TThhee LLiiffee aanndd MMaasstteerrwwoorrkkss ooff JJ..MM..WW.. TTuurrnneerr EErriicc SShhaanneess TS Turner 4C Mar 26 2008.qxp 29/03/2008 11:22 AM Page 2 TTSS TTuurrnneerr 4ECN GM aPr- O2K6 2270 0M8a.rqcxhp 0 82.9q/x0p3 / 22070/80 3 /1210:0282 A1M2 : 0P0a gPeM 3 Page 3 The Life and Masterworks of J.M.W. Turner Eric Shanes TTSS TTuurrnneerr 4ECN GM aPr- O2K6 2270 0M8a.rqcxhp 0 82.9q/x0p3 / 240/0188 / 21010:82 2 5A:M0 7 PPaMg e P4age 4 Front cover illustration: AStorm (Shipwreck), 1823. Watercolour on white paper, 43.4 x 63.2 cm. The British Museum, London, U.K. Title page: Self-Portrait, c. 1798. Oil on canvas, 74.5 x 58.5 cm. Turner Bequest, Tate Britain, London, U.K. Back cover illustration: MARXBOURG and BRUGBERG on the RHINE, 1820. Watercolour on white paper, 29.1 x 45.8 cm. The British Museum, London, U.K. Text: Eric Shanes Layout: Baseline Co Ltd, 33 Ter - 33 Bis Mac Dinh Chi St., Star Building, 6thFloor District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam © Parkstone Press International, New York, USA © Confidential Concept, worldwide, USA CREDITS © The Trustees of the British Museum, p. 11, 14, 17, 22, 42, 49, 107, 129, 131, 134, 141, 148, 159, 174, 175, 178, 197, 199, 218 and cover Cecil Higgins Art Gallery, Bedford, p. 99, 142, 143 Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, p. 57 Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, USA, p. 64, 144, 149, 160 Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight, UK, p. 58, 172, 236 Courtesy of the National Gallery of Ireland Photo © the National Gallery of Ireland, p. 117 Photo © National Museums Liverpool: Walker Art Gallery, p. 130, 173 Royal Academy of Arts, London, p. 86 © Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum, p. 95, 186, 187 Tate Britain, p. 3, 18, 30, 33, 38, 41, 45, 54, 61, 62, 67, 68, 76, 89, 100, 103, 111, 115, 116, 122, 124, 127, 137, 147, 152, 153, 155, 163, 164, 170, 177, 184, 185, 192, 195, 196, 201, 202, 215, 216, 224, 226, 228, 241 Tate Gallery, p. 50 Victoria & Albert Museum, London, p. 25, 83, 240 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or adapted without the permission of the copyright holder, throughout the world. Unless otherwise specified, copyright on the works reproduced lies with the respective photographers. Despite intensive research, it has not always been possible to establish copyright ownership. Where this is the case we would appreciate notification. ISBN: 978-1-78042-959-5 TTSS TTuurrnneerr 4ECN GM aPr- O2K6 2270 0M8a.rqcxhp 0 82.9q/x0p3 / 22070/80 3 /1210:0282 A1M2 : 0P0a gPeM 5 Page 5 For two avid Turner admirers, Marilyn and Jeremy Roberts, with much love This book is a revised, expanded and updated fourth edition of Turner/The Masterworks by Eric Shanes which was first published in London in 1990. Note to the Reader: Throughout this book Turner’s original titles have been used for his paintings and watercolours, even where the spellings of names and words in those titles may differ from modern ones, or even from each other. Similarly, all original eighteenth or nineteenth-century spellings have been given below without the addition of the word ‘sic’. Short references to literature within the text allude to full citations in the Bibliography. The abbreviation “RA” stands for either Royal Academy or Royal Academician (depending on context), “ARA” for Associate Royal Academician and “PRA” for President of the Royal Academy. "TB" denotes works in the Turner Bequest, the vast holding of the painter's output in the collection of Tate Britain, London. Roman Numerals appearing after TB provide the Inventory numbers of sketchbooks or individual works within that bequest. TTSS TTuurrnneerr 4ECN GM aPr- O2K6 2270 0M8a.rqcxhp 0 82.9q/x0p3 / 22070/80 3 /1210:0282 A1M2 : 0P0a gPeM 6 Page 6 Contents Preface 9 The Life 15 The Masterworks 63 The Archbishop’s Palace, Lambeth The Pantheon, the morning after the fire Tom Tower, Christ Church, Oxford Interior of King John’s Palace, Eltham St Anselm’s Chapel, with part of Thomas-à-Beckets Crown, Canterbury Cathedral Welsh Bridge at Shrewsbury Fishermen at Sea Woolverhampton, Staffordshire Trancept of Ewenny Priory, Glamorganshire The Dormitory and Transcept of Fountain’s Abbey – Evening Warkworth Castle, Northumberland – thunder storm approaching at sunset The Chapter House, Salisbury Cathedral Dolbadern Castle, North Wales Caernarvon Castle, North Wales Dutch Boats in a Gale: Fishermen Endeavouring to put their Fish on Board Kilchern Castle, with the Cruchan Ben mountains, Scotland: Noon Interior of Salisbury Cathedral, looking towards the North Transept Calais Pier, with French Poissards preparing for Sea: an English Packet arriving Fall of the Reichenbach, in the valley of Oberhasli, Switzerland The Shipwreck Lake of Geneva, with Mont Blanc from the Lake The Thames near Walton Bridges Sun rising through Vapour; Fishermen cleaning and selling Fish Pope’s Villa at Twickenham Sheerness as seen from the Nore Bolton Abbey, Yorkshire Battle Abbey The Fall of an Avalanche in the Grisons Weymouth, Dorsetshire Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army crossing the Alps Ivy Bridge, Devonshire The Mew Stone at the Entrance of Plymouth Sound Mer de Glace, in the valley of Chamouni, Switzerland The Devil’s Bridge, St Gothard Crossing the Brook The Battle of Fort Rock, Val d’Aoste, Piedmont, 1796 Mont Blanc from Fort Roch, Val d’Aosta Dido building Carthage; or, the Rise of the Cathaginian Empire The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire The Vale of Ashburnham Wycliffe, near Rokeby Crook of Lune, looking towards Hornby Castle Simmer Lake, near Askrig Mount Vesuvius in Eruption The Field of Waterloo Dort, or Dordrecht, the Dort Packet-Boat from Rotterdam becalmed Weathercote Cave when half filled with water First-Rate, taking in stores Loss of an East Indiaman Borthwick Castle England: Richmond Hill on the Prince Regent’s Birthday MARXBOURG and BRUGBERG on the RHINE Passage of Mont Cenis More Park, near Watford, on the River Colne Norham Castle, on the River Tweed Dover Castle AStorm (Shipwreck) Roslin Castle TTSS TTuurrnneerr 4ECN GM aPr- O2K6 2270 0M8a.rqcxhp 0 82.9q/x0p3 / 22070/80 3 /1210:0282 A1M2 : 0P0a gPeM 7 Page 7 Rye, Sussex Totnes, on the River Dart Boscastle, Cornwall The Battle of Trafalgar Rise of the River Stour at Stourhead Grenoble Bridge Portsmouth Richmond Hill Bolton Abbey Prudhoe Castle, Northumberland Richmond Castle and Town, Yorkshire Forum Romanum, for Mr Soane’s Museum Lancaster Sands The Seat of William Moffatt Esq., at Mortlake, Early (Summer’s) Morning Mortlake Terrace, the Seat of William Moffatt, Esq. Summer’s Evening Orfordness Petworth Park: Tillington Church in the Distance Salisbury, from Old Sarum Intrenchment Stonehenge Ulysees deriding Polyphemus - Homer’s Odyssey Stoneyhurst College, Lancashire Funeral of Sir Thomas Lawrence, a sketch from memory Northampton, Northamptonshire Traitor’s Gate, Tower of London Scio (Fontana de Melek, Mehmet Pasha) Loch Coriskin Mouth of the Seine, Quille-Bœuf The Golden Bough Temple of Minerva Sunias, Cape Colonna Venice, from the Porch of Madonna della Salute The Burning of the House of Lords and Commons, 16th October 1834 Flint Castle, North Wales Snow Storm, Avalanche and Inundation – a Scene in the Upper Part of Val d’Aousta, Piedmont Modern Italy – The Pifferari The Fighting ‘Temeraire’, tugged to her Last Berth to be broken up Ancient Rome: Agrippina landing with the Ashes of Germanicus Venice: the Bridge of Sighs Venice: AStorm in the Piazzetta Venice: the Grand Canal looking towards the Dogana Heidelberg, with a rainbow Heidelberg: sunset Slavers throwing overboard the Dead and Dying – Typhon coming on The Lake of Geneva with the Dent d’Oche: tending the vines Lake Lucerne: the Bay of Uri from above Brunnen The Blue Rigi: Lake Lucerne, sunrise The Red Rigi: Lake of Lucerne, sunset Snow Storm: Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth making signals in Shallow Water, and going by the Lead. The Pass of Faido Rain, Steam, and Speed – the Great Western Railway Whalers The Clyde Inverary Pier. Loch Fyne. Morning The Lungerer See, Switzerland The Lauerzersee, with the Mythens Yacht approaching the Coast Turner and his Critics 242 Selected Bibliography 248 Chronology 250 Index of Illustrations 252 TS Turner 4C Mar 26 2008.qxp 29/03/2008 11:22 AM Page 8 8 TTSS TTuurrnneerr 4ECN GM aPr- O2K6 2270 0M8a.rqcxhp 0 82.9q/x0p3 / 22070/80 3 /1210:0282 A1M2 : 0P0a gPeM 9 Page 9 Preface W e gaze across a vast lake surrounded by huge, gleaming mountains. In the distance a heavy storm has moved off, leaving in its wake an atmosphere brimming with moisture and a world beginning to steam in the brilliant dawn sunshine. Not far away a group of travellers which has been drenched by the storm while out on the waters is alighting from a small ferry boat, their belongings and cargo strewn across the beach. On the right a girl sniffles into a handkerchief, possibly crying over the spilt milk that lies before her but more probably because her recent, chillingly damp experience has given her a head cold. Further off more boats approach, while near the very tip of the headland in the far distance to the right can just be made out the chapel first created in 1388 and rebuilt in 1638 that was dedicated to the memory of the Swiss fighter for liberty, William Tell. Such is the immediacy of the image that one might be forgiven for thinking that it was made on the spot but that was certainly not the case. Instead, it was conjured forth from a very slight pencil drawing made by the lakeside, plus an amalgam of memories and observations that were not necessarily gleaned at this place. Above all it stemmed from an imagination that was powerful, passionate and prodigious. Nobody knows exactly when Joseph Mallord William Turner created Lake of Lucerne, from the landing place at Fluelen, looking towards Bauen and Tell’s chapel, Switzerland but it probably dates from around 1810, and thus some eight years after the twenty- seven year old artist had visited Switzerland. The work was developed in the medium of watercolour, a vehicle that before Turner had usually been employed far less expressively to communicate the dry facts about a place and its occupants. Because of the large size of the drawing, plus its combination of spatial breadth, intricate detail and wide tonal range, it might easily be mistaken for an oil painting. Such a misapprehension would only be intensified by the ornate gold frame that first enclosed the image and which has remained around it ever since. Turner certainly intended to mislead us in this way. Would anyone need to be told that The Lake of Lucerne, from the landing place at Fluelenis a work of art? Does it not inherently define what constitutes such an object? After all, an image of this quality could not have been made by just anyone. Clearly it must have been formed by a uniquely endowed individual possessed of outstanding visionary powers, a high degree of insight into the appearances and behaviour of the natural world (which of course includes our own species), a total command of pictorial language, an absolute rule over the medium chosen for its creation and, not least of all, a feeling for both enormous breadth and tiny detail, the latter of which was amassed by means of an extraordinary degree of patience. In an age like our own, when cultural, social and political levelling and relativism (not to mention critical cowardice) permits anything from a urinal to an empty room, some cuttings of pubic hair or an act of self-mutilation to constitute “a work of J.M.W. Turner, art”, a watercolour like the Lake of Lucerne, from the landing place at Fluelen still makes it clear Lake of Lucerne, from the landing place at that a true work of art presents us with something superhuman, exceptional and magical. Why these Fluelen, looking towards Bauen and Tell’s chapel, three things? Because any outstanding dramatic, musical, literary or visual work invariably draws Switzerland, signed on barrel to right JMWT, upon powers far beyond our own to lift us onto a plane that is more imaginatively powerful, c. 1810, exhibited R.A. 1815, watercolour over emotionally thrilling and intellectually stimulating than the mundane one we normally occupy. Like pencil with scratching-out, stopping-out and many of Turner’s other works, Lake of Lucerne, from the landing place at Fluelenelevates us to that gum arabic in original frame, 66 x 100 cm level most ardently and easily. (26 x 39 inches), Private Collection. 9 TTSS TTuurrnneerr 4ECN GM aPr- O2K6 2270 0M8a.rqcxhp 0 82.9q/x0p3 / 22070/80 3 /1210:0282 A4M: 2 7P aPgMe 1P0age 10 Turner: Preface It was with watercolours demonstrating exceptional qualities that Turner first attracted public attention in the early 1790s, before he had yet turned twenty. As time went on, and as he developed his abilities as an exceptional oil painter, draughtsman and printmaker as well as a watercolourist, so too appreciation of his works flourished, to the extent that by 1815, the very year in which Lake of Lucerne, from the landing place at Fluelen was first seen publicly, an anonymous writer could term the artist “The First Genius of the Day”. In an age of creative giants such as Beethoven, Schubert, Goethe, Byron, Keats, Delacroix et al., that was quite some compliment. Certainly it was not an overblown honour, for Turner does stand tall within such company. Moreover, his popularity has rarely diminished, even if his prices at auction did somewhat decrease between the 1920s and the 1960s. However, since then they have more than bounced back, to the extent that today his works regularly elicit huge prices at auction (as can be witnessed with the Lake of Lucerne, from the landing place at Fluelen, which fetched almost two million pounds when sold in London in July 2005). And beyond the marketplace there are vast numbers of art lovers whose admiration for Turner only grows by leaps and bounds. They simply cannot have too much of him. In 2000-2001 the present writer organised an exhibition of many of Turner’s finest watercolours at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in order to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the painter’s death in 1851. Almost 200,000 people flocked to the show during its eleven-week run; at peak times it could take up to four hours of patient standing in line to obtain entry. Moreover, an even more striking assertion of Turner’s popularity was provided early in 2007 when Tate Britain publicly appealed for funds to purchase the 1842 watercolour The Blue Rigi: Lake Lucerne, sunrisethat is reproduced on page 226 below. Of the £4,900,000 sterling that the museum needed for the acquisition to go through, £300,000 was sought directly from the public. Within just five weeks, admirers of Turner both within and beyond British shores had sent in almost double that sum in a ringing endorsement of the need to purchase such a drawing for a major public collection. Clearly, a great many people still recognise a wonderful work of art when they see one, and feel it belongs to them, rather than to some rich private collector. Yet this is not to say that the acute responsiveness to Turner has not been without its problems. Even in the artist’s own day there were many who could not stomach his daring. During the 1800s and 1810s he was severely criticised for his use of white, so much so that both he and other painters who followed directly in his footsteps were dubbed “the white painters”. Moreover, from the 1820s onwards the artist’s predilection for yellow led to many jokes and snide remarks being made in the newspapers about his pictures. When Turner combined intense yellows with fierce reds, blues and greens, journalistic comparisons abounded between his paintings and food, particularly scrambled eggs and salads. Then there was Turner’s dissolution of form within areas of intense light (which, in his late works, often took over entire images). Many members of a public that was becoming increasingly habituated to the intense verisimilitude of Pre-Raphaelite painting and/or Victorian bourgeois realism could not comprehend what was going on in a late-Turner canvas or watercolour. Even collectors who had previously lined up to purchase the latter kind of works found many of the artist’s late Swiss drawings difficult to understand and wouldn’t buy them. Such problems of visual comprehension could be greatly compounded by Turner’s lifelong construction of covert meanings. Only an entire book given over to this subject (such as the present writer’s 1990 publication, Turner’s Human Landscape) could even begin to do it justice. But it will J.M.W. Turner, suffice here to state that for Turner, landscape painting was a vehicle for expressing his responses to the The Founder’s Tower, Magdalen College, Oxford, immense variety of human experience, not just a means of stating his recognition that the world around 1793, watercolour, 35.7 x 26.3 cm, us is a beautiful or a terrifying place. One way of doing that was to resort to associationism, the creation The British Museum, London, U.K. of chains of ideas by means of visual linkage, metaphor, simile and punning. Because Turner was 10