Turner's Rivers of France, with an introduction by John Ruskin. A series of ... steel engravings, ... described by L. Ritchie. With a biography of the artists by A. A. Watts

Introduction

BY JOHN RUSKIN A SERIES OF SIXTY-ONE STEEL ENGRAVINGS FROM THE ORIGINALS OF J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. DESCRIBED BY LEITCH RITCHIE THE COMPANION OF TURNER DURING HIS TOUR THROUGH FRANCE WITH A BIOGRAPHY OF THE ARTIST By ALARIC A. WATTS VOL. I. LONDON J. S. VIRTUE & CO., Limited, 26, IVY LANE PATERNOSTER ROW LIST OF PLATES. VOL I. PAGE Toues. — {Frontispiece.) Orleans . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . 2 Beaugency . . . . . . . . . . , . . . 7 Castle of Blois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Blois 10 Amboise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . , 12 Amboise (the Chateau) . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 St. Julien . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Tours (from the faubourg St. Symphorien) . . . . . . 31 Canal of the Loire and Cher . . . . . . . . 33 Saumur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Saumur (second view) . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 View near Saumur (Bietz) . . . . . . . . . . 40 JMONTJEAN . . . . . . . . . . . , . . . . 44 St. Florent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Scene between Clairmont and Mauves . . . . . . 51 Chantoceau (Chateau Hamelin) . . . . . . . , 52 Clairmont . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Chateau de Mauves . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Chateau de Nantes . . . . . . . . . . . .

LIST OF PLATES. — VOL. I. VI View on the Loire . . . . . . • • • • ■ • 6S Havre (first plate) 86 Honfleur . . . . . . . . . . • • • ■ • • 8? Havre (second plate) . . . . . . . . • ■ • • 88 Havre, Tower of Francis I. . . . . . . . . • • 90 Graville . . . . . . . . . . • • ■ • • • 94 Harfleur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 Chateau de Tancarville . . . . . . . . . . 100 Tancarville and Town of Quillebœuf . . . . . . 102 Lillebonne (Chateau) . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Lillebonne (Chateau and Tower) . . . . . . . . 108 Caudebec .. .. .. .. .. .. .. ..110 Jumieges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 La Chaise de Gargantua . . . . . . . . . . 13'. Bouen (from the Bridge) .. .. .. .. ..134 Bouen (Cathedral and Bridge in the distance). . .. .. CONTENTS. VOL I. P'.CiE List of Plates. Introduction by John Buskin, LL.D. Biographical Sketch of J. M. W. Turner, Esq., B.A. The Loire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 The Garden of France . . , . . . . . . . . . 14 The Subterraneans . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Tours 31 The Maine 41 Loire Inferieure — Ingrande . . . . . . . . . , 46 Nantes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Bennes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 The Seine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86 Harfleur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Lillebonne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104 Scenery and Sentiment . . . . . . . . . . . . 108 The Bar of the Seine .. .. .. .. .. ..114 Saint Vandrille — Chateau de Mailleraie — Forest of Brotonne — Agnes Sorel . . . . . . . . 120 The Heights of Canteieu . . . . . . . . ..130

INTRODUCTION.

BY JOHN RUSKIN, LL.D. I believe it is a result of the experience of all artists, that it is the easiest thing in the world to give a certain degree of depth and trans parency to water ; but that it is next to impossible to give a full impression of surface. If reflection be given it, in nine cases out of ten, looks morbidly clear and deep, so that we always go down into it, even when the artist wishes us to glide over it. It appears that whenever we see plain reflections of comparatively distant objects, in near water, we cannot possibly see the surface, and vice versa; so that when, in a painting, we give the reflections with the same clearness with which they are visible in nature, we presuppose the effort of

INTRODUCTION.

. II the eye to look under the surface, and, of course, destroy the surface, and induce an effect of clearness, which, perhaps, the artist has not particularly wished to obtain. The ordinary effect of water is only to be rendered by giving the reflections of the margin clear and distinct (so clear they usually are in nature that it is impossible to tell where the water begins) ; but at the moment we touch the reflection of dis tant objects, as of high trees or clouds, that instant we must become vague and uncertain in drawing, and, though vivid in colour and light, as the object itself, quite distinct in form and feature. If we take such a piece of water as that in the foreground of Turner's Chateau of Prince Albert, the first impression from it is, " What a wide surface ! " We glide over it a quarter of a mile into the picture before we know where we are, and yet the water is as calm and crystalline as a mirror ; but we are not allowed to tumble into it, and gasp for breath as we go down ; we are kept upon the surface, though that surface is flashing and radiant with every hue of cloud, and sun, and

INTRODUCTION.

. III sky, and foliage. But the secret is in the drawing of these reflections. We cannot tell, when we look at them, and for them, what they mean. There is yet another peculiarity in Turner's painting of smooth water, which, though less de serving of admiration, as being merely a mechanical excellence, is not less wonderful than its other qualities, nor less unique ; a peculiar texture, namely, given to the most delicate tints of the surface, where there is little reflection from any thing except sky or atmosphere, and which, just at the points where other painters are reduced to paper, gives to the surface of Turner the greatest appearance of substantial liquidity. It is impossible to say how it is produced ; it looks like some modification of body colour ; but it certainly is not body colour used as by other men, for I have seen this expedient tried over and over again without success.

As a piece of mechanical excellence, it is one of the most remarkable things in the work of the master; and it brings the truth of his water painting up to the last degree of perfection ;

INTRODUCTION.

. IV often rendering those passages of it the most attractive and delightful, which, from their delicacy and paleness of tint, would have been weak and papery in the hands of any other man. In the Scene on the Loire, with the square precipice and fiery sunset, in the " Rivers of France," repose has been aimed at, and most thoroughly given ; but the immense width of the river at this spot makes it look like a lake or sea, and it was therefore necessary that we should be made thoroughly to understand and feel that this is not the calm of still water, but the tranquillity of a majestic current. Accord ingly, a boat swings at anchor on the right ; and the stream, dividing at its bow, flows towards us in two long, dark waves, especial attention to which is enforced by the one on the left being brought across the reflected stream of sunshine, which is separated and broken by the general undulation and agitation of the water in the boat's wake ; a wake caused by the water's passing it, not by its going through the water. Again, in the Confluence of the Seine and

INTRODUCTION.

. V Marne, we have the repose of the wide river stirred by the paddles of the steam-boat, whose plashing we can almost hear ; for we are especi ally compelled to look at them by their being made the central note of the composition — the blackest object in it opposed to the strongest light. And this disturbance is, not merely caused by the two lines of surge from the boat's wake, for any other painter must have given these ; but Turner never rests satisfied till he has told you all his power ; and he has not only given the receding surges, but these have gone on to the shore, have struck upon it, and been beaten back from it in another line of weaker contrary surges, whose point of inter section, with those of the wake itself, is marked by the sudden sub-division and disorder of the waves of the wake on the extreme left, and whose reverted direction is exquisitely given where their lines cross the dark water, close to the spectator, and marked also by the sudden vertical spring of the spray just where they intersect the swell from the boat ; and in order that we may be fully able to account for these

INTRODUCTION.

. VI reverted waves, we are allowed, just at the extreme right-hand limit of the picture, to see the point where the swell from the boat meets the shore. In the Chaise de Gargantua we have the still water, lulled by the dead calm, which usually precedes the most violent storms, suddenly broken upon by a tremendous burst of wind from the gathered thunder-clouds, scattering the boats and razing the water into rage, except where it is sheltered by the hills. In the Jumidges and Vernon we have farther instances of local agitation, caused in one case by a steamer, in the other by the water-wheels. As far as we have gone at present, and with respect only to the material truth, the conclu sion to which we must be led is as clear as it is inevitable : that modern artists, as a body, are far more just and full in their views of material things than any landscape painters whose works are extant ; but that 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 the world has ever seen.

INTRODUCTION.

. VII And now, but one word more, respecting the great artist whose works are the subject of this volume. The greatest quality of these works have not yet been touched on. None but their imitative excellencies have been proved, and, therefore, the enthusiasm with which I speak of them must necessarily appear overcharged and absurd. It might, perhaps, have been more prudent to have withheld the full expres sion of it till I had shown the full ground of it ; but, once written, such expression must remain. And, indeed, I think there is enough to show that these works are, as far as con cerns ordinary critics, above all animadversion, and above all praise. Of all foreign countries, Turner has most entirely entered into the spirit of France, partly because here he found most fellowship of scenes with his own England ; partly because an amount of thought which will miss Italy or Switzerland will fathom France ; partly be cause there is in the French foliage and forms of ground much that is congenial with his own peculiar choice of form. To what cause

INTRODUCTION.

. this is owing I cannot tell, nor is it generally allowed or felt; but of the fact I am cer tain, that for grace of stem and perfection of form in their transparent foliage, the French trees are altogether unmatched, and their modes of grouping and massing are so perfectly and constantly beautiful, that I think, of all countries for educating an artist to the perception of grace, France bears the bell ; and that not romantic nor mountainous France, not the Vosges, nor Auvergne, nor Provence, but lowland France, Picardy, and Normandy, the valleys of the Loire and the Seine. Of this kind of beauty Turner was the first to take cognisance, and he will remain the only, but in himself, the sufficient painter of French landscape. OF J. M. W. TURNER, ESQ., R.A. Joseph Mallord William Turner, the greatest landscape painter the world has ever seen, was born, there is every reason to believe, on the 23d of April, (St. George's Day,) 1775, over the shop of his father, who followed the humble vocation of hair-dresser and barber, at No. 26, Maiden Lane, Covent Garden, and appears to have been an honest, industrious, and thriving tradesman.

The house no longer exists : it was on tbe side of the lane, at the corner of Hand Court, which has also disappeared ; the site is now occupied by buildings used as publishing offices. The elder Turner dressed wigs and hair, both at home and abroad ; a tolerably lucrative trade in those days of queues, toupees, and powdered curls, in a thickly peopled and then very fashionable locality.1 The inscription on his son's coffin represents him as seventy-nine years of age at the time of his death;2 and his love of mystification led some of his acquaintance to believe that he was even older. One of his housekeepers, who lived with him many 1 The old man used to say that when the Tories passed the powder-tax, in 1795, they drove out wigs, and so completely ruined his trade that it was no longer worth following. 2 This inscription, hastily adopted, is admitted by the executors to be in correct.

Turner's age was really seventy-six. b years, heard him assert, more than once, in reply to impor tunate inquiries, that he was born in the same year as the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon Bonaparte (1769), which would make him 82. The curiosity, laudable as it might be, which prompted inquiries as to his age, was distasteful to him, and if he did not resent them as personal affronts, he at least gave no direct answer. But although he disliked and discouraged all questions which had reference to his personal history, from those whose intimacy with him did not warrant such inquiries, he often, among intimate friends, volunteered anecdotes, which helped to elucidate the earlier period of his career. To several of his brother academicians, and to more than one of his amateur admirers, he has repeatedly declared that he was fifteen years of age when he first exhibited at the Royal Academy, and that he was born on St. George's Day; an admission which is in some degree confirmed by the Register of St. Paul's Covent Garden, where his baptism is recorded on the 14th May, 1775, three weeks after the date we have assigned to his birth.1 Of the earliest performances of young Turner, or the precise age at which he first exhibited a marked taste for his favorite pursuit, little is known with any degree of certainty.

He is said to have been taught to read by his father, but in every other rudiment of knowledge to have been entirely self-educated. And who has made any considerable figure in the world that has not been in- 1 Turner mentions his birthday as April the 23d in the first codicil to his will ; and we find, by searching the parochial books of St. Paul, Covent Garden, that his father, William Turner, was married (by license) to Mary Marshall, (both described as of the parish of Covent Garden), on the 29th of August, 1773. And in this year he first appears as a householder in the parish of Covent Garden, paying £30 rent for one half of a double house, while a Mrs. Hawkes rented the other half at a like sum. debted, in a great measure, to himself for his advance ment? Even those who have profited by the advantage of a first-rate education will sometimes discover, after they have learned all the schools can teach, that the art of practically applying knowledge must be acquired by them selves.

The general impression is that Turner took the pencil in hand, and even acquired some facility with it, before he could guide a pen, which, by the bye, to the latest hour, he never did with much ease. Certain it is, however, that drawings bearing evidence of a tolerably correct eye and a steady hand were produced by him at a very early age. The late Mr. Duroveray, whose embellished editions of popular British Classics exercised a beneficial influence on the public taste, and led to a manifest improvement in book-illustrations, showed the writer, more than twenty years ago, a very early drawing, either a copy or an imita tion of Paul Sandby, signed W. Turner, which had been given to him by a friend, who had purchased it from the hairdresser's window.1 He also stated, on the same autho rity, that the cellar under the shop was inhabited by the family, and that drawings of a similar character were hung round its entrance, ticketed at prices varying from one shilling to three !

Many years ago, Mr. Tomkison, the eminent pianoforte manufacturer, related to us the following anecdote (published with some variation by Mr. Peter Cunningham) ; but as no date was mentioned, we are unable to state whether the occurrence preceded or followed the exposition of the boy's drawings for sale. With the view, in all probability, l Several of Turner's early drawings were purchased at this period by the late Mr. Crowle, and are in the illustrated copy of Pennant's London, which he bequeathed to the British Museum. X of drawing the attention of his customer to young Turner's dexterity with his pencil, the father, who was in daily attendance on the elder Mr. Tomkison, a zealous encourager of the Fine Arts, availed himself, on one occasion, of the opportunity to take the young painter along with him, leaving him to his own devices, whilst the operations of shaving, curling, and powdering, were going on.

During this interval the boy was not idle; but, attracted by the vivid colours of an emblazoned coat of arms, which was hanging in the room, took out his pencil and a sheet of paper, and in a very short time completed an exact copy of it, including a lion rampant, and sundry em blematical decorations. The dexterity of the boy and the correctness of the outline, attracted at once the attention of Mr. Tomkison, and interested him warmly in his behalf. From this date, both Mr. Tomkison and his son aided the views and aspirations of the young artist by every means in their power. That this sport of a few leisure moments cannot be consided in any way as Turner's first attempt in the art of design, must be conceded at once; for Mr. Tomkison remembers having seen, a very short time afterwards, several drawings from the pencil of the young artist exposed for sale in his father's shop-window.

Confirmed by the opinion of his much respected customer, the elder Turner determined to make his son an artist, and seemed to feel an honorable pride in proclaiming his intentions. When asked by Mr. Stothard, what William was to be, he answered, in the joy of his heart, " William is going to be a painter." From this time, young Turner applied himself with the utmost assiduity to the practice of his art, and having, by the sale of his sketches and the assistance of his father, been provided with sufficient means, he forthwith repaired to the greatest of all teachers, and sketched in the fields and by the way sides, from nature herself. His early drawings had been confined to the pencil, or at most Indian ink, but he now began to make rapid progress in the use of colours, and soon became so skilful in this branch of art, that whilst yet a boy, he managed to procure employment from Mr. Raphael Smith, a mezzotint engraver and portrait painter of considerable reputation in the immediate neigh bourhood.

Here he formed an intimacy with Girtin, the founder of the English School of Water-Colour Painting, who was engaged like himself to colour prints in Mr. Smith's esta blishment. There can be no doubt that Turner's acquaintance with that clever and truthful water-colour paiuter ex ercised a most beneficial influence on his pencil. The style of young Girtin exhibited a manifest improvement on the hard and bald accuracy of Paul Sandby and his followers, and had he lived, he might have proved a formidable rival to his friend, whose senior he was by about two years. Unhappily, however, for the interests of art, he died in 1802, not, as has been represented, from an illness engen dered by dissipated habits, but of an asthmatical complaint, which had its origin in a cold caught whilst sketching. His son, Mr. Calvert Girtin, describes his father and young Turner as associated in a friendly rivalry under the hos pitable roof and superintendence of that lover of art, Dr. Monro, (then residing in the Adelphi.)

Nor was Turner forgetful of the Doctor's kindness, for in referring to that period of his career, in a conversation with Mr. David Roberts, he said, "there," pointing to Harrow, " Girtin and I have often walked to Bushy and back to make drawings for good Dr. Monro at half-a-crown a c piece and a supper." Girtin had received the benefit of a more regular education than Turner, having been a pupil of Dayes, and a student of the Royal Academy for nearly three years. He had also the advantage of having accompanied one of his early patrons in repeated tours among the most picturesque scenery of England, Scotland, and Wales, at a time when Turner's means afforded him no opportunity of sketching from nature beyond the out skirts of the metropolis. Girtin was the first who introduced the custom of drawing upon cartridge paper, thus avoiding the glare common to a smooth white surface.

Many of Turner's early drawings were made on paper of this description ; and some of the finest of his later designs, although of magical effect, were executed on coarse blue paper. If imitation be indeed, as Ave are assured it is, the sincerest flattery, there can be little doubt of the very high opinion entertained of Girtin by Turner, for we have seen one of his drawings of this time that might almost be mistaken for the work of his friend. Girtin's breadth of handling and knowledge of light and shade, and his acquaintance with aerial perspective, would seem not to have been lost on Turner. Had his friendly rival lived, they might have assisted each other. Their joint work of English River Scenery, engraved by Chas. Turner, and published in 1825-6 by W. B. Cooke, is a production of high art, worthy to be a companion to the Liber Studio rum.

Turner's earliest knowledge of perspective has been ascribed to his study of 'Malton's Treatise,' but it seems more likely that a new occupation which he entered upon, about this time, that of supplying skies and foregrounds to the architectural drawings of Porden, an architect then in great practice, afforded him facilities for acquiring a more perfect knowledge of this branch of his art. His labours gave Mr. Porden such unqualified satisfaction, that he proposed to the father to receive young Turner as an apprentice without a premium. The prudent old man, however, who appeared from a very early period to have foreseen his son's celebrity, declined the flattering offer. Having furnished Mr. Porden with a liberal stock of skies for future use, the young artist now launched forth as a teacher of water-colour painting in schools and private families, and was so successful that he soon increased his charges from five to ten shillings a lesson.

As his reputation advanced, he began to be employed by some of the principal publishers to make drawings for book illustrations, among others, by Mr. Harrison, of Paternoster Row, and the proprietors of the Oxford Almanack. He was also patronised by several noblemen and gentlemen ; and having received numerous commissions for topographical drawings in various parts of the country, seldom passed a season without making excursions among the most picturesque locahties of England and Wales. In 1789, Turner obtained admission as a student at the Royal Academy, with evidently a more thorough know ledge of the higher principles of art than any other student of that Institution ; and by this time he began to feel his way pretty securely in his profession. Although at low prices, he was fully occupied; and what with teaching, print-colouring and sky-manufacturing, must have realised an income considerably beyond the necessities of his posi tion.

In 1790 he exhibited, for the first time in the Royal Academy, a 'View of Lambeth Palace.' This drawing, which is still in existence, has been described as an imita tion of Girtin; but Turner had by this time gone to a higher school of art, and had profited too well by the study BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OP of nature to render it necessary for him to borrow from one who was inferior to him in genius. From the list of his exhibited pictures in 1795, it would appear that he had visited, during the preceding year, Cardiganshire, Great Malvern, Canterbury, and Tintern; from that of 1796, that he visited Cambridge, Peter borough, Lincoln, Shrewsbury, and Wrexham ; in 1797, Ely, Llandaff, and the Isle of Wight;1 from the list of 1798, that he had made the tour of Yorkshire, sketching several of its monastic remains, and penetrating into Westmore land, Cumberland, and Northumberland.

Of Fountains, Kirkstall, and Rivaulx Abbeys, and Temple Newsam, he has made from time to time many drawings, some of which, in the possession of Walter Fawkes, Esq., of Farnley Hall, are among his best works. He loved to represent a dilapidated castle or abbey, with the sun streaming through its gothic windows ; and so extensive had been his rambles throughout England, Scotland, and Wales, that in the after period of his life, there was scarcely a scene of grandeur or interest of which he had not some pictorial recollection. He did not, however, condescend to be very exact in his portraits of the places he professed to represent; but if you were unable to discover the objects familiar to your memory exactly where you expected to find them, the tout ensemble presented a more vivid impression of the scene than could have been derived from a mere servile transcript.

It was his sea shores, even at this early period, that afforded the clearest promise of his subsequent achieve- 1 Pour of his early drawings of the scenery of the Isle of Wight were engraved, about 1799, by the elder Landseer, the father of Sir Edwin, and have remained unpublished until the present time. Mr. Bolm having purchased the copper-plates at Mr. Landseer's sale, had a few proof impressions struck off. [Thornbury says only three were engraved by Landseer, about 1812.] ments ; the more especially, if they happened to represent a somewhat tempestuous condition of sea and sky. Nothing could be more highly poetical than most of his scenes of this description. The amenity of Claude has a very soothing .and delightful effect upon the mind; but the grandeur of Turner, in the wilder creations of his genius, leaves . an impression which excites deep and lasting reflection.

After labouring assiduously as an Academy student for five years in his father's house, and for five years more in an adjoining house in Hand Court, during which period he exhibited no fewer than fifty -nine pictures, he was elected, in 1800, an Associate of the Royal Academy. He now took a house at No. 75, Norton Street, Fitzroy Square, whence he removed in three years to the more fashionable neighbourhood of Harley Street (No. 64). Although the greater part of his early drawings were more or less topographical, several were of a character which had never before been approached by a youth of his age, and evinced an acquaintance with aerial perspective which intuitive genius alone could have enabled him to acquire. It was not, however, until he had succeeded to the honours of the Academy, that he appeared to be thoroughly conscious of the affluence of his power.