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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
FORM NO. DDé, 60m, 1/83 BERKELEY, CA 94720

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THE SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK.

 

 

BLAIR ATHOL.—Reduced from the Mezzotint.

 

 

 

A SELECTION

FROM THE

LIBER STUDIORUM

OF J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

FOR ARTISTS, ART STUDENTS, AND AMATEURS.

A DRAWING-BOOK SUGGESTED BY THE WRITINGS OF MR. RUSKIN.

In four Party, sguarefalz‘o (17 x 13 indies), 125. 6d. eacfi; or in C lot/L Par/fulfil, price T we and a half Guineas.

EDITOR’S PREFATORY NOTE.

HE advantages of the Lz'éer Studiorum as the best School of Landscape Art
were first pointed out many years ago by Mr. Ruskin in his Elements of Drawing,

and all through his writings he seems to have lost no opportunity of reiterating and
enforcing this opinion. Yet, notwithstanding the genuineness of the interest in Turner’s
genius awakened by Mr, Ruskin, the Lz'éer Studz'orum, one of the most important works
of the greatest English landscape-painter, has remained for all practical purposes a sealed
book to the majority of the art-loving public. The high praise given to the Plates

made them as inaccessible from the eagerness with which they were sought, as they had
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HOLY ISLAND CATHEDRAL—Reduced from the Mezzotint.

 

 

previously been from neglect, the desire of collectors to complete their sets having the

inevitable .effect of making the price prohibitive to all ordinary purchasers.

The aim of the present publication has been to supply this want by adding to The
South Kensington Drawing-Book a selection from Turner’s Engravings and Etchings—
each, as Mr. Ruskin has said, “a drawing-master in itself alone.” It is hoped it may
serve the double purpose, in every Art school, of contributing to the efficiency of its
teaching, and of furnishing, through the medium of the Government system of Art prizes,

a valuable reward for clever students.

Beyond and above this, however, this Selection offers to all lovers of Art a number
of interesting and representative examples from the published and unpublished Plates
of the Lz'éer Sludz'orum, which are all the more important from being accompanied by

full annotations of a critical and practical kind, by able critics and artists.

To ensure the success of the work as an attractive Art-volume, and as a practical
guide to landscape drawing, it was determined to leave in a great measure the selection
and annotation of the plates to Mr. Frank Short, who is now regarded as an expert in all
matters connected with the Lz'éer. Mr. Short’s special interest in the Lz'éer S‘tzrdzbrum
dates from the time when, as one of the most promising students of the South Kensington
Art Schools, his attention was drawn to the collection in the Museum, which he care-
fully studied, under the guidance of Mr. Ruskin’s Elemem‘s of Drawing. He afterwards

mastered the mysteries of etching and of mezzotint engraving, and was able to produce

some wonderful copies of the Lz'éer plates. This fact coming to the knowledge of Mr.
Ruskin, he visited the young artist in his studio, and strongly advised him to persevere.

Mr. Short’s subsequent success in engraving a number of the Lz'éer Plates in facsimile
, (2)

 

 

 
 
    

  

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called forth Mr. Ruskin’s highest praise. It was therefore felt that the selection of the
subjects for the present work could be intrusted to no abler hands. Mr. Short has
also contributed notes and useful hints to students, based upon his own practical experience
as a landscape artist and the knowledge of the Lz'éer gained originally through Mr. Ruskin’s '-
writings.

A special feature of the present publication is to be found in the prominence given

~ x. .3. .

to the Etchings.1 For most purposes of Art teaching, as Mr. Ruskin pointed out, it is the
Etchings which are chiefly valuable. It has been discovered that most of the copper-
plates were etched by Turner himself, and at this stage of the plates he seems to ,. ,.
have kept a few impressions for his own reference. These proofs of the Etchings . p
were found after Turner’s death, and sold with the other prints at Christie’s. They soon
came into the possession of collectors, who prize them too highly to part with them, and
they are therefore now almost unobtainable even at extravagant prices. Of the ninety—four
illustrations comprised in this issue, forty-threeare full-scale facsimile reproductions of
Turner’s Etchings, and twenty-four of these are full—page. There are also thirteen of the
Etchings on a smaller scale. The important Etchings are printed on cartridge paper, and
are not fastened in the body of the work; so that they may be withdrawn at will and
placed before the student for copying, or transferred to the collector’s folio.

The Etchings alone, however, would not in some cases be fully intelligible without
some idea of the scheme of light and shade intended to be added in the subsequent
mezzotinting process. Small reproductions (thirty—six in all) of the finished engravings
have accordingly been supplied.

1“It is very unlikely that you should meet with one of the original Etchings; if you should, it will be a
drawing—master in itself alone, for it is not only equivalent to a pen-and-ink drawing by Turner, but to a very

careful one.”—]0HN RUSKIN, Elemenlr ofDrawz‘rzg, p. 133.
(3)

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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NYMPH AT A WELL—Reduced from the Etching.

 

 

 

In addition to the reproductions already mentioned, four of Me suéjecls lame 58m
reprodmea’ in mezzotz'nt éy p/zofo-gmvure. These copperplates are the same size as the
originals, and have been carefully worked over and revised by Mr. Frank Short. The
printing of the four plates has been intrusted to Mr. F. Goulding, master of the South
Kensington Etching School. They are in every way admirable examples of artistic
copperplate printing. To prevent their being mistaken for the originals at any future
time, each plate has “S. K. D. B.” engraved in the left-hand lower corner inside the work.

Through the kindness of several well-known collectors it has been possible to
include in the present publication reproductions of no fewer than seven of the rare
unpublished plates, which greatly enhance its interest and value.

An historical and critical essay on the Lz‘éer Studz'orum by Mr. Frederick-Wedmore
furnishes a fitting introduction to the subsequent technical and practical notes of Mr.
Frank Short, and a special description accompanies every plate. The Rev. Stopford A.
Brooke has kindly permitted the use of'his masterly analyses of the principal works, and

Mr. W. G. Rawlinson with equal liberality allowed his indispensable Catalogue 0f 1/16
Lz'éer to be drawn upon to the fullest extent reduired.

JOH N WARD, F.S.A.

 

BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED,

LONDON, GLASGOW, EDINBURGH, AND DUBLIN.
(4)

 

 

  
      
   
  
    
  
  
   
    

THE SOUTH_KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK.

 

A SELECTION

FROM THE

J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

FOR ARTISTS, ART STUDENTS, AND AMATEURS.

A DRAWING—BOOK SUGGESTED BY THE WRITINGS OF MR. RUSKIN.

WITH A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION BY FREDERICK WEDMORE,
PRACTICAL NOTES BY FRANK SHORT,

AND ' EXTRACTS FROM

THE WRITINGS OF THE REV. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, M.A., AND OTHERS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UNDER THE SANCTIOZV OF THE LORDS OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL ON EDUCATION

 

LONDON:
BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 49 OLD BAILEY;

WINSOR & NEWTON, LTD., 37 RATHBONE PLACE, w.; REEVES & SONS, 113 CHEAPSIDE, E.C.

 

,5 N544;

LIBER STUDIORUM

  

“/"0/ ,4 35 .

 

 

 

“A few well-put pen lines, with a tint dashed over or under them, get more expression
of facts than you’could reach in any other way, by the same expenditure of time.
The use of the Liber Studiorum print to you is chiefly as an example of the simplest
shorthand of this kind, a shorthand which is yet capable of dealing with the most
subtle natural effects; for the firm etching gets at the expression of complicated
details, as leaves, masonry, textures of ground, &c., while the overlaid tint enables you
to express the most tender distances of sky, and forms of playing light, mist, or
cloud.”—RUSKIN, Element: of Drawmg, p. 138.

BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED,
PRINTERS, VILLAFIELD WORKS, GLASGOW.

 

 

 

EDITOR’S PREFACE.

UR greatest Art—writer, Mr. Ruskin, was the first to point out the advantages of the “Liber
Studiorum” of TURNER as the best school of Landscape Art, and all through his writings
he never seems to have lost an opportunity of reiterating this opinion. In “The Elements of
Drawing ” (published in 1857) Mr. Ruskin laid down his system of studying from these specimens
of TURNER’S genius. When that book made its appearance many young artists, who would gladly
have followed Mr. Ruskin’s advice,* did not even know what “Liber Studiorum” was; others, who
had some knowledge of it, searched in vain for the work. At that time scarcely any of the
engravings were to be found in the British Museum, and none in the South Kensington Museum.
Even now the “ Liber Studiorum” is known and understood by comparatively few, so a few words
of explanation regarding its rarity may be permitted.

TURNER never completed his great work, which was commenced in 1807, and laid aside,
unfinished, seventy years ago. At first the “Liber” was never properly put before the public, and
had no regular publisher; no wonder that there were few subscribers, and that the work was
almost unnoticed and forgotten for so long. The impressions taken from the plates were allowed
to lie unheeded for forty years, in the cellar of the artist’s house, a prey to damp and neglect.
TURNER died in 1851, and the contents of the cellar did not see the light till some years after-
wards. When Mr. Ruskin’s writings brought the work into notice it was like the discovery of a
hidden treasure. The strong praise of such an accomplished critic and artist soon made connoisseurs
interested, but scarcely any impressions were in the market and printsellers began to search
them out. In 1872 the Committee of the Burlington Fine Arts Club held an exhibition of the
“Liber Studiorum,” which attracted much attention, and the publication of Mr. Rawlinson’s
admirable “Catalogue,” shortly afterwards, greatly increased public interest in the work.

The original sepia drawings of most of the subjects were found by Mr. Ruskin among the mass
of miscellaneous sketches which TURNER bequeathed to the nation. These were exhibited (through
Mr. Ruskin’s instrumentality) in the National Gallery with the other TURNER drawings. All this
growing appreciation of the great work had its natural effect in raising the price of the prints,
especially when collectors vied with one another to make their sets as complete as possible. Even
now no one collection contains a complete set; the treasures of three or four amateurs have to
be Visited before impressions of all can be seen, for of some of the subjects only one or two proofs
exist. So what was scarce thirty years ago—so rarely met with that Mr. Ruskin’s advice was
barren of results to the general public then—is, of course, far more difficult to obtain now, and
the “ Liber Studiorum,” for the majority of students, is still an unknown or a sealed book.

The interest awakened by Mr. Ruskin has been continued by the writings of the Rev. Stopford
A. Brooke, Mr. Frederick Wedmore, Mr. Harnerton, Mr. Rawlinson, and others. Mr. FrankShort,
when a student at the South Kensington Art Schools, first had his attention drawn to the
“Liber Studiorum” collection in the South Kensington Museum by Mr. Sparkes, the Principal
of the Schools. Wishing to further develop his pupil’s knowledge, Mr. Sparkes introduced him
to Mr. J. E. Taylor, one of the best authorities on the subject, and a collector of unique treasures.
Mr. Taylor most generously lent many ofvhis engraver’s proofs to Mr. Short, thus giving him every
facility. for studying them thoroughly. Many impressions had TURNER’s criticisms written on the
margins; these gave Mr. Short so much practical knowledge of the artist’s ideas that his enthusiasm
was aroused, and be determined to be an engraver. Already an accomplished artist and etcher, his
progress in acquiring facility in mezzotint engraving was rapid, and he soon produced successful
copies of some of the plates. ,

All this coming to the knowledge of Mr. Ruskin, he was much interested, Visited Mr. Short
in his studio, and told him that there was “a great future for landscape mezzotint—engraving,

* “ Get if you have the means, a good impression of one plate of Turner’s ‘Liber Studiorum.”’———JOHN RUSKIN, Elements of Drawing, p. 132.
.7
\_ . (3)

363

 

 

x -,._

which, in its highest development, had only been foreshadowed by the early men.” He also sa1d to
Mr. Short, in his characteristic way, “Take care of your eyes, and your lungs, and your. stomach,
and stick to it.” Mr. Short subsequently engraved, in facsimile, a number of the plates 1n such a
manner as to call forth high praise from Mr. Ruskin and-admiration from. every conn01sseur of the
“Liber.” Mr. Short had shown so much practical knowledge and appreciation of the subject that it
was determined to leave to him, in great measure, not only the selection of the plates, but also the
work of supplying such notes and useful hints for students as his own' actual experience m1ght d1ctate.

Though there now is a fine collection of “Liber Studiorum” at South Kensington, it is far
from complete, and has none of the original Etchings. Much assistance had therefore to be drawn
from other sources. For this liberal aid thanks are due to Mr. Henry Vaughan, Mr. John E. Taylor,

\ Mr. W. G. Rawlinson, and the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, M.A. These gentlemen lent their valuable

impressions of the plates, and gave helpful advice. Mr. Rawlinson permitted his descriptive “Catalogue
of the Liber Studiorum” to be made use of as fully as desired. Mr. Brooke gave liberty to borrow
from his writings—thus diffusing the eloquence he has poured out upon the work. Mr. Frederick
Wedmore—whose knowledge of the subject is well known—came forward with his graceful pen,
contributing the historical and critical Essay which commences the volume.

Many authorities consider that the Plates which were never published are the most wonderful
of all. In any case a special interest attaches to them as TURNER’S latest work of the kind. Thanks
to the above-named gentlemen, reproductions of seven of these rare unpublished plates (both Etchings
and Engravings) have been included.

For most purposes of Art teaching, as pointed out by Mr. Ruskin,* it is the Etchings that are
especially valuable. They have been discovered to be, in most cases, the actual handiwork of
TURNER himself, and it is therefore to the Etchings that attention has been principally directed.
The artist first etched the outlines on copper, producing the effect of a pen-and-ink sketch, and at
this stage he took a few proofs, probably to preserve for future reference. After TURNER’S death
these proofs were sold with the other prints at Christie’s, and readily bought up by collectors, who
are now of course unwilling to part with them. When any happen to come into the market they
command extravagant prices. Our reproductions are made from some of these original proofs.

The Etchings alone wou1d be imperfectly understood without some_idea of the light and shade
which TURNER intended to be added to his etching by mezzotinting. Small reproductions of the
Engravings have therefore been supplied, which give the general effect of the completed mezzotints.
The red colour of many of the original prints is unfortunately inimical to perfect reproduction by
photography, but the best results attainable have been given.

To have introduced many mezzotint copperplates would have made the price of the work
prohibitory. Four subjects only, in full mezzotint, have been reproduced by photogravure,ythe same
size as the originals. These Plates at first, like all photographic reproductions, wanted artistic life.
This has now been in a great measure, given to them by additional engraving and careful revision
by Mr. Frank Short. The printing of the four copperplates was intrusted to Mr. F. Goulding,
Master of the South Kensington EtchingSchool. The way the work has been done reflects great
credit on Mr. Goulding’s care and talent as an artistic printer.

The present publication will, it. is believed, be interesting to all admirers of TURNER, and
especially to those who may desire to possess copies of many of the Etchings, the originals of
which are quite unobtainable. As an addition to the South Kensington Drawing—Book, it aims
at placing a selection of the most noted of these works, for practical instruction, within the reach
of every Art School in the kingdom, and through the medium of the Government system of
Art Prizes, within the grasp of any clever young student.

JOH N WARD, F.S.A.

March, 1890.

”“ It is very unlikely that you should meet with one of the original Etchings, if you should, it will be a drauing— master in itself alone, for

it is not only equivalent to a pen- and 1nk drawing by Turner, but to a very careful one.” J—OHN RUSKIN, Ely/”mix of Drawzzzg, p 133.
m

 

 

 

 

 

. No. 19.

n 33-
,, 68.

PLATE

II.
III.
IV.

VI.
VII.
VIII.

IX.

XI.

XII.

XIII.

XIV.
XV.

 

 

 
   

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LIST OF THE PLATES.

[The Numhers z‘nzflzedz'rzlely preceding the [flies of the Plaies are those of IV)". Ra'wlz'mmz’s “szta/ague.”]

FACSIMILE COPPERPLATE REPRODUCTIONS OF THE MEZZOTINTS.

LITTLE DEVIL’S BRIDGE, Fronlzkpzlete, -
FALLS OF THE CLYDE,- -
ST. CATHERINE’S HILL, - - - - —
ISIS, - - - - - — - . - - -
FACSIMILE REPRODUCTIONS OF
Catalogue Described
number. on page
74. SHEEP-WASHING, — - ( Unpublished.) 2 I
18. THE FALLS OF THE CLYDE, - - 22
78. VIA MALA, — -- - - (Unpuh/z'shea’.) 23
41. PROCRIS AND CEPHALUS, - - - 24
52. SOLWAY MOSS, — - - - - - 26
33. ST. CATHERINE’S HILL, - - - - 27
76. CROWHURST, - — - ( Unpublished.) 2 8
75. DUMBAR’I‘ ON, - — ‘- ( Unpuhh‘s/zm’.) 29
9. MONT ST. GOTHARD, - — - - 3o
{21. MORPETH, — - - - - - - 3o ,
3. WOMAN AND TAMBOURINE, — — - 31
I 7. STRAW YARD, - - ‘- - - . - 31
4. FLINT CASTLE, - - _, - - - 32
48. CHEPSTOW CASTLE (RIVER WYE), - - 31
{35. INVERARY PIER, - '- - - - 26
Io. ' SHIPS IN A BREEZE, - - - 33
{20. LEADER SEA—PIECE, - - . - . 33
n. HOLY ISLAND CATHEDRAL, — . — 35
6. JASON, - - - - - - - . 37

 

— — described on page 4o.—The Etching from the same, Plate XVIII.

THE

PLATE

XVI.

XVII.
XVI II.
XIX.

‘ XX.
XXI.
XXII.
XXIII.
XXIV.
XXV.
XXVI.
XXVII.

XXVIII.

XX IX.

XXX.

XXXI.

7
7

9

ETC

Catalogue
number

30.
2.
19.
8.
25.
83.
77‘
28.
68.

72.
I3.
66.

22.
{ .5.
42.
I
60.
I 32.

69.

, 22. ,, ,, II.
, 27. ,, ,, VI.
, 49~ .. XXIV.
HINGS. (FULL SIZE.)
I Described
.p...
NEAR BLAIR ATHOL, ~ - - - - 38
BRIDGE AND COWS, — - - — - 39
LITTLE DEVIL’S BRIDGE, — - - - 4o
CASTLE ABOVE THE MEADOWS, - - 41
HIND—HEAD HILL, - — — - - - 42

THE STORK AND AQUEDUCT, (Unpublished) 45
TEMPLE OF JUPITER, — . (Unpublished) 47

JUNCTION OF WYE AND SEVERN, - - 48
ISIS, - - - - I - - - - - 49
APULEIA, - — - - - (Um?ublz'5hed.) 50
BRIDGE IN MIDDLE DISTANCE, - - 51
[ESACUS AND HESPERIE, — - - - 51
JUVENILE TRICKS, - 7 - - - - 53
INVERARY CASTLE, - — — - - 53
WINCHELSEA, - - _ . - _ 53
HEDGING AND DITCHING, - - - 53
ARVERON, — '— - - - - - 54
YOUNG ANGLERS, - - - — - - 54
BEN ARTHUR,- — - - - - - 55
B

‘nhc

..AAJ

 

 

 

CONTENTS.

VIGNETTE .ETCHINGS AND ENGRAVINGS.

Portrait of ]. M. W. Turner, R.A.—title-page, -
Editor’s Preface, - - - - - _

Etching—“ Pope’s Villa, Twickenham,” (described on page 58),

Etching—“ Windmill and Lock,” - - -

INTRODUCTION BY FREDERICK WEDMORE, -

Etching—“ Nymph at a Well,” (described on page 58),

Etching—“ Hindoo Worshipper,” (described on page 58),

Engraving—“ London from Greenwich,” (described on page 58),

Vignette from “ Devil’s Bridge,” - - -
Plate from “ Liber Veritatis”—Claude, - -
Engraving—“ Peat Bog,” (described on page 58),
Etching-.—“ Water Mill,” — - - - -
Etching—“ Rievaulx,” (described on page 58),

Engraving—“ Inverary Pier,” (described on page 27),

Engraving-—“ Kirkstall Abbey,” (described on page 58),

Vignette—Etching from “Eton,” - - -

THE “LIBER” AS A SCHOOL OF LANDSCAPE—BY FRANK SHORT,

Vignette Etching from “ Isis,” - - -

Engraving—“Mont St. Gothard,” (described on page 30),
Engraving—“Blair Athol,” (described on page 38), -

Engraving—“ Norham Castle,” (described on page 36),

Engraving—“ Sheep-washing,” and Description;
“The Falls of Clyde” Description, - — -
Engraving~“ Via Mala,” and Description, -

Engraving—~“ Procris and Cephalus,” and Description,

Engraving—“ Calm,” and Description, - -
Vignette Etching from “ Calm,” - - -
Engraving—“Solway Moss,” and Description, -
“ Inverary Pier” Description, - - -

Engraving—“Crowhurst,” and Description,

Engravingw“ Dumbarton,” and Description,
“Mont St. Gothard” Description, - - -
“ Morpeth,” Northumberland, Description,

Engraving—“ River Wye,” and Description, -

facing p.

12
I2
13
I4
IS
IS

IS
IS
I7
I9
21
22
23
24
25
25
26
27
28

29

30’

30
31

 

“Woman and Tambourine,” “ Straw Yard,” Description,
Engraving—“ Flint Castle,” and Description, - -
Engraving—“ Leader Sea-piece,” and Description, —
Engraving—“ Ships in a Breeze,” and Description, -
Engraving—“Holy Island Cathedral,” and Description,
Etching—“Norham Castle,” and Description, - -
Engraving—“ Jason,” and Description, - — -
“Near Blair Athol” Description, - 7 - —
Engraving—“ The Bridge and Cows,” and Description,
“The Little Devil’s Bridge” Description, - i -

Engraving—“The Castle above the Meadows,” and Description,

Engraving—“ Hind-Head Hill,” and Description, -

Engraving—“The Mildmay Sea-piece,” and Description, -

Engraving—“ Entrance of Calais Harbour,” and Description, -

Engraving—f The Stork and Aqueduct,” and Description,

Engraving—“Chain of the Alps,” and Description, -
Engraving—“ Temple of Jupiter,” and Description, -
Engraving—“ Wye and Severn,” and Description, -

L“ Isis” Description, - — - . - , _

Engraving—“Apuleia,” and Description, - - -

Engraving——“ The Bridge in Middle Distance,” and Description,

Engraving—“ ZEsacus and Hesperie,” and Description,
Turner’s Drawing of Trees, - - - - -
Engraving—“Juvenile Tricks,” and Description, -
Scotch Firs from “ Inverary Castle” Description, -
Trees from “Winchelsea” Description, - -
Trees from “ Hedging and Ditching” Description, -
Pollard Willows from “Young Anglers” Description,
Study of Pines from “Arveron” Description, - -
Engraving of “Arveron,” and Description, - -
Engraving—“ Ben Arthur,” and Description, - -
Engraving—“ Coast of Yorkshire,” and Description,
Etching—“ Coast of Yorkshire,” - - - -

Vignette Etchings of “ Raglan” and “Arveron,” and Description,

Descriptions of Illustrations not described where placed, -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WINDMILL from ”WINDMILL AND LOCK." (No. 27.) Etched by Turner.

(6)

PAGE
31
32
33
33
35
36
37
38
39
4o
41

42'

43
44
45
46
47
48
49
5o
51
51
53
53
53
53
53
54
54
54
55
56
S7

57
58

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A SELECTION FROM

TURNER’S LIBER STUDIORUM,

INTRODUCTION BY FREDERICK WEDMORE.

 

    

THE “LIBER STUDIIQRUM.” No. 19.

 

 

 

 

 

  
  

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LITTLE DEVIL’S BRIDGE.——ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

 
 
    

BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

  

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM). Plate XVIII.

 

 

T he South Kallsiflgimz Dnz'zuz'llg-Baak: (z Szh’ctin/L {mm {/13 1417157 Stud/hymn.

 

 

 

THE LITTLE DEVIL'S BRIDGE, NEAR ALTORF.

chmdnction of the Mczzotint after Turner.

Far :lze Etching see Plate XVII]. For Descrz'fitz'on :32 page 40.

BLACKIE 8: SON, LIMITED.

[F mm [ix/Ilka. j

 

 

 

 

 

LONDON FROM GREENWICH. {N01 261‘1 By J. M, W. Turner, R.A.

 

 

A SELECTION FROM

TURN ER’S LIBER STUDIORUM.

 

[ INTRODUCTION BY FREDERICK WEDMORE.
l

 
     

TURN ERS [,zéer Siudzomm—the “1.2667,” as it is called, briefly
and affectionately, by collector and student—expresses with a
curious perfection the profundity and range of Turners art. My
business here is to tell a little of its history, and a little of its
character, chiefly for those who have, as yet, enjoyed no familiarity

   

 

\V

 

“2? e’

with its virtues and its charm. It is the aim of the present

("p/f?- .- , I t‘:

publication to bring the Lz’ber, as far as may be, before a public

A} ’

N» >_

 

~15;

which it has not yet reached; and so, in writing about it, one

 

must begin from the beginning, taking nothing for granted, and

declining to be enthusiastic at the cost of clearness, or novel at

 

l
r the cost .of sobriety.
i The set of prints which Turner issued as his [.2567 Studz'omm

 

—with an allusion, tolerably evident, to the Lz'éer Verz'mz‘z's of Claude—is but one series out of

several with which our greatest landscape painter occupied himself from time to time during the fifty

years and more of his working life. But it is the first series that was conceived by him; and it is,

in a certain sense the most ambitious; and it remains, assuredly, the noblest and the most repre-
sentative. In its actual execution Turner had a greater hand—an incomparably greater hand—~than
in that of any of its successors; and its scheme permitted a variety, an effective suddenness of
transition, denied to the artist when, in later years, he was depicting that Yorkshire district which
is known as Richmondshire, or the Southern Coast, or the Rivers of France,ior the Ports of England,
or even all the places which it pleased him to choose for one of the most elaborate of his publications,
the Pz'cz‘uresque Views in England and Wales. A long tether was allowed him, unquestionably,
in some of these sets, but in the £256? Studz'omm there was no question of tether at all. In it
a subject from classical mythology might stand side by side with a subject drawn from the English

(9) 1C

 

 

barton and the
English hedgerow;
the interior of a
London church,
with its Georgian
altar and its cur-
tained pews, with
its fashions of a‘
day, might be
presented in near
neighbourhood to
some study in
which Turner had
recorded the eter-
nal hills, or the
storm that gather-
ed and passed over
Solway Moss.

I have used

 

FROM THE LIBER VERITA 715 OF CLAUDE. (No. sin Volume I.)

 

the word “ study,”

 

and it is Turner’s own. But each plate in the Lz'ber sztdz'omm is much more than a study. It is
an entirely finished composition. And under the seeming modesty to which might be assigned the
selection of the title, we are surely to discern a perfect appreciation upon Turner’s part of the
seriousness of the effort and of the completeness of its execution. Turner spared neither time
nor pains—though in this case as in others he was careful, where that was possible, to spare money
——in making his work all that the wisest lovers of his genius might expect it to be. Whatever
rivalry there was with the Lz'ber Vem'z‘az‘z's of Claude—the later portions of which were issuing
from the house of Boydell at the very moment when Turner was planning the Lz'ber—the rivalry .
was conducted upon unequal terms. I say nothing in depreciation of Claude’s Lz'ber Vem'z‘az‘z's.
In it Richard Earlom, who was one of the greatest practitioners of mezzotint engraving, reproduced,
with learned simplicity Claude’s masterly memoranda—the sometimes slender yet always stately
drawings, in the preparation of which Nature had counted for something and Art had counted for
so much more. Claude’s bistre sketches, by their dignity and style, are akin to the landscapes of
Rembrandt, to the studies of Titian. But the artist of the Lz'ber Verz'z‘az‘z's worked in haste, or
worked purposely with slightness, and more than one generation separated him from the engraver
who was to execute the plates. Turner worked with elaboration, and he worked at his leisure,
and he etched upon the plates, himself, the leading lines of his composition, and he was in contact
with the engravers, and his directions to these accomplished craftsmen were rightly fastidious and
endlessly minute. Claude too was an etcher, yet it is not in the [.2667 Verz'z‘czz‘z's—it is in the rare
and early states of his Shep/lewd mm’ Shepherdess mersz‘ng, of his Cow/167d, of his Calif/e m Stormy
Warmer—that we are to find proof of his skilled familiarity with that means of expression which
Turner employed as the basis of his work in the [.z'éer. Claude, when he etched, etched for
etching’s sake, and used with pleasure and ease the resources of the etcher’s art. Turner restricted
his etching within narrower limits. When one remembers the circumstance that, having etched the
outlines on the plate, he took a dozen or a score perhaps of impressions from it before he caused
the work in mezzotint to be added, it is difficult to assert that he did not attach a certain
value to the etched outlines. And indeed they are of extraordinary significance and strength; they

show economy of labour, certainty of vision, and of hand. Yet they were essentially a preparation
(IO)

 

 

 

and a sustenance - ,,,,, -
for that which "
was to follow—
for that admir—
able mezzotint on
which the subtlest
lights and shad—
ows of the pic—

 

ture, its infinite
and indescribably
delicate grada—
tions, were in—
tended to depend.

Of this mez-
zotint it is time
to speak.- Its em-
ployment, though

 

it proved indeed,

 

PEAT BOG. {N0. 45.) By I. M. \V. Turner, R.A.

 

as I think I have #‘e we W
implied above, wonderfully conducive to the quality of the [.1667 plates, was not at first resolved

 

upon. The process of ,Aquatint—in which much work was done about that time; in which, only
a very few years before Lz'éer began, Turner’s intimate friend, Thomas Girtin, had produced some
broad and noble views of Paris—had been at first thought of. Negotiations were opened with
Lewis, and he executed in aquatint one of the plates, which Turner did indeed eventually use, but
which he was careful not to use in the earliest numbers of the publication. The superiority of mezzotint
he recognized quite clearly. He employed the best mezzotinters. He busied himself to instruct them as
to the effects he desired. He learned the art himself, and himself mezzotinted ten out of the seventy-one
plates with exquisiteness. He worked, in later stages, upon all the rest of them, obtaining generally
the most refined beauty, but working in such a fashion as to exhaust the plate with extravagant swiftness.
Then he touched and retouched, almost as Mr. Whistler touches and retouches the plates of his
etchings. So delicate, so evanescent—rarity is not an aim, but a need, with them.

The publication of the [.z'ber Studz'omm—the great undertaking of the early middle period of
Turner’s art—began in 1807, and its issue was arrested in the year 1819. It was never completed.
Seventy-one plates were given to the world out of the hundred that were meant to be. But Turner
had by that time proceeded far with the remainder, of which twenty plates, more or less finished,
testified to a gathering rather than to a lessening strength. By the non-publication of these later
plates, the coll/ector—I will hardly say the student—is deprived of several of the very noblest
illustrations of Turner’s genius. Nothing in the whole series shows an elegance more dignified than
the 52‘07/6 cmd Aqueduct, the mystery of dawn is magnificent in the Sione/zmge, and never was‘
pastoral landscape more suggestive. and engaging than in the Craze/hunt

The mention of these plates—the hint it givesus as to difference of subject and of aim—brings
up the question of the various classes of composition into which Turner thought proper to divide
his work. His advertisement of the publication affords a proof of how widely representative the
work was intended to be; nor, indeed, did the execution in this respect at all fall short of Turner’s
hope. The work was to be—and we know now how fully it became—an illustration of Landscape
Composition, classed as follows: “Historical, Mountainous, Pastoral, Marine, and Architectural.” And

further it is said, “ Each number contains five engravings in mezzotinto; one subject of each class.”

But Turner in these matters was extraordinarily unmethodical, not to say muddled. Each number
(n)

 

 

did contain five engravings, and they were in mezzotinto, with the preparation in etching; but it was
by no means always that there was one subject of each class, for Turner divided the Pastoral into
simple and what he described as “elegant” or “epic ” Pastoral, and the very first number contained
a Historical, a Marine, an Architectural subject, but it contained no Mountainous, for the Pastoral
was represented in both of its forms.1

The actual publication was exceedingly irregular. Sometimes two numbers—or two parts,
as we may better call them——

 

 

were issued at once. Sometimes
there would be an interval of
several years between the issue
of a couple of parts. There is
no doubt that as the work pro—
gressed Turner felt increasingly
the neglect under which it suf-
fered. Gradually he lost interest
in its issue—but, never for a
moment, in its excellence.
Charles Turner, the admir-

able mezzotint engraver—who, it

 

should hardly be neceSSary to say,

 

 

 

ETCHING OF-WA'I‘ER MILL. (No.37.) By}.1\1.w.'rumer,R.A. was no relation Of the artist—

 

had charge of the Lz'bei’ in its early stages. The prints of the first parts bore an inscription to
the effect that they were “Published by C. Turner, 50 Warren Street, Fitzroy Square.” But, in
1811, when three years had elapsed since the publication of the fourth part, the fifth came out as
“Published by Mr. Turner, Queen Anne Street, West,” and the “Mr. Turner” was, of course, the
great original artist. Charles Turner, Who had engraved in mezzotint every plate contained in the

 

four parts with whose publica—

 

tion he was concerned, engraved,
likewise, several of the succeed-
ing pieces. Thus his share in
the production of the [.z'éer was
greater than that of any of his

brethren. William Say’s came

next to his in importance, and

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Ci'

Mr. Rawlinson—in a service—

. fl 1' i ,

able, nay, indispensable book

 

for the collector, T 74774671? Lz'ber
Studz'omm, a Description and
a Catalogue—has pointed out
that William Say approached

 

 

 

his work with little previous
ETCHING OF RIVAULX. (No. 51.) By J. M. W. Turner, R.A.

 

 

 

preparation by the rendering
of landscape. The remark is in a measure applicable to most of William Say’s associates. The
engraver in mezzotint at that time flourished chiefly by reproducing Portraiture. Raphael Smith
and William Ward—great artists Who were still living when the [.z'ber was executed, but who had no
part in the performance—had been employed triumphantly, a very little earlier, in popularizing that
delightful art of Morland in which Landscape had so large a place. Dunkarton, Thomas Lupton,

1 On the question of the Pastoral, “ elegant ” or “ epic,” see the thoughtful little book, Pye and Roget’s [Va/e: on 7 ‘urntr’: “ Lz‘ber Studiorzmz.”
(12)

 

 

Clint, Easling, Annis, Dawe, S. W. Reynolds, and Hodges complete the list of the engravers in
mezzotint who worked upon the Lz'ber. Admirable artists many of them were, but the student cannot
forget that the master, the originator, dominated over all.

Mr. Ruskin and several subsequent writers have written with varying degrees of eloquence,
of originality, and, I may add, of common sense, as to the moral, intellectual, or emotional message
the Lz'ber may be taken to convey. This is scarcely the place in which to seek to decipher with
accuracy a communication that is on the whole complicated and on the whole mysterious. But the
reader may be referred to the last pages of the final volume of Modem Painters for the most impressive
statement that a prose—poet can deliver as to the gloomy significance of Turner’swork. Appreciative
of that statement’s charm and power I print it in a note below this.1 Mr. Stopford A. Brooke
—rich in sensibility and in imaginative perceptiveness—follows a good deal in Mr. Ruskin’s track.

I doubt if Mr. Hamerton or Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse—instructive critics of perhaps a cooler school—

would endorse the

 

 

verdict of unmiti— ‘
gated gloom, and
I have myself (in a
chapter in Studies
in English Art)
ventured to hold
forth on the “inter-
vals of peace and
rest which Zz'ber
Sizedz'omm shows
in its scenes of
solitude and with-
drawal: the morn—
ing light, clear and
serene, upon the
meadows below

Oakhampton Cas-

 

 

INVERARY PIER, LOCHFYNE.

 

 

(No. 35.) Drawn, Etched, and Engraved by I. M. W. Turner, R.A.

 

 

tle; the graver si-

lence of sunset, as one looks wistfully from heights above the Wye, to where, under the endless skies,

the stream deploys to the river.”

More important to our present purpose than

1 “Take up the Lz'ber Studz'orum, and observe how this feeling of decay
and humiliation gives solemnity to all its simplest subjects: even to
‘Turner’s View of daily labour. There is no exultation in thriving
city or mart, or in happy rural toil or harvest gathering. Only the grinding
at the mill and patient striving with hard conditions of life. Observe the
two disordered and poor farm-yards, cart, and ploughshare, and harrow
rotting away; note the pastoral by the brookside, with its neglected stream,
and haggard trees, and bridge with the broken rail; and decrepit children,
fever-struck, one sitting stupidly by the stagnant stream, the other in rags
and with an old man’s hat on, and lame, leaning on a stick. Then the
Edging and Dire/ling, with its bleak sky and blighted trees, hacked and
bitten, and starved by the clay soil into something between trees and fire-
wood; its meanly faced, sickly labourers, pollard labourers, like the willow
trunk they hew; and the slatternly peasant woman, with worn cloak and
battered bonnet—an English dryad. Then the Water M71, beyond the
fallen steps, overgrown with the thistle: itself a ruin, mud—built at first;
now propped on both sides; the planks torn from its cattle shed; a feeble
beam, splintered at the end, set against the dwelling—house from the ruined
pier of the water-course; the old mill-stone—useless for many a day—half-
buried in slime at the bottom of the wall; the listless children, listless dog,
and the poor gleaner bringing her single sheaf to be ground. Then the

 

to settle accurately its mOral mission, or to agree

Peat Bag with its cold dark rain and dangerous labour. And last and
chief the 111271 in tile Valley of file Chartreuse. Another than Turner would
have painted the convent, but he had no sympathy with the hope, no
mercy for the indolence of the monk. He painted the mill in the valley.
Precipice overhanging it, and wilderness of dark forest round; blind rage
and strength of mountain torrent rolled beneath -it,——-calm sunset above,
but fading from the glen, leaving it to its roar of passionate waters and
sighing of pine branches in the night.

“ Such is his view of human labour. Of human pride, see what records.
Morpet/a Tower, roofless and black; gate of Old I/Vz'mhelsea Wall, the flock
of sheep driven round it, not through it ; and Rimqu choir, and K'z'rkslall
crypt, and Dunstanfiaraug/z, wan above the sea. Of human love,
Proerz's dying by the arrow; Msperz'e by the viper’s fang; and Rizpa/z,
more than dead beside her children.

“Such are the lessons of the [filler Sludz'orum. Silent always with a
bitter silence, disdaining to tell his meaning, when he saw there was no ear
to receive it, Turner only indicated his purpose by slight words of con-
temptuous anger when he heard of anyone’s trying to obtain this or the
other separate subject as more beautiful than the rest. ‘What is the use
of them,’ he said, ‘ but together?”’—RUSKIN. Modem Painters, vol. v.

(13) D

 

 

upon the sentiment of this or

 

that particular plate, is it to
value the sterling and purely
artistic virtues which Liner

Mr. Short—perhaps the most
rising of contemporary en'-
gravers—following me in
technical notes which are cer-
tain ’to be appreciated, may
be safely left in charge of
that department of our com—
mon theme. But before
standing aside that the stu-
dent may hear Mir. Short,

 

and may the better enjoy and

 

EY. (No. 39.) By J. M. W. Turner, R.A.

 

 

 

profit by the reproductions
in which that artist has happily assisted the work of “the photographer, I should like to emphasize
the importance throughout the plates of the Lz'éer of one old-fashioned Virtue, that may yet be fresh
again when some of those that may have seemed to supplant it have indeed waxed old—the virtue
of Composition. Lz'ber Studz'orum shows, in passage after passage of its draughtsmanship, close
reference to Nature, deep knowledge of her secrets; but it shows above all, I think, the true artistic
sense of Nature being, for the artist, not a Deity but a material—not a tyrant but a servant. In
the near and faithful study of Nature Turner did much that had been left undone by his predecessors.
But he was not opposed to them—he was allied to them—in his recognition of the fact that his
Art must do much more than reproduce. “ Nature,” said Goethe, “Nature has excellent intentions.”
And by composition, by choice, by economy of. means, sometimes by very luxury of concealed labour,
it is the business of the artist to convey these intentions to the beholders of his work. How
much does he receive? How much likewise of himself, of his creative mind, must we exact that
he shall bestow?

FREDERICK WEDMORE.

 

  
   

@2in1—2 MY.
' - \Ci;

«,5. ‘

 

 

 

FROM THE ETCHING OF “ETON,” No. 79. (Unpublished Plate.)

’14)

Sludz'orum makes manifest.’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       
 

  
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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a fig; / WW
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NYMPH AT A WELL—Reduced {romthe Etching—By J. M. w. 'l'urner, RA. NM I A :E
THE “LIBER STUDIORUM”
'AS A SCHOOL OF LANDSCAPE ART.
BY FRANK SHORT.
i
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1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MONT ST. GOTHARD. (No. 9.) By J. M. W. Turner, RA.

 

 

THE ‘i‘LIBER STUDIORUM”
AS A SCHOOL OF LANDSCAPE ART:

NOTES FOR STUDENTS’ USE IN COPYING THE EXAMPLES.
BY FRANK SHORT.

 

STUDENTS residing in the country have not too many opportun—

ities for studying what great work has been done in landscape

art, and I well recollect the enthusiasm I felt when I first read the

earnest words of John Ruskin, with regard to the advantages to

be gained by studying Turner’s art as revealed in the Lz'éer

5Zudz'omm. This feeling became more intense, and inspired me

to further effort, when I had followed his advice and copied the
subjects he recommended in his Elemem‘s of Drawing.

1 should like others to derive as much benefit as I did from

this advice; for of its value for those who are aiming at original

work, and not less for those who are studying for the better

 

 

 

understanding of great art, my later engraving work in connection

 

'with these wonderful prints has only made me more sensible.
You may as well know something of the way the [1667/ Studz'orum prints were done. They were

engraved upon copper plates by the combined processes of etching and mezzotint, the etched lines
being used to give form, and the mezzotint to complete the light and shade. Turner generally made,
in the first instance, a drawing in Sepia, or some warm tint in water colour, the same size as the
intended plate; the drawing comparatively slight, and strengthened with pen lines, foreshadowing the
etched lines. These lines were first etched upon the copper plate, this part of the work, with a few
exceptions, being done by Turner himself. At this stage of the plate several proofs were taken,——not
for publication, because I suppose there were not half a dozen people in the world at that time who
would have cared to look at them—but, as I believe, because Turner then thought of the use they
would be to landscape students after he was dead. The plate was then mezzotinted, in some instances

by Turner himself; and in all other cases the progress of the engraving, day by day, was watched

and directed by him with the greatest care.

(Is)

 

 

 

In the present work there are full—size reproductions, by a mechanical process of engraving, of
four of the [.z'ber prints, printed from a copper plate in the same colour as the original, and imitating
it as far as possible in every respect. These are to be copied—I will tell you how directly.

There are also reductions of a number of other subjects from the Lz'ber, reproduced by a process
of block printing. I will tell you presently how to study these.

The best examples for your study, however, are the etchings. Nothing (excepting some of
Turner's pencil drawing) is so valuable to a landscape student as are these; and being simple lines
they are capable of being reproduced exactly, so that these reproductions are every bit as good for
study as the original etchings. There are also some reduced reproductions of etchings belonging
to the full-size print, but these are not to be copied, because Turner’s drawing is too subtle to bear
reducing. These are given to show the manner in which he distributed his lines over his plate
more clearly than can be seen from the plate when fully engraved. You can study them as much as
you like, but do not try and copy them. i

All the other examples are full—size reproductions from the Lz’éer etchings, and are to be copied
first, and copied with all possible care. Do them this wayz—Almost any kind of paper will serve, but
hot-pressed Whatman is perhaps the best—it need not be strained. Trace the example as carefully
as you like, either by holding it, with your paper over it, against a window, or by means of tracing
and transfer paper: compare the result with the original, and you will see What a miserable lifeless
affair a tracing is. Rub the tracing nearly out with bread, and take a steel pen for the thin lines,
and a quill pen for the thick ones, with liquid Indian ink, and imitate your copy with all the
love you can bestow upon it, line by line and dot by clot. The tracing will keep you right as to
position, but you will find it quite hard enough to give the life of Turner’s drawing apart from this.
You must not flaz'm‘ the lines, that is, make a single line with several timid scratches of your pen,
but look well at your line before you start, and then make your hand steadily draw the line you
saw.- Do not copy the thing as if you were only copying meaningless dead lines. That would
do no good to anybody. You must think and feel you are actually facing the scene Turner has
drawn, and through him you are really seeing the things you are drawing. Without this you will
never get the feeling of the work, even though your lines are mechanically correct.

The more carefully you study these etchings the more you will be struck with the wonderful
acquaintance with form that Turner had, and the knowledge he had of how this form revealed itself
under different conditions—which is quite another matter.

You see, in mezzotinting, it is very difficult to express form, and still keep the breadth of effect
that a landscape has. So the lines in these etchings were all meant to express what Turner
considered the vital points in the forms of his subjects; and here it is that you learn so much.

It was Turner’s practice all his life to draw much from Nature with a hard pencil point, outlines
only; and unless he had done so I doubt whether these etchings could have been so fine. In your
own work out of doors you should work with a pencil point too, and try and give as much truth
and grace with as few lines as Turner did; and then see how you will admire his etchings!

Now, as to copying the complete print. It is to be done with water colour and pen lines. The
plate is, as I told you, a reproduction by a mechanical process of engraving, coming very near
to the original—nearer, I think, than any mechanical reproduction yet done. No reproduction by any
than the original method can be quite so good as the original; because, whatever method a great
master uses, every one of its tendencies and capabilities is seized and compelled to do service in
working out his ideas; and when his work is transcribed by another method, something is sure to be
lost in the transit. Therefore you are not to look at these as being such perfect reproductions
as the etchings are. Nevertheless, work from them with all respect, for they come very near to the
originals. To prevent them being mistaken for the originals, or possible fraud, each plate has

S.K.D.B. cut into the right—hand lower corner, inside the work.
(16>

 

 

Strain a piece of Whatman’s hot-pressed paper on a drawing board, by damping it and pasting
it round the edges, or tacking it over the back, in the usual manner. Mark out the positions of
the main lines and masses with a soft pencil, very lightly, measuring a few of the important points.

Then complete this sketch by

 

I carefully drawing everything with
an HB pencil—you cannot be
too careful in this part. Mark
out very lightly the cloud shapes
in the sky and the boundaries of
tones where there are no lines.
Now take your steel and quill.
pen, and INDELIBLE BROWN INK
(such as is sold by the colour—
men), and wherever you see lines
on the print draw them carefully,
on your drawing.

The process by which these

 

 

 

plates are done does not admit of

 

‘ By J M. \V. Turner, R.A.‘ l

 

 

the etching being reproduced so
perfectly as the tone, so the etched part of this is not so good for study as the etching reproduced
alone. Work, therefore, at first from the etching only. The lines being complete, take a tube of
Sepia and one of Burnt Sienna, and mix them together till the colour, on being thinned with water,
makes a tint of the same colour as the plate, adding a little Yellow Ochre if necessary, and set to
work with your brushes—good big ones, please.

If you are used to work in water colour—and an artist should be at home with oil, or water
colour, or distemper, or indeed any mortal thing by which artistic ideas can be expressed—you need
not read the following paragraph: but if you have not worked in water colour the following
suggestions may help you.

Use moist water colours in tubes, and squeeze out if possible fresh bits of paint for each day’s
work. You get purer colour this way, and save your brushes. Remember water is your medium, and
you have to find out how it behaves on paper. So experiment first by taking a spare piece of paper
and learning to cover any space with an even wash of colour of any consistency. Then wet a patch
of your paper with water and lay some wet colour in the middle of the patch and see how it behaves.
Then, again, drop some dry colour (which is paint mixed with but little water) into a wet patch,
and notice how it gradates into the wet paper, and, while it is still wet, see what you can do by
pushing it about with a dryish brush into the shape you want it to take. Let it dry, and notice
What changes it goes through. Try every experiment you can think of, and gather your experience
from them till you know all the ways of wet and dry colour on paper, and when you know these
~ you have mastered the first principles of water-colour technique. But in working with it you must
be master, and not the water. You must drive it exactly where you want it to go, and make it
stop there, using the hard edge of a wash to express drawing with, and any other cunning method
which will suggest itself to you; only try always to make it right, once and for ever. Of course
you can lay washes over parts to darken them, and make others lighter by washing with water. But
do not trust much to washing down; it wastes a deal of time and there is seldom anything to be
gained by it. Soft lights can be taken out from a darker tint, while wet, with a dry brush; and
sharp pieces of light can be taken out by painting the place with a brush dipped in water, the exact

shape of the light, allowing it to remain wet for a few seconds, drying it with blotting paper or a
'pocket handkerchief, and then rubbing the place with bread, or striking it briskly with the finger

(I7) E

 

 

 

covered with a bit of rag. You will have to do this frequently in copying the plate. Turner did
it a good deal in his drawings for the [.2567 plates. ‘ ~

Now having your drawing worked up into full tone—and if you work well you ought to
make it look quite as well as the print—you will probably find the ink lines have lost their force
in the darker places. Where such is the case strengthen them with a fine brush and thick
Sepia. .

The small engravings (photographic process blocks they are) are given more to convey some idea of
the Lib” subjects than for being copied. But a very useful exercise would be to enlarge them the
same size as the plate, in charcoal and pen lines. Use the smooth side of common cartridge paper,
strained on a board. Draw them carefully first with a soft pencil, and then put in what etching
you can see, with a pen and common writing ink, or, if you like it better, with a small brush, held
upright and some water-colour black. Where any of the full-size etching examples are taken from'
the same plates as these blocks, of course you can draw from the etching; but when you have no
etching you will have a very wholesome experience of your own weakness.

Then take a stick of charcoal and rub it over the whole of your drawing, working it 'into the
grain of the paper with your fingers. Next, wipe out some of the lights with clean fingers, cut
your charcoal to a chisel point, and work away, using a stump if you like, but your fingers mostly,
for they make the best of stumps; and reserving your darkest touches to the last. Sharp lights can
be taken out beautifully with a pellet of new bread pinched close. Do not use stumping chalk.
Keep as clear from it as you would from tar. Whatever its merits may be for figure work, the
prettiness of texture it conduces to is ruination to a landscape student.

It is, perhaps, hardly necessary to say that the study of all these things must be undertaken
with a direct reference to your own work from Nature. I said at the beginning that you would
learn most from the etchings, and I repeat it here. Study with a pencil out of doors, and you will
be surprised how much you will miss the grace of Turner’s lines in your own work, the grouping
together of all his touches, and the beautiful composition of line to line, inside the whole scheme of
his main lines. You must learn to feel it without asking for the reason. It is of little use learning
rules of composition or making little rules of your own from examples you admire. The feeling of
what is good in composition of line will grow upon you as you work, and when you are drawing
out of doors you will instinctively be quite uncomfortable when you draw a line that strikes a
discord with others. If you study Turner (and Nature at the same time) this power will surely
come to you.

I do not lay so much stress upon copying the tone examples, because it is the feeling for
Turner’s delight in the things he drew that you will be the better for, and copying them will not
help you a great deal there. . In looking at one of Turner’s works the poetry and infinitude of the
things he tells you of, and the mystery of the things suggested is what enchants you, and there is no
room for an analysis of the reason of his doing things. You seem to be standing with him looking
at the place, watching his delight in the wind as it drifts the cloud and bends the twigs and ripples
the water before it reaches him and plays with the hair round his temples; and you can feel how the
light in his eyes has brightened as the great shadows of the clouds drifted across the landscape,
darkening in mystery some tower or other; and how he has caught the glint of light upon the people
and the cattle and felt their place in the great whole before him. And, as you take it all in, that
quiet gladness comes over you, which is the best of all sorts of gladness, and you feel, perhaps, half
inclined to cry about it, and very much inclined to grasp the painter’s hand, and not at all inclined
to pry into the method of the work by which he wrought your delight by his delight in the doing
it himself. You have perhaps felt these things in a half-blind fashion yourself in looking at Nature,
but you will love Nature all the better for seeing them told you again in such a tender fashion.

Do not get into the fashion of thinking that Turner invented all his wonderful pictures, and
<18)

 

 

that they are not real. Nature talks in a different language to every artist, and without doubt
every picture of Turner’s had its origin in some impression Nature had given him. The more you

study Nature the, more your eyes are opened, and you see many more wonderful things there than
have ever been painted or ever

 

 

will be unless the painter has
the sun on his palette.

Turner said “paint your im-
pressions.” In her own favoured
time, Nature will give you picture
after picture, each one seeming
more beautiful than the last, in
the space of half an hour as you
look at one place—enough to
bewilder you. But go out and
see the same place at another

time—say in a staring east wind

    

—and you will see the different

-i—.\a.~. .pg . , . g, v .» din," “

NORHAM CASTLE. (No. 57.) By J. M. W. Turner, R.A.

 

 

faces Nature has for you.

 

So in studying these things
of Turner’s, look at them and enjoy them as you may, and if you like copy them, because in copying
them you may have your attention drawn to more than you would otherwise see.

When you go out of doors to work, paint or draw your own impressions of the things you like,
without reference to Turner or anybody else. Walk about and look till something you see thrills
through you, and your soul says it is beautiful, whether its beauty consists of form, colour, tone,
or anything else. Then out with your materials, and work with every nerve there is in you, as
though you would never see it again—most likely you never will exactly the same—and try and
remember ten times more than you will ever be able to put down.

Never try to make a picture out of anything that does not interest you, but at the same time
be wondering whether the cause of the lack of interest lies in you or in the thing. It is better
to be walking about all day, storing up the appearances of Nature in your mind, than working ever
so industriously at something you don’t care for.

Mind, I am talking now about a fz'cz‘m/e or a sleez‘ck, which, if it is worthy the name, is always
the expression of one idea of beauty that Nature gave to you.

Sizzdz'es are not pictures, and these you can make any time, although with these it is not much
use making studies of things you have no interest in. Studies made for stock as it were are not
much use. Never see anything that interests you without making some kind of a note of it—as
complete as you can with the materials and time at your command. The probability is you will
never refer to it again, but the mere fact of putting it down tends to fix it in your mind.

Seeing a thing is being an artist, and expressing what you see is being a craftsman. Be both
if you can, but it is better to lack the last than the first. If you can see a thing the doing of it is
only a matter of worryng it out with your materials, and making them express as much of your idea
as is possible. Technique is not much. Paint with your fingers, and scratch lights with your nails
and brush handles, anyhow; only make your materials express your ideas, and, supposing these be
worth expressing, all else matters little. ‘

After all, talking is of little use. You must love your subject, and not be satisfied till by every
means in your power you have expressed truly whatever you feel essential to its beauty.

As to the “unpublished ” plates—I do not feel it wrong to tell you to search among these for the

greatest indications of Turner’s power and insight. Perhaps he would not have allowed this himself,
(19)

 

 

for it is on record that hewas angry at hearing some of the Lz'éer plates spoken of as being more
beautiful than‘others. “What is the use of one without the others?” he said, meaning undoubtedly, that
the book was intended to be taken and studied as a whole. Nevertheless, among the'unpublished
plates there are many which appeal to me as greater in motive, more wonderful in subtlety of execution
and in wealth of knowledge, than in all but very few of the earlier plates. ' ' ‘

The Lz'ber as originally planned by Turner was to consist of a hundred plates. They Were
published in parts, each part containing five plates. Seventy-one plates were published—at rather
irregular intervals—in this manner. The remaining twenty-nine were never published, although many
of them were completed, or nearly so, and all of them commenced, or planned. It is generally
supposed that the want of appreciation of the work, and the consequent pecuniary loss sustained by
Turner, discouraged him with the project, and no doubt this had a good deal to do with the stoppage
of it.

The proofs which have come to light, among the unpublished subjects, are, of course, engraver’s
proofs, and consequently rare. Many of them are Turner’s own work from first to last, and on most
of them, I think, he worked with his own hand. In the published series there are several plates
entirely executed by himself, and these show curious and almost reckless work with a mezzotinter’s
tools, such as would result from a daring artist like Turner experimenting in a new method. But at
the time the unpublished plates were being done Turner had acquired a sounder technique in mezzo-
tinting, and was, I imagine, getting tired of the engraver’s work; and felt how much better and
with how much less worry he could engrave them himself. The finest among them he did undoubtedly
work himself; and in these are evidences of a new departure in mezzotint work which stopped with
these plates, and has never, to this day, been repeated. It would have been most interesting, if he
had gone on with this work, to see how he would have developed the processes with which he was
evidently experimenting. ‘ V

It must be borne in mind that during the twelve years the 1.22567 was being produced (18o7-
1819) Turner matured his art rapidly. At the time it was begun he painted with a very limited range
of colour, and it is conceivable that at this stage of his career he was more satisfied with “black
and white ” than later, when he was beginning to feel his strength in powerful colour. Black and
white skilfully managed can be made to suggest a good deal of colour, but to a strong colourist it
must always be a very restricted mode of expression. So I think it is fair to suppose that in
straining its resources very hard Turner lost patience, and thought how much better he could employ
his time with painting; and this, I think, would be a very strong reason for not carrying out his
entire plan.

The unpublished proofs are, as I said, very rare, in some cases only one proof being known,
so that it is very unlikely that any of you will ever see them. Some are reproduced here for the
first time. After Turner’s death many of the copper-plates were found. They were, however, of little
use for printing from, as they had been allowed to remain unvarnished, and the oxidation of the
surface had in a great measure destroyed the work.

FRANK SHORT.

 

 

 

 

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X .

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:- HINDOO WORSHIPPER. (No. 23.) Etched by J. M. W. Turner, R.A.

 

A SELECTION FROM

TURN ER’S “LIBER STUDIORUM.”

 

: DESCRIPTIVE AND PRACTICAL NOTES ON THE ETCHINGS.

; mm:— - H 2‘

 

 

 

THE “LIBER STUDIOR

UM.” No. 7 4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate I.

ETCHING OF “SHEEP-WASHING."——BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

(UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

 

 

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SHEEP-\VASHING,—From the Original Drawing by Turner. (Unpublished).

 

SHEEP-.WASI‘IING, WINDSOR CASTLE. (UNPUBLISHED SUBJECT.)
ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

The original Drawing—one of the most beautiful of all Turner’s drawings for the Lz'éer Studioram—is the
property of Mr. Henry Vaughan, who has kindly lent it to us for the purposes of reproduction. It varies but little
from the engraving, except in having the exquisite airiness that Turner’s sketches possess, and which it is not possible
to represent in any reproduction whatever. Mr. Vaughan has never had it framed, or exposed in any way to the
light, since it came into his possession, and the drawing seems perfectly fresh and with all the original bloom on it.
One would fancy it had only been done yesterday.

It is very interesting to have one of the drawings reproduced here, especially as the original of this one is so fine.
There are qualities in a sketch which a finished work can never have. They result in some measure from accidents
with the material, and the clever seizing of them to help in working out the idea. Turner said himself that he “never
lost an accident.” Now, in mezzotint engraving there can be no “accidents ” (at least if there be any it simply
means the ruin of the plate). Everything is wrought deliberately down to its intended value; and even in the
block you have of this drawing you can see the difference of the work plainly enough. In a sketch too, as soon
as the idea is expressed, it is not worried by adding more completeness, and although perhaps one would tire of
sketches always, they are certainly a great delight to artistic folk—“pure art delight,” as Mr. Ruskin calls it. It is
very interesting, too, to compare the etching with the drawing. Turner etched the plate himself, and you will
notice how freely he has treated the preliminary drawing, sifting down and recomposing as he worked. I think
it is doubtful if an artist’s second thoughts are always the best, and especially one does not like to say this of
Turner. Nevertheless I think I like the middle of the subject best in the drawing; but you will notice how it

has gained by the piece being cut off from the left, and the subordination of the clump of trees on that side of

the plate—FRANK SHORT.

The Etching of Sagep-wasaiag is placed at the front of the Selection, as it is the one specially chosen by Mr. Ruskin
to illustrate the merits of Turner’s composition and his firm and pure manner of drawing. In the Elements of Drawing
only the right half of the Etching is given, with the following able criticism and advice to young Art Students :—

This plate “will give you a good idea of the simplest way in which these and other such facts can be rapidly
expressed; if you copy it carefully you will be surprised to find how the touches all group together, in expressing
the plumy top of the tree-branches, and the springing of the bushes out of the bank, and the undulation of the
ground: note the careful drawing of the footsteps made by the climbers of the little mound on the left (it is meant,
I believe, for Salt Hill). It is facsimiléd from an etching of Turner’s, and is as good an example as you can have
of the use of pure and firm lines. It will also show you how the particular action in foliage, or anything else to which
you wish to direct attention, may be intensified by the adjuncts. The tall and upright trees are made to look more
tall and upright still, because their line is continued below by the figure of the farmer with his stick; and the rounded
bushes on the bank are made to look more rounded, because their line is continued in one broad sweep by the black
dog and the boy climbing the wall. These figures are placed entirely with this object.”

Mr. Rawlinson possesses a very fine engraver’s proof of this rare plate,1 with Turner’s remarks about some additions,
on the margin, showing that it had been completed, for impressions exist with the suggested changes carried out.

‘ This was one of the Lz'bcr plates that was never published. It is No. 74 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Calalogm.
(21) F

 

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THE FALLS OF THE CLYDE.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

A sepia drawing, made for the guidance of the engraver, was the foundation of each plate in the Liéer Sludz'orum.
It was rarely carried very far, and was never as subtle as, under Turner’s untiring supervision, the plate itself became
in its finest “states.” The sepia study for the “Falls of the Clyde”—like most, though not all, of these preparations
with the brush—is in the National Gallery. It is taken without alteration from a large water—colour drawing exhibited
by Turner in 1802. This drawing was shown in the winter exhibition of the Royal Academy early in 1889.—
FRANK SHORT. ‘ I

The engraving of the Falls of the Clyde belongs to the “ Elegant ” or “ Epic” Pastorals. By the rays of light
striking across water and i foliage the composition of the later “Chain Bridge over the Tees,” in the England and
Wales series, is in a measure recalled. Mr. Stopford A. Brooke tells us that the figures are “fantastic.” They are,
it will be noted, bathers, chiefly undressed.‘ We are more certain to agree with him when he adds that they are
“so arranged as to illustrate and intensify the lines of the composition.”——FREDERICK WEDMORE.

Mr. Stopford A. Brooke’s description, however, is given in such beautiful and expressive language, that we cannot
do better than borrow it in its entirety:—“One of those quiet-A afternoon skies of which Turner is so fond lies over
this unfrequented hollow, so hidden that women are bathing in the pool where the backwater of the cascade is
shallow. But their presence does not disturb the impression we receive from} the drawing, and which" Turner felt
as he drew——~of a spirit of happiness in Nature apart from humanity. All things here are full of a glad enjoyment
of their own life. ‘In themselves they all possess their own desire.’ But among them is one whose power and
gladness are supreme. The waterfall is the spirit of the place. The passion, and the life of it, and the hurried
race of its stream among the rocks in front are wild with lonely delight. The trees on both sides look over to see
and share in the dancing of the water, and are drenched with its spray. The sunlight joins in the pleasure of the
water and dances with it.

In truth, everything belongs to the cataract. Only the castle among the trees is set apart, but even to it the
waterfall is united by the mill which uses for the work of the castle the descending stream. The waste of the
mill-force tumbles into the fall in a vertical and quiet line on the right which contrasts admirably with,.and enforces,
the sloping and tempestuous rush of the cascade. Above the waterfall, the horizontal lines of the walls of the
castle and of the clouds, bind together the two sides of the subject, and rest the eye which would otherwise be
somewhat overwhelmed by the multitude and the variety of the curving lines. One of them, however, does a great
deal of work. It is that of the trunk of the tree on the right which rising boldly opens out the background of the
drawing, and gives depth to the hollow of the cataract. >

Then the whole story of the river is told to us with all Turner’s accuracy and insight. First, the smoothness
of the rush of the water before it dashes downwards is insisted on by the brightness of the sunlight that illuminates
it. Then, we can tell from the surface of the upper fall' in what manner the rocks below it are moulded, a matter
which requires the most careful and tender drawing; but Turner never paints waterfall or torrent without giving
us this information. Then, half-way down, the main body of the water, dashing to the right into the pool. below,
throws up an ever—forming, ever-pulsating cloud of spray; and the work of disintegration this has done during
centuries is shown in the deep recess hollowed out of the cliff. Over this the trees are hanging, their branches
drooping downwards. At first it seems strange that all the lowest branches are leafless. But rising spray destroys
up to a certain point the foliage which just above that point it makes luxuriant. This subtle piece of truth is here
observed and recorded.

Again, on the left side, that portion of the fall which is not included in the oblique rush to the right tumbles
down vertically, and its spray, as well as the whirl of the backwater of the pool, have formed another recess. But
as the main force of the fall is expended on the right, this left recess is not so deeply hollowed out as the other,
and its rocks are not worn in the same way as their opposite companions.

Once more, the water in the pool is in reality boiling upwards, but it seems calm—for the pool is deep, and
the force of the descending water has pushed away the stones from below and piled ‘them up in a ridge a little
lower down, and over this ridge the river breaks in foam. The channel now narrows, and the water rushing from
both sides meets in turmoil in the midst, whirling fiercely and in curves—drawn with the utmost care for truth—
around the projecting rock on the right, the surface of which Turner has carved and dug into holes that we may
know how at a different level the swollen waters have done their work.

The whole history of the waterfall and its labours is thus told. The figures are fantastic, and are so arranged
as to illustrate and intensify the lines of the composition.”

The Fully of M: (Sb/dz is No. 18 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue. It was published in March, 1809, and the mezzotint engraver was Charles Turner
(22) '

 

 

 

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THE FALLS OF THE CLYDE.

Reproduction of the Mezzotint after Tumen

For the E tailing see Plate 1]. For Dexcrz'ptiou see page 22.

BLACKIE 8: SON, LIMITED.

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THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” N0. 78.

 

 

 

 

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SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate III.

VIA MALA.—-ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

 

 

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S\VISS BRIDGE, MONT ST. GO’I‘HARD—By j. M. \V. Turner, RA. (Unpublished)

 

 

 

SWISS BRIDGE, MONT ST. GOTHARD. CALLED ALSO VIA MALA. (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

ETCHED AND ENGRAVED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

“A pure pen drawing,” Mr. Ruskin remarked to the writer, in reference to this etching. See how every line-tells of might
and sheer vastness—different from the gentler Bea Ari/12m Notice the drawing of the twisted wall on the road, clinging to the
mountain Side. These bits of keen drawing are what a. landscape artist delights in. In nature there are always such' bits of subtle
drawing, and they are continually putting the artist on his mettle to render them. As to rock drawing, no one’s work at all that I
know of, approaches this etching for truth and power: and truth in its greater sense, for it would be possible in drawing from
such a place to have your work true enough to the isolated bits that came actually under your eye at one sight, and yet miss
the terrible power and awfulness of the leading lines. A great deal of this can be gathered from the etching, but it is more
apparent in the mezzotint. Hard and polished rocks they look like, and, I should think, continually wet from the mists and
water draining down over their surface; rocks that would be entirely cruel to you if ever you slipped upon them. Anyone who
has ever felt themselves just going to slip on such rocks will know the fearfully cruel and hard—hearted look they have. This
feeling surely comes over you in looking at the print: and yet with all their cruelty they are beautiful in a wild way—like a tiger.

I think Turner’s ideas of this subject altered a little as he worked it out. There have been etched lines added Since the
proof from which the etching you have is reproduced, and in a very early impression of the plate belonging to Dr. Pocock the
important vertical line of rock over the second arch of the bridge is not there. This line has much to do with the terror of the
place, and notice how Turner has intensified it by the downward rush of water leading directly from it into unknown depths
where, perhaps, it may rest itself a little. The lines of the rocks run right out of the top of the picture and sheer down out of
the bottom; there is no telling where they begin or where they end, and it is this that tells more than anything else of their vastness.
The torrent bursting over the rocks behind the arch is splendid, and so is the mist and spray seething round the bend 0f the
chasm. The engraving of this plate in the later stages is certainly Turner’s own work. Notice the wonderful draw1ng 1n the wet
rock above the figure looking over the wall; there is no promise of it in the etching. Turner has wrought it all afterwards With

the scraper, and no man but he, could, I think, have done this—FRANK SHORT.

This is one of the unpublished plates left nearly completed by Turner. Only a few Engraver‘s proofs exist. One has lately
been exhibited by Mr. Ruskin, another is in the collection of Mr. W. G. Rawlinson (who kindly permitted this cut to be made from it).

The Etching Mr. Ruskin ranks as the second finest in the Lz'éer. Of the print he says (Elements of Drawzag, p. 134):—
“Turner seems to have been so fond of these plates (Via Mala and Crow/mm!) that he kept retouching and finishing them, and
never made up his mind to let them go. The Via Mala is certainly, in the state in which he left it, the finest of the whole series.”

Mr. Rawlinson says:——“ Turner here has called attention to the depth of the precipice, by introducmg the figure on the right,
leaning over and looking down. This action is characteristically repeated by another figure looking over the bridge. It Will be
noticed too that here, as in most of his wildest sceneS, the human element is not wanting. A stream of active, daily human and
animal life passes along beneath the rugged mountain walls, and above the yawning chasm, brlngmg Into stronger relief the stern—
“551:2? liliiltguZEifi’:fr$§l: on Turner’s love of the St. Gothard, see Modem Painter: (vol. iv. p. 25):—“ Turner felt‘the bank
0n the right ought to be made more solid and rocky, in order to suggest firmer remstance to the stream, and-heturns 1t
into a kind of rock buttress to the wall instead of a mere bank. Now the buttress, into WhICh he turns it, is very nearly a

hich he had drawn on that very St. Gothard road, far above, at the Devil’s Bridge, at least thirty years before,
7 Studz'orum, although the plate was never published. Note how the

the middle of its surface, and compare it in those parts

facsimile of one w .
and which he had himself etched and engraved for the Lsz

wall winds over it, and observe especially the peculiar depression in

”
generally, &C' The Via Mala is No. 78 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Calalogue.
(21)

 

 

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PROCRIS AND CEPHALUS.——By j, )I. \V‘ Turner, RA.

 

PROCRIS AND CEPHALUS.
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Mr. Ruskin considers this typical of Turner’s imaginative powers of landscape. He says (Modem Paz'm‘ers,
vol. ii. p. 155):—“l know of no landscape more purely or magnificently imaginative, or bearing more distinct evidence
of the relative and simultaneous conception of the parts. Let the reader first cover with his hand the two trunks that
rise against the sky on the right, and ask himself how any termination of the central mass so ugly as the straight trunk
which he will then painfully see, could have been conceived or admitted without sz'mu/mneous conception of the trunks
he has taken away on the right? Let him again conceal the whole central mass, and leave these two only, and again
ask himself whether anything so ugly as that bare trunk in the shape of a Y, could have been admitted without
reference to the central mass? Then let him remove from this trunk its two arms, and try the effect; let him again
remove the single trunk on the extreme right; then let him try the third trunk without the excrescence at the bottom
of it; finally let him conceal the fourth trunk from the right, with the slender boughs at the top: he will find in each
case, that he has destroyed a feature on which everything else depends; and if proof be required of the vital power of still
smaller features, let him remove the sunbeam that comes through beneath the faint mass of trees on the hill in the
distance.” In the Elemem‘s of Drawing, Mr. Ruskin places this superb etching among the five finest published ones.

“Of all the woodland studies of the [15127 Sz‘ua’z'ommz, Prom/2's and Cef/zalm is the simplest and perhaps the finest,
and it is mingled up by Turner with fateful love and the passion of death, over which, as if in pity, the trees depend.
The forest glade in which Procris lies dying resembles the choir and apse of a Gothic church. From side to side
the trees slope upwards to interlace their branches nearer and nearer together, till the arched roof closes in above
a little rising of the grove, and two tree-stems stand like the easternmost pillars of the woodland chapel that becomes,
as if in prophecy of death, dimmer and darker to its end. It is not quite a solitary forest place, for it lies on the
outskirts of the forest, where the ruts made by the cart of the wood-cutter strike across the foreground; but it is
still enough unfrequented to allow the ground to keep its ridge and flow, and beautifully and with exquisite skill and
complication is it broken. It appears to be the work of Nature herself. Yet there is not a line of it which is not of
value to the composition, and its disposition is interchanged so skilfully that it is an abstract of Nature’s variety. Nor
is there any sameness in the trees. The stems and branches seem to be filled with their own wild will, yet the slope
of every trunk is accounted for by the lie of the ground, and the manner of the growth of every branch might be
explained by the mutual yielding of each to each as year by year they move together, living and dying for one another.

The slant upwards of the trees on the right of the glade»—lest it should be monotonous, or the artifice of the
arch be too soon felt, —is opposed by several trees whose trunks and branches lean the opposite way. This is most
apparent in the nearest of all the trees, the stem of which, as it were in violent opposition, stretches away at a sharp
angle to the right. Its absence would spoil the composition; and the angle it forms with its companion throws into
distance the grassy hill behind, as the double angle of the second tree makes the eye feel how far the sky retreats.

The composition of the figures and dogs is repeated by the outline of the bank above them, and indeed by
the general outline of the whole composition of the woodland—even to the arrow in the breast of Procris which
slopes to the right with the same intention as the slant of the tree. The dogs again repeat, with sufficient change,
the lines of the composition of the figures; and the shadow that stretches behind them binds them into one with
the figures and lies around them like the shadow of death.”—The Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on Me Lz‘éer.

Pron'z’r (ma’ Cain/1121715 was published in 1812. It is No. 41 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Caizzlagzze.
( 24)

 

 

 

THE “LIBER STUDIORUM." No.41.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PROCRIS AND CEPHALUS.—ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate IV. ‘ BLACKIE & SON. Publishers.

 

 

 

 

. CALM.—By J. M. W. Tumer, RA. .

 

 

 

CALM.
DRAWN AND ENGRAVED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

This plate was wrought entirely by Turner himself, and went through many stages before it arrived at its
finished state. He began by a soft ground etching, which gives a print something like a chalk or soft pencil linef
Then the plate went through one or two states of aquatinting, which were, I imagine, technically unsatisfactory.
The next state was where mezzotint was added. If the etching in the first instance had been done in the same
manner as the other plates, the lines would in all probability have withstood the wearing away consequent upon
the various after—processes; but the soft ground etching, being so much shallower than ordinary etching, was
practically worn away by the time the mezzotinting was done. Turner now felt the want of his lines, and so an
etching ground was laid over the mezzotint and fresh lines were put in. An etching ground over mezzotint work is
never very trustworthy, as Turner found out when it gave way in many places in the sky, making dark spots. He
did as David Cox used to do with the bits of straw that showed themselves in his skies on the rough paper he was
fond of*put wings to them and they flew away.

After the sale following Turner’s death the Liéer coppers were all chopped up. The pieces of the Calm plate
were preserved, and were lent me to see if anything of the etching remained. The boat and sailors forming
the vignette was all that it was possible to reproduce for you here.

It is good sometimes to work and try to get character with thick brutal lines. The thickness of these lines
is in the original got by deep “biting" of the plate—they being drawn in the first instance by a needle point at
one stroke. But copy this bit with a thick quill pen. Therfigures are beautifully composed. It is a great pity
that all the Liéer plates were destroyed. In most instances the mezzotinting could have been polished off. and
the etching would have remained with only slight injury to the lightest partS.—FRANK SHORT.

“Throughout the Lz'éer Siua’iorztiiz, so much interest is shown by Turner in the sea
disturbed by wind, that we look with a pleased surprise on this plate dedicated to Calm.
In this plate the ‘sun is rising through mist,’ and in many ways the treatment of the subject
might be compared to the picture in the National Gallery. As in that picture, the light
here strikes upwards through the vapour on the clear heaven above, and touches the drifting
cirri. The slight dip in the curtain of mist behind the sail of the hay-boat shows that
the sun is just breaking from the horizon, and this story is still further told by the light
which creeps from beneath the mist, and shimmers on the water down to the bottom of
the plate. Along with the haze there is calm. But I think there has been storm twenty-four
_ hours before; and after the heavy rain the fishing—boats that have sought shelter are drying
their sails. It would be unlike Turner not to suggest contrast, and indeed peace is never
profound which does not hold in it some thought of storm. Nor does he leave us to conjec-
ture. A little touch makes us certain that there has been wind at work. Over the ‘oily calm’
of the surface, a wide low ripple is running in, such as is left long after the passage of a gale.
This ripple breaks up all the reflections, as we see in the reflection of the oar, and continues
them from ripple to ripple ; and this continuity, this repetition, deepen the repose. There
are faint puffs of wind, enough to fill the sails of the hay-barge, and to flap the flag of one
-of the boats. But the calm seems all the deeper for this languid movement. The sails

droop as if in weariness, the men in boats and barge rest and chat idly, the ship in the offing rides to her anchor, in the mist that lifts so
slowly.”—The Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on flat Lz'éer, p. 145.

 

The plate of Calm was published in 1812. It is No. 44 of Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
(25> G

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOLWAY MOSS—By J. M: W. Turner, R.A.

 

SOLWAY MOSS.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

I am very fond of this etching. So much is told in it by so little work. And see the splendid composition
of the cattle. How it satisfies you, like some piece of beautiful Japanese design! The etching is confined mostly
to the foreground, that part of it relating to the distance being very slight and suggestive, as is right when the
atmospheric effect is to play so important a part in the composition. The way across the moss leading into the
distance is very beautifully suggested. Every little dot or little loop of the tiny trees has a distinct value, as you
will soon find out when you copy it. Some of the hill lines in the extreme distance in the etching were taken out
of the copperplate before the mezzotinting was done—FRANK SHORT.

’ We are indebted to the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke for the following able remarks on the engraving:—“ It is this extraordinary sky with its sharp
contrasts of dark and light, and with its multitudinous stOry, which Turner opposes to the flat monotony of the morass. But interesting as the
sky is, the Moss is his real subject, and he has taken even more pains with it than with the clouds that overhang it. The whole of its history
on this day is told. It has been so drowned in the heavy rain of the past night that all of it, heath, hummocks, reeds, and pools, reflects and
takes shadows over its surface, as if it were nothing but water. Not only the smoke of the fire is reflected and the changing darkness and
light of the clouds, not only are the shadows of the far-off cattle and men cast into it, but, by a wonderful skill of engraving, the whole of
the level surface shimmers like a lagoon, opens out, and spreads abroad towards the mountains, like a lagoon that widens into the sea. This
effect of distance made by reflection is added to by Turner’s way of arresting the eye, as it travels, by new matter. There are white spaces
of water, shaped like spear-heads, free of reeds, where the eye is forced to pause. In one place, under the black lines descending from the
cloud, the water under this local torrent of rain is flashing up in spray—and again the mind is stayed. The dotted etched lines which run
across do the same kind of work. The sweeping curve backwards and forwards of the thin path, and the lessening crowd on it of drivers and
cattle draw out the distance, and this distance is further insisted on by the clear etched outlines of the trees—the outlines only seen against
the whiter light—on the verge of the Moss. In these many ways we are interested, detained, surprised, and wonder, like the drivers, when
we shall get to firm land! Finally, Turner made in the foreground where the water—plants stand and spread in the black water, a statement
of the condition of the whole Moss, in order that we might add what we see there to every part of its surface."~—ZVoles oh the Lz'her, p. I74.

Salton] [Moss was published in 1816. It is No. 52 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.

INVERARY PIER. [Engraving on p. 13.]

This is one of those plates which are known to have been entirely Turner’s work, that is, he did the
mezzotint as well as the etching with his own hand. Perhaps this was why he made the etching so slight—
knowing he was to engrave the light and shade himself. In any case it is beautifully delicate, and is a good
lesson for a young worker from nature in the small amount of “sketching” really necessary to convey a complete
impression. There is not one unnecessary line or touch of the pencil, and yet we feel from the sketching what
kind of effect was to follow—a calm quiet morning, not a ripple on the water.—F RANK SHORT.

Mr. Wedmore’s words on the etching (Sludz'es of English Art, p. 184) are worthy of being quoted :—“ The pure etching of this subject
. . . is very specially noteworthy: never in so few lines——no, not I think even in the Goldwezgher’s Field or Six’s Bno'ge of Rembrandt, the
lightest of his landscapes, and therefore the most fairly to be compared with this—never in so few lines has so much of air and space, and the
stillness of water and the grace of landscape fomi, been so potently indicated. And it is very noteworthy, that just as the great Dutch master

gives the sense of a serene breadth of sky (as in the Collage and Dutch Hay-ham) not by working, but by omitting to work, so does Turner
in his outline etching of Inoerory Pier give, by pure omission, the sense of the stillness of water.”

Invermj' Pier was published in 1811. It is No. 35 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
(26)

 

THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” No. 52.

 

 

 

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SOLWAY MOSS.—ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate v. BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

   

 

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ST. CATHERINE'S HILL, NEAR GUILDFORD.

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SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate VII BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

 

 

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ST. CATHERINE’S HILL, NEAR GUILDFORD.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

The ruined abbey in the distance alone permits this print—charming, generally, in 'its simplicity—to be numbered,
as it is, by Turner, among the “Epic” or “ Elegant” Pastorals. Mr. Rawlinson says truly of it that the plate “has
a delightful effect.” ,But to Turner’s usual treatment of that class of subjects Mr. Rawlinson is_wont, perhaps,
to do a little less than justice. Mr. Brooke is entirely right, I think, when he asserts that the composition of
the drawing is “a triumph of quiet power—not one exaggerated or rude line, but soft and flowing curves of
road and walls and hill, met and enforced by the upright figures of the labourer and of the milk-maid which
repeat and oppose each other, and by the prominent and advancing front of the barn.” But on a, matter of
detail I must be less in accord with him. I had ventured to point out. in 512511sz in Eng/2M .474, as an instance
of Turner’s occasional carelessness in drawing, the open gate that leads into the barton. I said, it would not
cover, if it were closed, more than half the space it is intended to protect. Mr. Brooke answers, “The other
portion of the gate is behind the lower wall, and has been opened and pushed back.” I see no sign of it. The
curious student shall decide the matter, but only when he has perceived, I trust, the quiet English charm of
the whole piece.—-—~FREDERICK WEDMORE.’ \

We, however, will let Mr. Brooke speak for himself :———“The little Chapel stands broken and sorrowful,
the witness to a bygone faith, roofless, windowless, but at peace; and Turner sets behind it the sky of a late
afternoon, pale, but lit by the dazzlingof a white cloud filled with sunshine. The blessing its sorrow needs
Nature bestows upon it. It has done its work for man and God, and Turner paints it in its ruined rest. .

But though the house of God is in ruins, and with it the form of religion it enshrined, there is one thing which
remains always the same—the doings of man with the land, the work of the farmer. And to this—in contrast
with the Chapel whose life is over—the lower part of the plate is dedicated. It is no picturesque place. Turner
painted English life as it was; and the struggle of the poor is uppermost in his mind in all these rustic subjects.
This is a common farm, and rude are the labourers that tend it. But pathetic feeling is given to them by Turner’s
anxious kindness. He paints them at the hour of rest, and the sense of its consolation broods over this little world.
The barn stands among its trees like a homestead, roofed and warm. The horses unyoked, and wearied out, are
going to the stall, and the labourer passes forth to fetch them water. The cattle are coming home with the milkmaid,
and the bullocks from the plough—and there is not a leaf astir in all the trees in the windless evening.

The composition of the drawing is a triumph of quiet power—not one exaggerated or rude line, but soft and
flowing curves of road and walls and hill, met and enforced by the upright figures of the labourer and of the milkmaid
which repeat and oppose each other, and by the prominent and advancing front of the barn. The rounded outlines
of the cloud and of the tree tops—both of which in their descending curves deepen the hollow to which the road
rises and on the’ ridge of which the woman stands—are set over against each other, and unite the heaven and
the earth. The great trunk in the left foreground, leaning back, and the tree stems beyond open out a vista which
carries us away from the enclosed hollow in which, on first looking at the plate, we feel we are too much imprisoned.
The still spaces of sky seen on either side between the trees and the hill refresh the eye, and tell us that beyond the
hill we shall escape into a wide and distant country. Even in quiet subjects of this kind Turner supplies food to the
imagination.”——Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on Me Lz'éer, p. 107.

“The fine drawing of the trees on the left here is very noticeable, especially in the etching, and also the perspective
of the road. The plate has a delightful effect of a bright, showery summer’s day, and seems to me one of the most
successful of Turner’s less ambitious and more every—day class of subjects. A turnpike road, with a hedge on one
side, and a farmyard on the other, are not very promising materials for a picture, but the play of light and shade
over them has given us a pleasant result, and this result I think, too, is in nowise owing to the more romantic feature
introduced—the ruined abbey in the distance; though of course the importance of the latter as a part of the composition
is apparent.”—W. G. RAWLINSON, Catalogue, p. 70.

The plate was published in June, 1811. It is No. 33 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Cal/zlzlgut.

(27)’

 

 

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CROWHURST, SUSSEX—By J. M. w. Turner, R.A. (Unpublished)

 

 

 

C ROW 1‘1 U RST, S U S S EX. (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

It will most likely be some time before you appreciate the great and simple truth of this etching. You feel
inclined to say little about it—only to take off your hat. You will not need to be told how beautifully arranged
the trees are, or how true is their drawing; nor, if you know country like this, how much character is got into
the few lines and dots of the small hills. This plate was never quite finished in the after-process of mezzotinting.
You will notice some rather large hills or moors indicated at the back of the trees. These were intended, I think,
to be represented as covered with snow, by a sudden snowstorm such as often comes in early spring. You see
the people are felling timber, as they do in the spring—time, because of the sap rising.

It is not unusual to hear people laugh at Turner’s figures. Never you do so. Whenever he put a figure in
his picture, it was in its right place, and whatever he meant that figure to be doing, it was doing with all its
might; and some of the seeming careless drawing he put into figures was righter for their places in landscape
work than at first sight appears. Turner could draw studio figures when he wanted to, as well as anybody; and if the
man with the cross-cut saw under his arm appears to have a curious arm and a big nose—~well, perhaps he m.

The sky in this plate is still darker than it would have been when finished, I think. Perhaps you know that
in mezzotinting the plate is roughened so as to print quite dark all over, and that this roughness is gradually
scraped and burnished away till the proper degree of lightness is arrived at. Proofs are taken from the plate at
intervals to “prove" to the engraver that he is proceeding rightly, and of course the plate is always on the dark side
until it is finished. So that this proof is an engraver's proof, and I think there is no doubt that had Turner
completed it, there would have been more form and perhaps not so uniform a darkness in the sky. The foreground,
small hills, and the plain, are pretty complete I should think, and splendid they are. I should like to have seen
what Turner would have done with the distant plain and sky over there. What there is suggests that it would
have been magnificent, for he could have done this in a manner such as no engraver could approach in interpreting
a drawing. Mr. Ruskin considers the etching of Crowkurst to be the third finest in the Lia” (Elements of Drawing,
p. 134). This was one of those plates that was never published, and only three engraver’s proofs are known to exist—
in the possession of Mr. J. E. Taylor, Mr. W. G. Rawlinson, and Dr. Pocock of Brighton—FRANK SHORT.

It is much to be regretted that this magnificent plate was never completed. The attempts to represent a passing
snow-shower—the half of the landscape covered with snow, while the cloud is drawn across the centre, like a great veil—
is often seen in nature, but perhaps was never represented by any other artist.

There is a wondrous mysterious beauty about this plate, of which the small reproduction gives a very faint idea.
Still, when only a few proofs exist, it is worth the effort to give even a faint idea of their grandeur. Mr. Rawlinson
kindly lent his valuable impression for the purpose of reproduction.

The original drawing is. in the possession of Mr. Henry Vaughan.

This plate is No. 76 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
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DUMBARTON ROCK—By J. M. W. Turner, R.A. (Unpublished.

 

 

 

D U M BA RTO N R0 C K (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

This is one of the plates that never was issued, though some proofs were sold at the Turner sale, and perhaps
the finest of these are in the possession of Mr. J. E. Taylor, Mr. W. G. Rawlinson, and the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke.

It is my opinion that you will never get a better lesson in the gracefulness of trees, nor in the wonder and
suggestiveness of a flat distance, than is contained in this etching. So study it right carefully. I think I enjoy it
more as an etching than with the tint added, although the after—work was done by the most gifted of Turner’s
engravers, and is supposed to be complete in the state from which the reproduction is taken. It was never
published, however. Many of the proofs of the plate were printed in black ink, this being the only instance, as
far as I know, in which a [.2527 plate was so treated, all the others being printed in various shades of brown ink.

The etching is most masterly, and conveys really quite as full an impression of the motive as the finished
work. You know perfectly well, without the tone, that it is a warm afternoon after rain, quite as much by the
feeling of all the near part of the subject, as by the fact of the craft down below having shaken out their sails to
dry. ,And what a graceful little figure that is looking over the rails across the stream! lazy in the hot afternoon,
as it is good for people to be sometimes, and in harmony with the sleepy ships down in the hollow that are waiting
patiently enough for the tide to come back and wake them up. Put your finger over this figurepand see how
badly you will miss it.—FRANK SHORT.

The drawing is in the possession of Mr. Frederick Locker. The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke kindly allowed the
reproduction to be made from his fine impression of the engraving in its completed state.

Mr. P. G. Hamerton, in Baking and Eta/lam, says:—“ It is scarcely probable, considering the disposition
of the lines, that the effect of light and shade was intended to be a powerful one. The artistic motive of the
composition was space and beauty, rather than force and contrast. The view is wide and fair, and the last waves
of the granite ocean which tosses its highest crests on Cruachan and Ben Nevis, come undulating here in long
slopes to the edge of the lowland plain. Out of the Clyde the last expression of the exhausted mountain energy
rises far off—the fortress rock of Dumbarton. Against this beautiful distance, Turner will bring no rudely
contrasting tree, but gives us the slender and delicate acacia, with all its pendent flowers. Leading thus from the
faint lines of the distance to the stronger work of the foreground, he has obtained by this transition a natural
passage to the massiveness of the great trees to the left. The reader is especially entreated to allow himself to
receive impartially the full and sweet amenity of this composition, for there are etchings of Turner in which his
many-sided mind sought qualities very different from amenity. When the student of etching comes across a piece
of work by Turner which seems to him brutal and coarse, let him remember the distant hills and the acacia in
this plate of Dumbarton.”

Engraved by Thos. Lupton. The plate is No. 75 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
(29) H

 

 

NIONT ST, GOTHARD. [The Engraving is reproduced on page 15.]

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Mr. Ruskin says of this plate :——“The pass of the St. Gothard especially, from his earliest days, had kept
possession of Turner’s mind, not as a piece of mountain scenery, but as a marvellous road; and the great drawing
which I have tried to illustrate with some care‘in this book, the last he made of the Alps with unfailing energy, was
wholly made to show the surviving of this tormented path through avalanche and storm, from the day when he first
drew its two bridges, in the [.z'éer éZudz'orum.”—-Modern Painters, vol. v. p. 3 39, note.

We can give nothing so good as the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke’s eloquent description of this platez—“The power
and majesty of the drawing is concentrated round the road. It is the difficult triumph of human energy over the terrible
forces of Nature that Turner paints, and with which he sympathizes while he paints. Turner has wrought with
his utmost strength the dark gallery driven through the precipice. With equal strength he has built up the side of
the precipice which climbs from the hollow, until it seems to be a buttress made by human hands to support the
mountain. He has laid down the road upon the solid rock with touches as solid as the rock; and finally etched
the low broad wall and parapet with lines deeper and’more rigidly cut than any used upon the rocks, as if he would
insist on the worth of the work of man! The steady and patient march of the laden mule, bending to his work,
is a symbol of the labour that built the road, and daily uses it.

But Turner tells still more. He tells, to enhance the wonder of the road, the dangers to which it is subject.
Down that rushing precipice above fall the winter avalanches, and where they pass over the slope of the rock,
not a lichen has grown. Water, lying in the crevices, has eaten into the stone, and freezing, has split it along
the lines of cleavage. Lower down, it has riven away a great mass which has fallen beside the path. Nearer
at hand, another form of water destruction is at work. A small stream, from a source above, has worn its way
over and into the rock. We see the result of its labour below in the'tumble of stones. Tiny as its cascade is
now, in spring it desolates the path. The history then of the work of water, running and frozen, which thislittle
corner of the drawing tells us is an abstract of Alpine disintegration. '

I wish I could adequately tell how it is that Turner makes the masses of rock and the faces of precipice
in his mountain drawings seem so gigantic. No other artist approaches him in this matter. It is not'that they,
succeed ill. They do not succeed at all. It is not that he succeeds well; it is that he succeeds superbly.

The same things are true of his smaller masses of rock. His boulders look their size; here above the
path is one, detached, as huge as those in the Source of Me A were” and in the Ben Artfiur. How is it done?
It is easy to say generally that it is the work of a hand trained to express, through years of exercise, the most
subtle distinctions of form; that it is the result of an immense knowledge gained by years of observation and
recording of the doings of Nature, so that his pencil when it moved, moved as if he himself were Nature.
But, more particularly, he gains these massive effects, first, by the infinite change and variety in his outline of a
precipice or the edge of a rock—the main curve or fall of the line altering at every tenth of an inch its
sweep—so that the eye, unconsciously arrested at every point, never seems to come to the end. The vast rock
outlines have this subtlety and variety, but it needs a hand almost as subtle and various as Nature’s own to
render them. ‘

Secondly, this change and subtlety must be expressed within the great lines of stratification, cleavage, or
fracture which belong to each kind of rock, and the artist must feel these main, lines and never be false to‘ them,
no not even in the stones which fall from the rocks on the roadside. And Turner saw and drew rightly these
lines, though he knew nothing about them Scientifically—in fact drew them all the better because he was not
confused by any geological knowledge. And the lines by which he marked the character of the rocks were as
few in broad drawings like this, as they were multitudinous and careful in an elaborate drawing like Leek Corz'séz'n.
It is then this absolute truth to the figure of the rocks as influenced by their atomic arrangement which makes
our sight impute to them in his drawings their hugeness of height and breadth.”—Notes on z‘ke‘Lz'éer, p. 30.

Mont St. coward was published in 1808. It is No. 9 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Calalngue.

MORPETH, NORTHUMBERLAND. (No.21.)

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Any one who knows north—country towns will recognize their character directly in ,this drawing. But in almost
any town or village there can easily be found material for a composition as varied as this. So notice how Turner
has used first materials, and the simple and straightforward way in which he has worked his ideas out. All good
drawing is simple—FRANK SHORT.

“This Etching is very forcibly drawn, and the perspective admirable.”—W. G. RAWLINSON, Catalogue, p. 49.

Mr. Ruskin recommends it as “very desirable for study.”——Elemezzts of Drawing, p. 134.
(so)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MORPETH. No. 21.—-PART OF THE ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBERSTUDIORUM), Plate IX. ' BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

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THE STRAW YARD. No. 7.—PART OF THE ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

SOUTH KENSINGION DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate X. BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

 

 

4n, 7

 

 

 

 

 

RIVER WEIR—By J. M. w. Turner, R.A.

 

 

 

RIVER WYE. (No. 48.) (CALLED ALSO CHEPSTOW CASTLE.)

I don’t know a harder thing to do than to express thick foliage by means of simple lines. See how a great man
does it, and gets all the grace shown in the etching. After you have copied this example, try and do a bit of it from
memory, you will feel the difficulty more. The placing of the barge mast under the castle is done to give height, and
the figure to repeat it.—FRANK SHORT. '

I

“Chepstow Castle is set, in this drawing, on its lofty bank over the Wye, and as in Nor/1am, Turner has marked
his sympathy with its ruin and with its departed power by placing behind its shattered wall and pouring through its
broken windows the peaceful light of a summer evening. The sun has dropped down to its setting; the glory of the
castle is gone; but they have had their day, and both, in passing away, preserve a beauty that is filled with peace.
All things have ceased to work. The cattle are at rest, the barge has hauled down its sail, and the men lazily let
out their net; the workmen, released from the day’s toil, are bathing in the warm river; the trees stand still in the
windless air; the very clouds have gone to sleep. It is the poet’s ‘all golden afternoon.’

The centre of the drawing is the keep of the castle, and it is shown uplifted against the open space of sky which
the brightness of the sun seems to have made bare of clouds, though we see that in reality it is crossed with a
number of fine bars of vapour. The clouds on the left, bending in varied masses upward, are tossed, nearest the
castle, into two upcurving lines whose under edges, lit by the sun, serve still further to isolate the Keep in the
imagination. But, while thus beloved by the heaven, it preserves its rule over the earth. Like Nor/mm Cast/e,
it over-lords the river, and Turner may have placed the barge below to make us remember that all the merchandise
that passed up the stream of old was made to pay toll by the great earls. And, to deepen this impression of
governance, he has made the ramparts of the castle as they march onwards to the point of the cliff rise like portions
of the cliff itself, till, having masonried the last wall downwards like a precipice, the Whole building stands forth
undisputed master of the winding of the Wye.”—The Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on Me Lz'éer, p. 161.

THE WOMAN AND TAMBOURINE. (No. 3.)

This plate does not find favour with Mr. Ruskin, who describes it as “one of the worst and feeblest studies in the book, owing the principal
part of its imbecilities to Claude,” and Mr. Stopford Brooke also finds fault with it. We give a portion of the etching to show, even with these
reservations, how beautiful Turner’s work was. The drawing is in my opinion an exquisite piece of work, and the young artist will do well to copy
it with all care pOSSible.——FRANK SiIORT.

THE STRAW YARD. (No. 7.)

We give a portion only of this etching. The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke sees much beauty in this plate, and the power
of the master in making a commonplace subject interesting. As a lesson in composition it is useful to the student.

“The subject, of course, is not especially interesting to those who seek the heroic in the 12hr Siua’z'orum, or Nature represented in her
beauty or power; but it has its own charm, and there is more of the true Turner and of what he loved than there is in subjects which seem
more interesting, like that for example of the Bridge and Goals. At least, this is English, and Turner loved his land though often his love was
sorrow. And it is peasant life, and though he saw that life as it is, and made it coarse and rude, yet he pitied the diflicult labour of the poor,
and his. soft feeling always rises through his work upon it, and touches us with tenderness.”—Notes (m the Lz'éer, p. 24.

(31)

 

 

 

 

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FLINT CASTLE, VESSELS UNLOADING.—By J, M. W. Turner. R.A.

 

 

FLINT CASTLE—VESSELS UNLOADING.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

It is not much use for anyone to try to draw boats and ships without knowing something about the working of
them on the water. People who do are always taking very careful note of really unimportant points, and quite
missing the essential truths. See the knowledge of these things Turner had. Everything you want to know
about these boats is told you. Notice particularly the way the two sprit-sail boats in the mid-distance are put in,
and you will see how little necessary is a mechanically-perfect line in giving a perfectly true impression, if the lines
are directed by knowledge and feeling. No dashed—in, smart-looking lines, but calmly laid, everything in its true
place and of its just proportion, accepting simply whatever uncertainty belongs to work done by human hand—even
gaining by it, I think. Students are always afraid of leaving these things in their work, and strive after the wire-like
lifeless line one so often sees in School of Art work. Just imagine some of the cordage in this drawing having
been ruled with a straight—edge!

I think the group of figures in the left of the picture would have gained by being “bitten” a little less deeply by
the acid. In “biting” an etching the lines are made wider as well as deeper by the action of the acid, and some
of the lines have, I think, rather run together. But it doesn’t matter.—FRANK SHORT.

The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke shares this opinion. He says :——“The boats are drawn with the knowledge gained by
the long observation of his youth. He has built them with anxiety for their battle with the sea. See how their
bows are tossed to meet the waves and to lift over them, how broad their beam, how mightily hewn their ribs,
and with what mingled force and grace their sails and masts spring into the air. Turner loved these hardy facers
of the tempest, and drew them with the same affection that a lover paints his mistress. Lower down, in the
foreground, there is another of these boats, done from point to point with equal power and love; and either to enhance
our interest by more detail, or to gain a greater mass of shadow, or because he loved that confusion of ropes and
sails which is so pleasant to see, he places a smaller boat behind the larger one, and uses the darkness of its sharp
projecting bow-sprit and its fluked anchor-head to intensify the light on the horizon. All this is wrought with his
best skill. The two groups of men in the foreground are deliberately composed into forms which are of value to the whole
subject, and treated as if they were integral parts of the landscape. The group with the cart and horse, set underneath
the castle, lifts the castle into the air, and gives it distance and dignity by repeating its lines. The group on the
shore serves as a resting—place for the sight, and between both groups which are like the sides of a gateway, the
lines of the seashore seem to open out to meet the breadth of the sea. The boat-hook and the block which
crosses it are so arranged as to induce the eye to do this work.

But the groups are not less full of that human interest so dear to Turner because they are thus treated,
They fill the scene with life. There is as much activity upon the shore among the men as there is in the sky
among the clouds. The smugglers discharge in haste their cargo; far off, the fisher-folk are watching the scene.
There is none of the sadness which prevails so much in the Liéer Studz'orum. Turner loses it by the seaside; the
fresh wind, the ships, the sailors, seem to make him happy, and we feel his pleasure in these things as we look

at this drawing.”—-N0tes on Me Lz'éer, p. 13.

Flint Carl]: was published in 1807. It is No. 4 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
(327

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THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” No.4.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

FLINT CASTLE.—ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Sou'TH Ksusme'rou DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate XI. BLACKIE & SON. Publishers

 

‘THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.”' Nos. 48 A_ND 35.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CH E PSTO W CASTLE, No. 48.———PAR’I‘ OF ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.
IA Vignette of the Engraving will be found at page 3L]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INVERARY PIER. No. 35.——REDUCT10N OF THE ETCHING BY J. M. .W. TURNER, RA.
[The Engraving is reproduced at page 13.]

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate XII. . BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

     

“LIBER STUDIORUM.” Nos. 10 AND 20.

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SHIPS IN A BREEZE. N0. Io.—PART OF THE ETCHING BY J. M. W. TUORNER, R.A.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No. 20.—REDUCTION OF THE ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

 

 

“THE LEADER SEA-PIECE.”

BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM). Plate Xlll.

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THE LEADER SEA-PIECE—By J. M. W. Turner, R.A.:

 

 

THE LEADER SEA—PIECE. (No. 20.) [OR THE GUARDSHIP AT THE NORE.]
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

People who are fond of comparisons have said that this reminds them of W. Van der Velde; but the mere drawing,
as Mr. Rawlinson justly remarks, is most masterly, and far beyond anything; Van der Velde was capable of. The Rev.
Stopford A. Brooke’s eloquent description of this fine plate cannot be equalled, and we give it almost in fullz—“The
great cumulus clouds have all their upper rack blown away like the wave-crests underneath; and lower down
they are trailed away, as if by a steady gale, into parallel lines of slantingi stratus. The very rays of sunlight seem
also to be driven into similar forms by the wind. Above, heavier clouds, charged with rain, are heaving forward,
their folds full of a coming shower. The sea is divided into four stripes of alternate dark and light, the nearest
and largest of which is blackened by the squall which sends the fishing—boat along so swiftly. These horizontal
stripes emphasize the horizontal lines of the anchored ships, and double the impression they are designed to make of
firm and stately watchfulness. The beautiful curve made by the two fishing—boats and by the sloping patch of light
on the shore,—the sweep of which is determined by the etched strokes on the stern of the nearest boat,——is a lovely
contrast to the horizontal lines of the sea and the men-of—war, and the rushing speed of the boats is equally set over
against the stern quiet of the guardships. The slanting masts of these boats, at right angles to the clouds, yet both
—~clouds and boats—moved by the wind, seem to enhance the power of the growing gale, and the strained cable of
the ship tells of the force with which it blows. The run of the sea, and its sharp curves are struck forth clearly
by the three white touches on the bars of the buoy which turn in an opposite direction to the waves. It is a pity,
but it cannot be helped, that so much of the masterly etching of the waves is lost in the photograph, but the
splendid drawing of their eddying sweeps around the buoy, and of the hollow behind it where the surface is
made smooth by the headlong dip of the sea beneath it, can still .be seen. It is in the work of the waves around
this buoy that Turner tells exactly how strong he means the wind and the tide to be.”-—Notes on Me £22567, 1). 7o.

SHIPS IN A BREEZE. (No.10.) [OR THE EGREMONT SEA-PIECE]
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. w. TURNER, R.A.r

Think of all these lines being drawn with a needle (which, in Turner’s case, was really a prong of an old steel
fork sharpened to a point) on a slippery piece of copper (much harder to do than with a pencil), and you will appreciate
the skill and firmness which did them, and see the use of working with a hard pencil. Nothing is harder in etching
than to draw the lines made by ropes. They are never all straight, and anything of the character of a ruled
line does not represent them at all. The curve in a slack rope, too, is always a subtle one. There are not many ships
so graceful as these left now-a-days—none, I think, with these great single top-sails. The old brig with the bluff
bows coming on close-hauled is a fine specimen of a favourite position of Turner’s for drawing a sailing ship;
everything coming well and compact together, all the top gear based firmly on the hull, the t’gallant masts sprung

well over to the lee, and every rope telling whether it is taut or slac’k. Everything tells of wind; the ship
(33) ‘ H2

 

 

 

SHIPS IN A BREEZE—By J. M. W. Turner, R.A.

 

 

 

SHIPS IN A BREEZE—Continued.

riding in the middle of the picture is down by the nose, and has a fore-and-aft sail set to steady her, and her

yards all pointed to ease the strain. The sea is “choppy,” and the use and choice of the lines in the etching of these'

waves is splendid. See the bits of beautiful drawing there is in them, and the suggestion under all this of the
little shakes and quivers there always is in a sea of this kind. For every sort iof wind (in conjunction with the
tide) makes a different kind of sea, as sailor men know well. Also the character given to the old pier by the
wavy lines could not be bettered.—FRANK SHORT.

Hear the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke :—“This drawing is, with its companion the Leader Sea—piece, a study of shipping
in windy weather. It is the kind of weather in which Turner reached all the gaiety of which his silent steady nature
was capable—a seaman’s gaiety, like the rough fresh breeze which tosses here the waves and rolls the clouds along.
It was a gaiety he did not show, but nature felt it for him, and on such a day the salt spray ”and the rushing
wind and the bursts of sunshine and rain made him feel happy. i

The higher sky is clear and the half-gale continuously brings up across it dark and heavy clouds, each pouring
forth their rain. As they pass away, the sun from above illuminates their upper folds. The moment chosen here
is the interval between the retreat of one of these masses of vapour and the approach of another. Rain is falling
to the right and left, but not in the centre. In contrast with this swift movement and life, this variety of gloom
and light, is the quiet space of lofty air upon the right, and the motionless cirrus clouds that float in its sunshine.
The same opposition of movement and rest is made by the ships which whirl swiftly in curves around the steady,
horizontal man—of—war at anchor. In order to animate the sky still more, and to fill the mind with the impression
of the breeze, Turner has put in the gulls which are tacking against the wind, and the pennant and flags which
struggle with it to escape and are themselves like flying birds. The oblique lines of shadow which cross the sky
at right angles to the masts of the sailing merchantmen make the curves of the clouds seem more beautiful, and
seem to double the speed of the ships.

To get distance, the sea is separated into three spaces on the left, the middle one of which is flooded with
sunlight, and the same effect is produced on the right hand by the shadows which divide the sea into five spaces
and force the eye to 'travel over them one by one.

The ship anchored in the midst is riding head to the wind, the force of which is indicated by the way she
sinks downward at the bow, pulling at the cable. The wind is strong, therefore, but it is blowing off shore. Hence
the waves have no run in them and no massiveness, and are broken up into white water. They lift only against
the pier with the general agitation of the whole sea, and the interest of their drawing consists in the representation of
the clashing of this apparently double movement, the movement towards, and the movement away from, the land.
Three of the ships are sailing free with the wind on their quarter. The fourth has just luffed up head to wind in the
process of tacking, and her sails are flattened against the masts. The life, the speed of these 'merchant barks, their

ease and freedom on the sea, their mastery over the waters are all delightful.”-——Noz‘es on Me Liéer, p. 36.

\ 5/2sz in a Breeze was published in 1808, and T It: Leader Sea-Piece in 1809.
,s- (34)

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THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” No. II.

 

 

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HOLY ISLAND CATHEDRAL.—ETCH1NG BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate XIV. BLACKIE & SON. Publishers

 

 

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HOLY ISLAND CATHEDRAL—By J. M. \V. Turner, RtA.

 

 

 

HOLY ISLAND CATHEDRAL.
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

The etching is a fine study of architectural drawing, treated, as everything Turner did, in a masterly way.
The student will find it an admirable drawing lesson, and as such, it should be copied literally. Mr. Brooke’s
talented criticism will materially aid to an intelligent rendering of the work.

“Turner has done his best to give himself and us a fine pleasure by his accurate and imaginative etching of
the stones. There is no slovenliness, or trying to produce picturesque effect by meaningless dots and shadows and
vegetation. Whatever pleasure is arrived at has its foundation in truth, and in the charm that arises out of the clean

clear drawing of things as they are. The axe—hewn massiveness of Norman work, and its close—fitting grasp of stone '

to stone, are here before our eyes. It seems as if the building was not made, but had grown like an oak by its own
vitality. There are no ruled lines, no mere draughtsman’s mechanical work. Every touch moves instinct with the
artist’s feeling of the life of the stone itself, of the way in which the mason hewed it, of the work which Nature
has done upon it. Twice he has expressed—where the arches have sunk in the upper row—the tremendous strength
of the resistance the noble masonry offers to decay. And all over the walls, by the most skilful mezzotinting—
watched as it was day by day by Turner—the surface structure of the stone is narrated to us; and the story varies
from point to point. The interest is made, then, by the telling of truth.

Additional interest is supplied, first by the sky spaces seen beyond the upper windows; then by the falling lights
and by the gradations of shadow which rise to the central light; then by the clever disposition of the pillars, varied
like a grove of trees, but each in its place; then by the wild curves and luxuriant vegetation of the foreground—
its natural and unpremeditated growth being set in contrast to the studied and rigid lines of the architecture; and,
lastly, by the way~in strict accordance probably with the actual impression it produces—in which the central pillar
is made chief of the others, like the leader of a host. It is in reality on a line with the pillars on each side of
it. But owing to its lower descent into the ground, to the broken arch above its capital which pushes forward like
a horn and challenges the eye, to the disposition of light upon it and especially on its capital, and to its elaborate
carving, it seems to come onward beyond the rest, and the others to recede from it at an angle.

Moreover, being thus made the centre of the composition, Turner, to give it importance, has made a great
foundation for it, setting it on a little mound of its own, and surrounding its base with wild grass and weeds, the
great leaves of which curving away on either side of it support and dignify it. By these things the plate is made
delightful; and it is worth while perhaps to say that Turner, not being able to amuse himself as usual with the sky,
has taken special pleasure and pains with the broken ground and stones, and made every inch of them interesting,
even to the smooth floor in the distance which, in contrast with the rough foreground, gives to the eye the pleasure
of repose.”—Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Noles on the Liéer, p. 40.

“Thesharp, firm drawing of the building throughout is very noticeable, especially in the etching. Nowhere are
Turner’s strength and certainty of hand more visible than in the curves and the perspective of the Norman arches
of the nave.”—W. G. RAWLINSON, Catalogue, p. 29.

The plate was published in 1808. It is No. II in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
(35) I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NORHAM CASTLE.—REDUCTION or THE E'rcnma By J. M. W. Turner, RA

 

[A Reduction of the Engraving will be found on p. 19.]

NORHAM CASTLE ON THE TWEED.
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Mr. Rawlinson says :———“ Norham Castle was a subject of which Turner never seemed to tire. His first picture
of it appeared at the Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1798—an exhibition by the way which contained no
less than three other Lz'éer subjects—Dunslanéorougé, Holy Island Calflm’ml, and Kz'résmll. The Academy
picture was a sunrise effect, Thomson’s well-known lines from the ‘Seasons’ being appended as a motto. Was it
the equally well-known opening line of ‘Marmion,’ which afterwards struck him, and led him to associate N orham,
as he has here, with sunsets?”——Cata[ogue, p. 117.

The etching is a fine example of simplicity of treatment, not one line being inserted that will not be needed to
give force to the subsequent mezzotinting. Compare it carefully with the engraving, as completed, on p. 19. It is thus
described by the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke :—“ The etching of the rock, the changes of reflected light upon it, the sharp
etching of the mill shed and the low house on the point, which in their keen blackness are so necessary to the whole
composition, are unavoidably lost in the photograph. But the deep and quiet seriousness of the sentiment remains. The
castle, set high in air against the pure evening sky, rules proudly over the whole landscape, filling the eye and the
imagination. Turner has bound up its masonry with the roots of the rock; it has become a part of Nature. Tweed
herself is subject to it; it rules over the Cheviots in the distance. The sun is its friend, and illuminates it like a moun—
tain peak. But it is all in vain. The ruin of the labour and glory of men is deeper in Turner’s mind than the dignity and
splendour of the past, and as if to insist on this, he places on the left hand a cabin which in its outline echoes the greater
. part of the castle, and in itself, were it not for this pathetic analogy, is one of the ugliest things he ever put into a
landscape. Nor are the stranded boat and the figure of the boy less awkward. The only use of the boy, as he
stands there like a recruit at drill, is' to continue the line of the wall of the hut, and with his reflection to lift the hut
into some height. The same thing is done for the castle by the upright sail of the boat, and by its reflection.
One other matter of composition is interesting. The repetition of the line of the castle wall by the back of the
cow in the stream below, and that of the curve of the rock on the right hand by the outline of the cows on the
hillside, increase the effect of evening peace, and bind into harmony this portion of the drawing.

Lastly, Tweed herself, in the shallow reach, seems calm, but a light wind ruffles the surface, and all the
reflections are lengthened. The sail of the boat is brought down almost to the bottom of the plate, its image
being taken up again and again by every ripple. Over the whole space of water there is such a ceaseless interchange
of reflections and shadows, that it ought to yield to .study additional knowledge of their differences and of the
distinct way they play their parts when they meet together. Underneath the sail—boat, underneath the cows, they
mingle but are not confused with one another. Turner thought, as we think, of the lines of Scott—

‘ Day set on N orham’s castle steep
And Tweed’s fair river, broad and deep,
And Cheviot’s mountains loneg’

but Scott wrote of Norham when it was superb, and Turner paints its sadness. Yet the sentiment of the poem is
also here; and time delays with us, while lost in feeling, and silenced by the evening dream, we seem to move

only with the slow wafting of the boat upon the stream.”——Noz‘es on Me Lz'éer, p. 192.

Nor/2am was published in 1816. It is No. 57 inyMr. Rawlinson’s Cala/ogue.
(36)

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THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” ,'No. 6.

 

 

 

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JASON.-—By J. M. W'. Turner. R.A.

 

 

 

JASON. DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. w. TURNER, R.A.

Mr. Ruskin has written about this plate, and his remarks are printed below. You cannot help being struck
with the wildness of everything low down in the dell and near the dragon and then see the little bit of graceful
and peaceful tree, just against the sky and edge of the cliff. The calmness and sweetness of the sky often strikes
one, even in its angry moods, among all the worry and fuss of things below. It is surprising how complete an
idea of the finished plate in full light and shade is suggested by this etching. And the choice and simplicity of
Turner’s lines—and, here and there, dots—to give the intricacy of dense foliage is most masterly. It looks easy to
do this thing in the first instance, but it isn't—FRANK SHORT.

Mr. Rawlinson says:—“The etching of this plate is exceedingly fine, and is carried further perhaps than any
of the others. Mr. Ruskin, in the Elements of Drawing (p. 134), includes it among those most desirable for study.
He has also alluded to the plate in various passages in Modern Painters. In vol. iii. p. 324, classing it among
the five or six finest subjects of the Lz‘éer, he pronounces it as, with them, ‘founded first on nature, but modified
by fond (the italics are his) imitation of Titian.’ And again in vol. ii. he says:—‘Take up Turner’s Jason,
Lz'éer Stuzz’z'orum, and observe how the imagination can concentrate all this and infinitely more, into one moment.
No far forest country, no secret paths, nor cloven hills; nothing but a gleam of pale horizontal sky, that broods
over pleasant places far away, and sends in, through the wild overgrowth of the thicket, a ray of broken daylight
into the hopeless pit. No Haunting plumes nor brandished lances, but stern purpose in the turn of the crestless
helmet, visible victory in the drawing back of the prepared right arm behind the steady point. No more claws,
nor teeth, nor manes, nor stinging tails. We have the dragon, like everything else, by the middle. We need

see no more of him. All his horror is in that fearful, slow, griding upheaval of the single coil. Spark after spark»

of it, ring after ring, is sliding into the light, the slow glitter steals along him step by step, broader and
broader, a lighting of funeral lamps one by one, quicker and quicker; a moment more, and he is out upon us,
all crash and blaze, among those broken trunks ,—-but he will be nothing then to what he is now.

Now observe in this work of Turner that the whole value of it depends upon the character of curve assumed
by the serpents body; for had it been a mere semicircle, or gone down in a series of smaller coils, it would
have been, in the first case, ridiculous, as unlike a serpent, or, in the second, disgusting, nothing more than an
exaggerated Viper; but it is that coming sz‘még/zi at the right hand which suggests the drawing forth of an
enormous weight, and gives the bent part its springing look, that frightens us. Again, remove the light trunk on
the left, and observe how useless all the gloom of the picture would have been, if this trunk had not given it depth
and hollow/nets. Finally and chiefly, observe that the painter is not satisfied even with all the suggestiveness thus
obtained, but to make sure of us, and force us, whether we will or not, to walk his way, and not ours, the trunks of the
trees on the right are all cloven into yawning and writhing heads and bodies, and alive with dragon energy all about
us; note especially the nearest with its gaping jaws and claw—like branch at the seeming shoulder; a kind of suggestion
which in itself is not imaginative, but merely fanciful (using the term fancy in that third sense not yet explained,
corresponding to the third office of imagination); but it is imaginative in its present use and application, for the
painter addresses thereby that morbid and fearful condition of mind which he has endeavoured to excite in the
spectator, and which in reality would have seen in every trunk and bough, as it penetrated into the deeper thicket,
the object of its terror. —RUSKIN, Modem Pamters, ii. 166.

“The picture from which the plate is taken was painted in 1802, and is now in the National Gallery It is
darker than the print, and the serpent is not nearly so prominent an object.” ——W. G. RAWLINSON, Cam/ogue, p. 19.

[1150/1 was published in 1807. It is No. 6 in Mr. Rawlinson‘s Catalogue.
(37)

 

 

 

    

  

NEAR BLAIR ATHOL, SCOTLAND.
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. .

[A reduction of the Engraving will be found on p. 17.]

“Very fine both as etching and engraving.

Mr. Ruskin in the following passage (/11. P. vol. i. p. 388) cites this plate with others as an example of Turner’s
truth of tree-drawing. He says :—‘There is a peculiar stiffness about the curves of wood, which separates them com-
pletely from animal curves, and which especially defies recollection or invention; it is so subtle that it escapes but too
often, even in the most patient study from nature; it lies within the thickness of a pencil line. Farther, the modes
of ramification of the upper branches are so varied, inventive, and graceful, that the least alteration of them, even the
measure of a hair’s-breadth, spoils them; and though it is sometimes possible to get rid’ of a troublesome bough,
accidentally awkward, or in some minor respects to assist the arrangement, yet so far as the real branches are copied,
the hand libels their lovely curvatures even in its best attempts to follow them.

These two characters, the woody stiffness hinted through muscular line, and the inventive grace of the upper
boughs, have never been rendered except by Turner; he does not merely draw them better than others, but he is the
only man who has ever drawn them at all. Of the woody character, the tree subjects of the Lz'oer Studz'orum afford
marked examples.’

The stream, too, winding down the narrow, rocky glen, and brawling over the shallows in front, is very lovely.
In fine impressions, the limpid clearness of the water is exquisitely rendered by the mezzotint. In the etching a few
strokes give marvellously the whole nature and structure of the rocks.”——-W. G. RAWLINSON, Catalogue, p. 65.

The use to which these lines are put in the finished composition will be seen in some measure by referring to
the reduced block from the engraving on page 17.

The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke thus discourses of the masterly portrayal of the scene chosen for this plate :—“Here
the fisherman is more a natural part of the landscape than the centre of it. He awakens its solitude, but the solitude
is greater than he, and does not tell him of its marvels. This then is more than a fishing-stream in a glen, it is
one of those lonely places that Wordsworth thought possessed a soul. Alas! all the mysterious secrecy of the low
ravine dark with bending foliage, among the rocks of which the stream cries, and where the kelpie might find deep
pools to dwell in, is lost in the autotype. Every gradation, even the branches of the trees and all the brushwood,
are merged in one uniform shadow. The same thing has happened on the right above the fisherman. The
hollowed bank, made by the disintegrating shale, is in the engraving covered with deep-etched undergrowth, full of
changing tints. To that inner secret place, down which the stream, its life, is falling, Turner has given a portal,
as if to a temple. ' On either side two rocks extend into the stream. One is clothed with trees, and the other, which
lies half athwart the water, seems like a great boulder. It is in reality the end of a spur‘of living rock. Both are
being worn away by the rushing river, but the seeming boulder, the curved hollow under which has been scooped
out long ago, is at present spared much suffering. The wearing force of the water is now spent on its opposite
companion. ‘

When the stream has passed beyond the low waterfall it is whirled into the recess behind the boulder; and forced
out of that, is dashed against the left-hand bank of rock round which Turner has marked its swirling with a few
keen-etched lines. It then continues to the left, breaking into foam over the shallow, and finding room swings again
to the right, and covers all its surface with curving ripples and transverse waves, the forms of which are caused by
the hidden ridges of its bed. Under the boulder the water is smooth and full of reflections. The rush of the
stream in the middle of the channel has made a back-water in this place; but the water here detained must escape
somewhere; and Turner marks the place where it escapes by those curving lines which start from the dark
shadow and twist downwards across the horizontal ripples—like the figure 3 turned the opposite way—till at last
they are caught and carried away into the general course of the stream. Every fisher will know that this is a
glorious place for a rise. And the fisherman here, who has not much care for this nest of Nature, serves unconsciously
the artist’s use, and his uplifted arm and rod, continued by the broken stem above, lift the whole bank into the air,
and set back the woody hollow behind him into deeper shadow. Out of the hollow rise the birches, Scotland’s tree.
They are disposed in two masses, one thrown back to the right, the other, over the boulder, to the left. Like two
arms cast upwards, they serve thus to open out the landscape above the hidden dell; and, by this contrast, to make
greater the secret of its solitude.

Opposite, on the left bank, birch-trees grow out of the frost-hewn rents of the rock; and then, to give the mass
weight and variety, 'the heavy-leaved chestnut is introduced, not, I think, very happily, but Turner knows best.
And here he thinks again of the heart of his drawing—~the secret recess where the lonely stream descends; for he
sets on the edge of the rock two stems, in bright light, that we may deepen for ourselves the mysterious gloom beyond.

That mystery is part of the wild beauty of the earth that beckons to us out of its solitary places, but the face of
which we seek in vain to look upon. Often in a silent glen like this we seem to hear its presence call on us by
name, but whether in mockery or love we cannot tell.”—-—Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on Me [.z'oer, p. 98—101.

Blair At/wl was published in 1811. It is No. 30 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
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SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM). Plate XVI.

NEAR BLAIR ATHOL.—ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Buckle 81 SON. Publishers.

 

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BRIDGE AND COWS.——ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.
Scum KENSING‘ION DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate XVII. BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BRIDGE AND COWS—By J. M. \V. Turner, RA.

 

 

 

THE BRIDGE AND COWS.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, in his Notes on Me Lz’éer, says :—“ This drawing, treated with so much simplicity,
is said to bear the traces of Gainsborough’s influence. The natural landscape is certainly grouped in that painter’s
manner, but‘ the human element is altogether Turner’s own. Gainsborough often played with the peasant’s life as
a pretty subject, and his rustic children are always touched with sentiment and beauty. It was well to draw that
side of the truth; and that he should feel it proves his easy, charming temper. But Turner, whose imagination was
greater than Gainsborough’s, and who therefore felt more deeply, saw the sterner and the truer side of English
peasant life.

Turner’s pleasure in the making of this drawing was in the grove and in the willows by the water. The bridge
—'supported by the unshaped stems of trees, and floored by rude planks the curves of which the artist has etched with
great care—seems as if it had grown of its own impulse out of the wood behind it; and it may not be too fantastic to
think that Turner wished us to feel that it was the work of Nature herself, and that the thick—foliaged grove to which
it leads was a place where the old forest mystery could still be felt. This imaginative impression is deepened by the ,
strong realism of the pollard willows that fringe the brook and are the outer wall and guard of the deep wood. They
are nobly drawn. The vital switch and lissome leap of the branches of the living Willow ought to be compared with
the decaying trunk and the gnarled boughs of its dead companion. Both are contrasted with the most accurate
truth to nature, nor is their contrast without its pathetic analogy to vigorous manhood and sapless age. The etching
of their leaves, as the etching of the whole plate, is done with the greatest affection, his hand dwelling on his work
from point to point, as if he was delighted to tell the story of all he loved so much; and the slow stream as it
winds under the bank among the ”reeds and round the stone, shows, as many another example proves, that nowhere
is Turner’s hand more delicate, nor his grace of thought more tender, than when he is at work on a dark pool like
this wheremany reflections gather together to mingle and to commune like friends with one another. Opposite
to this woodland and water so full of imagination, is the commonplace mass of . trees on the rising hill by the
roadside; but even these Turner pitied in their dulness, and therefore the cumulus above, in sympathy with them,
repeats their outline. The rest of the sky is still and sleepy, the cloudy sky of an English afternoon in a damp
country. There is no wind, nothing to stir the blood or lift the leaves. '

The composition of the plate is interesting. A line taken from the head of the standing boy and brought
down to the feet of the boy who sits on the ground will repeat the curve of the left bank; and another drawn along
the backs of the cows will echo the line of the bridge, not exactly, but enough to illustrate one of Turner’s constant
habits in composition. Then again, the nearest upright of the bridge has its repetition in the beam which holds
up the waste—trough of the mill, and these two clasp together the distance and the foreground. Lastly, all the
long, soft sweeping lines of the bridge and the cows are opposed by the short curve of the road which wheels
sharply to the left; and every one of these curves is made more enjoyable, through contrast, by the vertical lines
of the mill which is, though hidden away at the back of the drawing, the centre of the composition.”—No!es, p. 5.

'1ch 8712132 and Cows was published in 1807. It is No. 2 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Calalogz/e.

(39? i K

 

 

THE LITTLE DEVIL’S BRIDGE.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Little Devil’s Bridge—which, among the “mountainous” subjects, had been preceded only by the Moat St.
Gotflard—was published, like the Falls of the Ctya’e, in March, 1809, when Charles Turner was still the mezzotint
engraver of every plate. It seems trite to say, what it is yet well to say, that Switzerland had impressed Turner
tremendously, and that he threw his whole heart into the rendering of that country’s, savageness, and of its awe-
inspiring majesty. Mr. Hamerton pays a tribute to the heavy etching of the rock and pines to the left, and of
the riven tree on the isolated central rock. It “has the artistic advantage,” he‘says, “of harmonizing with the
rugged material. When the foregrotmd is occupied by things whose nature is opposed to human effeminacy,
and affords enjoyment to none but our hardiest instincts, the iron pencil may be blunt and strong, and the hand
of the artist resolute; but we might not safely infer from the success of such work as this that it would be well
to apply a like method to all foregrounds.” And in speaking of the finished plate:—“If any student, however,
would copy this plate in pure etching, declining all help from mezzotint, or sulphur, or aquatint, or even dry-point,
he would ascertain for himself in what some of the difficulties of etching consist.” Mr. Henry Vaughan has an
engraver’s proof, which shows, as clearly as anything, by Turner’s written directions, his scrupulous trouble with
the plate. Mr. Brooke well reminds us that the bridge here depicted is “the old bridge below Andermatt, on the
St. Gothard Pass,—drawn when only a mule path traced its thin line among the ghastly cliffs.”——-FREDERICK WEDMORE.

We give Mr. Brooke’s own powerful words:—“ But a greater triumph than the path was the bridge, and
though he cannot set it altogether into light, yet he fills the whole drawing with its presence. It is, in his feeling,
greater here than the mountains; and its front of masonry, sweeping from side to side of the scene, fills the eye with
a more majestic image' than the walls of rock above it. He has made it also a part of Nature. It seems to be an
upgrowth of the will of the rocks themselves, and long companionship has bound it to them for ever. Nor does the
sunlight neglect it. Brighter even than on the path is the radiance of the shining on its parapet and on the limb of
its arch—an arch lightly wrought, and yet so strong that all the fierce storms that haunt this pass have not loosened its
knitted stones or injured its grave serenity. Turner loved it as he drew it. It is with the greatest care that he has
made the lines of the parapet and the footway of the bridge rise and fall in faint curves made by the settling of
the masonry into absolute firmness, and he wished to make that impressionon our mind. Mark, too, how the parapet
heaves above the arch in a faint and lovely curve, and with what a lift the bridge rushes upwards to meet the pathway.
It is as ifit were alive.

It still stands fast below the modern road. Its parapet is broken, but the mass is unshaken, and to this day,
through the beautiful toss of its curve, bent like a spring and seemingly as elastic, we can look up the gorge and see ‘
flashing across the awful hollow where the Reuss boils and foams in never—ending torment, the broken sunlights
Turner saw. The descending ridges of the mountains in the distance serve to deepen the gorge and ennoble the
bridge. The same downward fall of all lines to the hidden path of the torrent is insisted on by the slant upwards
of the blasted pines, paralleled and carried higher by the slope of the mountain side behind them;’ and the whole
series is bound together by the triangular knob of rock exactly below the crown of the arch and the turn of the distant
footpath. This lozenge of rock is the keystone of the composition. . _

Turner’s study of these pines and their rock foundations is in itself an abstract of the sentiment of the Alpine
passes between the line of deciduous trees and the treeless region. But here, where solitary desolation abides amid
destruction, Turner marks the deathfulness of the Upper Alps by the skeleton of the mule set in the foreground
with its skull couched like a dragon’s, and its ribs struck upwards in sympathy with the dead ribs of the with-
ered pines. Only two carrion crows, with their grey plumage exaggerated into white, animate the place.

But yet there are things that hold fast to life—the iron pines. Wilder than the rocks themselves, they grow
dark as the rocks and are rooted in their clefts. A few on the left are flourishing, but in how broken and-torn
a life; half naked, black against the light. As to those two pines in the foreground, for which Turner made several ‘
studies, they have lived their life, and they seem to cry out to heaven against their long misery. And yet they
have done their best, and Turner, in his fierce and pathetic sympathy with them, records it. Their roots have
become part of the very rock itself. Few things in this book are finer than the drawing of the talons of the
nearest pine which have struck themselves round the curving of the rock like an eagle’s claws around his prey; or
than the drawing of its trunk, where the foldings of the wood are like the foldings of the schist of which the
cliff is made—as solid and as strong—one would think almost as old. Nor have these ancient trees even yet
surrendered life. They cling to it as the Swiss clung to the liberty of their mountains, as the mountain path
clings to the mountain sides.”—Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE—Notes (m t/ze Liter, p. 64.

“Mr. Ruskin (M P. vol. i. p. 125), treating of the different hold which subjects taken from foreign countries
have upon all painters, as compared with subjects from their own country, regards this, with the St. Got/lard and
the Grand Cfiartrease, as among the marked instances in which, after his first visit. to SWitzerland, Turner showed

——W. G. RAWLiNSON, Catalogue, p. 45.

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‘both his entire appreciation and command of foreign subjects.

This plate was published in 1809. It is No. 19 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogm.
(40)

 

 

 

 

THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” No.8.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate XIX.

THE CASTLE ABOVE THE MEADOWS—ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

BLACKIE & SON, Puinshers.

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THE CASTLE ABOVE THE MEADOWS—By J. M. \V. Turner, R.A.

 

 

THE CASTLE ABOVE THE MEADOWS.
(CALLED ALSO OAKHAMPTON CASTLE.)

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

“The Castle above the Meadows is a pretty plate, gracious and cheerful, and the herd—boy who pipes on the
grass, so much for his own pleasure and absorbed in his music, gives the key-note to the warm and happy place,
and tells us of what Turner felt. It is so rare to find him gay and good-humoured in the Liéer Studiorum, so
rare to find him dwelling on the joy rather than on the sorrow of men, that the subject is more interesting from
this point of View than it is in itself. For otherwise there is not much in it, nor is it so well conceived or drawn,
or so penetrative of the heart 'of Nature as we should expect. It is chiefly out of the depths of his sympathy
for man that Turner’s imaginative treatment of Nature arises; and he pierces most deeply' into her truth when
his soul is full of the tragedy of mankind. At least, this is true of him after and during the years in which he
wrought at this book. .

There are many drawings of his earlier years when he is lost in the joy of the quiet hills and water—dells; and
he is nearer then to the lonely passion of Wordsworth for the spiritual life of Nature than any other soul has
ever been. But this exquisite time, when his was the silence and rapture of the lovely world, was brief; and of
that Joy ‘whose hand is ever on his lips, bidding adieu.’ When afterwards, as in this subject, his heart was light,
there was but little depth in his work; phantasy was there rather than imagination, prettiness rather than power;
and he seems to lose the certain instinct of his hand. The trees in this drawing appear to be pollarded elms and
are, with the exception of the two graceful creations beyond the stile, ill drawn in comparison with his usual work,
and they certainly want imagination. They are best done in those parts where they are ugliest, where the
pollarding of past years has forced them into strange modes of growth.

The prettiest thing in the drawing is the soft gliding of the hills and their woods into the water meadows. and
the unfrequented road where the cows lie without fear of disturbance. All the winding of the road, the house,
the lineof wood beyond, are charmingly composed together; and the trees on the horizon that toss their heads
like plumes give grace and lightness to the distance, and suggest the evening wind.

The Castle is, of course, the central thought, but Turner has not, I think, loved it. He lifts it high, it is
true, against the sky, but around it gathers no sentiment, save perhaps in the apparent sympathy of its towers with
the rock on which they are built, itself wrought into forms—as if it were basalt—which resemble ruined towers.
The sky however is beautiful, full of flaked cirri continuously yet variously disposed and lit underneath with the
light of the sun which has dipped towards its setting behind the western hill. V

The shadow of the hill and trees has begun to slope towards the plain; the cattle are half at rest; the sunlight
streams, like an evening traveller, through the stile which leads into the secret of the wood; and the boy, whose face
is lit with light as with pleasure, pipes the, farewell of the warm evening to the happy earth.”—Rev. STOPFORD
A. BROOKE, Notes on the Liber, p. 27.

We give Mr. Brooke’s admirable words, but we do not share his views in full. The etching we consider a
very excellent drawing lesson, and though there may be, according to modern ideas, some formality in the composi-
tion, it makes a pretty picture, and is well worthy of faithful study and imitation.

This plate is No. 8 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogut. It was published in 1808.
(4!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HIND-HEAD HILL.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Mr. Ruskin, in his Elements of Drawing, has selected this as one of those most deserving of study.

This subject doesn’t look so interesting as some of the others at first sight. To express rounded hills like
these, as shown in the etching, with simple lines and keep their character is very difficult indeed. Copy this etch-
ing carefully, and think about it, and then try and draw something like it from nature with as few lines, and your
respect for Turner’s work will increase much.——FRANK SHORT.

The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke says :—“The\ drawing of the foreground is worthy of close study. Nature has moulded
this upland with rain and frost, and by the growing grass, for centuries; men have made paths across it; the feeding
sheep have scored it with their following steps. Turner has told the whole story of these influences by the lines
of his etching, and by the varied falling of the shadows. He has done more. He has so arranged the sheep along
the edge of this shoulder of the down that we feel its rising curve and realize its height; and, still uncontent, has
so disposed the other sheep and the attitude of the shepherd that they explain, even better than the etching, the
modulations Of the surface of the hill. l

The sky is also of the highest interest, the moment being chosen when a great rain—cloud has slowly drifted away
to the right, while the afternoon sunlight, dividing the thinner folds of the retreating mass, breaks it up into separate
clouds and sends the rays darting upwards and downwards from their broken edges. For subtle truth of dispersed
light and shade, for imaginative arrangement, and for a solemn splendour of feeling and thought, so that it seems as
if Nature herself had taken the pencil of Turner, this sky is not surpassed in the Liéer Siudz'orum.

The feeling of the whole subject is in harmony with the skies. It is the sentiment of a sorrow as gentle as the
rain passing into‘the peace and sunshine and pleasure of life’s afternoon, when the shepherd of life has leisure to
read, and the labours of life, like the sheep, rest for a little time. The hour is given to quiet. The coach travels
in safety, the shepherd reads undisturbed. The days of highwaymen are gone by. The gallows is empty, and as if
in forgiveness, the brightest sunlight falls on it and shines behind it. The rain has been warm and has fallen softly,
without wind, and the vapour it has left nourishes with tender dew the flowers on the hills. In a few minutes the
landscape will be flooded with veiled and tender light.

The hills on the left, and those on the right into Whose recesses the mail-coach leads our imagination—in
gently flowing lines and soft enfoldings, strike the same spiritual note as the sky. The deep-sunk valley where
the darkness is made alive by the white smoke of the burning furze; the lowly alders and the dwarf oaks that climb
the hill and border the pool, their dark glades pierced by the brilliantly lit water; the resting sheep, the resting
shepherd—are all in harmony, parts of the one sweet melody. Yet, though the hills are tenderly folded and faintly
curved, their outlines are firmly and sharply drawn, so that we feel the rock under the short grass. The repe-
tition of the outline of the nearest hill by that of the figure of the shepherd, increases the peace of the drawing

, as much as the reverse of the angle of the hill-top by the two sheep exactly under it increases the majesty ,of the
hill.”—Noles on Me Liber, p. 84.

This plate is No. 25 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue. It was published in 1811.
(42)

 

  

THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” No. 25.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HIND—HEAD HILL—ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R,A.

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), PIate XX. » ' ' BLACKIE & SON, PubHshers.

 

 

 

 

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THE MILDMAY SEA»PIECE.—By J. M. W. Turner, R.A.

 

 

SUNSET OR “THE MILDMAY SEA—PIECE.”

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

This subject is well described by the Rev. Stopford A. Brookez—“This is a cold autumnal sunset. The sun is.

half veiled by thin vapour, but enough light remains to sparkle on the crests of the waves as they break on the
beach. But most of this light in the foreground is due to the reflections from the clouds, and from the pure space
of sky above. The sun—a frequent effect in nature—has thrown back and aside the heavier clouds, and its rays
from behind the straight mass of vapour on the horizon strike on their under and upper edges, on the wave-like and
lighter clouds above, and on the sails and waves below. This suggestion of the sun throwing open the gates of
heaven as he passes to his rest, is common with Turner. The composition of the sky is a reversed repetition of
the composition of the lines of sea and shore of boats and waves below. It is this strange arrangement which
introduces an element of wildness, even of weirdness, into the impression the picture makes.

There has been quiet, chill weather, but the wind has lately risen, and now storm is coming; and the thought
of the tempestuous darkness at hand deepens the human anxiety which belongs to this sunset scene. We feel, as
we look, that all things are vaguely troubled, seeking rest from labour, hasting homeward from the treacherous

powers of night. Nature herself seems to sympathize with man’s desire for shelter, escape, and peace. The sun

drops into his ocean bed. The very wave is tumbling in to finish its life. The seamen drive their fishing—boats
to shore. Wife and child run to receive them, and the baby in the mother’s arms sees and welcomes its father.
Others have beached their boat, and talk and rest beside it. The fisherman with the net is going home. The
fishing—boat yet out on the darkening sea increases the impression, through contrast, by its loneliness and unquietude.

This, then, is one of the few of the Lz'éer Studz'orum which is full of gentle, not tragic sympathy with simple and
kindly humanity. The note is low and sad like the evening, but it is none the less tender. And perhaps Turner used
his anchor to show that all life is anchored best in labour which can return to a well-loved home.

Much might be said of the splendid drawing of the wave on whose crest the boat is being beached. Those who
have seen the thing will know its truth. The sails and masts of the lugger seem to spring forward to the shore, and
Turner has exaggerated their rake forward on purpose. Throughout the composition repetition and contrast reign,
for peace and movement have both to be suggested. The mother and the running boy are intended to repeat the
boat and its forward rush, and to harmonize with them; but the sharp curve of the anchor toWards the right meets
in contrast the rise of the lugger's bow, and its fixity increases the swiftness of the rush of the lugger. The same
contrasts andrepetitions, much disguised, may be seen on the boat drawn up on the shoreland the ‘massed casks
and timbers set in opposed lines on the left hand of the picture; but on that side all is rest, as on the other all
is movement. The tall thin mast, like the figures on the shore, gives distance to the three divisions of the sea,
and the two horizontal pieces of wood with the stones on the beach are to bind the two sides of the composition
together. There are few of the [.2567 Sludz'orum in which Turner has made Nature more fully in sympathy with man.’,’
——Notes on Me Liber, .p. I 30.

This plate was published in 1812. It is No. 40 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Calalogue.
(43) L

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4. TRANCE OF CALAIS HARBOUR—By j. M. W. Turner, RA.

 

 

 

ENTRANCE OF CALAIS HARBOUR.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

It is to be regretted, for our present purpose of teaching drawing from Turner’s Liéer, that there was no
preliminary etching of this plate. Any work of this kind was added to the plate after the mezzotinting was finished.

The existing impressions are, unfortunately, all rather heavy, giving it, in the opinion of some critics, a rather
coarse effect generally. Mr. Ruskin, however (Elements of Drawing, p. 192), considers the sky among the best of
Turner’s storm studies; the rapid movement of the light, scudding upper clouds against the dark background, is very
fine. The stormy effect is grandly conceived and carried out, and sky and water act together with tremendous
energy. It is indeed a noble rendering of sky, wind, and water, and as such we recommend it to the careful study
of young artists. The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke admires it greatly, and describes the scene as no other critic has done.

“The storm appears to be now breaking, for the low sun has power. Its light slants through the mist on the
horizon, illuminates the under edges of the driving clouds, and flings a yellow radiance, through the rain, on the
sails of the fishing—boats, on the Pharos, and on the church of Calais.

It is a wild cross-sea, much disturbed by a fierce tide, which runs on Calais in a gale. This sea fills the
front of the picture, and its rushing lines and the impetuous lift of its waves could not be better drawn. Unfor—
tunately, little of this drawing can be seen in the photograph. What can be seen partly—and it is as fine as possible
——is the broken and leaping water of the crests of the waves, caUSed by the refluent billow from the pier meeting
those that are incoming. Look, too, at the noble way in which the great trawler sinks down into the hollow, full of
weight, yet buoyant as a water-bird; and see how full of majesty Turner has made it, with its mighty canvas and the
huge boom and mast; and how carefully and with what sympathy he has engraved the reefed sail, so as to tell at
every point the story of the wind in it; and with what further sympathy he has given the boat a companion running
into harbour with it, like friend with friend. He knew and loved all fishing—boats, and thought of them as sailors
think of them—as living beings. They are coming home laden with sea-spoil, and the houses and the churches of their
crews are seen far beyond in the wild light of the gale. As we look we feel that Turner was painting his own deep
feeling for the dangerous life of the fisher, and the charm of his safe return to quiet, to affection, and to the religion
of the shore. And to make us feel this the more, he sends round the pier—head the barque outward bound, which in
the midst of the fierce weather passes away from home into the danger and distresses of the sea.

All the force of the subject is in the impetuous slant of the mast and sails of the foremost boat, for this tells
alike of the power of the wind and of the power of man using it for a purpose; and Turner enforces this slant by
the lines of light which behind it slope in a contrary direction, and by the vertical masts of the barque which, with
those also of the left—hand ship, seem to lift the pier and to send back into distance the town at the bottom of Ithe
harbour. As to the flags, see how they speak of the wind. They are straining madly to escape; and the buoy
with the rude lantern—éhow desolate, how full of the rudeness of the plunging waves! And the pier-head beyond
it—how it rounds itself forth, large-bellied, to resist the ceaseless beat of ocean!”—Noz‘es on Me Lz'éer, p. 186.

Calais Ilaréaur was published in 1816. It is No. 55 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
(44)

 

 

THE “LIBER STUDIO'RUtM.” No. 83.

 

 

 

 

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STORK AND AQUEDUCT.—ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate XXI. BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

 

 

THE STORK AND AQUEDUCT.—By J. M. W. Turner, RIA. (Unpublished)

 

 

THE STORK AND AQUEDUCT. (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

(SOMETIMES CALLED “THE HERON’S POOL”)

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

This is the plate I like the best in all the Lz'éer. It breaks on you like a great chord of music the moment
you look at it. I suppose this is in a great measure owing to its fine design, and I think that if I did not at all
know what the subject was or what it was all about I should still like it greatly. A picture may be fine in many
ways and still not be striking in deszgn, whereas one that has this quality added must, I think, take a higher stand.
By using design in this sense I mean the placing of the masses in such a manner as to fill up the space of the picture
impressively and pleasantly. It is marvellous what a power the lines and circles of the aqueduct have in this composition.
Cover the aqueduct with your fingers and see how poor the place looks and how everything falls to pieces,——in all
Turner’s work this is wonderful—you can’t take (mg/Ming away without entirely destroying the whole. Every little thing
has its work to do, and nothing is put in to “fill up.” It happens pretty often, I fancy, that pictures are completed of a
very different shape or proportion from that they were commenced with. With a great artist this is not necessary—his
space is filled rightly at once; and in Turner’s work nothing is so puzzling or irritating as to attempt to cut out portions
of his compositions for purposes, say, of reproduction.

Turner was very fond of those quiet nooks on small streams, and had studied them well all his life. Such subjects
are very difficult to treat rightly, and it generally happens that they are favourite ones for a beginner. Just fancy for
a moment what a photograph of this place would have been like! all over nasty little specks of \light, and the whole
thing looking as mean as possible. Eyes like Turner’s (if there be any) open wide to the w/zo/e of things, and see not
the little scrappy details such as blinder ones do; and the result is a noble symphony such as this picture. Music, too,
fits in very well in describing this plate, for to me it is full of sound. Sound influences a landscape painter greatly I
think (I wonder if there was ever a great landscape painter who was deaf—~I should think not), and this plate fills me
in a moment with the music of moving water.

This plate was never published, although I expect it was practically finished. Indeed I expect it is just at its
best state, for nearly all the Lz'éers were better about the last but one engraver-’s proof, than when they were finally
sent out. Turner had the idea that the public wanted “sparkle,” and so when a plate was nearly finished he scraped
little bright lights on a proof and had these transferred to the plate. He always put them in with great skill, and until
you see the former broader state it does not strike you so much. But once having seen them in this broad state the
spotty rendering never pleases you quite so much again.

I believe Mr. Ruskin considers the etching of this plate finer than any other, and so I think it is. His etching
“ground” gave way, you see, under the acid, and the dark spots all about are the {result of the acid biting “foul.”
Where it was thought they would interfere with the large mass of light rock, the spots have been taken out before
the mezzotinting was done.

This plate was found at Turner’s death and in pretty fair condition. It was worn out then by unskilful printing,
and many impressions are to be met with quite unworthy of the great first state—FRANK SHORT.

[Continued on 11px! 150373.]
(45)

 

 

 

THE STORK AND AQUEDUCT—Coatz'naea’.

“This grand plate has been thought to be a View of Ruabon Viaduct, near Llangollen. In composition,
tree and rock drawing, and disposition of light and shade,' it may rank with the finest works of Turner.”—
W. G. RAWLINSON, Catalogue, p. 161. Mr. Ruskin considers it the best of all. “The finest Turner etching is of an
aqueduct with a stork standing in a mountain stream, not in the published series, and next to it, are the unpublished
etchings of the Via [Mala and C70w/zu75l.”—RUSKIN, Elemenls of Drawing, p. I 34.

Few original impressions of this wonderful engraving exist; two fine engraver’s proofs are in the possession of
Mr. J. E. Taylor and Mr. W. G. Rawlinson. The etching is also extremely rare. We have to thank Mr. Taylor
for the use of the etching, while Mr. Rawlinson placed his impression of the engraving at our disposal for reproduction.

T lie Stork and Ayzzedutl is No. 83 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAIN OF THE ALPS FROM GRENOBLE.

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

“The love Turner had for the endlessness of Nature and the pleasure he had in rendering it are well shown
in this engraving. The vast plain, outspread like a sea, and closed in by the Alps, peak mounting over peak,
engaged his imagination, and he spent on the drawing of it all the cunning of his hand. The triangular hollow
between the head of the rock and the vineyard gives depth to the beginning of the plain and prepares the eye for
its expanse. The varied lines like furrows, the incidents of landscape by the; roadside, lead us slowly on to the

‘ white spire in the centre where it rises among the houses and trees, among the broken lights and shadows of the

town. Beyond is the unbroken surface, and to give it greater extent the fire is put in, with its wandering smoke
divided by belts of gloom, on each of which we rest for a moment. Then dark bands of foliage cross the expanse
from side to side, till near the mountains they become only dotted lines, and each of these detains our mind. Below
the mountains, a river of light seems to pour forth from the valley and to wash their foundatibns, and this also serves
to set the plain into relief and to spread it forth to right and left.

After the immensity of the plain, we are brought among the energy of the mountains. They rise and heave,
range after range, till they are clothed at last with the perpetual snow. From the mountains we climb the infinite of
the sky, from one sunlit stair to another, till we reach the zenith, whence, to give the last touch to the vastness
of earth and heaven, two ladders of light are let down to the outstretched fields below. Through these, and
it is the last artifice that creates the distance, the sky, the hills, and the plain are seen as through a transparent
and shimmering glass of air. Turner has drawn, not the chain of Alps and Grenoble, but his impression of the
immeasurableness of Nature. Meanwhile, in the foreground, is a vineyard. The gaiety of the vintage was pleasant
to Turner, and its sunny human labour. The great plain had filled his heart, and he was happy. The mountains,
where toil was hard and rude, were far away from the joyous vintage.”——REV. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on l/ze Liéor,
p. 164.

7716 Alpsfrom Grenoble was published in 1812. ‘ It is No. 49 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.

I

46)

 

 

THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” No. 77.

 

 

 

 

 

  
  
   

  
 

    

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THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER—ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM). Plate XXII. BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

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TEMPLE OF JUPITER—By J. M. W. Turner, R.A. (Unpublished)

 

 

TEMPLE OF JUPITER, IN THE ISLAND OF ZEGINA. (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

DRAWN, ETCHED, AND PROBABLY ENGRAVED BY TURNER.

This is a splendid example of Turner’s power in composition, and of his feeling for grace and flow of line.
Everything centres in the tambourine held aloft by the woman, and all the other lines bow to it. The bank with
the trees on the left is very beautiful, both in the etching and engraving; and the arrangement of the light and
shade in the latter state is a most clever handling of a very difficult subject. It always seems to me that the
subject of this picture is not worth the fine work there is in it, but this does not make any difference to the value
of. it as a drawing lesson—FRANK SHORT.

It was at the earnest request of the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke that the Etching of this plate was introduced, and
he kindly lent his impression for reproduction. Mr. Brooke admires it exceedingly, and considers that our Drawing-
Book would be quite incomplete without it. He does not think the less of the composition (for such it is, as Turner
was never in the Island of ng'ina), as he says truly that every artist must be able to “compose” when necessary.
Turner had the exceeding power. of being able to dignify nature when his subject required it, and here his imagination
has been called in and exercised with all his accustomed skill. It is a composition, but a beautiful one, the treat-
ment of the double vista is such as none but Turner would attempt with success—such is Mr. Brooke’s opinion, and
we are disposed to fully agree with him.

The Engraving from this plate seems never to have been completed, hence the blackness of the foliage and
other parts. Mr. Vaughan possesses a beautiful proof, from which we were permitted to copy the engraving which
heads this page. The plate was never published. Mr. Henry Vaughan and Mr. W. G. Rawlinson possess proof
impressions of the mezzotint engraving. Mr. Rawlinson’s is a very fine touched engraver’s proof.

“The drawing is in the possession of Mr. W. Leech of Manchester. A later proof, showing the plate to have
been nearly completed, is in the collection of Mr. Henry Vaughan. I believe one or two other examples exist.

Several pictures and drawings of the same subject were made by Turner; two of them being engraved as
steel—plates. All are believed to have been taken from sketches by Gally Knight, Turner never having visited the
Island of ngina. The forms and the grouping of the trees here are very fine and characteristic, though far
more Northern than Oriental in their character. The Etching is extremely effective. I incline to think the
mezzotinting was done by Turner.”——W. G. RAWLINSON, Catalogue, p. 152.

The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke undertook to write a special critical notice of this his favourite plate, but
unfortunately illness prevented the fulfilment of his offer in time for the publication.

Ti: Temp/e ajfupiter is No. 77 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Calalague.

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JUNCTION OF WYE AND SEVERN.

DRAWN, ETCHED, AND ENGRAVED BY J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

“The Drawing is in the National Gallery. One of the most beautiful of the Lz'éer subjects. Fine impressions
have a certain rare Noam on them—if I may use the word. They seem to recall the indescribable bright freshness
one has sometimes seen over a landscape on a june morning, when the increasing warmth of the sun has just—
but only just—cleared off the early mists, and, with a clear sky overhead, everything is sparkling with dew.

This was the first plate that Turner engraved throughout himself. The Etching is very bold and fine. It
is difficult to believe that mezzotinting such as we have here was done without training and almost without
practice.”—W. G. RAWLINSON, Cam/ogue, pp. 62 63.

In copying this Etching you need not trouble about the patch of shadow on the left bank. Turner has “rocked”
a mezzotinter’s “cradle” over it, probably to try the effect before he started engraving it——you can see the lines
through—FRANK SHORT.

The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke thus describes the subject:——“It is worth while to follow downwards the banks
ofithe stream; to examine how Turner has varied the descending lines of the cliff, while he preserves the unity
of its stratification; to mark the way in which the sloping banks on the margin of the river are drawn, so that we
have all. the facts weneed recorded concerning the disintegration of the rocks above, and the deposition of mud
by a tidal stream below. This representation of the results of Nature’s long ‘labour is even more remarkable when
we look at the flat meadow lands at the mouth of the Wye. We can tell from the drawing how they have
been laid down, and also how, as the Wye deposited them, they have been further influenced and arranged by
the tidal flowing of the greater river. By careful artifice of light and dark, of fall and turn of cliff, the windings
of the river and its course are drawn out into length before the eye. And it is by the faintest touches, by almost
imperceptible curves in the etched lines as they approach the river, that we are told how the height of the banks
lessens as the Wye draws near its junction with the Severn.

One of the most difficult things Turner had to do was to make us conceive that the river ran in a deep‘

gorge below the height. He has done this by the insertion of the inverted angle of pure white seen in the very
midst of the drawing against the dark brushwood. This is repeated and drawn attention to by the angle which
the broken ground makes below it, and by the triangle of light beyond it where the river turns for the second time.
Again, as in Cfiefsz‘ow, the majesty of the Castle is impressed upon us. Its keep climbs into the air, its tower
at the angle commands the stream, and descends into it like a wall of cliff. The sky is very pure, flowing almost
like a river, and its upper clouds resemble and are made to resemble the softly drawn-out banks of the level
fields at the junction of ’ the waters. It is kept throughout in harmony with the broad smooth streaming of, the
Severn, and the calm sunlit spaces of the Wye. Breadth, openness, and the sense of a great river with its great
tributary passing onwards into the greater vastness of the sea—these maketthe’ charm and the dignity of this
drawing.”—Notes on t/ze Lz'éer, pp. 94, 95. '

Wye and SKI/(7‘7! was published in 1811. It is No. 28 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.
(48)

 

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I S I S.
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. w. TURNER, RA.

The subject of the [32's is derived from a picture—Turner’s work, of course—which was duly chronicled on
the engraving as “in the possession of the Earl of Egremont, 3 feet by 4 feet.” And indeed it represents, not
the River Isis, but the Temple of Isis, in Petworth Park. William Say was its engraver, and the plate was
published in January, 1819. It belongs, of course, to the class of “elegant” or “epic” pastoral, and seldom did
Turner work with a more obvious mastery over the elements of grace than in this design. Stateliness it has, and
strength: dignity and calm. I cannot add that it delights us further by any such sentiment as informs with charm
at least one other of the classic compositions—Severn and Me. With all its learning and its dignity, it is visibly
artificial. Petworth, if you like, but Petworth ennobled by a frieze and by a peacock. They are good in the
composition—as they are reproduced in the original frontispiece of the Lz'éer itself, and as the bird is in the low
foreground wall in the noble Yorkshire print of [ng/eéaroug/z. But the artifice, in this case, is scarcely concealed.
I like the subject best in the pure etching: a rare possession, and a piece of work extraordinarily masculine and
decisive. Mr. Henry Vaughan owns the sepia drawing—FREDERICK WEDMORE. I

“The masterly drawing of the foreground leafage, as well as the beauty of the reflections in the water on the
distant shore of the lake, are very noticeable, especially in the etching. A portion of the foreground has been
reproduced by 'Mr. Ruskin (M. P. vol. v. figs. 94, 95, 96).”—W. G. RAWLINSON, Catalogue, p. 137.

Mr. Ruskin advises that these etchings be diligently copied, and calls attention to the exquisite grouping of
the'leaves and objects in the foreground of [sis in particular. i

The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke discourses in his delightful manner on this plate :—“This drawing here engraved
does not speak of storm, but of peace. It is a vapour-veiled summer afternoon, but the clouds are so pene-
trated with showering sunlight that the earth and water are belted with sheen and shadow. In one place
alone, behind the Temple of Isis, abides a depth, a hollow place of darkness, and I daresay it is too fantastical to
think that Turner, struck by the name, symbolized in this gloom the solemn mysteries of the Nature Goddess.
At any rate, in this corner, overcast with trees, wept over by the willows, with the point of light made by the poising
bird and a few reflected gleams to intensify the gloom—lies the mass of shadow which, by contrast, expands and
makes joyful the rest of the landscape. The temple, and the trees—and mark how the two trees above the temple
repeat the outline of the temple, and dignify it by the repetition—are massed together with nobility and variety, and
yet in the classical manner; but the weeping willow is entirely modern, and is a direct study from Nature. Still more
natural, pre-Raphaelite in careful truth, are the weeds and flowers and undergrowth, in the midst of which rises the
broken piece of classic frieze on which the peacock sits. But they are also carefully composed into groups and into
a whole. Turner composed instinctively, but not a touch seems to have been put in without thought, not a single
leaf to have been drawn without considering its relation to the sharp lines and angles of the fragment of carven stone.
The peacock, with all his curves, is the centre and harmonizer of the whole. Nothing is neglected, and the use
made of the sunlight that falls between the tWo pillars of the temple on the wet steps below shows what a great
artist can do with his materials when his thought is fully awake. ‘

The landscape beyond the bridge, the broken hill, the belt of trees below, through the stems of which the
sunlight shines, thelake with all its subtle reflections, is the landscape of the ancient park of an English gentleman;
quiet, untouched for centuries. Turner was pleased to paint it, but at present he cared most to draw his bit of wild
vegetation. As to the strange introduction of the classic frieze and the peacock in a place where theyacould not
naturally be, he may have seen such an incident in the garden at Petworth or elsewhere, and been impressed by its
grace and colour, and its use for a composition like this drawing. It adds both beauty and vitality and a classic cry to
a somewhat dull subject."——Noz‘es on Me 11367, pp. 2 34-—2 36.

151': was published in 1819. It is No. 68 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.

(49)

 

 

 

 

 

APULEIA.——By J. M. W. Turner, R.A. (Unpublished)

 

 

 

A P U L E I A, (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

[OR “THE PREMIUM LANDSCAPE.”]

DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

This plate is also called “Apuleia in search of Apuleius,” but the incident referred to in connection with the
figures is not of much importance to the subject. The engraving is taken from a picture painted by Turner in 1814,
now in the National Gallery. Mr. Rawlinson believes the picture obtained the landscape premium of the defunct
British Institution in 1814, and hence its name.

It is a good example of Turner’s classical composition, wherein he has tried to make everything as happy and
pleasant as he could—a kind of lotos-eating land, where it never rains, or hails, or snows, and nobody is in a hurry

. or ever gets ill-tempered. It is beautifully composed, and the Etching makes a fine lesson in drawing. Notice the

bridge in the Etching (I don’t like it so well in the Engraving), the. arches all different in curve and span, so
as not to be anyways monotonous; and the peacefulness that is given to the scene by the level line of the top and
the delicate suggestions of the reflections in the river. As to the placing of his figures, see how complementary the
tall standing figure and the tower of the bridge are to each other, and how .he crowns the whole group by the distant
mountain—FRANK SHORT.

Mr. W. G. Rawlinson states :—“The drawing is in the possession of Mr. Henry Vaughan.

The copper-plate, apparently finished, was sold at the Turner Sale in 1873. Many impressions have since
been printed on a stout, smooth, English—made paper. A few were taken on old French paper, like that used for
the original Lz'éer plates. Though perhaps the most successful of the reprinted plates, none of the modern impressions
approach in richness the original proofs.

The National Gallery Catalogue states that the picture was painted as a companion to the celebrated Claude
in the possession of the Earl of Egremont, and says of the subjectz—‘Apuleius was a distinguished philosopher and
advocate of the second century of our era, and was the author of the celebrated romance entitled The Melamorp/zosz's,
or Me Golden Ass, in which he represents himself as transformed into an ass. The incident, however, represented
in this picture, is not in the story of Apuleius. * ’X‘ * ’X‘ The personage, ‘Apuleia,’ and the incident represented,
appear to be equally the painter’s own invention. ‘Palaestra in search of Lucius,’ or ‘Fotis in search of Apuleius,’

would be more in accordance with the classic tales.’ ”—Calalogue of the Lléer Slaa’z'oram, p. 145.

Apulela is No. 72 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.

(so

 

THE “LIBER S'IVUDIORUM.” No. 72.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

APULEIA.—ETCH1NG BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A. (UNPUBLISHED PLATE.)

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate XXV. V ‘ BLACKIE & SON. Publishers.

 

THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” N0. 13.

 

 

 

 

      
 

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SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM), Plate XXVI. BLACKIE & SON. PublisherS-

 

 

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THE BRIDGE IN MIDDLE DISTANCE—By J. M. \V. Turner, RA.

 

 

 

THE BRIDGE IN MIDDLE DISTANCE.

[OR, THE SUN BETWEEN TREES]
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Mr. Ruskin condemns this plate as being “founded first on Nature, but modified by forced imitation of Claude.”
Nevertheless it forms a beautiful picture. The tree-drawing, as usual with Turner, is masterly, and vastly superior
to Claude’s manner. There is certainly more of Nature than of Claude in this admirable composition. The Etching
is very fine, and bears the unmistakable hand of the master. A pupil can have no better practice than in copying
it carefully, for it is evidently the work of Turner's own hand. The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke thus describes this
plate, which was one of the earliest engraved of the Lz'éer Studz'orum:—“The sky is nobly and quietly composed,
though the sun, placed in the very midst blazing and overwhelming, rendered it extraordinarily difficult to represent
it with beauty and variety. The transparent horizontal lines of cloud below the sun repeat and carry on the hori-
zontal lines of the plain, and increase the impression of its expanse; while the faint lovely cirrus clouds above, which
are sloping away to the left, give depth and atmosphere to the. sky. They descend to meet the only cumulus in
the heaven, far down above the trees on the left. By a common artifice of Turner’s, this cumulus, repeating'the
outline of the trees, lifts them into the air, and assists the mind in its effort to give dignity to this part of the
composition. The beautiful outline of the larger trees in the midst, set on high in dark and light against this
pale and glowing sky, is the finest and most daring piece of imagination in the plate. The rest is somewhat
commonplace, especially the support of the bridge at either end by massed foliage; but the whole is reposeful, and
fills the imagination with the rest and comfort of a warm summer afternoon.

The engraving of the river and of the sunlighted foreground where the figures are sitting is full of delicacy
and feeling.”—Noz‘es, pp. 47, 48. '

The original Drawing is in the National Gallery..

This plate was published in 1808. It is No. I3 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.

 

[ESACUS AND HESPERIE.
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, RA.

“The tree drawing in this plate, Mr. Ruskin has alluded to in several places in Modern Painters. In vol. i. p.
389, he says :—‘Of the arrangement of the upper boughs, the Esacus and Hesperie is perhaps the most consummate
example; the absolute truth and simplicity, and freedom from anything like fantasticism or animal form, being as
marked on the one hand, as the exquisite imaginativeness of the lines on the other.’

And in vol. ii. p. 157:——‘Again it is impOssible to tell whether the two nearest trunks of the Esacus and
Hesperie of the Liéer Studz’orum, especially the one on the right with the ivy, have been invented, or taken straight

(Esacus (ma’ Emmi: was published in [819. It is No. 66 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.

[Continued on Izextpage.
' (51) ‘ N

   

 

 

 

 

 

{ESACUS AND HESPERIE.—-By J. .\I. \V. Turner, R..—\.

 

 

AISACUS AND HESPERIE.—Continued.

from Nature; they have all the look of accurate portraiture. I can hardly imagine anything so perfect to have been
obtained except from the real thing; but we know that the imagination must have begun to operate somewhere, we
cannot tell where, since the multitudinous harmonies of the rest of thepicture could hardly in any real scene have
continued so involuntarily sweet.’ He also calls attention (vol. i. p. 394, note) to the drawing of the leaves, as an
example of Turner’s power of elaborating close foliage.”——W. G. RAWLINSON, Catalogue, pp. 133,, I 34.

“ Hesperie is the centre of the drawing. The sunlight falls upon her as in Ovid’s story, and in its heat she
dries her hair; her father, the stream Cebrenus, flows towards her, breaking in music and light over the rocks,.
sweeping round to greet her and to reflect her beauty. The pathway from the hills beyond leads down to her,
and [Esacus in surprise and joy has just discovered her. Seated exactly under the point where the great trunk
separates, she is placed in the very heart of the drawing, like a figure under a great arch; and as if to enshrine
her further, a lovely bush flings from the bank above her its drooping foliage, and seems to encanopy her with
all its plumes. The bending branch, which shoots downwards out of the tree, and which gleams in the brightest
light, points to her. Another branch, striking downwards in the same manner, points towards fEsacus. Both
branches, in their repetition of each other, seem to bind together the fates of the maiden and her lover; and on
him, as the source of her death and the victim of his own love, the broadest sunbeam directly shines. These
are the places where Nature is bent by Turner to impassionate the story with her sympathy.

One broad band of light, in the midst, divides the picture into three parts, and this band is broken up by
the great tree-trunk whose darkness enhances the sunshine. The trunk is varied at every point of its outline by
exquisite curves, and over its whole surface by lovely touchings in of moss and fern, by little shadowy hollows and
foldings in the wood. It is a stem that has had many experiences, and Turner has cared for them all. The sun—
rays that slant from the left are met in opposing slopes, first by the descending sweep of the path, and then by
the curve of the great tree-trunk on the right, and both these systems of opposed lines are‘ united and clasped by
the are which the stream makes below. To relieve them, there is on one side the intricate and beautiful assemblage
of the branches which bend right and left over the pool and the soft falling of the foliage behind them—and on
the other, the upright branches and vertical stems of trees which rise one after another till they reach the entrance
of the glade, where three of them stand like a gate. And lest this arrangement should be too marked, a tree and
branches of trees extend across the descending way. Distance is given to the path by the inverted arch made by
the meeting of the two great trunks below. And above, to clasp together the whole composition, two boughs,
starting from the two most distant trees, form an arch through which in all its mystery—the mystery which always
haunts us when we are deep in a dell, and see on high among the trees the passage into the open lands——

‘ Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever as we move.”’

—Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on Me Lz’éer, pp. 227—229.
(52)

 

 

 

 

 

 

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JUVENILE TRICKS (Scene in the Green ParkT.—By J. M. \V. Turner, R..—\.

 

 

 

TURNER’S DRAWING OF TREES.

The drawing of trees by Turner was one of the most remarkable phases of his many-sided artistic pre—eminence.
Before his time trees were mainly drawn in a conventional manner, accurately copying from Nature being one of
the last things thought of. We select six examples of admirable tree—drawing, and no better exercise for the pencil
can be found than in accurate copying of these magnificent studies. We are indebted to the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke
for the representation of part of the celebrated plate (juvenile Trip/(:5, No. 22). In the original some very uncouth
figures are introduced in the front of the picture, greatly marring its beauty. Mr. Brooke had these ingeniously
removed, or rather “stopped out,” much to the advantage of the lovely background of trees. It is this portion
that is reproduced above. As Mr. Stopford A. Brooke says, “he moulded in fibrous folding and in graceful rising
the trunks of the trees—a study as careful and delicate as any in the whole of the book.” We give the Etching
of these trees full size. It was undoubtedly done by Turner himself, and shows how much the hand of a master
can produce by a few touches. ‘The small reproduction of the mezzotint block shows the light and shade added
in the completed work. Mr. Brooke states that these trees were drawn from nature in the Green Park, St. James’s.

The wonderful drawing of the trees is what this example is given for. See Ruskin’s remarks in reference to
the drawing of trees as quoted in reference to Blair Atflol and 15mm: and Hesperz'e, &c.—FRANK SHORT.

ENLARGEMENT OF ETCHING OF SCOTCH FIRS FROM “INVERARY CASTLE.” (No. 65.)

Acting on the advice given by Mr. Ruskin (M R, vol. v.) we have enlarged—to four times the scale of the
original—the Etching of the two Scotch firs from [mm’ary Cast/e. “These are enlarged, partly in order to
show the care and minuteness of Turner’s drawing on the smallest scale, and partly to save the reader the trouble
of using a magnifying glass.” Then again Mr. Ruskin says: “These trees are both in perfect poise, representing
a double action; the warping of the trees away from the sea-wind, and the continual growing-out of the boughs
on the right—hand side, to recover the balance.”——M0dern Painters, vol. v. p. 67.

Certainly the masterly drawing is apparent here, and even the enlargement of the little etching to four times
the scale does not prevent it from being a most instructive lesson in tree-drawing.

TREES FROM “WINCHELSEA.” (No. 42.)

As a whole, the completed plate of this subject cannot be deemed quite satisfactory. The intention of the
artist, when he so carefully etched these exquisite trees, does not seem to have been carried out by the engraver
who followed him. The drawing, which is in the National Gallery, does not give the promise of the exquisite tree—
drawing found in Turner’s own Etching. It is a noble specimen of power and truth conveyed by a few lines. Any
young artist, copying carefully and yet boldly (every touch must be slavishly imitated), cannot fail to learn much
from this fine example of Turner’s powers as a sketcher from Nature. If the bold, effective drawing cannot be
achieved at the first attempt, this study is worthy of being done again and again until its style be accurately imitated.

TREES FROM “HEDGING AND DITCHING.” (No. 47.)

Did you ever see any such drawing of trees as this? Copy them with all your might, and try and carry away
some of Turner’s strength and manliness with you—FRANK SHORT.

“The long past of the willow in which it patiently grew into power, the lifeless ruin it has become, are both;
recorded in the drawing. The bark has been stripped away, so that we can follow all along the trunk the sinewy
strength of its interwoven fibres, the upgrowth of its knotted branches, and the hollowing of their decay. There
is not a truer and mightier piece of etching in the whole of this book.”——-—Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on Me

Lz'éer, p. 160.

(’53!)

 

 

GROUP OF POLLARD WILLOWS FROM “YOUNG ANGLERS.” (No. 32.)

This is another example of splendid tree-drawing. Concerning it, Mr. Stopford A. Brooke says 2—“ Turner gave
his whole force to the drawing of the willows and the misty space of osier plantation behind them. The sinewy
folding of the stem of the large pollard, its ragged and knotted ends, the spring outward and upwards of its
branches and their insertion into the trunk, are truth itself, and ought to be carefully compared with the equally
fine drawing of the younger trees on either side of the standing boy. In these there is a fresher life, a more
vigorous leap of branch, a fuller foliage. It is crabbed age and lissome youth met together. The intricate interlacing
of branches, their curving backwards and upwards, their mingled litheness and rigidity, the exquisite etching of the
light foliage, are worthy of all praise.”—Notes on tile Lz'éer, p. 105.

Mr. Ruskin (Modem Paz'nlers, vol. v.) reproduces this Etching, with these remarksz—“The piece of Pollard
Willow facsimiled from Turner’s etching has all these characteristics of Nature in ‘perfectness, and may serve for
sufficient study of them.’ It is impossible to explain in what the expression of the woody strength consists, unless

it be felt. One very obvious condition is the excessive fineness of curvature, approximating continually to a
straight line.”

 

 

 

 

ARVERON.—By J. M. W. Turner, R.Ai

 

STUDYFOF PINES FROM “ARVERON.” (No. 60.)

The Etching of this plate was not originally done by Turner himself, but, knowing that the nature of the
mezzotinting, intended to be used subsequently, Would hide the engraver’s errors as far as the distance was
concerned, he seems not to have troubled himself to correct any part of the Etching, save the trees and stones in the
foreground. These he undoubtedly altered entirely. The result is one of the best examples of tree—drawing in
the Liber; and we commend it to young students as a specimen of vigorous handling of one of the most difficult
things to copy properly, Without being angular or stiff in its treatment in any way. Few artists have ever drawn 3
pines like these. In order that the genius shown in the finished engraving of Ari/arm may be understood,
we give above a reproduction of the subject, and we now quote from Mr. Ruskin (/lloa’ern Painters, vol. v.
p. 83) his wondrous word-painting of the scene:———“The soil of the pine is subject to continual change; perhaps
the rock/in which it is rooted splits in frost and falls forward, throwing the young stems aslope, or the whole
mass of earth round it is undermined by rain, or a~ huge boulder falls on its stem from above, and forces it for
twenty years to grow with weight of a couple of tons leaning on its side. Hence, especially at edges of loose
cliffs, about waterfalls, or at glacier banks, and in other places liable to disturbance, the pine may be seen distorted
and oblique; and in Turner’s Sow/re of Me Amman he has, with his usual unerring perception of the main point
in any matter, fastened on this means of relating the glacier’s history. The glacier cannot explain its own motion;
and ordinary observers saw in it only its rigidity; but Turner saw that the wonderful thing was its non-rigidity.
Other ice is fixed, only this ice stirs. All the banks are staggering beneath its waves, crumbling and withered as
by the blast of a perpetual storm. He made the rocks of his foreground loose—rolling and tottering down

together; the pines smitten aside by them, their tops dead, bared by the ice-wind.”
(54)

 

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PORTION OF TURNER’S ETCHING OF “I NVERARY CASTLE.” No. 65.
[Enlarged to four times the scale of the original]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

PART OF TURNER’S ETCHING OF “YOUNG ANGLERS.” No. 32.

   

SOUTH KENSINGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER STUDIORUM). Plate xxx. ‘ BLACKIE & SON. Publishers.

 

THE “LIBER STUDIORUM.” N0. 69.

 

 

 

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BEN ARTHUR.——ETCHING BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

SOUTH KEN$|NGTON DRAWING-BOOK (LIBER Swmonum), Plate XXXI. BLACKIE & SON, Publishers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEN ARTHUR—By J. M. \V. Turner, RA.

 

BEN ARTHUR.
DRAWN AND ETCHED BY J. M. W. TURNER, R.A.

Mr. Ruskin says you will not understand this Etching unless you love this kind of British mountain scenery. ,
I don’t suppose you will get all the good from it there is to be got, unless you have wandered among such ravines.
But no one could help feeling the truth and skill with which these lines run down the sides of the hill, and explain
the subtle formations of their surface. The gaps in the hill and on either side are left on purpose for wreaths of
white mist in the finished mezzotint, where, of course, lines would be useless. Don’t miss a dot in copying the
Etching. On some of the near stones on the right, and on one side of the valley, you will ’notice some irregular
specks. These were not put in by Turner: they are the result of imperfections in the etching “ground” on which
the etching was done, called “foul biting." Turner had it removed where it was of no use, but in places such as
these he left it in, knowing that it would help the shade by giving some quality. You needn’t trouble to copy
this in your etchings—FRANK SHORT.

Mr. Ruskin advises this grand Etching to be used for drawing study. He places it first of five “finest etchings
in the published series,” the others being Esau”, Cejfina/ns, Slone Pines, and Woman at a Tank, and he also specifies
Hind-Head Hill, [52‘s, and Morpez‘n, as very desirable for study. Of all of these we have given specimens in the
present Drawing-Book.

Here are the great teacher’s words:——“Turner’s way of wedging the stones of the glacier moraine together
in strength of disorder, and his indication of the springing of the wild stems and leafage out of the rents in the
boulders, will hardly be appreciated unless the reader is fondly acquainted with the kind of scenery in question;
and I cannot calculate on this being often the case, for few persons ever look at any near detail closely, and
perhaps least of all at the heaps of débris which so often seem to encumber and disfigure mountain ground.
But for the various reasons just stated, Turner found more material for his power, and more excitement to his
invention, among the fallen stones than in the highest summits of mountains; and his early designs, among their
thousand excellences and singularities, as opposed to all that had preceded them, count for not one of the least
the elaborate care given to the drawing of torrent beds, shaly slopes, and other conditions of stony ground which
all canons of art at the period pronounced inconsistent with dignity of composition; a convenient principle, since,
of all foregrounds, one of loose stones is beyond comparison the most difficult to draw with any approach to
realization.”—Modern Paz'niers, vol. iv. pp. 315, 316.

“This is the last great plate of the published portion of the Lz'oer, and I think it is not too much to say
that, were all Turner’s other works lost, upon the strength of it alone his pre-eminent fame as a landscape draughts—
man might safely rest. Whose hand but his could have so drawn those sWeeping mountain curves, could have
so wedged in the loose array of stones at their base, could have given that grand gloom to the storm at the head
of the ravine, or the grace to the fieecy clouds which cling about the hill-tops?”—W. G. RAWLINsoN, Catalogue, p. I 38.

The Rev. Stopford A. Brooke eloquently describes the scene and the drawing:—“Turner felt, as he drew his
Ben Art/m7, that this lonely valley had seen a thousand shepherds lead their sheep among its mossy stones in
summer, and save them in the winter snow. In the stream many a voyager had quenched his thirst. Turner does
not put one human being into it, but it is full of the sentiment of humanity. And all the wild highland romance,

Ben Arthur was published in 1819. It is No. 69 in Mr. Rawlinson’s Catalogue.

[Continued on nextpagz.
(55) 0

 

 

B E N A RT H U R.——Contimtea’.

and that natural superstition, urged by which Celt and German peopled the stony streams and moors and mountain.
valleys with supernatural beings, were in the painter’s mind as he drew the winding of the stream among its
rocks, and the'long retreating reaches of the valley, and the portentous sky overhead, and set the Wild peaks against
the breaking of the light.

As to the drawing of the piece—it is done with absolute mastery. No geologist, after years of
draughtsmanship, could draw the anatomy of the mountain on the left with greater skill, and of course he could
not draw the mountain itself at all. There is not a piece of rock in it, nor a turn in the involved arrangement of
its stones, which is not a transcript of Nature, a record in a small space of the ways by which the mountain gullies
are formed and made beautiful for thought. Nor are the various windings of the valley-stream, caused by the
stones which have with different impetus rolled down the differing slopes of the hills on either side, drawn with
less care and truth. Each little pier of rocks, as we walk down the vale from its head, is a study from Nature.
At last we come to that .which fills the whole foreground, an old moraine, in whose rents trees have rooted
themselves—dwarf oak that best resists the wind—«but which here, in the wild weather of this desolate pass,
cannot come to any perfection. Over all darkens the sky, overwhelming, brooding, full of rain as a cup about
to overflow; solemnizing still more the solemn valley.”—Notes on the Lz'oer, pp. 2 39—241.

COAST OF YORKSHIRE. (No.24.)

“After many representations in the Lz'ber Studiorum of the sea in calm, and in days of angry wind, we are placed at last in this engraving
of the CoastE of Yorkshire in the midst of a full and roaring gale, and before a terrible sea. The air is filled with the fine mist of the spray, and
the cliffs loom dim through its driving veil. Still more dim, for its own foam-cloud accompanies it, is the mighty wave which at the back, lifting
itself high in the air before it breaks, will in a moment, all thunder and snow, rush like a wild beast into the chasm under the great headland.
Down this chasm the retreating mass of the preceding billow, the foam of which has climbed to the very topmost edge of the cliffs, is whirled
outwards at full speed, and, as it rejoins the main sea, its upper surface is caught by the wind and blown back again towards the shore. At
the same time, the incoming has begun to clash with the retreating wave, and their fierce meeting has made a very hell of tormented waters.
Nor does the record of these truths satisfy Turner. . . . . Above this tempest of water is the dark mist of spoon-drift, and as we look
through it we seem to know that it is incessantly supplied from infinite sources of vapour far at sea, and incessantly hurried forward by the fierce
tyranny of the gale. ,

The cliffs are lias, and drawn so well that it would be possible for a geologist to name them, and the highest of them, fronting the sea like
a fortress, has the haughty air of a defier of the storm. On it, set a little inland, and in a space of clearer sky, where the gale is for a moment
less violent—for Turner knew the gusty nature of a north-east tempest on that coast—stands the lighthouse: the one witness of the watchful
struggle of Man with Nature, and of his monarchy over it. It dominates all the scene. But it could not save the fisher folk from ruin, and we
are left by Turner to muse upon the helplessness of man and on the sorrow of his toil.”——Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes on Lz'oer, pp. 81—83.

Regarding the expression of the rocks, as seen particularly in the Etching, Mr. Rawlinson also speaks of the wondrous truthfulness to
nature :—~“ The etching of this plate shows Turner’s evident grasp of the soft, shaly nature of the rocks on this part of the coast. It is worth while
to compare the etching of soft rocks here with Turner’s hard rocks in the etching of SI. Got/lard (No. 9), and his water-worn boulders in Blair
Atfiol (No. 30), and Ben Arllzur (No. 69).”—Cata/ogue, p. 54.

 

 

 

COAST OF YORKSHIRE—By J. M. W. Turner, RA.

 

 

 

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These portions of two Etchings are reproduced to show, by contrast, the superior merit of Turner’s own work.
The plates of Rag/cm and of Amen)” were among those earlier plates which were not etched by Turner himself,
but' by his engravers. There could scarcely be anything worse, and they are given that students may perceive What
to avoid. All the beauty of the original drawings is here lost, and it required all Turner’s skill to render, by
the subsequent treatment of the plates in mezzotint, this faulty and inartistic etching inoperative. It is good
sometimes to see a bad thing for comparison, or else the good things look too easy—FRANK SHORT.

 

 

 

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ILLUSTRATIONS NOT DESCRIBED WHERE PLACED IN THEIVOLUME.

 

Some of the vignette reproductions used as illustrations towards the beginning of the work are not fully ,
described, although alluded to, in the text. The following critical remarks will make them all the more interesting
to the student.

 

 

WOMAN AT A TANK. (No. 38.) [Vignette facing p. 14.]
_[NYMPH AT A WELL.—Mr. Ruskin.]

Mr. Ruskin (Element: 0f Drawing, p. 134) ranks this as one of the finest published plates, especially recommended for artistic study.

“ In this classical composition, to which Turner gave no title, he was thinking of the country around Rome, and it is full of the special sentiment .
of the many unspoken thoughts he felt as he wandered among ~her ruins. It is in the ‘grand style’ of landscape, and in that style it can
scarcely be bettered. . . . The great tree is a noble study in itself.” —.Rev STOPFORD A BROOKE, Nola, pp. 124, 125.

The trees in this plate are remarkable for beautiful drawing, notably the Stone Pine, in which every touch tells the nature of the tree, and
not a touch overmuch. , '.

   
    
      
    
      
      
     
   
   

   

TH'E HINDOO WORSHIPRER. (No.23.) [Facingpage 20.]

 

“The nearest stone pine is a careful study, and the branches in their balance and arrangement, in their combination of rigidity and spring, and
their tale of the ceaseless effort of the tree to set right the original push it got out of the perpendicular (an effort one can follow all along the stem) are
full of interest ; so is the intricacy of the. upper branches and the repose of the thick foliage.”—Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Notes, p. 79.

   

TWICKENHAM. (No. 63.) [See page 5.] ' . i ‘

“ The mass‘of trees which fills the foreground is rich and weighty with foliage. The great elm is nobly drawn. . . . The trees in the graveyard, ’
especially the broad outspreading linden— —tree, are done with extreme delicacy and pleasure, with so much pleasure, that I think when he came to the
place where he made this drawing he remembered the sense of homeliness and repose he had felt when, passing through the churchyard, he lingered on
his way among its trees.’ ’.—Rev STOPFORD A. BROOKE, Nam, pp. 214, 216.

  

POPE’S VILLA,

 

      
       
   
   
         
 
  
   

LONDON FROM GREENWICH. (No. 26.) '[See page 9.]

“ The Hospital seems to fill the whole space of the picture, and Turner has disposed the rising ground where the deer are lying, so as to enclose, as , , ,
it were in a frame, the noble building and give it greater dignity. Then he placed in front of it, like a base to a-pillar, the broad outspread meadow, ‘ \. i V
and gave it, for foundation, the strength of the earth. The space of flat land on the left, with its broken lights, continues the line of the roof of the
Hospital, and this continuousness seems to increase its size to the eye and its importance in the imagination. Then comes the beautiful and curving
sweep of the river, opposed to all the horizontal lines, but bringing them all into harmony. Boats, ships are scattered all over it. Everywhere, there are
shipyards along its sides and a forest of masts beyond. ‘ It is’—thought Turner—‘a highway of the nations. It is London and not Greenwich that I ‘ ‘ ‘;,
draw, and commerce and not war is the source of London.”’—Rev. STOPFORD A. BROOKE, ZVotes, pp. 88, 89.

 

     
    
  
           
       
      
   
        
     
       
 
         
      
   
      
        
      
   
   
   
   
   
 
    
   

' PEAT BOG. (No. 45.) ‘ [See page 11.]

\
In this wonderful work the sky contains almost all_the genius of the painter. The desolate bog only serving as a stage, on which is being
enacted the grand stormy contest of the elements above. Rev. Stopford A. Brooke’s eloquent analysis of the picture comes to our aid:

“The rain is just leaving the great hill on the right; and the very ,moment is given. The vapour is still rising so thickly and incessantly
that the edges of the rainbow are not sharp, but blurred; and above it the last rearward clouds of the storm-rain are winnowed and blown
forward by the wind. The whole of this right shoulder of the hill is steaming with scattered vapours, broken up with lights. The sunbeams
striking on such a surface will be reflected partly by the rising vapours when they are thin, partly by the faces of wet rock, and, generally by
the rain-drops lying everywhere upon. the heather; but where the rising vapours are thick, there will be shadow underneath them. It is this
varied and multitudinous effect of light and dark, produced during the moment of transition in the storm, that Turner urged his engraver.

' to succeed in representing. As fine in engraving is the body of the rain-cloud; and its truth to Nature is supreme. Few things pleased Turner
more than the trailing-and wind-driven clouds which precede the storm like dishevelled locks of hair, and which in heavy masses like falling
and waving curtains accompany the storm’s departure. Over the darkest part of the hill the weight and volume of the prone-descending rain
is tremendous—so tremendous that the fierce gusts of wind scarcely curve its centre forwards. But they curve it enough to force it to fall
at its base in tasselled forms divided from one another by the varying densities of different portions of the cloud. Further on, we see that
the gusts—for the sky cannot be explained unless we think of the wind as coming, not steadily, but in broken gusts—have driven a mass of rain ’
forwards in a slant. It is exactly like a waterfall springing from a narrow gorge. And it descends like a waterfall, spreading out towards
its base, curved into loops in the midst, and Turner, to add to this impression, has inserted two points of light, which are in it like rocks
in a cataract round which the water has leaped outwards and downwards. This is a frequent effect in a rain- -storm when there is light in the sky.”
—Noles, pp. 151, 152. . '

RIEVAULX (No. 51). KIRKSTALL (No. 39). [See pages 12 and 14.]

 

Mr. Brooke says: “Riemulx is, like [Joly Island, a study of architecture. . . . The great transept windows are set forth with nobleness. It is
the choir we see. It fills the eye, and he dips the ground on either side, to an angle in the midst, to give it importance, and at the same time lifts the
transept free on the hillock, till it boldly claims our regard.” _ . .
Of Kz'rkrmll Mr. Rawlinson says .—“The plate was entirely Turners work. Its masterly architectural drawing is most conspicuous. Notice the -
beauty and precision with which the Norman‘ cushion’ capitals, and the lines of the arches and of the vaulting shafts are rendered.” I
Mr. Brooke considers Kzrkrlall one of the happiest efforts of the Lim “The slanting rays of the sun stream in on the left and
strike across the crypt. But diffused light comes in on the right also through the windows, and it is with delightful skill that Turner
has rendered the effect of this double light playing through the shadowy place. Both the direct rays of the sun and the soft radiance
from the ruined window are concentrated on the bright pillar in the midst. It is the centre of the composition. To give it importance,
the mass of cows forms, as it were, a ‘base for it, and the cow behind it, kept white, throws it forth from the wall. Alone it seems to support
the roof, yet the extraordinary delicacy of the engraving of its shaft makes it beautiful in the midst of its strength.
Indeed the whole of this piece of architecture gave Turner real pleasure to paint. Turner has had sympathy with the laying of every block,
and etched the capitals of the pillars and the corbels on the wall as if he had hewn them himself from the living rock. He felt that the masons
loved their labour, put into it each his own thought, and while they carved in obedience to the master builder’s plan worked also for their own hand. .
And the spirit of the old Normans filled him as he drew, and breathes in these stones. How firm the pillars rest and rise, how massive the roof’s
masonry, how closely knitted together, how fitted to bear the weight of the Church above! The place is small, yet looks—that triumph of architectural
skill—much larger than it is.”‘—ZVotes on the Lz'éer, pp. 128, 129.
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