa, and such
others, come they from whose hand they may, I class

33? Tfie Life 6f f. M. W, Turner.
under the general head of " nonsense pictures." There
never can be any wfiolesome feeling developed in -these
preposterous accumulations, and where the artists feeling
fails, his art follows ; so that the worst possible examples
of Turner's colour 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 moon
lights, and the convent compositions in the Voyage of
Columbus, are altogether exquisite ; but this is owing
chiefly to their simplicity, and perhaps, in some measure,
to their smallness of size. None of his large pictures at
all equal therri ; the Bay of Baice is encumbered with
material, it contains ten times as much as is necessary to a
good picture, and yet is so crude in colour as to look un-
Jinisfied. 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, i but it has not the virtue of the real
thing! Notwithstanding these criticisms, the rank assigned by
Mr. Ruskin to Turner was that of the greatest painter of
all time.
' We have had, living with us, and painting for us, the
greatest painter of «//time ; a man with whose supremacy
of power no intellect of past ages can be put in com
parison 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.

^Turner &nd .Pre-Raphaelitism. 333
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 siriiple truth by asking him to
believe much more? Is not this an artifice of rhetoric
which answers to the common commercial and diplomatic
artifice of asking more than one intends to take ?
It is now time to discuss briefly Mr. Ruskin's affirma
tion that Turner was the true head of Pre-Raphael
itism. The difficulty in arguing about this lies in the prudent
care with which the leaders of the Pre-Raphaelites always
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,
artd 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

334 The Life of f. M.' W. Turner,
thing itself- and that every rninute accessory was painted
in the same manner.
We may assume, then, that- accurate portraiture 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 it had been done from nature. He might report
nature as Woodfall reported the debates in the House of
Commons before shorthand writers took them down on
the spot. Turner did nothing of the kind. His paint
ings 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 in
teresting an object as a feudal castle ; still less would he
devote attention 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 consum
mately artificial, full of all the craft and subtlety of the
ripest art, in which truth is constantly sacrificed to beauty
and detail to general effect. The Pre-Raphaelites re
jected 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 is a Pre-Raphaelite
landscape in the National Gallery, the ferusalem of

Turner and Pre-Raphaelitism. 335
Thomas Seddon. Future generations may conveniently
compare that with Turner's work, and see the difference.
The Pre-Raphaelite 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 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 coloured with the most pains
taking accuracy, and, no doubt, quite closely resembling
the unlovely but interesting reality. Precious work of
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 successful invention. Seddon

336 The Life of f. M. W: Turner.
does nothing but analyse, Turner synthetises always, iri
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 labour which Mr. Ruskin so courageously bestowed on
mountains and vegetation. We should then have had a
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
intelligent Englishmen, but it had no foundation in the
essential 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 ordi
nary 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 them
selves 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

Tfie Criterion -of Truth. 337
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 farriiliar 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 instructiveness, 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 observatiori, the effort they require in order to
be understood 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
rscience, had been rather better understood. They were
truthful and sincere when truth was not always wanted,
22

338 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
and even sincerity might be out of place. ' What !' the
reader may ask in surprise, ' can good art ever be insin
cere ?' 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
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 ideal 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 con
trast 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 Atfienceimi)
has no other resource than the assertion " that he dis
approves the natural style in painting. If people want to

Distinction Between Nature and Art. 339
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
these remarks absurd, and yet the writers in the
Athenceum 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 Atfie-
nceum 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 paint
ing were simply true, and no more, there would be no
reason for painting what can be easily seen in nature,
and yet how many of the very best pictures 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 anecdote
as an illustration of what the writer in Blackwood 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 most
22 — 2

340 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
painstaking fidelity, yet had not the slightest artistic
charm. ' You paint things as they are,' he said ; ' and
that Is a great mistake. All successful artists paint
things as they are not! The remark struck me by its
boldness, by the speaker's complete emancipation from
the common delusion about truth, and all subsequent
experience has convinced me that he was right.
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 ex
cept 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 executed 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, we 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 power has affected ourselves,
and this is the last and best result of art criticism. 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
industry, who seriously believed that his intellect was

Turner's Position in Art. 341
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
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 ex
cellent in some points, but unequal and unsafe. It is
very difficult to classify him justly, he lies so much out
side of the good sound work of the great masters. It is
probable that he was himself aware of this, as when he
said of Vandevelde : ' I can't paint like him ;' and the
desire to execute works in the manner of his celebrated
predecessors, which remained with him until his originality
had fully developed itself, implies an uneasy preoccupa
tion about his technical powers, and a wish to ascertain,
by experiment, if they were equal to the ambitious task
before 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
* 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

342 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

paint soundly in early life, he had given up the pursuit of
technical 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 our 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 nigligi, sensitive
and rapidly got over, or else it is conscientious, explaining
itself everywhere, 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 scru
pulous.' 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
* conscientious, 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 * I'art de
bien dire! The whole condition of his mind, as to tech
nical matters, appears to have been a condition of
despairing indifference. He used any new colour that
the experimentalising ingenuity of modern chemistry
could invent for the temptation of an artist. He used
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 modenTmasters.'
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.

Turner's Position in Art. 343

body-colour 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 un
sound. It has not the firmness and substance of thorough
work ; it does not 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 constitu
tion, sound all through, yet painted two hundred years
ago. See how brilliant it is ; see how the colours are laid
in their places, and how dense and strong is the sub
stance of the paint, yet 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, but pray look at Hobbema's Avenue of
Middlehamis or his Forest Scene in the National Gallery,
and acknowledge the sound quaity of the wo quiet
enough in colour ; not brilliant like the De Hooge, but as
firm in substance. Considered 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 accustom your eyes for an hour to the quiet
splendour of Titian — his rich surfaces, his blended colours,
laid on a substantial groundwork of safe dead-colour —
and then pass to Turner, you will find a difference like
that between tapestry and cotton-print
In water-colour the case presents a very different
aspect. Turner was unquestionably, in his best time,
the greatest master of water-colour who had ever lived.
He may have been excelled since then in some special

344 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
departments of the art, in some craft of execution, or in
the knowledge of some particular thing in nature ; but no
one has ever deserved such generally high rank as Turner
in the art of water-colour painting. His superiority even
goes so far that the art, in his hands, is like another art,
a fresh discovery of his own. The colour, 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 vapor
ous deposit ; and besides the indescribable excellence of
those parts of Turner's water-colours 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-colour limited to landscape ; his studies of still
life — birds and their plumage, bits of interiors at Petworth,
etc. — are evidence enough that, had he chosen to paint
Objects rather than effects, he might have been as wonder
ful 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 per
petually trying to realise his ideas. In fecundity of con
ception 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 enabled
the old masters to reach such great technical excellence,
was first to learn to paint from a clever man, and then
to apply the art to five or six subjects, to be repeated in
different forms till the artist died of old age. If Turner
had done this, if he had restricted himself to a narrow
speciality and paid careful attention to technical matters,

Turner's Position hv Art. 345
and had a good technical training at the beginning, his
work might have been as good as that of any old master,
but criticism has little concern with what might have
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 care
fully avoided. This tendency was skilfully hit by Punch
with the exaggeration which properly belongs to satire,
in the following imaginary title for a Turnerian pic
ture :
' 34. A Typhoon bursting in a Simoom over the Whirl
pool of Maelstrom, Norway ; with a ship on fire, an
eclipse, and the effect of a lunar rainbow.
' " O Art, how vast thy mighty wonders are
To those who roam upon the extraordinary deep !
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 re
member that when he does so the result must inevitably
be a mere sign or substitute for the thing represented, a
sort of pictorial algebra. De Hooge could paint a
Dutchwoman standing in her backyard, close to her
dust-bin, with a degree of pictorial efficiency incom-

346 , The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
parably superior to that of Turner when he painted the
Angel standing in the Sun. Again, the habit of paint
ing unpaintable splendours led Turner into a transcen
dental treatment of common realities, so that he came at
last to paint the groups 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 honour 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 know
ledge, 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

Zurich— a Sketch.

Mystery. 347
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 much less. I may add that it is per
fectly possible (many readers will know this by experi
ence) 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
any cultivated critic who knows something of Greek
sculpture and Greek literature, and of the inferior 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 colouring of a very simple and elemen
tary 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 anything 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

348 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 history of art downwards through
ancient Rome, through mediaeval Italy, Germany, and
France, and see how long you have to wait before any
thing 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 profound 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 veil
ing of distances by atmosphere, but his conception was
always simple, and though in a certain sense his dis
tances 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 affirmative for the evanescence o1"
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 observation and

Mystery. 349
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
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-humoured 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
altered his opinion as he gradually became able to read
the 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
example of this in colour may be selected as one of those
very rare artifices of colouring 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 colourist 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

350 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
essentially offensive, inconceivable thing, which he could
not be believed in.'
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
colourists of the world, the other six being, in his esti
mate, Giorgione, Titian, Veronese, Tintoret, Corregio,
and Sir Joshua Reynolds. It is always interesting to
know what a critic thinks about the colouring of a
painter, but it is not of the slightest use to argue the
matter, as excellence in colour cannot possibly be proved
by evidence. I should say that Turner's colour was
often wonderful, often far below his best, and seldom
natural. I should say, too, that he produced fine colour
much less habitually than Giorgione, Titian, and Cor
regio, that he was often crude and violent, and occasion
ally hot, heavy, or dull. His unfaithfulness to nature
would prove nothing against him as a colourist, but

Turner's Colour. 351

rather imply a possibility in his favour. The colour of
the great colourists is really nothing but a sort of visible
music which has to be brilliant or harmonious, but which
is* always sufficiently like nature if it does not offend the
spectator. Mr. Ruskin's declaration that colour 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 inattention. ' Form,'
he says, ' maybe attained in perfectness bypainters who,
in their course of study, are continually altering or
idealising it ; but only the sternest fidelity will reach
colouring. 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. Violate 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 coldur of the great
colourists 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 colour. I have said
already that colour is visible music ; it is so indeed, and
since the colourists are musicians1 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
* It may possibly be due to this affinity between colour and music that
all painters (Amaury Duval declares that there is no exception to this rule)
love music with a sort of second love.

352 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
volume on ' ^Esthetics,' ' Rubens and Rembrandt, are
no more like each other than Beethoven is like Rossini,
or Weber like Mozart, or Wagner like Verdi.' And
again, in another place, he says with equal truth :
' There are very different ways of understanding colour.
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 chang
ing its object' There would be no such variety, no
such liberty of action, if the colourists only rendered
truth. What they really did was to discover, each of
them, some pleasant chord or chords of colour of his
own, to master these thoroughly by practice, and then
go on applying them as long as they had strength to
work. Turner's experiments in colour 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 colouring 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 grey. He is said to
have declared that yellow was his favourite colour.
The greatest technical merit of his colouring is his
wonderfully brilliant performance in the upper notes.
He carried up more colour into the regions of light than
any other painter. An American critic says that
' Turner, being deficient in colour, lacked the first

Turner's Imagination. 353
element of a painter ;" but the word ' deficient ' seems
inaccurate in this case. Turner was empirical, experi
mental, rash, adventurous to temerity, 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 recognise 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
sublimity 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-
23

354 The Life of f. M. W. 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 nqt space to give special instances, but I may
say generally that (with very few exceptions) the little
vignettes seem to me the best examples of taste in all
that he did, each a bit of perfected beauty, natural and
artificial 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 colourist, 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 illustrated 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

Yarmouth.

Re'sumi. 355
more distinguished by 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 irregular painter in oil,
unsafe and unsound in his processes, though at the
same time both strong and delicate in handling ; that
he stands apart and alone in water-colour, 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
afterwards excelled, it will be very difficult for any
future landscape-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 in
fluence of Mr, Ruskin's eloquence and frequent use of
hyperbole, of a national idolatry of Turner, Tike the
Roman idolatry of Raphael, or the French idolatry of
Claude. Such a result would be a great evil to land
scape-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
23—2

356 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
certainly could not have equalled. With all my admira
tion for Turner I should be sorry to contribute to such a
result as this. The fame of Claude, of Poussin, and Sal
vator, 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 re
cognised 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 natural vigour and independence
of the English race did not continually re-assert itself.
Let us enjoy what is delightful 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 pre
serve 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 by 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 ex-

Past and Future of Landscape Painting. 357
ample 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 direc
tion, except so far as this, that there will always be a
certain freshness 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 with
out limits, and though his skill was great it was not
without imperfection ; 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 Turner's opportunities for doing what has
not been done before. He will not have a writer of sin
gular 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 favour. Even already the first ardour of modern
interest in artistic questions has given place to a tran
quil philosophy. There is nothing now in Europe like
the warfare between the Classics and Romantics, which
agitated all the elite of Parisian intelligence in 1830, or
even like the much feebler excitement which attended
the rise of Pre-Raphaelitism in England. There has been
some slight commotion about 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 Turner is not possible.

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. i
This 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
culture, the common experience of mankind. In many
respects the eccentricities of Turner had an excellent

Turner's Character and Habits. 359
effect upon his art. Nothing is more astonishing in
Turner'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 labour
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 much of it minutely ; that
he wrought for colour as much as form, tenderly, deli
cately, and therefore (however swiftly) without hurry —
and then, after taking all these things into consideration,
ask yourself 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 com
pletely, 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 morn
ing as labourers 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 establishment, and left what Emerson
derides as the 'cards, custards, 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 seldom answered dinner

360 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 occasions, 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 eccentrici
ties, 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 afterwards, 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 mdney after he became independent. Most of
his eccentricities may be explained by two considera
tions : the first, that the practice of his art was the delight
as well as the labour 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 labour*
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 misunderstood
when your work is done, without being plagued by other
* This he carried to such an extent that he never admitted even his
friend Mr Hawkes of Famley into his studio, and yet he loved Mr. Hawkes
far more than most men love their brothers.

Turner's Character and Habits. 361
people's want of apprehension whilst it is in progress.
We have evidence that Turner was painfully sensitive 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 frequently
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 ab
sorbed 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 success
ful, and his scientific studies hardly got beyond the initial
stage of intelligent curiosity. Even the titles of his pic
tures 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 archi
tecture 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 sugges
tions of the old masters. He had at one time serious
thoughts of giving himself classical literary culture, by
the help of his friend Trimmer, and had the courage to
attack both Latin and Greek, but, as might have been

362 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
anticipated, without success — an inevitable consequence
of his strange natural incapacity for languages. His own
poetry has been examined at some length in this bio
graphy, 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 excel
lent 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 ascertained that his tra
velling companions at one time were Young's ' Night
Thoughts,' Izaak Walton, and a translation 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 know that he ever attained any re
spectable 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 facili
ties in various directions which are given by a good
ordinary education in languages and science, that general

Turner's Character and Habits. 363
education 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 educa
tion? 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 transform it as he dreamed, to realise the vision
afterwards in colour, 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 riiorals.
He was a person of unprepossessing appearance, short
and thick-set, with coarse features and the general
appearance 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 express
ing 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 in
capable 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 coloured sketch. Turner looked over
him a little while, then said, in a grumbling way, " I
haven't got any paper I like, let me try yours." Receiv
ing a block-book, he disappeared for an hour and a half.

364 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
Returning, he threw the book down, with a growl, say
ing : " I can't make anything of your paper." There
were three sketches on it, in three distinct stages of pro
gress, showing the process of colouring from beginning
to end, and clearing up every difficulty which his friend
had got into.' This story exactly coincides with every
thing 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 some
times seemed to me that many things in Turner's
character are only exaggerations of English characteris
tics. The typical Englishman is shy, reserved, fond of
privacy ; Turner had these peculiarities in excess. The
typical Englishman 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
habitually 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
sentiments, and from all language which by any pos
sibility could be called high-flown ; Turner had this kind
of mauvaise honte 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
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.

Turner's Manners. 365
Mr. Ruskin has mentioried irritability as one of
Turner's characteristics. 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
gaucfierie. 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 favourite. The
R.A. opened his eyes with astonishment, at the same
time replying, " My dear madam, you do not know what
you ask." ' Here is an account of a visit to Turner paid
by Dr. Shaw, a relation of his on his mother's side.
' 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
follows : " May I ask if you are the Mr. Turner who
visited at Shelford Manor, in the county of Nottingham,

366 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 con
sider, sir, that you have taken a most unwarrantable
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
state of mind was probably nothing but an early prac
tical 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

Religion and Morality, $67
advances best in solitude, and every interruption is a
definite injury to him unless it brings with it some ac
ceptable compensation. In Turner the horror of inter
ruption 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 ' faithlessness ;'
but I am quite unable to give the reader any authentic
account of Turner's opinions in detail, and yet a bio
graphy of him cannot be complete without some refer
ence 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 iriember of
any visible church. Mr. Thornbury, in his biography,
said something to the effect that he was oppressed in
his latter years by the despairing fear of annihilation ;
but I do not know that Mr. Thornbury had any autho
rity 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 confi-

368 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
dence absolutely, yet meet their end without despairing
fear. Turner may have belonged to one of these cate
gories, though it is not probable that his opinions had
any profoundly philosophical character. It is more
likely that he simply found difficulties in believing, and
stayed away from church without going very deeply into
theological or philosophical questions of any kind. From
what we know of Turner's intellect, it appears to have
been entirely incapable of any sustained critical investi
gation. 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 liaison with the elegant and accomplished young
Countess Guiccioli shocks us less than his intimacy with
the vulgar Venetian woman who preceded her. In
Turner'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

Temperance and Intemperance. 369
evil reputation which has attached itself, in quite a pecu
liar 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 resolutely determined to shut their
eyes to what passes continually before their faces, they
must be well aware that Turner's conduct, though blam-
able, was not very unusual. It is said that he left behind
him four illegitimate 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 not originate in sensuality. When the powers of
production 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 no-
24

370 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
body thought the worse of them, and when they did not get
tipsy they drank abundantly 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 excessively addicted to sensual gratification of
any kind is sufficiently proved by the enormous amount
of delicate work that he accomplished, and by the singu
larly 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 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 dis
turbance. He was equal to any kind of travel, walked
his twenty miles and more with perfect ease, and was
superior to sea-sickness, f This does not indicate habitual
* ' 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.
t ' The sea had that dirty puddled appearance which often precedes a
hard gale. We kept towards Rame Head to obtain an offing, and when

Temperance and Intemperance. 37 1
intemperance. We get a glimpse of him on the Margate
boat in the biography by Mr. Alaric Watts, which ex
hibits 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 chat
ting, 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 favourite 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

running out from the land the sea rose higher, until off Stokes Point it be
came 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 stem-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 con
trived to get on shore. All this time Turner was silent, watching the
tumultuous scene.'— Mr. Cyrus bedding's Autobiography.
24 — 2

372 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
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 cha
racter which are not very rare, though they invariably
astonish us when they occur. Victor Hugo once ex
plained that the secret of the interest inspired by some
of his best-known inventions was, that he purposely
endowed repulsive or uninteresting characters with some
splendid virtue which overcame the reader's dislike to
them, and produced in his mind a glow of reaction in
their favour. Turner was a character of this kind.
Though unpolished, and even from the point of view of
any severe social criticism positively uncivilised, though
not (in the social sense) a gentleman, or anything re
sembling 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 depreciation of any
of his contemporaries, but there are several instances of
his kindness in rendering them services, and in saying
what could fairly and truly be said in their favour. This
reticence is a rare virtue amongst artists, not only be-

Turner's Generosity. 373
cause they are often (and very naturally) jealous of each
other, but because they often conscientiously 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 illustrations in the
book, and he showed one of them to his companion, say
ing, ! 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 unfavourable 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 impos
sible. Turner sat down and looked at Bird's picture a
long time ; then insisted that a place must be found for
it. He was still met by the assertion of impracticability.
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
* I give the story in Mr. Ruskin's words. See ' Lectures on Architecture
and Painting.' Lecture iii.

374 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
loved it as people love their families and their homes
and Haydon's attack on 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 con
siderable 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 probably 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,
and lent money to the widow until a large sum had
accumulated. 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 £1000, because Mr. Heath's affairs were not

Turner's Generosity. 375
in a prosperous condition. Of course, had Turner been
as selfish as most people, that would have been the
;&$mrageSt 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
£20,000, I believe. The gentleman never knew who
was his benefactor ; but in time his affairs rallied, and
he was enabled to pay Turner 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.'

376 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
He had tenants in Hariey Street who had been in
arrear for two years, but he would not allow his lawyer
to distrain.
These scraps of anecdote are some evidence of the
innate nobility and benevolence of the man ; but since
we know the secretiveness of his disposition we may
reasonably infer that most of his acts of kindness re
mained unknown 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 in
capacity to do what he had done, he occupied his
solitary musings with the problem how to so order
matters that his success might be made to operate as
some alleviation of their misfortune. I have already
sufficiently drawn attention to the one deduction which
may be made from Turner's generosity; there can be
no doubt that it was part of a great project for the per
petuation 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-
ent persons who have not thought it necessary to hide
their lights under a bushel. George Heriot, of Edin
burgh, immortalised himself in Heriot's Hospital, Mr.

Turner's Generosity. $77
Peabody has recently immortalised himself in the ad
mirable 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
impulses of an instinct which is common to so many,
and desired to be remembered with gratitude tfor his
benevolence, 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 labours. 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 use
fulness in the world. And why, with a resolution in his
mind so long cherished, so firmly rooted there, could
not Turner ensure the execution 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 unfortu
nate 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 Institu
tion 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

378 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
that a proper and suitable Building or Residence be pro
vided 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 reception 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 individuals and the houses or buildings
and premises before mentioned and which (Charitable)
Institution I desire shall be called or designated " Tur
ner's Gift" and shall at all times decidedly be an English
Institution and the persons receiving the benefits thereof
shall be English-born subjects only and of no other
Nation or Country whatever.'
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 quo
tation does or does not convey the idea that Turner

Turners Will. 379

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 win. at once admit lhat -such was Turner's inten
tion, and he will feel astonished that it was not carried
out. Not only was this his intention, but it was his main
intention, his great purpose, so far as his money was
concerned. 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 were really bequests of Turner's, but then the
legal authorities passed over the charitable institution for
decayed artists as a thing not really intended by Turner,
and did not even attempt a partial realisation 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 indus
triously covered an enormous weight of paper, which
nobody will ever read and which had to be paid for out
of the painter's savings, a singular consequence of his
own parsimony and love of secrecy which had prevented
him from procuring competent legal assistance during
his lifetime.
After the settlement of the will and the annihilation
of Turner's charitable schemes, the most important

380 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
matter as affecting the public was the disposal of the
pictures left to the nation. They were first exhibited in
Marlborough House, and when that residence had to be
prepared for the Prince of Wales, rooms for their recep
tion 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. Womum, then the Keeper of the National Gallery,
who lodged them to the west of the building, where they
were well lighted and could be studied with great facility.
Since then the Royal Academy has removed to Bur
lington House, the National Gallery has been greatly
enlarged, the pictures have been all re-hung, and a new
room has been given to the principal Turners, in which,
unfortunately, they are not so well seen as under the
former temporary arrangement. A very plain room on
the ground-floor has been assigned for the preservation
of the drawings, a room which, though sufficiently
spacious, is certainly too mean in its appearance to con
tain artistic treasures of such value. Material treasure
of greater amount is no doubt lodged in the cellars of
the Bank of England, but the fine arts require some
degree of elegance in their surroundings, and this room

Works of Art Left to the Nation. 381
has no more pretension to taste or elegance than a
London cellar-kitchen. However, in spite of this un-
suitableness 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 permanent residents in London this is not
a great inconvenience, 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 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 stu
dents 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 labour, 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-

382 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
tunity for orders to view the Turnerian treasure. The
following is Mr. Ruskin's own account of his labours
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 sub
jects 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 coloured
drawings among them), long eaten away by damp and
mildew and falling 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 fourj being
Turner's favourite mode of packing for travelling ;
nearly all rudely flattened out from the bundles in which
Turner had finally rolled them up and squeezed 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 flat
tened bundles, looking like a jagged black frame, and
producing altogether unexpected effects in brilliant por
tions of skies, where an accidental or experimental
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 flat oblong pocket-books,
dropping to pieces at the back, tearing laterally when
ever opened, and every drawing rubbing itself into the
one opposite. These first I paged with my own hand ;

Works of Art Left to the Nation. 383
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 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 honoured 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 re
mains lie in the catacombs of St. Paul's, and the morn-

384 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
ment 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
ments, 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 re
cognised 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

Conclusion. 385

fame of a fairly successful artist, and was far more fortu
nate in this respect than many 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
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
25

386 The Life of f. M. W. Turner.
arrangements 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
with the human species. With the strong support of a
firm and regular home afiection, 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 neighbours. No man
could be more respected than •Millet was, and he lived
surrounded by the influences 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,

Conclusion. 387

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 ?

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 Turner's biography, or the qualities of his art.
There are, however, some general 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 emphatically 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 realises 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 realisation 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

390 Note.
studies in still life, which are too refined for realisation, and never
resemble the reflection of the objects in a mirror.
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 engraving what
soever 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 Studiorum.' 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 cor
respondence, as Editor of the Portfolio, with many of the greatest
artists in the world. Even Mr. Ruskin himself can sometimes for
get his animosity against the art, as for example in the following
sentence, which is directly contradictory of the assertion that etch
ing is an indolent and blundering method at the best : ' The etching
of Ger6me'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, 175.
American criticism, 296.
Ampere, the younger, 44.
Armytage, his engraving from the
sky in the Slave-Ship, 291.
Arnold, Matthew, his topography,r
85.
Aristocracy, its hostility to art, 8.
Art, its essence, Preface vii.
Art, writer on, his function, Pre
face vi.
Artistic nature, the, 321.
Arveiron, source of, 93.
Athenceum, the, quoted, 338.
Bicknell, Mr. Elhanan, 217.
Bird, the painter, 373.
Birthplace of a landscape painter,
4-
Blackwood's: Magazine, quoted,
339.
Bohn, Mr., the publisher, and
Turner, 279.
Bonneville, Savoy, 93.
Books in Turner's library, 362.
Booth, Mrs., 301, 368.
Bowles and Byron, 238.
Brentford, 18.
Bridge, a, with cows, 106.
Brou, the church of, 86.
Browning, his brusqueness, 324.
Buckler, 173.
Burger, W., a critic, 206.
Burnley, its scenery, 55.

Business, Turner's policy in, 276.
Byron, 368.
Byron and the Countess Guiccioli,
43-
Byron on painting, Preface v.
Cadell, the publisher. 232.
Cardiganshire, 34.
Carlyle, 324.
Castles, Scottish, 69.
Chalk sketching, Turner's, 182, 183.
Chantrey, Turner's playfulness about,
219 ; a letter to, 220 ; his death,
291.
Charm of Turner's Rivers of France,
252.
Chickens, a picture of, 122.
Claude and Turner, 307.
Claude, what he discovered, 10 ; his
painting of water, 126 ; his
picture of Ulysses restoring
Chryseis to her Father, 155 ;
his choice of legendary subjects,
272 ;,his choice of scenery, 278 ;
his Seaport, and Mill, 306 ;
his immense fame, 309; Con
stable's criticism of one of his
pictures, 326.
Colour, Turner's transition to, 175 ;
Turner's unfaithful, 250 ; vari
ous in the great masters, 351.
Colouring, Turner's, what it really
was, 190.
Colourists, great, inaccurate, 251.
Connoisseurs and discoverers, 127.
Constable, his opinion of Turner,
326.

392

The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

Cooke, W. B., the engraver, 151 ;
publishes the ' Rivers of Eng
land,' 199 ; his dispute with
Turner, 212.
Cox, David, 37.
Cozens, 35.
Craiganunie, 74.
Craven, 172; Whitaker's History
of, 54.
Criticism, not attractive reading,
320.
Cruachan, Ben, 71, 72, 73.
Cumberland, 51.
Cuyp, 11.
Danby, Mrs., 368.
Daubigny, 241.
Decline, Turner's, its character,
285.
De Saussure, his 'Voyages dans
les Alpes,' 192.
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, 195.
Edwards, of Halifax, publisher,
54-
Egremont, Lord, 120.
Ely, 34-
Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba,
by Claude, 308.
Engravers from Turner, 211.
Engravings, first separate from
Turner's works, 64.
Enthusiasm, killed by extensive
critical experience, 316.
Etching and Mezzotint, 101.
Etex, the Sculptor, 177.
' Faerie Queene,' the, 107.
Fawkes, Mr., of Famley Hall, 60.
Feminine influence, lack of, in
Turner's life, 43 ; its only
utility to a painter, 45.
Figure, study of in Academies, 24.
Figures, Turner's, 276.
Figurine, the, Turner's use of, 169.

Fisher, Archdeacon, 326.
Fontainebleau, trees at, 272.
Foregrounds, often prosaic, 254.
Forest scenery, slight study of by
Turner, 192.
Fortuny, 177.'
Foyers, fall of, 195.
Franz Hals, 313.
French scenery, Turner's apprecia
tion of, 255.
Fripp, Mr., his Kilchurn, 76.
Fromentin, on modern technical
execution, 342.
Genoa, scenery about, 219.
Gibson, his Venus and Cupid, 220.
Girtin, 34.
Goethe, his study, 133.
Great Britain, effect of its scenery on
our desires, 91.
Halsteads, on Ullswater, 173.
Hammersmith, Turner's residence
at, 119.
Hanoteau, rustic painter, 193.
Happiness, attainable degrees of it,
385-
Hardinge, Lord, 326.
Hardwick, architect, 23.
Hariey 'Street, Turner in, 98.
Hill, D. O., his vignettes, 229.
Holme, the, seat of the Whitakers,
55-
Howard, the Academician, 129.
Hugo, Victor, 324.
Human form, the mediaeval ignor
ance of, 62.
Inness, George,' his criticism of the
Slave-Ship, 289.
Isaac and Rebecca, Marriage of, by
Claude, 308.
Italy, Turner's journey to, in 1828,
219.
Jew, Turner mistaken for a, 174.
Joubert, quoted, 247.
Kilchurn Castle, 65, 70.
Knockholt, Turner at, 190.
Ladyhood, 13.
Lamartine, his poem ' Le Lac,' 227.

General Index.

393

Landscape art, its complexity, 24.
Landscape instinct, the pure, 240.
Landscape - painting, its probable
future, 357.
Lawyers, the,* how they carried out
Turner's intentions, 378.
Lead pencil, Turner's common use
of, 193-
Lenox, Mr., purchaser of a picture
by Turner, 349.
Leslie, quoted on water effects, 127 ;
his opinion of Turner's Rich
mond Hill, 170.
Liber Veritatis, Claude's, 104.
Literature, English, seeks for strik
ing effects, 323.
Loch Awe, the head of, 66.
Lockhart, his early appreciation of
Turner, 166 ; his opinion of
Turner, 326.
Macaulay, 313; his antithesis,
3?4-
MacDowell, his statue of Turner,
3°4-
Maiden Lane, 19.
Malton, perspective draughtsman,
22.
Marine painters, the Dutch, 127.
Marriage, Turner's renunciation of,
43.
Marriage, a possible, in 1815, 161.
Marriage, 386.
Marshall, Mrs. John and William,
173-
Medal, Turner's, 305.
Meissonier, 167.
Memoranda, art of taking, 194.
Mer de Glace, 93.
Mezzotint and Etching 101.
Mill, Stuart, 367.
Millet, J. F., 386.
Milsand, J., on truth in art,
336.
Milton, quotations from, 52, 53.
'Modern Painters,' Ruskin's, 315.
Molloy, Mr. J. L., quoted, 241.
Montaigne, his definition of fame,
312.
Mount Edgecumbe, Turner on, 1 37.
Munro, Dr., 34.
Mystery, in art, first explained by
Ruskin, 346.

Naylor, Mr. John, 208.
Northumberland, 51.
Offence given by strong work,
270.
Old masters, Turner's opinion of,
I3°-
Orchay, the river, 66.
Orleans, 240.
Painting, its three elements, 12 ;
the old-fashioned system, 344.
Parker, Theodore, 367.
Peel, Sir Robert, 164, 326.
Pen-sketching, Turner's, 183.
Pencil - sketching, Turner's, 181,
182.
Perspective, Turner elected Pro
fessor of, 118.
Picnic, provided by Turner, 137.
Poetry, Turner's, 139.
Porden, the architect, 21.
Portrait, practice of, useful to land
scape-painters, 27.
Pre-Raphaelite pictures, 333, 334.
Prose, Turner's, 143.
Punch, the writers in, and Turner,
293-
Queen Anne Street, Turner's
house in, 131.
Rance, the French river, 195.
Rapidity, cultivated by Turner,
179.
Redding, Mr. Cyrus, quoted, 128.
Regnault, Henri, 1775 on reasoning^
about painting, 319.
Remote, the, its fascination, 158.
Reynolds, his habits as a painter,
26.
Richmondshire, Whitaker's History
of, 54. 173-
Ritchie, Mr., 237.
Roberts, David, 299.
Rogers, the poet, 226 ; anecdote of,
321.
Rome, visits to, 177.
Rousseau, Theodore, sylvan painter,
192.
Ruskin, Mr., his birth and educa
tion, 313 ; less a critic than an
artist in words, 316 ; his first

394

The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

argument in favour of Turner,
318; not the discoverer of
Turner, 319 ; the greatest ob
jection to his system of teach
ing, 327; his account of Tumer's
death, 327, 328 ; his estimate
of Turner, 329 ; his profession
of faith in Turner, 331 ; his
arrangement of Turner's draw
ings, 381.
Ruysdael, 217; his painting of
water, 127.
Sandycombe Lodge, 148.
Scenery, uneducated persons insen
sible to, 5.
Scherer, Edmond, on English
literature, 323.
Scotland, Tumer's first visit to, 65 ;
Turner's visit to in 1818, 165.
Scott, Sir Walter, 233, 234, 326 ;
his appreciation of nature and
art, 165, 166.
Seddon, Thomas, his picture of
Jerusalem, 335.
Shaw, Dr., his reception by Turner,
36S-
Shelley and Mary Godwin, 43.
Shelley and Turner, Preface viii.
Shelley, quotation from his ' Revolt
of Islam,' 159.
Sincerity, sometimes out of place in
art, 338.
Skye, the Isle of, Turner in, 177.
Slave-Ship, 288 j controversy about,
290.
Stae'l, Madame de, 324.
Stothard, Turner's admiration of,
134; Turner's imitation of,
218; his vignettes, 229.
Swiss scenery, unpopularity of, 278.
Switzerland, a journey to, in 1838,
279.
Thomson of Duddingstone, 166,
200.
Thomson, the poet, quoted by
Turner, 170.
Thornbury, Mr., on the public neg
lect of Turner, 329.
Topography, pure, not to be ex
pected from landscape-painters,
79-

Towneley, demesne of, 55,
Travel, what Turner gained by it,
9&
Trees, large isolated, Turner's way
of using them, 274.
Trimmer, Mr., quoted, 129.
Truth, the English love of, 317.
Turner, student and artist, Preface
iii. ; his self-education, Preface
iv. ; advantages of his birth, 7 ;
his mother, 13; his ignorance of
languages, 15 ; benefits of his
school education, 17 ; in an
architect's office, 23 ; a pupil
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 28, 38 ;
his first picture in the Academy,
28; his early industry, 29; early
habits of pedestrianism, 29 ; a
favourite of Fortune, 30; his
wide range, 33 ; early travels,
33; his 'early practice in oil,
38; early beginning of his career,
39 ; his early love affair, 40 ;
as a drawing-master, 46 ; his
two natures, 46; as a Pro
fessor, 48 ; his interest in dif
ferent kinds of subject, 52 ;
elected A.R.A., 55; his resi
dence in Hariey Street, 60 ;
his residence in Norton Street,
61; not naturally a medievalist,
61, 63; his comprehensiveness,
63 ; elected R.A., 88 ; date of
his emancipation from topo-
gaphy, 89 ; his literary inca
pacity, 94 ; takes his father to
live with him, 97 ; as an en
graver in mezzotint, 103; his
peculiar skill as an etcher, 103 ;
as a Writer on Art and Nature,
123, 124, 125, 126 ; his house
in Queen Anne Street, 132 ;
his poetry, 139, 362 ; his prose,
143 ; his self-control in sketch
ing. 179; his father's death,
224 ; inscription on his father's
tomb, 226 ; could not be ac
curate, 248 ; the decay of his
art, its peculiar character, 275 ;
his death, 300, 328 ; his funeral,
302 ; his unconcealed ambition,
303 ; his care for his own fame,
305; his good fortune, 312;

General Index.

395

his rank as a painter, 332 ;
work contrasted with Pre-Ra
phaelite, 334; his technical
quality as a painter, 341 ; as
an experimentalist, 344 ; supe
riority in water-colour, 344 ;
colouring, oppositions in, 352 ;
his imaginative power, 353 ;
the refinement of his taste,
353 > resume" of his qualities,
354 ; his fame injurious to
other artists, 355; his eccen
tricity, 358 ; his habits of in
dustry, 359 ; reasons for his
unsociableness, 360 ; not a
Philistine, 361 ; an amateur
musician, 362 ; his personal
appearance, 363; his practical
kindness, 363 ; his bad man
ners, 363 ; the English charac
ter of his peculiarities, 364 ;
his irritability, 365, 366; his
religious views, 367 ; his mo
rality, 368 ; his degree of
temperance, 369, 370 ; his
economical disposition, 371 ;
nobility of his character, 372 ;
his generosity, 372, 374, 375 ;
his great charitable project,
376 ; his pictures at the
National Gallery, 380; his
studies and drawings, 382 ; his
isolation, 385; the greatest
hiatus in his life, 385.
Twickenham, Tumer's house at, 148.

Unpaintable, the, as material for
art, 345.
Van Eyck, his picture in the Louvre,
La Vierge au Donateur, 155.
Vathek, the author of, 58.
Venice, M. Havard's description of,
263.
Vernet, Joseph, 287.
Veron, his work on .(Esthetics,
quoted, 351.
Verrex, by Stanfield and Harding,
246.
Viardot, quoted, 310.
Vignette, the, in,Turner'shands, 228.
Vorich, Ben, 71.
Wales, Turner in, 33.
Water, Turner's observations on its
phenomena, 124, 125.
Water colours, use of in Turner's
oil pictures, 135.
Westmoreland, 51.
Whalley, 172 ; Whitaker's History
of, 54.
Wharfe, the river, beloved by
Turner, 59.
Whitaker, Dr., 53, 54.
Wilson, rivalry with, 196.
Work, Turner's habits of, at Pet
worth, 121.
Yorkshire, first subjects from,
'798, 49 ; variety of its scenery,
Si-

INDEX TO TURNER'S WORKS,
DESCRIBED OR ALLUDED TO IN THE BIOGRAPHY.

Abbotsford, 234.
Agrippina landing with the Ashes
of Germanicus, 278.
Amboise, 243.
jEsacus and Hesperia, 107.
.(Eneas relating his story to Dido,
298.
Alps at Daybreak, vignette, 230.
Apollo and Python, 122.
Apuleia in search of Apuleius, 150.
Arveiron, Source of, a sketch, 185.
Avernus, Lake, 261.
Bacchus and Ariadne, 285.
Bay of Baiae, the, 198.
Bible, the, Turner's illustrations to,
210.
Birds, studies of, 188.
Bligh Sand, near Sheerness, 151.
Boccaccio relating the Tale of the
Birdcage, 218.
Bolton Abbey, 59.
Bonneville, Savoy, a sketch, 186.
Bridge, a Stone, with Goats, 106.
Brocklesby Mausoleum, 64.
Brougham Castle, 200.
Boulevard des Italiens, 239.
Byron, Murray's edition of, Turner's
illustrations to, 209.
Calais Pier, 92, 153, 167.
Caligula's Palace and Bridge, 257.
Cambridge, 33.
Campagna, study of, 188.

Carthage pictures, the two, 197.
Carthaginian Empire, Morning of,
218.
Cephalus and Procris, 272.
Chapel, Gothic, vignette, 231.
Chaplet, the, vignette, 281.
Chepstow Junction of the Severn,
106.
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, 257.
Clainnont, 254.
Colne, river, 200.
Cologne — the Arrival of a Packet-
boat — Evening, 206, 207.
Columbus, vignette, 230.
Coquet, river, 200.
Corfe Castle, 1 5 1.
Corriskin, Loch, 232.
Crossing the Brook, 151, 154.
Deal, view of, 205.
Denbighshire, 34.
Derwentwater, vignette, 230.
Devil's Bridge, Old, St. Gothard, a
sketch, 185.
Dido and ^Eneas leaving Carthage
on the morning of the Chase,
iSo-
Dido building Carthage, 162, 306.
Discord, Goddess of, in the Garden
of the Hesperides, 153.
Dolbadern Castle, Turner's diploma
picture, 55, 56, 57.
Drawings from Nature, 178.
Dunblain Abbey, 114.

Index to Tumer's Works.

397

Dunstanborough Castle, 113.
Dunster Castle, 64.
Durham Cathedral, 201.
Eamont, river, 200.
East Cowes Castle, 218.
Egypt, the Fifth Plague of, 64.
Egypt, the Tenth Plague of, 64.
Ely Cathedral, 201.
England and Wales, series,1 200,
202.
Falmouth, 205.
Farmyard with Pigs, 106.
Fishes, studies of, 188.
Fishing - Boats bringing a Dis
abled Ship into Port Ruysdael,
299.
Fonthill Abbey, 58.
Garden, the, vignette, 281.
Garonnelle, vignette, 230.
Golden Bough, the, 261.
Greenwich Hospital, 107.
Greenwich Hospital, vignette, 231.
Greta and Tees, junction of, 235.
Hakewill's Italian Tour, Turner's
illustrations to, 209.
Hannibal and his Army crossing the
Alps, 138.
Hannibal, 197.
Harbours of England, 204.
Hedging and Ditching, 106.
Hesperides, the Garden of, 98.
Holy Family, by Turner, 98.
Honfleur, sketch, 186.
H6tel de Ville and Pont d'Arcole,
245.
India, Turner's Views of, 210.
Italy, Ancient, 278.
Italy, Modem, 278.
Jacqueline, vignette, 230.
Jason, 107.
Jupiter Panhellenius, Temple of,
pictures exhibited in 1816, 164.
Kirkstall Abbey, 59, 200.
Lambeth Palace, view of, 32.
Land's End, 151.

Liber Studiorum, the, 104, 106;
style of the publication, 108 ;
present cost of, 109 ; artistic
qualities of, 1 10 ; cost of when
published, 112 ; Turner's com
merce in proofs of, 113; di
dactic purposes of, 115, 116,
117.
Light and Colour, 295.
Lincoln, 33.
Little Devil's Bridge, 114.
Llandaff, 34.
Loretto Necklace, the, 222.
Ludlow Castle, 272.
Lulworth Cove, 151.
Lycidas, Shipwreck of, 272.
Macon, the Vintage at, 92.
Malmesbury Abbey, 32.
Marly, studies at, 186.
Medes, the Army of the, destroyed
in the Desert by a Whirlwind,
64.
Melrose, 232, 233.
Mercury sent to admonish ^Eneas,
298.
Mer de Glace, Aiguille Charmoz,
sketch, 185.
Mer de Glace, Chamouni, sketch,
185.
Mercury and Argus, 273.
Messieurs les Voyageurs, on their
return from Italy, 222.
Meuse, Entrance of the, with Orange
Merchant going to pieces,
169.
Michael's, St., Mount, 151, 272.
Millbank, study at, 50.
Milton, Turners illustrations to, 27 1 .
Monmouthshire, 34.
Moore's Epicurean, Turner's illus
trations to, 280.
Morning of the Chase, 167.
Morpeth, 114.
Mortlake Terrace, 216.
Mustering of the Warrior Angels.
271.
Napoleon at St. Helena (Exile and
Rock Limpet), 293.
Nile, the, vignette, 281.
Norham Castle, 106.
Now for the Painter ! 214,

398

The Life of f. M. W. Turner.

Okement, river, 200.
Orvieto, view of, 221.
Oxford Almanac, 53.
Palestrina, 222.
Pantheon, after the fire, 32.
Penmaen Mawr, 201.
Peterborough, 33.
Phryne going to the Public Bath as
Venus, 275.
Pilate washing his hands, '232.
Plymouth, harbour of, 205.
Pont Neuf, the, 244.
Poole, 151.
Port Ruysdael, 217
Ports of England, 203.
Procris and Cephalus, 107.
Provincial Antiquities of Scotland,
200.
Raglan Castle, 106, 115.
Rain, Steam, and Speed, 295.
Ring, the, vignette, 280.
Rivers of England, the, 199.
Rivers of France, the, 202, 236 ;
analysis of Turner's subjects,
239-
Rome from the Vatican, 171.
Rome, Modem, 279 ; St. Peter's,
study of, 186; study at, 186;
the Alban Mount, a sketch,
186.
Rouen Cathedral, 242.
Rouen, distant view of, 254.
Salisbury, 34.
Scarborough, 205.
Scott, Tuisner's illustrations to. his
poems, 232 ; Turner's illustra
tions to his prose works, 235.
Shade and Darkness, 295.
Shipwreck, the, 167.
Sky and Sea, studies of, 186.
Snow-storm, the, 286.

Solway Moss, 106.
Somer Hill, near Tunbridge, 122.
Staffa, 235.
St. Julian's, Tours, 254.
Sun of Venice going to Sea,
266.
Sun, the, Rising in Mist, 308.
Sun, the, Rising through Vapour
(same picture as the preceding),
98,99,100.
Temeraire, the, 282.
Temptation, the, on the Pinnacle,
271.
Thames, the, at Kingston Bank,
149.
Tivoli, studies of, 187.
Tomb, the Visit to the, 298.
Trafalgar, the large picture of, 120,
168.
Trojan Fleet, Departure of the,
298.
Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, 223.
Venetian pictures by Turner, their
power, 269.
Venice, late sketches of, 186 ; the
approach to, 266.
Venice ; the Canal of the Giudecca,
263.
Venices, Turner's, 265.
Vesuvius from Naples, study of,
187.
Walhalla, the Bavarian, 294.
Waterloo, picture exhibited in 1818,
168.
Weymouth, 151.
Whalley Bridge, 122.
Wight, Isle of, 34.
Wilkie, burial of, at sea, 292.
York Minster, 59.

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