THE YEARS OF DECLINE—AND THE END

Plate XXXV.San Benedetto, Looking Towards Fusina(1843) National Gallery

Time has been cruel to both these Venetian pictures, perhaps cruel only to be kind. Even in Ruskin's time much of the transparency had gone; but there they are, dreams of Venice; not the Venice we see, not the Venice that Canaletto saw, but the Venice that floated before the eyes of Turner, that blossomed in the imagination of an old man nearing his seventieth year. I suppose we must call the other pictures of 1843 failures, but only because he tried to express the inexpressible—such themes as 'The Evening of the Deluge' and 'The Morning After,' with Moses writing the book of Genesis, mixed up with Goethe's theory of Light and Colour, and accompanied by an extract from theFallacies of Hope:—

'The ark stood firm on Ararat: the returning sunExhaled earth's humid bubbles, and emulous of light,Reflected her lost forms, each in prismatic guise.'

In this year, too, he exhibited 'The Opening of the Walhalla,' which has been banished to the honourable seclusion of the Dublin National Gallery. This Doric temple, erected on a hill overlooking the Danube, containing two hundred marble busts of eminent Germans, had been opened by King Ludwig of Bavaria in theprevious year. The idea inspired Turner; he painted a characteristic picture of the ceremony and sent it to King Ludwig, who returned the gift with the comment that he did not understand it. Poor Turner! Munich would be well content to own the 'Walhalla' now.

In 1843 the first volume ofModern Painterswas published, which 'originated,' as Ruskin tells us, 'in indignation at the shallow and false criticisms of the periodicals of the day of the works of the great living artist to whom it principally refers.' The second volume was not published until 1846; the third and fourth in 1856, and the fifth and last volume of this 'enormous work of thought, inspiration, sincerity and devotion' in 1860.

We have it on the authority of Thornbury, that Turner was vexed at Ruskin's panegyrics, and said, 'The man put things into my head I never thought of.' I doubt if Turner was vexed at the panegyrics, but it is quite certain that Ruskin's imagination saw things in the pictures that Turner never 'thought of.' Turner was a man of deeds, not of thoughts. He worked with his eyes, hand, and spirit: he was Nature's lover. It is certain, too, that after the first irritation felt by his contemporaries at some of the wilder works of Turner's later years had cooled, his fame would have steadily increased, and would have been as high as it is to-day, hadModern Paintersnever been written.

Plate XXXVI.The Seelisberg—Moonlight. Water colour(about1843) In the collection of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq. (Size, 11 x 9)

Neither that wonderful book, nor any other book, could serve Turner. Only he himself could have produced that fantasy,exquisite and intelligible, called 'The Seelisberg: Moonlight,' or the study, purple, gold and blue, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, of a lake, perhaps Brienz, enclosed by snowy peaks, with the wraith of a castle in the foreground, and the moon in the blue sky. He went his own way, and perhaps on the very day that he should have been reading the glowing periods ofModern Painters, hailing him as a sort of superman, he was the chief actor in that scene on board the old Margate steamer, watching the effect of the sun, and the boiling foam in the wake of the boat, and at luncheon-time eating shrimps out of an immense silk handkerchief laid across his knees. And while he was eating shrimps and watching the movement of the water, those who had reached the end of the first volume ofModern Painterswere perhaps reading with shining eyes and lifted hearts the concluding passage about 'the great artist whose works have formed the chief subject of this treatise':—

'In all that he says, we believe: in all that he does, we trust.... He stands upon an eminence, from which he looks back over the universe of God, and forward over the generations of men. Let every work of his hand be a history of the one, and a lesson to the other. Let each exertion of his mighty mind be both hymn and prophecy; adoration to the Deity, revelation to mankind.'

That is Ruskin at his finest: here is Turner at his—well, as Turner.

A Mr. Hammersley, who visited him about this time in Queen Anne Street, described how he heard the shambling, slippered footstep coming down the stairs, the cold, cheerless room, the gallery, even less tidy and more forlorn, all confusion, mouldiness and wretched litter; most of the pictures covered with uncleanly sheets, and the man! 'his loose dress, his ragged hair, his indifferent quiet—all indeed that went to make his physique and some of his mind, but above all I saw, felt (and feel still) his penetrating gray eye.'

1844: AGED SIXTY-NINE

The Sketch-Books of 1844 tell the happy story of continental rambles, with flashes of humour, such as this written in pencil against a water-colour of 'Rockets': 'Coming events cast their lights before them.'

He is at Lucerne, Thun, Interlaken, Lauterbrunnen, Grindelwald, Meiringen, Rheinfelden and Heidelberg and each book has its numerous sketches.

To show how unwearyingly this veteran pursued beauty, I quote in full the titles of the drawings in the short 'Lucerne' Sketch-Book, which has not been broken up:—

Page 1. Lake and sky. Water-colour.„ 2. do. do.„ 3. do. do.„ 4-9. Blank„ 10. Lake and sky. Water-colour.„ 11. do. Stormy weather. Water-colour.„ 12. The Righi: storm clearing off. Water-colour.„ 13. A Stormy sunset. Water-colour.„ 14. The Rockets. Water-colour. Written in pencil inmargin—'Coming events cast their lights beforethem.'„ 15. The blue Righi. Water-colour.„ 16. The red Righi.„ 17. The rain, with rainbow. Water-colour.„ 18. The rainbow. Water-colour.„ 19. Clearing up a little. Water-colour.„ 20. Still raining. Water-colour.„ 21. The rainbow. Water-colour.„ 22. A gleam of sunshine. Water-colour.„ 23. Sunset. Water-colour.„ 24. The Righi. Water-colour. (18 leaves drawn on.)

Plate XXXVII.Rain, Steam, and Speed(1844) Tate Gallery

The exhibited pictures included that masterpiece in impressionism, 'Rain, Steam, and Speed.' Turner's whole life may be said to have been a preparation for thistour de force; all the knowledge that he had acquired, all the facts that he had accumulated, are used in this brilliant synthesis of the effect upon the eye of rushing movement through atmosphere. Has Claude Monet, who acknowledged the impulse he received from studying Turner in 1870, ever visualised movement, light and atmosphere in one impression, as did this wonderful Turner in his seventieth year? But though his power to express a fleeting vision was at its height in this picture, his ability to express his thoughts was as stumbling asever, shown by the following—printed with other letters by Sir Walter Armstrong in his volume on Turner:—

'47Queen Anne Street,Dec. 28th,1844.'Dear Hawkesworth,—First let me say I am very glad to hear Mrs. Fawkes has recovered in health so as to make Torquay air no longer absolute, and that the Isle of Wight will, I do trust, completely establish her health and yours (confound the gout which you work under), tho' thanks to your perseverance in penning what you did, and likewise for the praises of a gossiping letter, thanks to Charlotte Fawkes, who said you thought of Shanklin, but you left me to conjecture solely by the postmark Shanklin—Ryde— so now I scribble this to the first place in the hope ofthankingyour kindness in the remembrance of me by the Yorkshire Pie equal good to the olden time of Hannah's culinary exploits.'Now for myself, the rigours of winter begin to tell upon me, rough and cold, and more acted upon by changes of weather than when we used to trot about at Farnley, but it must be borne with all the thanks due for such a lengthened period.'I went, however, to Lucerne and Switzerland, little thinking of supposing such a cauldron of squabbling, political or religious, I was walking over. The rains cameon early so I could not cross the Alps, twice I tried, was sent back with a wet jacket and worn-out boots, and after getting them heel-tapped, I marched up some of the small valleys of the Rhine and found them more interesting than I expected.'Now do you keep your promise and so recollect that London is not so much out of nearest route to Farnley now ... Shanklin, and (I) do feel confoundedly mortified in not knowing your location when I was once so near you, for I saw Louis Philippe land at Portsmouth.—Believe me, dear Hawkesworth, Yours most sincerely,'J. M. W. Turner.'

'47Queen Anne Street,Dec. 28th,1844.

'Dear Hawkesworth,—First let me say I am very glad to hear Mrs. Fawkes has recovered in health so as to make Torquay air no longer absolute, and that the Isle of Wight will, I do trust, completely establish her health and yours (confound the gout which you work under), tho' thanks to your perseverance in penning what you did, and likewise for the praises of a gossiping letter, thanks to Charlotte Fawkes, who said you thought of Shanklin, but you left me to conjecture solely by the postmark Shanklin—Ryde— so now I scribble this to the first place in the hope ofthankingyour kindness in the remembrance of me by the Yorkshire Pie equal good to the olden time of Hannah's culinary exploits.

'Now for myself, the rigours of winter begin to tell upon me, rough and cold, and more acted upon by changes of weather than when we used to trot about at Farnley, but it must be borne with all the thanks due for such a lengthened period.

'I went, however, to Lucerne and Switzerland, little thinking of supposing such a cauldron of squabbling, political or religious, I was walking over. The rains cameon early so I could not cross the Alps, twice I tried, was sent back with a wet jacket and worn-out boots, and after getting them heel-tapped, I marched up some of the small valleys of the Rhine and found them more interesting than I expected.

'Now do you keep your promise and so recollect that London is not so much out of nearest route to Farnley now ... Shanklin, and (I) do feel confoundedly mortified in not knowing your location when I was once so near you, for I saw Louis Philippe land at Portsmouth.—Believe me, dear Hawkesworth, Yours most sincerely,

'J. M. W. Turner.'

Another blow fell upon Turner this year. The Mr. Hammersley aforementioned visited him again in Queen Anne Street, and gives the following account:—

'Our proceedings resembled our proceedings on the former visit, distinguished from it, however, by the exceeding taciturnity, yet restlessness of my great companion, who walked about and occasionally clutched a letter which he held in his hand. I feared to break the dead silence, varied only by the slippered scrape of Turner's feet, as he paced from end to end of the dim and dusty apartment. At last he stood abruptly, and turning to me, said, "Mr. Hammersley, youmustexcuse me, I cannot stay another moment; the letter I hold in my hand has just been givento me, and it announces the death of my friend Callcott." He said no more; I saw his fine gray eyes fill as he vanished, and I left at once.'

The loss of friends set his mind dwelling upon the past, and it was no doubt in gratitude to all he owed to Ruysdael that he painted and exhibited this year the vivacious sea-piece now in the National Gallery, which he called 'Fishing-Boats Bringing a Disabled Ship into Port Ruysdael.' Needless to say, there is no such port anywhere. He also exhibited the beautiful Approach to Venice' in the possession of Sir Charles Tennant; and—the old man twice tried to cross the Alps on foot, referred to in the above letter, which is almost as wonderful as painting a picture. It would seem that he really succeeded in the enterprise if 'passed' means 'crossed,' as in the 'Grindelwald' Sketch-Book, against a drawing of mountains, is the following scrawl:—

'No matter what bef [? befell] Hannibel—W.B. and J.M.W.T. passed the Alps from [? near] Fombey [?] Sep. 3, 1844.'

1845: AGED SEVENTY

Now, when he is nearing his decline, Turner is described as stooping very much, and looking down. Thinking of Turner 'looking down,' I recall the story that came to Sir Walter Armstrong from Mr. Stopford Brooke: how some one who knew Turner, at least by sight, was one day passing along the wharves beyond the Palace of Westminster, when he noticed the figure of a sturdy man in black squatting on his heels at the river's edge, and looking down intently into the water. Passing on, he thought for the moment no more about it. But on his return, half an hour later, the figure was still there, and still intent in the same way. That watcher was Turner, and the object of his interest was the pattern made by the ripples at the edge of the tide.

Ruskin says that this year his health, and with it in great degree, his mind, failed suddenly. And to Ruskin we owe this pathetic passage:—

'The last drawing in which there remained a reflection of his expiring power, he made in striving to realise, for me,one of these faint and fair visions of the morning mist fading from the Lake of Lucerne.'"There ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand ...For what is your life?"'

'"There ariseth a little cloud out of the sea like a man's hand ...For what is your life?"'

Plate XXXVIII.Sunrise With a Sea Monster(about1845) Tate Gallery

And Turner was going his own way, making his little jokes. On June 31st, 1845, he wrote to Mr. E. Bicknell of Heme Hill:—

'My Dear, SIR,—I will thank you to call in Queen Anne Street at your earliest convenience, for I have a whale or two on the canvas.'

This letter, of course, referred to the 'Whalers' pictures, exhibited in 1845 and 1846.

The 'Whalers' Sketch-Book contains drawings of 'Steamer Leaving Harbour,' 'Burning Blubber,' 'Whalers at Sea,' 'Study of Fish,' etc. Perhaps he made a voyage; perhaps he talked with sailors in one of his haunts at Wapping, and learnt from them of the wonders of the deep waters related by Arctic voyagers. However the idea or the vision came he now makes sketches of whaling subjects and paints pictures of 'Whalers,' one of which is in the Turner Gallery, four boats' crews attacking their prey with harpoons, and in the background are the white sails of their vessels, dimly seen through mists and snow wreaths. The imaginative 'Sunrise with a Sea Monster' probably belongs to the 'Whalers' period. On the misty waters of the ocean, reflecting a yellow sunrise, a sea monster, with a head like a magnified red gurnet, advances, the huge head towering out of the water. In the distanceare forms suggesting icebergs.Punchhad a genial sneer at a 'Whalers' picture:—

'It embodies one of those singular effects which are only met with in lobster salads and in this artist's pictures. Whether he calls his picture "Whalers" or "Venice," or "Morning," or "Noon," or "Night," it is all the same; for it is quite as easy to fancy it one thing as another.'

Thornbury is responsible for the following:—

'I am afraid the tradition is too true, that that great and bitter satirist of poor humanity's weaknesses, Mr. Thackeray, had more than a finger in thus lashing the dotage of a great man's genius. Long after, I have heard that Mr. Thackeray was shown some of Turner's finest water-colour drawings, upon which he exclaimed: "I will never run down Turner again." But the blows had already gone to the old man's heart, and it did no good to lament them then.'

In the Sketch-Books of 1845 and 1846, we find him at 'Folkestone,' 'Hythe and Walmer,' 'Ambleteuse and Wimereux,' 'Boulogne,' 'Eu and Treport,' 'Dieppe,' and back again at 'Folkestone.' In the last of all the Sketch-Books, 'Kent,' 1845-46, when Turner was over seventy, is this against a drawing of 'Houses and Church':

'May 30. Margate, a small opening along the horizon marked the approach of the sun by its getting yellow,' etc.

Plate XXXIX.Tell's Chapel, Fluelen. Water colour(1845) In the collection of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq. (Size, 11 3/8 x 9)

A little later in this valedictory Sketch-Book is the following in his own handwriting:—

'May. Blossoms. Apple, Cherry, Lilac,Small white flowers in the Hedges,in Clusters, D. Blue Bells,Buttercups and daisies in the fields,Oak, Warm, Elm G., Ash, yellow,' etc.

With that utterance of joy in nature we may take our leave of the Sketch-Books, and of the close of the great period of Turner, thinking of small white flowers in the hedges, buttercups and daisies in the fields, seen by his old eyes, and recorded tremblingly in his last Sketch-Book. There is no sign of trembling in the exquisite vision of 'Tell's Chapel—Fluelen,' his adieu to Switzerland, perhaps the last water-colour from his hand.

1846-1851

1846: AGED SEVENTY-ONE

The story of Turner's art life really ended in the last chapter: there is little more to tell, yet 'Queen Mab's Grotto,' which he exhibited at the British Institution in 1846, flickers with the old splendour. The sultry arch of trees in the foreground, the golden castle rising to the sky, have something of the old witchery, and the mundane fairies are more attractive than many of his clothed foreground fishermen. In this picture he rivalled nobody but himself, but the suggestion clearly came from Shakespeare, and it was the old man's pleasure to couple the names of Shakespeare and Turner in the catalogue, with this fromA Midsummer Night's Dream:—

'Frisk it, frisk it by the moonlight beam.'

And this from theFallacies of Hope:—

'Thy orgies, Mab, are manifold.'

The other pictures of this year have the old extravagance of title, little more. They were:—

'Hurrah for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish!''Undine giving the Ring to Massaniello, Fisherman of Naples.''The Angel Standing in the Sun,' with quotations from Revelation and the poet Rogers.'Whalers (boiling blubber) entangled in flaw ice, endeavouring to extricate themselves.''Returning from the Ball (St. Martha).''Going to the Ball (San Martino).'

'Hurrah for the Whaler Erebus! Another Fish!'

'Undine giving the Ring to Massaniello, Fisherman of Naples.'

'The Angel Standing in the Sun,' with quotations from Revelation and the poet Rogers.

'Whalers (boiling blubber) entangled in flaw ice, endeavouring to extricate themselves.'

'Returning from the Ball (St. Martha).'

'Going to the Ball (San Martino).'

His ambition was as buoyant as ever, and the look of his eyes as keen; but his hand was beginning to lose its power. Ruskin has this curt comment:—

'I shall take no notice of the three pictures painted in the period of his decline ("Undine," "The Angel Standing in the Sun," and "The Hero of a Hundred Fights"). It was ill-judged to exhibit them; they occupy to Turner's other works precisely the relation whichCount Robert of ParisandCastle Dangeroushold to Scott's early novels.'

One could continue indefinitely quoting Ruskin on Turner, ranging, as he does, through the whole gamut from eulogy to chastisement, from adoration to grief. Here is a passage that arrests me as I turn his pages: pathetic, but a wilful misunderstanding of Turner's temperament:—

'There is something very strange and sorrowful in the way Turner used to hint only at these under-meanings of his; leaving us to find them out, helplessly; and if we didnotfind them out, no word more ever came from him. Down to the grave he went, silent. "You cannot read me; you do not care for me; let it all pass; go your ways."'

Plate XL.Queen Mab's Grotto(1846) National Gallery

And here is a wail that is probably quite within the sad truth. In a note to the first volume ofModern Painters, after remarking sadly that 'Turner is exceedingly unequal,' that he has failed most frequently 'in elaborate compositions,' and that 'finding fault with Turner is not either decorous in myself or likely to be beneficial to the reader,' Ruskin continues:—

'The reader will have observed that I strictly limited the perfection of Turner's works to the time of their first appearing on the walls of the Royal Academy. It bitterly grieves me to have to do this, but the fact is indeed so. Nopictureof Turner's is seen in perfection a month after it is painted. The 'Walhalla' cracked before it had been eight days in the Academy rooms; the vermilions frequently lose lustre long before the Exhibition is over; and when all the colours begin to get hard a year or two after the picture is painted, a painful deadness and opacity come over them, the whites especially becoming lifeless, and many of the warmer passages settling into a hard valueless brown, even if the paint remains perfectly firm, which is far from being always the case. I believe that in some measure these results are unavoidable, the colours being so peculiarly blended and mingled in Turner's present manner, as almost to necessitate their irregular drying; but that they are not necessary to the extent in which they sometimes take place, is proved by the comparative safety of some even of the more brilliant works. Thus the "Old Téméraire" is nearlysafe in colour, and quite firm; while the "Juliet and Her Nurse" is now the ghost of what it was; the "Slaver" shows no cracks, though it is chilled in some of the darker passages, while the "Walhalla" and several of the recent Venices cracked in the Royal Academy.'

How the attacks and parodies of Turner must have pained Ruskin! This, for example, fromPunchon 'Venice, Morning, Returning from the Ball':—

'We had almost forgotten Mr. J. M. W. Turner, R.A., and his celebrated MS. poem, theFallacies of Hope, to which he constantly refers us, as "in former years"; but on this occasion, he has obliged us by simply mentioning the title of the poem, without troubling us with an extract. We will, however, supply a motto to his "Morning—Returning from the Ball," which really seems to need a little explanation; and as he is too modest to quote theFallacies of Hope, we will quote for him:—'Oh, what a scene! Can this be Venice? No.And yet methinks it is—because I seeAmid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,Something which looks like a Venetian spire.That dash of orange in the background thereBespeaks 'tis morning. And that little boat(Almost the colour of Tomato sauce)Proclaims them now returning from the ball:This is my picture I would fain convey,I hope I do. Alas! what Fallacy!'

'Oh, what a scene! Can this be Venice? No.And yet methinks it is—because I seeAmid the lumps of yellow, red and blue,Something which looks like a Venetian spire.That dash of orange in the background thereBespeaks 'tis morning. And that little boat(Almost the colour of Tomato sauce)Proclaims them now returning from the ball:This is my picture I would fain convey,I hope I do. Alas! what Fallacy!'

Plate XLI.Lake With Distant Headland and Palaces. Water colour(1840or after) Tate Gallery

The following pen-picture is no parody. Wilkie Collins told Thornbury that when a boy—

'He used to attend his father on varnishing days, and remembers seeing Turner (not the more perfect in his balance for the brown sherry at the Academy lunch), seated on the top of a flight of steps, astride a box. There he sat, a shabby Bacchus, nodding like a Mandarin at his picture, which he, with a pendulum motion, now touched with his brush, and now receded from. Yet, in spite of sherry, precarious seat and old age, he went on shaping in some wonderful dream of colour; every touch meaning something, every pin's head of colour being a note in the chromatic scale.'

There is nothing sad in that; but who can look at or recall that 'grey, dim drawing, with one or two specks of light from craft on the river,' called 'Twilight in the Lorreli,' without emotion? This was one of the fifty-three drawings that Turner had brought years before straight to Farnley on his return from the Rhine. Long afterwards, possibly in this year, Hawkesworth Fawkes conveyed the set to the dreary house in Queen Anne Street to show to their creator. The old man turned over the drawings until he came to 'Twilight in the Lorreli.' His eyes filled with tears, and he muttered, 'But, Hawkey! but, Hawkey!'

1847, 1848 AND 1849: AGED SEVENTY-TWO TO SEVENTY-FOUR

Turner's art life almost ceased during the years 1847, 1848 and 1849. Three old-new pictures only were exhibited: 'The Hero of a Hundred Fights,' probably an early picture re-touched, and two works of former years: 'The Wreck Buoy,' which he repainted, spending 'six laborious days' upon it, and 'Venus and Adonis,' dating from nearly fifty years before, after his visit to the Louvre in 1802.

The interest of these years, if it be an interest, is centred in his cunning and successful efforts to escape from the notice of friends and companions, and to withdraw his private life from any kind of intrusion. The doors of Queen Anne Street were locked and barred, and when he was absent from home, which was often, his old housekeeper, Hannah Danby, had no knowledge of his hiding-place. Sometimes he was seen at a council meeting of the Royal Academy or on Varnishing Day, but his friends were rarely able to obtain speech with him. Hawkesworth Fawkes tried to keep up acquaintance with his father's old Mend, and every Christmasa hamper arrived in Queen Anne Street from Farnley. There is a letter to Hawkesworth dated December 27th, 1847, beginning:—'

Many thanks for the P.P.P., viz., Pie, Phea, and Pud—the Xmas cheer in Queen Anne Street.'

One day, so the story runs, an artist took shelter in a public-house, where he found Turner sitting in the furthest corner with his glass of grog before him. Said the unnamed artist: 'I didn't know you used this house. I shall often drop in now I know where you quarter.' Turner emptied his glass, and as he went out said, 'Will you? I don't think you will.'

The secret of his hiding-place was not discovered until a day or two before his death. As everybody now knows, he lived mainly, during those last years, in the little house with the roof balcony facing the Thames at Cremorne, in what is called to-day Cheyne Walk. The story current for years was that he passed the house in one of his rambles, saw that rooms were vacant, liked the place, and after some bargaining with the landlady, agreed co become the tenant. He asked her name, and upon receiving the answer, 'Mrs. Booth,' chuckled, 'Then I'll be Mr. Booth.' This story is incorrect, as he had made the acquaintance of Sophia Caroline Booth years before, when she let lodgings at Margate. As it is believed that Turner paid his last visit to Margate in 1845, it is probable that he transferred Mrs. Booth to the little house at Chelsea in that year. Her name appears in a codicil to his will, dated February 1st, 1849, giving her the same provision asHannah Danby, his housekeeper in Queen Anne Street, who had entered his service, a girl of sixteen, in the year 1801. Hannah Danby and Mrs. Booth both survived him.

Turner's curiosity, his eagerness for wider knowledge about his art and all that pertained to it, never relaxed, even in this period of his failing powers. One of the most interesting chapters in Thornbury'sLifeis the account given by Mayall, the photographer of Regent Street, of Turner's interest in optics and photography. I append portions of the information furnished by Mayall, whom Thornbury describes as 'that eminent professor in the progressing and wonderful art':—

'Turner's visits to my atelier were in 1847, 1848 and 1849. I took several admirable daguerreotype portraits of him, one of which was reading, a position rather favourable for him on account of his weak eyes and their being rather bloodshot.... My first interviews with him were rather mysterious; he either did state, or at least led me to believe, that he was a Master in Chancery, and his subsequent visits and conversation rather confirmed this idea. At first he was very desirous of trying curious effects of light let in on the figure from a high position, and he himself sat for the studies.... He stayed with me some three hours, talking about light and its curious effects on films of prepared silver. He expressed a wish to see the spectral image copied, and asked me if I had ever repeated Mrs. Somerville's experimentof magnetising a needle in the rays of the spectrum. I told him I had.'I was not then aware that the inquisitive old man was Turner, the painter. At the same time, I was much impressed with his inquisitive disposition, and I carefully explained to him all I then knew of the operation of light on iodized silver plates. He came again and again, always with some new notion about light....'

'I was not then aware that the inquisitive old man was Turner, the painter. At the same time, I was much impressed with his inquisitive disposition, and I carefully explained to him all I then knew of the operation of light on iodized silver plates. He came again and again, always with some new notion about light....'

Mayall tells us that Turner when he visited him bore the marks of age; but in the profile drawing of this period, ascribed to Linnell, with the straggling hair, the powerful nose, and the enormous stock about his neck, the face is keen, and the artist has quite caught the gleam of the grey eye. This drawing is not by Linnell, as has been hitherto supposed, but by Landseer and Count d'Orsay in conjunction. Mr. A. S. Bicknell, who was present when the sketch was made, contributed to theAthenæumof January 9th, 1909, the following letter on this subject, as interesting as it is authoritative:—'

'A few days ago I first saw a handsome quarto "Turner, by Sir Walter Armstrong, 1902," in which, as a second frontispiece, I found a head and shoulders portrait of that great artist, described on the opposite leaf as "from the sketch in water-colours by J. Linnell, in the collection of James Orrock, Esq."'During the last fifty years I have occasionally come across a reference to this likeness, declaring that it wasprobably the work of some contemporary painter, sketched at a meeting or private entertainment; but as these surmises have at length crystallised into a positive assertion concerning Linnell, I think it may be well to place the truth on record.'My father, Elhanan Bicknell, of Herne Hill, frequently entertained at dinner a large company of the most distinguished artists and patrons of art, amongst whom Turner, but never Linnell, was often one. It being the case that Turner objected to having his portrait taken, on an occasion of that kind two conspirators, Count D'Orsay and Sir Edwin Landseer, devised a little plot to defeat the result of this antipathy. Whilst Turner unsuspiciously chatted with a guest over a cup of tea in the drawing-room, D'Orsay placed himself as screen beside him to hide, when necessary, Landseer sketching him at full length in pencil on the back of a letter. Landseer gave what he had done to D'Orsay, who, after re-drawing it at home, and enlarging the figure to eight inches in height, sold it to J. Hogarth, printseller in the Haymarket, for twenty guineas; and it was then lithographed and published by the latter, January 1st, 1851, with the title of Turner's mysterious poem,The Fallacies of Hope, at the bottom. Sixteen copies were included in the Bicknell sale at Christie's in 1863. The Louis XIV. panelling of the room, as well as a piano, inlaid with Sèvresplaques, are indicated in the background; and I may also mention that I was present at that party, which took place, to the best of my belief, about Christmas, 1847, or early in 1849.'Ruskin, who seldom admitted any blemish, even in the person of his hero, called this portrait a caricature, but it was nothing of the kind; I knew Turner extremely well, and I have always considered it to be a most admirable, truthful likeness; indeed, the only one exactly portraying his general appearance and expression in his latter years.'

'During the last fifty years I have occasionally come across a reference to this likeness, declaring that it wasprobably the work of some contemporary painter, sketched at a meeting or private entertainment; but as these surmises have at length crystallised into a positive assertion concerning Linnell, I think it may be well to place the truth on record.

'My father, Elhanan Bicknell, of Herne Hill, frequently entertained at dinner a large company of the most distinguished artists and patrons of art, amongst whom Turner, but never Linnell, was often one. It being the case that Turner objected to having his portrait taken, on an occasion of that kind two conspirators, Count D'Orsay and Sir Edwin Landseer, devised a little plot to defeat the result of this antipathy. Whilst Turner unsuspiciously chatted with a guest over a cup of tea in the drawing-room, D'Orsay placed himself as screen beside him to hide, when necessary, Landseer sketching him at full length in pencil on the back of a letter. Landseer gave what he had done to D'Orsay, who, after re-drawing it at home, and enlarging the figure to eight inches in height, sold it to J. Hogarth, printseller in the Haymarket, for twenty guineas; and it was then lithographed and published by the latter, January 1st, 1851, with the title of Turner's mysterious poem,The Fallacies of Hope, at the bottom. Sixteen copies were included in the Bicknell sale at Christie's in 1863. The Louis XIV. panelling of the room, as well as a piano, inlaid with Sèvresplaques, are indicated in the background; and I may also mention that I was present at that party, which took place, to the best of my belief, about Christmas, 1847, or early in 1849.

'Ruskin, who seldom admitted any blemish, even in the person of his hero, called this portrait a caricature, but it was nothing of the kind; I knew Turner extremely well, and I have always considered it to be a most admirable, truthful likeness; indeed, the only one exactly portraying his general appearance and expression in his latter years.'

So here we have a likeness of Turner in the period of his decline and disappearance from his old haunts, an authentic likeness at one of his re-appearances—chatting with a guest over a cup of tea in a Herne Hill drawing-room.

1850: AGED SEVENTY-FIVE

In 1850, the year before his death, Turner sent four pictures to the Royal Academy, an heroic attempt on the veteran's part to assure the world that his power had not deserted him; but these canvases are but the tottering ruins of his genius, and they have been hung among other 'splendid failures' in the large, lower room of the Turner Gallery. But, as I have said before, Turner's 'splendid failures' are merely less great than his triumphs. His 'failures' in the large, lower room of the Turner Gallery, would easily make a lesser man's reputation. These four valedictory works entitled 'Æneas relating his Story to Dido,' 'Mercury sent to admonish Æneas,' 'The Departure of the Trojan Fleet,' and 'The Visit to the Tomb,' were painted between January and April, 1850, in a small room, with a small window, in the little house at Cremorne. We are told that at this window, and on the roof balcony, he would spend a long time each day studying the ways of the sun, the effect of light on the river and on the open places of rural Chelsea; and that he would often rise early, paint for a little, and then return to bed. Mrs. Booth declared that some of his last work was inspiredby his dreams; that one night she heard him calling out excitedly; that she gave him the drawing materials he asked for, and that he made some notes, which he afterwards used for a picture. Mrs. Booth also confessed that she could not resist whispering in the neighbourhood that 'Booth' was a great man in disguise, and that when he died he would surely be buried in St. Paul's. This local gossip was collected later by John Pye the engraver.

Here I may print, for what it is worth, a letter, that was sent to me by an unknown correspondent in reference to a small book on Turner I wrote three years ago:—

'Clapham,March1907.'ReTurner.'Dear Sir,—In the eighties (I think) there resided at Haddenham Hall, Haddenham, Bucks, a Mrs. Booth, whom it was understood was Turner's widow. I expressed a wish to look over the Hall, and was received by the old lady herself (she was a very homely body, and always wore a big cotton apron). In one of the rooms I recognised a miniature portrait of the late Dr. Price of Margate. Mrs. Booth said, "Yes! it was painted by my husband, Mr. Turner the artist; he and the Doctor were great friends." I also understood that Turner lodged with her when painting his pictures of Margate.'When Mrs. Booth died she was taken to Margate tobe buried. As I have never read of Turner's marriage, this may prove interesting.'P.S.—The son of the late Dr. Price still resides at Margate.'

'Clapham,March1907.

'ReTurner.

'Dear Sir,—In the eighties (I think) there resided at Haddenham Hall, Haddenham, Bucks, a Mrs. Booth, whom it was understood was Turner's widow. I expressed a wish to look over the Hall, and was received by the old lady herself (she was a very homely body, and always wore a big cotton apron). In one of the rooms I recognised a miniature portrait of the late Dr. Price of Margate. Mrs. Booth said, "Yes! it was painted by my husband, Mr. Turner the artist; he and the Doctor were great friends." I also understood that Turner lodged with her when painting his pictures of Margate.

'When Mrs. Booth died she was taken to Margate tobe buried. As I have never read of Turner's marriage, this may prove interesting.

'P.S.—The son of the late Dr. Price still resides at Margate.'

In a letter to Hawkesworth Fawkes, dated December 27th, 1850, Turner wrote: 'Old Time has made sad work with me since I saw you in town.' But a certain dinner at David Roberts's house shows that old Time did not prevent him from being merry and sociable after his manner. The account of this dinner in 1850 is printed in a note to Ballantyne'sLife of David Roberts.Turner's manner at the feast is described as—

'Very agreeable, his quick bright eye sparkled, and his whole countenance showed a desire to please. He was constantly making, or trying to make jokes; his dress, though rather old-fashioned, was far from being shabby. Turner's health was proposed by an Irish gentleman who had attended his lectures on perspective, on which he complimented the artist. Turner made a short reply in a jocular way, and concluded by saying, rather sarcastically, that he was glad this honourable gentleman had profited so much by his lectures as thoroughly to understand perspective, for it was more than he did. Turner afterwards, in Roberts's absence, took the chair, and, at Stanfield's request, proposed Roberts's health, which he did, speaking hurriedly, but soon ran short of words and breath, anddropped down on his chair with a hearty laugh, starting up again and finishing with a "hip, hip, hurrah!"... Turner was the last who left, and Roberts accompanied him along the street to hail a cab.... When the cab drove up, he assisted Turner to his seat, shut the door, and asked where he should tell cabby to take him; but Turner was not to be caught, and, with a knowing wink, replied, "Tell him to drive to Oxford Street, and then I'll direct him where to go."'

Sir Martin Shee died this year, and it is said that Turner was aggrieved that he was not offered the Presidentship of the Royal Academy. It is difficult to realise Turner in that office this year or in any year of his life. He was not made for official duties, but to make beautiful and wonderful things.

1851: AGED SEVENTY-SIX

I leaned against the parapet of the Embankment in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, and gazed at the row of cosy little houses on the other side of the road that face the Thames. The house where Turner died, I had been told, is now 119 Cheyne Walk. My eyes sought 119, but found it not. The numbers passed from 118 to 120. Then I crossed the road to discover that Nos. 118 and 119 have been converted into one house. Peering, I discerned, almost hidden by Virginia creeper, a tablet saying that here Turner died.

So this was the house. Somewhere near here 'Puggy Booth,' as he was known to the street boys, 'Admiral Booth' to the tradesmen, moored his boat. The story was current in Chelsea that he was an Admiral in reduced circumstances, and Turner was not the man to illumine a mystery, or end a joke.

We learn from Thornbury that up to the period of his final illness, he would often rise at daybreak, leave his bed with some blanket or dressing-gown carelessly thrown over him, and ascendto the railed-in roof to watch the sunrise, and see the colour flush the morning sky.

Plate XLII.Lake of Brienz. Water colour(about1843) Victoria and Albert Museum

There was the railed-in roof, crowning the 'Cremorne Cottage,' that in Turner's time had green sward to the edge of the river: the house with three windows only, one in the basement, and one each on the first and second floors. In the room on the second floor, where he painted his last four pictures, he died. I remembered what I had read of the talk of the undertaker's men about the shabbiness of the place, and the narrowness of the staircase, so circumscribed, that to carry the coffin up was impossible: they were obliged to convey the body down to the coffin.

Then my thoughts turned to Turner the artist, the poet in paint, and I recalled what his great contemporary, Constable, had said of him: that one of Turner's early pictures, 'a canal with numerous boats making thousands of beautiful shapes,' was 'the most complete work of genius' he had ever seen; that 'Turner's light, whether it emanates from sun or moon, is exquisite'; that 'he seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy'; and then I repeated the passage about the golden visions glorious and beautiful, only visions, but pictures to live and die with.

So I mused, turning from that sad little house, now so cheerful, to gaze upon the Thames beloved by Turner. He was born near the river; he chose his rural retreats at Hammersmith and Twickenham because they were by the banks; and Wapping was the scene of his later jaunts. Almost his first oil picture, 'Moonlight atMillbank,' was painted by the riverside; one of his earliest drawings was 'The Archbishop's Palace at Lambeth.' I rarely pass the wharves south of the Houses of Parliament without seeing him, as in a vision, squatting on his heels, and gazing for half an hour at a time at the ripples. The magnificent new home of his pictures is by the Thames at Millbank, and his last journey but one was from the Thames: his last journey was to the crypt of St. Paul's on the hill above the river: there he was rendered to the mould:—

'Under the cross of goldThat shines over city and river,There he shall rest for everAmong the wise and the bold.'

There, in the crypt, he was buried as he desired, by the side of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and his funeral, as he desired and stipulated in his will, cost one thousand pounds.

When I returned home from musing before the Turner Cottage, I re-read the story of the last years of his life, how his hiding-place was discovered, and so on to the end, and after. The true facts were revealed through the pertinacity of John Pye the engraver, who 'left certain memoranda of events connected with "Admiral Booth's" tenancy of the Cremorne Cottage, and death under its roof, which are of extraordinary interest.' Pye's memoranda were summarised by Sir Walter Armstrong in his volume on Turner, partly from a copy made by the late Sir Frederic Burton, and partlyfrom information supplied to Sir Walter by Mr. J. L. Roget, through whose hands the whole of Pye's manuscripts passed.

But first a few words of connecting events before Turner's hiding-place was discovered. His last appearance in public seems to have been at the private view of the Royal Academy in 1851: 'he was shaky; he was feeble; he was no longer the sturdy, dogged, strange being.' After that appearance, as he had ceased to attend the council meetings, David Roberts wrote saying how sorry his brother painters were not to see him, trusting that if he were ill, they would be allowed to visit him, and promising, that if he desired it, the secret of his dwelling-place should not be disclosed. Turner made no answer to the letter, but two weeks later he visited Roberts's studio in Fitzroy Square looking 'sadly broken and ailing.' Turner was much affected by the letter he had received, and said to Roberts: 'You must not ask me; but whenever I come to town I will always come to see you.' 'I tried to cheer him up,' says Roberts, 'but he laid his hand upon his heart and replied, "No, no! There is something here which is all wrong." Roberts noticed that his small eyes were as brilliant as those of a child, eyes which some called grey and some blue. Probably they were grey-blue.

The discovery of his hiding-place was made by Hannah Danby. Turning over his clothes one day, she found a letter which gave her the clue. In company with another old woman as old as herself, she went to Chelsea, and in a shop obtained informationthat satisfied her as to the identity of 'Mr. Booth.' She informed Mr. Harpur, one of Turner's executors, who hastened to Chelsea, 'only in time to find Turner sinking.' Dr. Price of Margate, an old acquaintanee, was, besides Mrs. Booth, probably the only other person who shared the secret of his seclusion. When Turner sent for Dr. Price in the last weeks of 1851, he was told that death was near. 'Go downstairs,' he said to the doctor, 'take a glass of sherry and then look at me again.' The doctor did so, but the reply was the same.

Just before his death Mrs. Booth wheeled him to the window to look upon the winter sunset. He died in her arms, old Turner, old woman, his head upon her shoulder, on the 19th of December 1851. So passed the greatest of all landscape painters, weary of men and of orthodox ways, an old man tired of the fret of life, but not tired of nature, an enthusiast to the end in his study of light and its brother colour, and all phenomena, that which is plain to the eyes, and that which hides. Sentiment was in heyday in 1851, and so David Bogue, who made the picture of the 'house where Turner died, sent a ray of sunlight streaming down to the Chelsea room by the river, as if a parent were smiling on a loving and life-loyal child.

The month following Turner's death, pertinacious Pye, as we read in Sir Walter Armstrong's summary of his narrative, had an interview with the owner of the Cremorne Cottage, and was informed that some four or five years before a ladyand gentleman proposed to rent the cottage, but as they declined to give names and references, it was arranged that the rent should be paid in advance, and 'the unknown gentleman and lady became installed in the quiet retreat of their choice.' Some time later John Pye paid a second visit to Chelsea, and talked with Mrs. Booth. She appeared, he says, to be about fifty, was 'good-looking, dark, and kindly-mannered, but obviously illiterate.' She told Pye that Turner always called her 'old 'un,' and that she called him 'dear,' and that she first made his acquaintance when he became her lodger near the Custom House at Margate. She had known him for more than twenty years, the last five of which had been spent in the Cremorne Cottage. Did any fires of jealousy break into flame in the bosoms of these two women, his housekeeper mistresses, Mrs. Booth and Hannah Danby, who knew Turner so well, and who met by his deathbed?

The following extracts are from an account of the appearance of Turner's house after his death, given to Thornbury by his 'kind friend Mr. Trimmer':—

'Backwards stretched a large unfurnished room filled with unfinished pictures; then a larger and drearier room yet; lastly, a back room, against the walls of which stood his unfinished productions, large full-length canvases placed carelessly against the wall, the damp of which had taken off the colours altogether, or had damaged them.... Then we went into Turner's sleeping apartment; it is surprisinghow a person of his means could have lived in such a room; certainly he prized modern luxuries at a very modest rate. I reserved his studio as the finale. Often had I seen him emerge from that hidden recess when shown into his gallery. That august retreat was now thrown open; I entered. On a circular table lay his gloves and neck-handkerchief. In the centre of the table was a raised box with a circle in the centre with side compartments; a good contrivance for an artist, though I had never seen one of the kind before. In the centre were his colours, the great object of my attraction. I remember, on my father's once observing to Turner that nothing was to be done without ultramarine, his saying that cobalt was good enough for him; and cobalt, to be sure, there was, but also several bottles of ultramarine of various depths; and smalts of various intensities, of which I think he made great use.... Grinding colours on a slab was not his practice, and his dry colours were rubbed on the palette with cold-drawn oil. His colours were mixed daily, and he was very particular. If not to his mind, he would say to Mrs. Danby, "Can't you set a palette better than this?" Like Wilson, Turner used gamboge: this was simply pounded and mixed with linseed cold-drawn oil.'His brushes were of the humblest description, mostly large round hog's tools and some flat.... Mrs. Danbytold me that when he had nearly finished a picture, he took it to the end of his long gallery, and put in the last touches. ... I next inspected his travelling-box. Had I been asked to guess his travelling library, I should have said Young'sNight Thoughtsand Izaac Walton; and there they were, together with some inferior translation of Horace....''His painting-room had no skylight. It had been originally the drawing-room, and had a good north light, with two windows.... There was a small deal box on a side table; my father raised the lid to show me its contents; it was covered with a glass, and under it was the cast of the great Turner. Dear old Turner, there he lay, his eyes sunk, his lips fallen in. He reminded me strongly of his old father, whom long years before I had seen trudging to Brentford market from Sandycombe Lodge, to lay in his weekly supplies.'

'His brushes were of the humblest description, mostly large round hog's tools and some flat.... Mrs. Danbytold me that when he had nearly finished a picture, he took it to the end of his long gallery, and put in the last touches. ... I next inspected his travelling-box. Had I been asked to guess his travelling library, I should have said Young'sNight Thoughtsand Izaac Walton; and there they were, together with some inferior translation of Horace....'

'His painting-room had no skylight. It had been originally the drawing-room, and had a good north light, with two windows.... There was a small deal box on a side table; my father raised the lid to show me its contents; it was covered with a glass, and under it was the cast of the great Turner. Dear old Turner, there he lay, his eyes sunk, his lips fallen in. He reminded me strongly of his old father, whom long years before I had seen trudging to Brentford market from Sandycombe Lodge, to lay in his weekly supplies.'

TheTimesin the account of Turner's funeral said:—

'Even those who could only sneer and smile at the erratic blaze of his colour, shifting and flickering as the light of the Aurora, lingered minute after minute before the last incomprehensible "Turner" that gleamed on the walls of the Academy, and the first name sought for upon the catalogue by the critic, artist, and amateur, as well as by those who could not understand him when they found him, was his also. Many of the most distinguished of ourpainters, and many private friends, paid the last tribute of respect to his remains, and followed his hearse yesterday, and a long procession of mourning coaches and private carriages, preceded it to the cathedral.... The coffin bore the simple inscription: "Joseph Mallord Turner, Esq., R.A., died December 19th, 1851, aged 79 years."' As the date of Turner's birth was not given by theTimes, it was probably unknown at the time. The date was 1775, and therefore he was seventy-six when he died, not seventy-nine.

The little, enlarged house in Cheyne Walk is not, like the Carlyle house in Cheyne Row, a place of pilgrimage. His shrine is the new Turner Gallery at Millbank. Ten years ago this 'new Turner Wing' of the National Gallery of British Art was a dream: to-day it is a reality. Perhaps, who knows, in ten years' time, on the site of Turner's cottage by the Thames, extending on either side, there may rise that home for 'the maintenance and support of Poor and Decayed Male Artists being born in England and of English parents only and lawful issue,' which he desired, which was explicit in his will, and which we, his countrymen, the heirs of his achievement, have entirely ignored.

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