ART.
THE TURNER DRAWINGS.
[SECOND NOTICE.]
OF the three groups which we discussed in our last week's article on this gallery, two were concerned entirely with Switzerland and Italy ; and one, the first, with more or less experimental work of
various kinds, ranging from the elaborate study to the attempted imaginative sketch. In the next three groups, however, the sub- jects are entirely English, and though varying much in temper, are all marked by the most intense feeling for the quiet rural beauty which is the special characteristic of English scenery.
One or two superficial peculiarities of Turner's method of treating landscape may be noticed here, and amongst them his dislike to fresh green. Mr. Ruskin says in this catalogue that " no drawing exists founded frankly on that key of colour, nor is there any evidence of his having taken any pleasure in the colours of flowers." If our readers will take the trouble to examine from this point of -view any of the drawings here, they will find this assertion strictly
borne out ; and they will notice, with some surprise, we think, that this absence of green is never obtrusive or painful to us, even in scenes where its presence would seem most required. We do not profess to be able to give any explanation of this fact, but offer the two following suggestions for what they may be worth. First, that Turner's disuse of bright green proceeded not from any dis- like to the colour itself, but from the impossibility of combining it successfully with the general tone of his pictures. It will be found, on examining Turner's works, that they are almost without ex- -Ception founded upon the three primary colours. He either paints a blue picture, a yellow picture, or a red picture. In the blue pictures he rarely admits any brighter colour than a yellowish -or reddish-brown, in the yellow and red pictures his foliage is almost invariably bluish-grey and dull blackish-green. And secondly, he does not use bright green, because he does not need it in any way, for in nine cases out of ten, in Turner's foreground foliage the colours used are yellow and brown, and -these graduate into the blue of the distance, through pale, greenish yellow, and greenish grey. The yellow, red, and blue he would have, somehow, in his landscape, and if he could get them no other way, he did it by making his trees, figures, grass, and rocks the two first colours, and his distance, or sky, the third.
We begin our notice, then, with the fourth group, " England -at Rest,—Reality," as it is named in the catalogue, six drawings of great beauty, all belonging to what is known as the period of the Yorkshire series, when Turner was in his full power of -drawing and composition, though not as yet showing the mar- vellous effects of colour which were to come. The first of these drawings should be noticed by those who object to Turner's -drawing of figures and cattle, as those here introduced are very beautiful and of great value in the picture ; and in general, we think it will be found to be the case that Turner's figures are as good as there is any necessity for them to be. That is to say, that when they are only inserted in a landscape for the sake of forming patches of colour, or in order to lead the eye forward to some other point in composition, or to add to the general sentiment of the scene, and increase its peace, its sad- ness, or its brightness,—that in these cases they are often care- lessly drawn with a few rough touches ; but when it is part of Turner's plan to show the occupations and interests of the people in detail, there is little left to be required. Look at the various figures engaged in different farm duties in this picture, or at the dancing-girls in the " Richmond Bridge," or those in any of the vignette illustrations to Scott or Byron, and it will be seen clearly that though the figures are always kept subordi- nate to the landscape, as was necessary in Turner's scheme, yet they are distinctly an integral part of the picture. No. 26, "Eggleston Abbey."—In our opinion, this drawing—appar- ently a good deal faded—is the most beautiful one of this series, and the tree drawing of it would alone entitle it to that pre-eminence. The effect of misty sunshine, of which Mr. Ruskin speaks in the catalogue, is the point to which we would call our readers' attention. Turner has painted the sun and the sunlight in hundreds of his pictures, and in scores of different ways, but as far as we know, and we are familiar with the majority of his works, he has never painted quite the same beautiful effect of sunlight diffused in mist over the whole landscape as in this picture. There has nothing ever been painted in simple tran- script of a natural scene which surpasses this drawing of Eggleston Abbey. Of 27, " Richmond, Yorkshire," we shall only quote the end of Mr. Ruskin's description, to which nothing could be added in truth, and of which the terse eloquence would be ruined by amplification :—" There is no more lovely rendering of old Eng- lish life. The scarcely altered sweetness of hill and stream, the baronial ruins on their crag, the old-fashioned town, with the little gardens behind each house, the winding walks for pleasure along the river-shore,—all now devastated by the hell-blasts of avarice and luxury." No. 28, " Farnley," is one of the drawings Turner executed for his hosts while staying in their country houses. It is somewhat uninteresting in subject, though specially fine in execution, the distance of moorland redeeming the work from the charge of tameness. Nevertheless, there is over the whole picture a sort of air of having been done to order, and we feel sure that (as the catalogue says) the subject itself would not have interested Turner for a moment. The two next drawings (29 and 30), " The Summer-house" and " The Long Walk," are body-colour drawings on grey paper, very sober in tone, and the latter a quite unfinished, though powerful sketch. In " The Summer-house" there is some very fine drawing of tree-trunks.
"Fifth group, Reality,— England Disquieted." "The drawings we have hitherto examined have, without exception, expressed one consistent impression upon the young painter's mind,—that the world, however grave or sublime in some of its moods or passions, was nevertheless constructed entirely as it ought to be, and is a fair and noble world to live in and to draw. Waterfalls, he perceived, at Terni, did entirely right to fall; mountains at Bonn- vile and Florence did entirely right to rise ; monks at Fiesole did right to measure their hours ; lovers at Farnley to forget them; and the calm of Vesuvius was much more lovely, or its cone more lofty, by the intermittent blaze of its volcanic fire. But a time has now come when he recognises that all is not right with the world, a discovery contemporary probably with the more grave one that all was not right within himself. Howsoever, it came to pass that a strange and, in many respects, grievous metamor- phosis takes place upon him about the year 1825. Thenceforward he shows clearly the sense of a terrific wrongness and sadness, mingled in the beautiful order of the earth ; his work becomes partly satirical, partly reckless, partly—and in its greatest and noblest features—tragic."
We have quoted this passage entire for two reasons,—first, because it will give our readers a clearer notion as to the char- acter of the following drawings than anything we could say ; and secondly, because there is no small section of the public who totally misunderstand and fail to appreciate Turner's work, be- cause they do not know nor care to know the conditions of its pro- duction. To these latter persons, Turner is a man who produced a large number of confused pictures of bright colours and doubtful meaning, and who is absurdly over-rated by the mass of the English public; and it is well that if any such should chance to read our pages, they should learn that this was but the end of his life's work, and that for long years before he had produced picture after picture of delicacy and purity unrivalled. Not unlike to an autumn day was Turner's artistic life. A calm, bright morning, full of hopeful promise, deepened into a noontide of unutterable splendour, which, in its turn, was succeeded by the blaze of a stormy sun- set, at first more beautiful in its wild grandeur than morn or noon, but soon having its radiance confused and dimmed, and at last ob- scured entirely by the coming shadows. The first drawing in which the bitter temper alluded to in the above quotation from the cata- logue shows itself is No. 32, " Dudley Castle," where the castle and church-spire stand out dimly against the moonlight, whilst in the foreground there are the smoke and red glare of factory and furnace. There is no less great a difference between the work on this picture and on the former ones than in the subject, and it is noticeable that it is a difference in entire accordance with the spirit above alluded to. There is an insolence of power about this draw- ing, with its mingling of blue smoke, grey moonlight, and crimson fire, which we might look for in vain in his earlier work ; and there is besides very evidently a kind of cruel delight in exagger- ating all the more painful features of the scene,—the ruin of the castle, the isolation of the church, the confused dirt and heat of the factory-wharf, are all dwelt upon with savage insistence. Next to this hangs a drawing in many ways offering a complete contrast. No. 32, " Richmond Bridge, Surrey," is a bright, sunny drawing, the foreground filled with groups of figures. It is above everything a piece of colour, and in the treatment of the foreground there is still evident the wanton power which we noticed above. In the distant foliage, however, we have Turner at his best. In the trees beyond the bridge and the little clump by the island there is all the exquisite delicacy of execution of
• There is now a manufactory at the base of the castle.
the earlier work, with the added beauty of colouring which was now rapidly increasing in the painter's work. " Winchelsea " (No. 34), again, is another drawing of a similar class. In it the soldiers on the march and the foreground generally are roughly treated, with a crudeness of colouring which is excessively rare with this painter, while the storm in the distance and shaken trees are magnificent.
The next drawing we shall mention is " Devonport," a piece concerned with " the general relationships of Jack ashore." The distance and sky of this work are most exquisite, and it is, according to Mr. Ruskin, one of the most wonderful drawings ever executed by Turner. The sky is the most exquisite in my own entire collection of his drawings. It is quite consummately true, as all things are when they are consummately lovely. It is, of course, the breaking-up of the warm rain-clouds of summer, thunder passing away in the west, the golden light and melting blue mingled with yet falling rain, which troubles the water- surface, making it misty altogether in the shade to the left, but gradually leaving the reflection clearer under the warm, opening light.
With this quotation we must close our notice of the first five groups of these drawings, leaving all the greater works of colour to be hereafter spoken of. This fifth group is just the transition state between rest and unrest, between calmly beautiful nature and wildly magnificent composition. Henceforward men and their labours, their recreations and their dreams of poetry, formed Turner's chief subjects in completion of his landscapes ; and they consequently underwent a great change, being hence- forward almost invariably governed by some personal sentiment.
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