Plate L.The "Sun of Venice" Going to Sea(1843) National Gallery
Plate L.The "Sun of Venice" Going to Sea(1843) National Gallery
Would he not look entranced at Turner's visions of Venice —four pictures showing how he progressed from topographical facts to impressions of the city fading in the sea, trailing the loveliness of her colour with her: from the hard 'Bridge of Sighs,' with the metallic blue sky, painted in 1833, to the magic 'San Benedetto' of ten years later, the golden sky flecked with crimson, and the golden pathway on the sea, an open gate leading to a land that exists only in the imagination of poets in words and in paint.
Claude would look at this golden path that 'lies o'er the sea invisible,' and at that other splendour, glorious still, though faded like the real Venice, called 'The "Sun of Venice" Going to Sea,' such a sea, such a fishing-boat sailing out from the rose-red city.
Claude would look, and his eyes would glisten, and he would make obeisance, and acknowledge the supremacy of his companion in these paintings of the loveliness and mystery of light and colour.
With the other Turners at the National Gallery Claude would feel on more equal ground, and while looking at 'Ancient Rome,' with the diaphanous buildings, he might murmur the title of his own 'Enchanted Castle,'—fantasy arising firmly from fact, not as in 'Ancient Rome,' fantasy accompanied by uncouth facts.
And Claude would realise the inequalities of 'The Meuse, Orange-Merchantmen going to pieces on the Bar,' the incomparable sky, and the grotesque and ill-drawn figures of the fishermen lolling in their boats; the glory of 'Orvieto,' in the sky, and the unsubstantially of the figures and the fountain in the foreground; the force and swing of the sea in 'Spithead,' and the impossible height of the waves; the loveliness and splendour of the panorama of nature in 'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,' and the futility of the 'party of pleasure' in the foreground; and—and—the tumbling splendour of 'Queen Mab's Grotto,' done when the old man was seventy-one, still ambitious, still ready at a moment's notice to realise the unrealisable.
Turner must explain to Claude, as henceforth officials must explain to bewildered visitors, that the works at the National Gallery are but a small part, not very representative, of his colossal life-work; that to see his achievement in all its astonishing variety, it is necessary to descend to the ground floor of the National Gallery, where a selection of the water-colours is still shown, and where the Sketch-Books are preserved, and then to make the journey to Millbank, home of the magnificence of Turner from the sombre masterpieces of his youth to the golden visions of his maturity—from his early experiments in tinted drawings to his last flashes of colour lost in light—works that have made the child who was born in a dark London court of a crazy mother and a chirpy father—immortal.
INDEXWORKS REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT'ABINGDON,'63,82.'Æneas Relating his Story to Dido,'230.'Ancient Italy,'190.'Ancient Rome,'194,281,283'Angel Standing in the Sun, The,'275.'Apollo Killing the Python,'87,88.'Apuleia in search of Apuleius,'100.'Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth,'31.'Arundel Castle,'133.'Arundel Park,'133.'BAY OFBAIÆ,'125-127.'Barnard Castle,'140.'Bellinzona,'201.'Between Decks,'141,143.'Blacksmith's Shop, The,'69.'Bligh Sand,'79,273.'Bonneville,'109.'Bough, The Golden,'173.'Bridge and Tower,'182.'Bridge of Sighs, The,'168,281.'Brighton, Old Chain Pier,'101.'Bridgewater Sea Piece,'279.'Brienz, Lake of,'91,211.'Brougham Castle,'133.'Burning of the Houses of Parliament,'183.'Burning of the Pantheon,'35.'Burning of the Ships,'181,199,202.'Buttermere Lake,'40,279.'CALAIS PIER,'51-54,272.'Caligula's Palace and Bridge,'164'Carnarvon Castle,'41,269.'Carthaginian Empire, Decline of,'110,130.'Caudebec,'171.'Chichester Canal,'152.'Childe Harold's Pilgrimage,'167,280.'Christchurch Gate, Canterbury,'36.'Church of SS. Giovanni e Paolo,'117.'Clapham Common, View on,'49,269.'Cochem on the Moselle, Sketch of,'160.'Cologne, Arrival of a Packet Boat,'138.'Coniston Old Man,'274,278.'Conway Castle,'46.'Constantine, Arch of,'198.'Cowes Castle, East,'140.'Cowes, Regatta at,'143.'Crook of the Lune,'110.'Crossing the Brook,'89,104,119,120,272.'DELUGE, THE,'97.'Departure of the Trojan Fleet,'236.'Depositing of Bellini's Pictures in the Redentore,'200.'Derwentwater,'39.'Dido and Æneas Leaving Carthage,'100.'Dido Building Carthage,'101,131.'Dolbadern Castle,'41.'Dordrecht,'80.'Dover Castle,'133.'Dutch Boats in a Gale,'48.'EDINBURGH FROM THE CALTON HILL,'112.'FIRE AT SEA,'173,272.'Fishermen Coming Ashore at Sunset,'42.'Fishing Boats in a Stiff Breeze,'48.'Folly Bridge and Bacon's Tower,'28.'Frosty Morning, A,'95,97,98,119.'GARRETEER'S PETITION,'79.'Goarhausen and Katz Castle,'109.'HANNIBAL CROSSING THE ALPS,'93.'Harbour of Dieppe, The,'135.'Hastings,'9,134,181,182.'Havre, Sunset in the Fort of,'171.'Helvoetsluys,'167.'Hève, The Light Towers of,'171.'Heysham,'113.'Holy Family,'51.'Hornby Castle,'110.'Hesperides, Garden of the,'62,63.'INNSBRUCK,'91.'Interior of a Kitchen,'24.'Italian Tower, Sketch of,'91,150.'JASON IN SEARCH OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE,'48.'Jumiéges,'171.'Juliet and her Nurse,'186.'KIRKSTALL ABBEY,'40,133.'LAKE WITH DISTANT HEADLAND AND PALACES,'199.'Lancaster Sands,'118.'Launceston,'145.'Lifeboat Going off to Stranded Vessel,'166.'Line Fishing off Hastings,'183.'London from Greenwich,'79.'Lord Percy under Attainder,'165.'Lorreli, Twilight in the,'229.'Lowther Castle,'84.'Lucerne and the Righi—Early Dawn,'205.'Lucerne from Fluelen, Lake of,'199.'Lucerne, Lake of,'113.'MACON, FESTIVAL UPON THE OPENING OF THE VINTAGE OF,'54.'Mercury and Argus,'186.'Mercury and Herse,'87.'Mercury Sent to Admonish Æneas,'236.'Medway, The,'133.'Meuse, Orange Merchantmen, The,'115,228.'Minotaur, Wreck of the,'84.'Modern Italy,'190.'Moon, the New,'153,194,199.'Moonlight, a Study at Millbank,'41,269.'More Park,'133.'Morning on the Coniston Fells,'40,41,269.'Mortlake Terrace,'140,144.'Moselle, View on the,'175.'Mountain Stream, A,'82,269.'NELSON, THE DEATH OF,'71,72,73,272.'Nemi, Lake of,'100.'Newport Castle,'38.'Norham Castle,'40,124,274.'Norham Castle, Sunrise,'9,39,181,182.'ORVIETO,'5,6,147.'PANTHEON, THE MORNING AFTER THE FIRE,'35.'Peace, Burial of Wilkie,'276.'Pent House, Dover,'35.'Petworth House, Dewy Morning,'84.'Park, Evening at,'133.——Interior at,'157-159,262,273,276.——Men Chatting Round the Fire at,'279.'Petworth, Teasing the Donkey at,'279.'Phyrne Going to the Bath,'191.'Portrait of Turner,'269.'QUEEN MAB'S GROTTO,'10,225,282.'Quellebœuf,'171.'RAIN, STEAM, AND SPEED,'214,276.'Ravine and Tower,'273.'Regatta at Cowes,'143.'Rembrandt's Daughter,'80,140,143.'Rhine, Study on the,'182.'Richmond Hill,'115,272.'River Scene with Castle,'78,273.'Rocky Bay with Figures,'154,180,181.'Rockets and Blue Lights,'198.'Rome from the Vatican,'116,118.'Ruysdael, Fishing-Boats Bringing DisabledShip to Port,'217.'ST. DENIS,'171.'St. Michael's Mount,'101,173.'San Benedetto,'207,281.'Scarborough,'91.'——Castle,'133.'Seelisberg, Moonlight,'211.'Seine Between Tancarville and Quellebœuf, The,'171.'Shields, North,'133.'Shipping at Cowes,'142.'Shipwreck, The,'59-61,272,279.'Ship Aground, A,'161,276.'Slave Ship, The,'197,198.'Snowstorm, Avalanche, and Inundation,'188.'Snowstorm, Steamboat off Harbour's Mouth,202,203,273.'Spietz on the Lake of Thun,'206.'Spithead,'79,282.'Star, The Evening,'152,153,181,262.'Stonehenge at Sunset,'57.'Study for a Picture of Norham Castle,'39.'Sunrise, a Castle on a Bay,'154,180.——with a Boat Between Headlands,'181,182.——with a Sea Monster,'181,219,262.'Sun Rising Through Vapour, The,'61,69,119.'Sunshine on the Sea,'274.'"Sun of Venice" Going to Sea,'207,281'Swiss Lake, A,'201.'TELL'S CHAPEL, FLUELEN,'221.'Téméraire, The Fighting,'193,194.'Tenth Plague of Egypt,'41,272.'Tintern Abbey,'35.'Tivoli,'198.'Totnes on the Dart,'133.'Town, View of A,'269.'Tree-tops and Sky,'59.'Turin from the Church of the Superga,'109.'ULYSSES DERIDING POLYPHEMUS,'151,152,272.'VALE D'AOSTA, IN THE'199.'Valley with Mountains,'274,278.'Van Tromp's Barge at the Entrance of the Texel,'165.'Venice,'198.'Venice, Approach to,'217.'Venice from the Church of Madonna della Salute,'183,184.'Venetian Fishing Boat, The,'195,196,274.'Vernon to Nantes, the Post Road from,'171.'Via Mala,'273.'Visit To The Tomb,'236.'WALHALLA, OPENING OF THE,'209.'War: Exile and Rock Limpet,'203.'Warkworth Castle,'40.'Waterloo, The Field of,'112.'Watteau Painting,'165.'Whalers,'219.'What You Will,'124.'Wilkie, Burial of,'276.'Windsor,'32.——castle from the River,'59'Windmill and Lock,'75.'YACHT RACING IN THE SOLENT,'142.