The life of J.M.W. Turner, R.A.

Preface

I HAVE been the more willing to write a biography of Turner that it is impossible to study him without encountering 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 falling into snares which the subject itself has laid for us. We must understand that art and nature are not the same world, but two worlds which only resemble each other and have many things in common. Turner, with the instinct of genius, understood this from the first.

Turner is a most instructive subject for the student of art, because he is always and above all things the artist. With all his study of objects and effects, he was never a naturalist. The real motive of every one of his compositions is to realize 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 essentially artistic elements of a picture may be comprised under the two heads of feeling and composition, neither of which is to be found in external nature, though it suggests both to the human spirit. Composition includes all color arrangement, all combinations of light and shade, all groupings and contrasts of selected and modified forms. Feeling, in art, expresses itself always by the alteration of nature, by exaggerating and diminishing, by selecting and rejecting, by emphasis and accent. The art of a man of genius like Turner has much more in common with music than with photography. Even

Preface. vii

the enemies of painting, those who are hostile to it because they cannot understand it, do at least understand so much of it as this, that it is intensely artificial, that it is not nature.

" I know nothing of painting," wrote Byron to Murray from the city of Titian and Giorgione, " and I detest it, unless it reminds me of something I have seen, or think it possible to see, for which reason I spit upon and abhor all the saints and subjects of one half the impostures I see in the churches and palaces ; and when in Flanders I never was so disgusted in my life as with Rubens and his eternal wives and infernal glare of colors, as they appeared to me, and in Spain I did not think much of Murillo and Velasquez. Depend upon ity 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 viu Preface.

that it is intensely artificial, that it is something widely different from nature. He makes no blundering confusion between art and nature, but sets himself on the side of nature against art, and in the next sentences of the letter just quoted alludes to mountains, seas, rivers, horses, a lion, a tiger, and two or three women that went as far beyond his expectation as pictures and statues fell short of it. We may safely follow Byron in keeping this distinction clear.

Another matter which we ought to understand before entering upon such a study as this is the proper function of the writer upon art. In my view, it is first to inform himself as well as he can, and then to say what he thinks with the most fearless candor, but without the slightest pretension to authority. I should be sorry to see English criticism, on any side of an artistic question, arrive at that cowardly condition too often visible on the Continent, when writers dare not venture to say what they think about artists of established reputation for fear of imperiling their own, and when the whole ingenuity of a writer on art is devoted to a search for new excellencies in the consecrated masters, even in their most trifling works, or in doubtful works attributed to them, and in the weakest and worst passages of those works. But whilst claiming the right to say what I think, without any diminution of strength of expression from deference to the opinion of others, I repudiate all intention of speaking ex cathedra with any affectation of infallibility, because in matters of art criticism authority has little foundation beyond simple self-assertion. You can prove scientific matters posi-

Preface. ix

tively, but the scientific element is not the soul of art, and when you come to consider the really artistic element which is the soul of art, you will find that it perpetually eludes the measuring-tapes of positivism. What, for example, are the artistic merits of Turner ? Truth of form ? Certainly not ; his merits were in fine arrangements of forms and colors, blended into those admirable unities which constitute his pictures.

But who in the world can prove that he was a fine composer, or a fine colorist ? that his arrangements were good ? that his pictures are admirable unities ? Nobody can demonstrate these things, which in their very nature are as incapable of demonstration as the beauty of an air in music ; and yet these things are the very essence of art. The writer on art can therefore never speak with the authority which belongs to the teacher of science, who announces what he can prove, and what the hearer can verify for himself. But if a prudent writer on art 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 enlightenment 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 necessary in artistic matters, where so much is artificial, and where natural truth, even when it is perfectly ascertainable, is such an insufficient guide.

I owe much to my predecessor Mr. Thornbury, whose x Preface.

life of Turner, though hastily written, is full of interesting material. I have not thought it right to take all the plums out of Mr. Thornbury's book, which will still be consulted by those who are interested in Turner, but I thought there was room for another biography executed more at leisure. I have taken my time about this, and brought it gradually to its present form, believing that it omits nothing of essential importance.

Mr. Ruskin's enthusiasm for Turner has also been a valuable help to me ; perhaps all the more valuable that I do not fully share it. I do not, like Mr. Ruskin, consider 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.

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 encouragement. — Beginnings in art. — Early study of architecture. — Academic training.— Early practice in portrait-painting. — A professional commencement.— Turner's luck in life

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 . . .88

CHAPTER VL

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, 18 12. — 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, 181 5. — Dido building Carthage. — Other classical pictures. — Turner and Scott. — Oil pictures of 18 18. — Pictures of 1819. — Rome from the Vatican. — Whitaker's History of Richmondshire 148

Chapter IX

Transition to color. — Turner as a traveller. — His system of study . 176

Chapter X

Rivalry with Wilson. — The Bay of Baiae. — The Rivers of England. — Provincial Antiquities. — England and Wales. — The Ports of England.— The " Cologne." — Works from sketches by others. — Separate plates. — Transactions with Cooke. — Pictures exhibited in 1827 . . 197

CHAPTER XL

Journey to Italy, 1828. — The Polyphemus. — Death of Turner's father. — The illustrations to Rogers. — Scotland revisited, 1830 . . . 221

Contents. xiii

Chapter XII

The Rivers of France. — Turner's architecture. — Inaccuracy of other artists. — The Rivers of France — color. — The Rivers of France — Turnerian charm _ 239

Chapter XIII

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. — Turner's technical carelessness. — The Golden Bough. — The Venice pictures. — An American criticism. — French enthusiasm. — Illustrations to Milton. — Mercury and Argus. — The Phryne. — Turner and Mr. Bohn. — Switzerland and Italy. — The Agrippina. — Illustrations to " The Epicurean " 260

Chapter XIV

The Temeraire. — The Bacchus and Ariadne. — The Snow-storm. — The Slave-Ship. — Latter years of Turner. — Pictures of 1842. — Tendency to the formless. — Dregs of life. — Last excursion on the Continent. — Disabled. — Turner's death. — Funeral at St. Paul's. — Turner's care for his own fame. — Rivalry with Claude 286

Chapter XV

Celebration by Mr. Ruskin. — Ruskin's " Modern Painters." — Mr. 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 color. — Turner's imagination. — Taste. — Resume.— Danger of Turner-worship. — Past and future of landscape-painting 316

Chapter XVI

Turner's character and habits. — Turner's manners. — Religion and morality. — Temperance and intemperance. — Turner's generosity. — Turner's will. — Works of art left to the nation. — Conclusion . . 364

Note. — Mr. Ruskin's Teaching 397

General Index 399

Index to Turner's Works alluded to 402

THE LIFE OF J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

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 Encouragement. — Beginnings in Art — Early Study of Architecture. — Academic Training. — Early Practice in Portrait-Painting. — A Professional Commencement. — Turner's Luck in Life.

,PHE 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 ascertained about the poet which the admirer of his genius would greatly care to know, or else the personal character and history of the poet himself seem inferior to the ideal of him which is suggested by the noble beauty of his works. We are unreasonable in our expectations of general perfection in those who have much delighted us, and enlarged our experience of sublime or sweet emotion. We forget too easily that what seems to us so admirable and wonderful in them, the divine creative power, is often a very costly gift to the mortal who has received it at his birth ; that it tyrannizes over him until most of his faculties are absorbed in it, and that it entirely destroys that happy equilibrium which enables men to do, under all circumstances, what public opinion would decide to be precisely reasonable and becoming. The old popular belief in the eccentricity of genius, which sometimes took the form of unsympathizing sarcasm or half-contemptuous banter, and sometimes, in kinder souls, was the origin of an especial indulgence for many errors and shortcomings, had deeper foundations in the constitution of human nature than certain unimaginative persons of our own generation appear willing to admit. The opinion which tends to prevail at the present day is a reaction from the opinion of our forefathers. They believed that genius implied, if it did not authorize, an independence of common rules which society would be little disposed to tolerate in people of ordinary endowment. We, on the contrary, like our men of genius to be exactly like other respectable people, both in education and in habits of life, and we like it to be supposed that they can readily conform in all respects to the exigencies of established usage. It is quite true that they do not declare war against Society with the fierce disdain of Byron or the indignant revolt of Shelley, nor do they generally affect any 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. 3

slight and at long intervals, and that there are lives as quietly devoted to high pursuits as that which was ied 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 purpose 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 regularity of the " unhasting, unresting " stars. The ultimate results were a great fame and a great fortune, and such a colossal " oeuvre " as no other landscape-painter ever left behind him, if both quantity and quality are considered. The celebrity of the great artist is still increasing steadily. Every year adds to the number of those who are cultivated 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, perhaps, 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 perfection above groves of the oriental plane, on the last wave of green land between the purple mountains and the cerulean southern sea. In such a birthplace the marvelous child might have inhaled beauty like the air, and as he grew from infancy to youth, from youth to manhood, might have accumulated in his memory a great store of wonderful unpainted pictures, to be realized by him afterwards in his art, when the skill in it came to him with time. Or, again, had the Muse been utterly unwise and left to her own unwisdom, she might have placed the child far away from all cities whatever, in the heart of some lovely land in the happiest of climates, where, day by day, the warm sun awakened a sparse Arcadian population, nestling here and there in the

The Birth of a Landscape-Painter. 5

windings of their sweet vales. A foolish Muse might have fancied that the lovelier the land round about the child, the fairer would be his performance ; that if his eyes were saturated with beauty through every sunny day and every moonlight night, he would produce beauty by necessity, as a barrel will yield you wine if it has been filled with it after the vintage.

But however Providence acts with us, whether it be by determining specially where a child is to be born, or simply by so arranging matters that there is a certain proportion of babies of genius, whose faculties will be developed if circumstances happen to be propitious, and will remain for ever undeveloped if circumstances are unfavorable, the plain fact is that Turner was born in a situation really much better for him than those which we have just been imagining, or than any other which we should have been likely to imagine. It is, I know, a common error to conclude that circumstances have been favorable when men have achieved their* success by vigorously contending against them, but in this instance there is little danger of our falling into that mistake. Landscape-painting is the most recent of the fine arts, yet it is already old enough for us to have ascertained the social conditions which produce 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 beauty, it renrains satisfied with the sight of the natural objects themselves, and never attempts to express its feeling about them in works of art. Theodore Rousseau was one day painting a study of an oak-tree from nature, when a peasant accosted him and asked, with the usual disdain which rustics have for landscape-painters, what was the use of making an " image " of the tree, since he could look at the tree itself if he cared to see it ? This is exactly the rustic opinion about the uselessness of landscape art, when by accident the bucolic mind becomes aware that such an art exists. We may conclude, therefore, at once, that a landscape-painter must either be born in a town or else under the influences of a town. The next question is, whether it will be an advantage to him, as a landscape-painter, that he should see much human or architectural beauty in the town, such as was visible in the most glorious cities of Greece or Italy when men's bodies and surroundings looked their best, when beautiful costumes were often to be seen, and yet more beautiful nakedness, and when the poor man might lounge in the sunshine, and feast his eyes with the glory of palaces and temples, and radiant, god-like images, on which no soot-specks fell ? Here, again, the true answer to the question is not the answer which would naturally first occur. When the beauty of cities and of human life in them is sufficiently perfect to satisfy the taste of a town-born artist, he will probably paint the figure, and '

Turner s Birth and Circumstances. 7

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,v~ 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 conditions there is one which is absolutely essential — the child must be so situated that it will meet with the work of some previous landscape-painter; for art is always in great part a tradition, even when practised by the most original geniuses. There has never been an instance of a great artist suddenly arising in a community outside of artistic tradition. We speak loosely of artists who have lived in isolation, but the really isolated artist has never existed. This is so true that it is true even of the specialties of art. An accomplished landscape-painter could never be formed where there had not been a previous gradual development of landscape-painting to prepare the way for him, and educate him, even although the community were rich in sculptors and figure-painters. The early circumstances of Turner were apparently unfavorable, but in reality most favorable, to his development. 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 sense of beauty could never be satisfied by the aspect of the streets and people. Equally favorable 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 labor from his childhood, and held down to it afterwards by want ; this at least is so probable as to be almost a 'certainty, for Turner's genius discovered itself very gradually, and he had no explosive originality at the beginning. But what is quite a certainty is, the stifling of his gift in any English family of that time which had the slightest pretension to aristocracy. If Turner had been what is called a gentleman, he would have been exposed to influences which are as deadly to artistic genius as an unbreathable gas is to the animal organism. Without any open discussion of the subject, without so much as one act of rebellion on his part, he would have known, by the subtle instinctive perception of youth, that the pursuit of art involved a mysterious degradation, and in some vague, undefmable way, was disapproved of with wonderful unanimity by the public opinion of his class.

Condition of Landscape Art. 9

The gentry of that time were of two kinds, the educated and the uneducated ; the latter in strong majority. But it so happened that the education which was given to such as knew anything at all, left them as ignorant of the fine arts as their untaught, rustic brothers, whilst it gave them in addition, the pride of classical learning, from the serene height of which it seemed to them, that the fine arts were farther than ever beneath them. The calm conviction of the classically educated gentleman that he knew everything 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 voluminous 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 io The Life of y. M. W. Turner.

better for it, and " Dutch drolleries " or " conversation pieces" afforded some amusement in drawing-rooms. Beyond these ideas the general mind of the age was a perfect blank, so far as the art of painting was concerned, and it was not possible that the gentry of that day should think of it as a medium for the expression of noble imagination, of rare knowledge, or great thoughts.

Perhaps the lower middle class, in which Turner was born, had not any clearer understanding of the subject, but at any rate it was not prevented from touching brushes and color by the dread of losing its gentility. William Turner, the artist's father, had used a soft badger-brush for daily lathering of people's chins, and did not see any reason why his son should not use a tool not much unlike it upon canvas. The father had earned his living by manual labor of a skilful description, and so, in another way, might the son. It was of course impossible for Turner's father, or for any one else, to foresee the future greatness of his child ; for he was not precocious, as Landseer was, in the kind of art which he afterwards pursued. The elder Turner probably looked upon painting simply as a profession which might turn out to be lucrative, if the youth came to be skilful in portraiture.

The date of Turner's birth, as well as the locality of it, was highly favorable to the career he had before him. The whole art of landscape-painting had been prepared for the arrival of a great genius, who, after mastering all that had been done already, should extend its boundaries in the realm of nature ; and yet at the same time

Condition of Landscape Art. n