University Galleries, Oxford, 1895 Loan Exhibition of the Work of William Turner Of Oxford (1789-1862) SECOND ISSUE. UNDER REVISION Jd a 4 ^ _^ + 1 On sale at the Galleries, price threepence University. Galleries,. Oxford, 1895 Loan Exhibition ot tbe Work ot William Turner Of Oxford (1789-1862) ^.^Y,. ^M SECOND ISSUE. UNDER REVISION On sale at the Galleries, price threepence 0);fi>r6 HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY WILLIAM TURNER (1789-1862). [The sketch which follows is derived partly from private communica tions, partly from the ordinary works of reference. Roget's interesting History of the Old Water-Colour Society (1891) should be specially men tioned. The catalogues of the Old Water-Colour Society, of the Royal Academy, of the British Institution, and of the Society of British Artists in Suffolk Street, have also been consulted.] T "X riLLIAM TURNER— generally called Turner of Oxford, to distinguish him from his more famous contemporary J. M. W. Turner— was born on November 12, 1789, at Black- bourton (near Bampton) in Oxfordshire, and on the death ' of his parents was brought up by an uncle who then lived at Burford, and who, in 1804, purchased the estate and manor- house of Shipton-on-Cherwell (about six miles to the north of Oxford). He went to London (probably about 1804), and became one of the earliest pupils of John A^arley (1778-1842) — the central figure at that time of the EngUsh school of water- colour painting— lodging in his house as an apprentice. Among the many young artists who during the early years of the nineteenth century came under John A/'arley's influence, and with whom WiUiam Turner must have been brought into contact, may be mentioned David Cox (1783-1859), Peter De Wiiit (1784-1849), Copley Fielding (1787-1855), and AViUiam Hunt (1790-1864). Many anecdotes have been preserved of Varley's kindness and generosity to promising pupils, of his energetic way of maintaining discipline in his pupil-room, and of the epigrams with which he enlivened his teaching, such WILLIAM TURNER. as 'Nature wants cooking;' 'Every picture ought to have a look-there!'; 'Flat tints are like silence, in which you can hear the faintest whisper;' 'Did you ever notice a barber sharpen a razor? That's what it wants, the decision and the whacks.' Early in 1808 William Turner was elected an Asso ciate of the Water-Colour Society, which had been founded a few years before by the two Varleys and others. He con tributed three drawings to the exhibition that spring, and on November 30 became a full member. With Cornelius Varley and others he helped to start in the same year a Sketching Society, at the weekly meetings of which subjects (at first 'chiefly from the ancient classics') were given out for the evening's w^ork. Seven years was the usual term of an ap prenticeship to John Varley, and William Turner, unlike the majority of his fellow pupils, decided not to remain in London. He returned to Oxford, probably about 1811. From 1811 to 1815 he gives Varley'S' address as his place of business in town. In 1812 his Oxford address was Mr. Passond's, High Street ; in 1819, or earher, Mr. Betts', St. Giles' ; and shortly before his marriage (with Elizabeth Ilott, at Shipton, in 1824) he took a house in London Place, St. Clement's. There was no issue of the marriage. A small portrait in oils (the only one known to be in existence), apparently executed by him about the time of his marriage, has been kindly lent to the present exhibition by a cousin, the Rev. T. Archer Turner (see No. i). In 1832 the church at Shipton was restored, and an archi tectural sketch of it by William Turner after the restoration (in the possession of Dr. Yule, the present Vicar of Shipton ; see No. 125), confirms the tradition that he supplied the design. In 1833 he moved to 16 St. John Street, where he lived till WILLIAM TURNER. his death. From this time onwards there is little to chronicle in his quiet and laborious life. ' His time seems to have been occupied in making the sketching tours required for his land scapes, some of which are described as "painted on the spot," in finishing the rest in the studio, and in attending to the requirements of his numerous pupils at Oxford, both in and out of the University' (Roget). Besides his annual contri butions to the Old Water-Colour Society, he sent works occa sionally to the Royal Academy and the British Institution, and (very rarely) to the Suffolk Street Exhibition. Graves (Dictionary of Artists, 1760-1880) mentions thirty-eight so shown by him, principally, of course, oil-paintings. It may be a mere coincidence that he ceases to exhibit at the British Institution exactly at the time (1852) when prices begin to be put in the catalogues. During Copley Fielding's presidency of the Old Water-Colour Society (1832-1855), he increased his yearly number of exhibits to an average of about eleven, but the numbers begin to fall off towards the end of the time ; and after Fielding's death he wrote to excuse himself from attend ing a meeting in London on the plea of age and weakness, sending at the same time his good wishes for the prosperity of the Society. He died at 16 St. John Street, in his seventy- third year, on August '7, 1862, and his grave hes just to the right of the portion of Shipton churchyard which is shown in No. 125. A brief mention of his death appeared in the Athenaeum of Nov. 15, 1862, but it passed unnoticed by the Art Journal and the Press generally. The sketches, &c., in his studio were sold at Christie's on March 9, 1863. 'The highest price for a drawing of W. Turner's noted by Redford is only ;^3i los. for " Kingley Bottom " (lo x 11 in.), at the '*A. Levy?' sale, 1876' (Roget). WILLIAM TURNER. William Turner's long connexion with the Old Water- Colour Society may be regarded as the central feature in his uneventful Ufe. During the fifty-five years of his membership he never once failed to be a contributor, the total number of drawings sent by him being 455. Roget points out that the fact that but few of these were hung on the screens is evi dence that few were of very smaU size. In that case much of W. Turner's most characteristic work can never have been known in London. Unfortunately, in the absence of measure ments, it is impossible to use the catalogues with certainty for purposes of identification, ov/ing to his practice of working up more than one drawing, of different sizes, and often with different foregrounds and atmospheric effects, from the same sketch (see, for instance, Nos. 32 a, 33, 34; 35, 36; 43, 43 a). Still, a study of the Water-Colour Society's catalogues fi-om 1808 to 1862 throws a good deal of light on the range and approximate dates of his sketching tours. It seems certain that he was never out of Great Britain. Four Swiss and Italian drawings are exhibited, but are stated to be from sketches by other people, probably pupils. The three subjects exhibited in 1808 are all taken within a radius of a few miles from his Oxfordshire home, and for several years afterwards there is Uttle trace of his having gone far beyond the imme diately adjoining counties. He sketched in the neighbour hood of Bristol and Cheltenham, studied the architecture of Quinington Church, in Gloucestershire— throughout his Ufe a favourite county— and visited Chepstow, the vaUey of the Wye, and Windsor. Nos. 23 to 28 of the present Exhibition probably all belong to this interesting time of early growth. In the catalogue of 1815 we have the first indication of a visit to the English Lakes. In 1817 he sketched in the Snowdon WILLIAM TURNER. district (No. 34), and in the fbllowing year in Derbyshire (Nos. 120, 121). For several years after this he seems to have confined himself to his old sketching-grouiid in the midland counties, continually recurring to the neighbourhood of Oxford and Shipton, with an excursion or two to Salisbury Plain and North Devon. The scenery of the New Forest (though pro bably known to him from his boyhood, when he is said to have lived for some time with a cousin at Burley Lodge ; see No. 124) appears for the first time in the catalogue of 1827, and between that year and 1836 he seems to have made more than one tour in North Wales, besides revisiting the New Forest, Salisbury Plain, and North Devon. By 1835 he had got to know the Isle of Wight and the scenery of the West Sussex Downs, and in 1836 he sketched on the Cornish coast. It was not apparently tiU 1838, when he was nearly fifty, that he first went to Scotland, passing through Glencoe, parts of Ross-shire, and the Isle of Skye, Once visited, the Highlands had a fascination which caused him almost entirely to give up sketching in North Wales, and for the remainder of his life he exhibited in most years two or more Scotch drawings, his favourite scenery being the Lochs along the west coast (especially Loch Duich) and the Isle of Skye. Many of these drawings bear traces of having been elaborated in the studio, but he must have paid several visits to the Highlands to accumulate material. His route thither, if we may judge from the catalogues of'1841-1853, seems to have lain sometimes through Northumberland (Bamborough, Dunstanborough and the Cheviot country), sometimes through the English Lake district (especially Ulleswater and Derwentwater). During this same period he returns again and again to his drawings of the West Sussex Downs, for which he felt the same sort WILLIAM TURNER. of attraction as for Gloucestershire. For the last twenty-four years of his Ufe, Scotland, the Lake country, Northumberland, and West Sussex, together with Oxford and its neighbourhood, cover more than three-quarters of his exhibited work. The catalogues also illustrate one or two minor character istics of the artist. His careful enumeration of the villages or mountains included in a drawing attests his topographical fidelity, while the importance which he attached to the study of atmospheric conditions is marked by the frequent insertion of 'showery day,' 'storm clearing ofij' and the like. He occasionally gives a poetical quotation. A sunset or a moun tain view suggests a passage from Ossian or Wordsworth. 'A quatrain descriptive of sunlight alternating with shadow to the landscape does duty time after time ; again and' again the same blest shepherd on the turf recUnes ; and some lines by Mrs. Hemans are repeatedly pressed into the service to describe a favourite subject on the river Cherwell, "where the white water-UUes grow abundantly'" (Roget). Now and then, but seldom, the titles of his pictures refer to the figures introduced— Highland drovers, girls going for turf, &c. He was probably conscious that figures were not his strong point, and certainly regarded them as mere accessories. Of his rare attempts at purely imaginative composition, the most ambitious is 'In the days of King Stephen' (No. 119). The subjects of his oil-paintings, which are not numerous nor, with one or two striking exceptions, important, are as a rule landscapes in the midland counties, the New Forest and West Sussex. He seems to have not unfrequently painted the same scenes both in water-colour and oils. Compare No. la with Nos. 78 and 79. Two early water-colour drawings of the Wyndcliife, exhibited in 1816 and 1817, and foUowed by William turner, 9 -—y , ^ ^ another in 1837, served no doubt as studies or suggestions for the large oil-painting (No. 3). Roget quotes some interesting contemporary criticism of William Turner's early work. In noticing three of his earliest exhibited drawings in the Review of Publications in Art (1808), John Landseer (the father of Sir Edwin) says : — ' He has roUed such clouds over these landscapes as has given to a flat country an equal grandeur with mountain scenery, while they fully account for the striking and natural effects of Ught and shade which he has introduced. His colouring is grave, subdued, and such as properly belongs to landscape of a majestic character.' The grandeur and breadth of composition so noticeable in his early drawings, and doubtless due to John Varley's training, tended to disappear after a few years, and the 'grave, subdued ' colouring was succeeded by brighter tones. The 'Stanton Harcourt ' (No. 32), the colouring of which recaUs De Wint, was commended by W. H. Pyne in the Somerset House Gazette of 1822, as 'one of the finest in the room,' though 'without the least effort to make it pictorial.' Notwithstanding these commendations, William Turner, as time went on, does not seem to have maintained his reputation with the general pubhc. His views, says the historian of the Old Water-Colour Society, 'however careful and true to nature, were not generally attractive.' ' He is chiefly remembered in the gallery by his later drawings, generally extensive views, very painstaking and conscientious, but of a realistic kind, and wanting in interest as works of art.' That criticisms of this kind had some weight with the Hanging Committee of the Society, is evident from Ruskin's remarks quoted below. There is no reason to think that William Turner ever made any complaints on the subject, and his relations with the Society were friendly B3 lO WILLIAM turner. to the last. But none the less he was a disappointed man. In a letter of the year 1846 he speaks of the difficulty which he finds in selling his drawings, and evidently writes under a strong sense of discouragement. Had he sent more of his sketches up for exhibition and fewer large studio-pieces, in which it must be owned he is not always successful, he would have done himself more justice. The present collec tion affords ample proof that he was stiU capable, both in 1846 and for some years afterwards, of doing excellent work, and he had always a few friends and admirers who had learnt — what more people have learnt since his death— that his •drawings are exceedingly pleasant to Uve with. ' It must have been some consolation to him during the last ten years of his life to find that he had a warm admirer in Ruskin. As the growth of William Turner's reputation since his death has probably been largely due to Ruskin's appreciation, it may not be without interest to put a few passages together. In 1851 Ruskin writes :— ' I am sorry not to have before noticed the quiet and simple earnestness, and the tender feeUng, of the mountain drawings of William Turner of Oxford' {Modem Painters, Ed. 5, i. 303). ' It is not without indignation that I see the drawings of this patient and unassuming master deUberately insulted every year by the Old Water-Colour Society, and placed in consistent degradation at the top of the room, while the commonest affectations and trickeries of vulgar draught- manship are constantly hung on the Une. Except the works of Hunt, Prout, Cox, Fielding, and Finch, there are generally none in the room which deserve so honourable a place as those of William Turner' {lb. footnote). In 1856:— 'I know no painters without it [affectation], except one or two Pre- Raphaelites (chiefly Holman Hunt), and some simple water- WILLIAM turner. II colour painters, as WUham Hunt, William Ttirner of Oxford, and the late George Robson ; but these last have no invention, and therefore by our fourth canon are excluded from the first rank of artists' {Modern Painters, iii. 267). In Ruskin's Notes on some of the Principal Pictures for the years 1856, 1858, 1859, there are several criticisms on individual drawings (all of them Scotch scenes). Only one of these is represented in the present collection (' A Lingerer,' No. 73), of which he writes :— ' Not up to Mr. Turner's usual work ; but the only thing I have seen this year at all like heather.' Of other pictures he says :— ' a strained and mistaken effort ' (Loch Garry, 1856); 'very true and right' (Loch Torridon, 1856); ' a very impressive and precious drawing, full of truth in its far-off" Highland hills, and glowing Sky, and low floating mists ' (View from Quiraing, 1858) ; ' look at the rolUng clouds in Mr. Turner's "Ben Cruachan," which are the truest clouds in the whole room' (1859). The present is the first attempt which has bedn made to bring together any considerable collection of his drawings, and the Curators of the University Galleries desire to express their gratitude for the readiness with which owners have been willing to despoil their walls in order to do honour to William Turner's memory. The Exhibition will remain open till June 29. Note. — The measurements are given in inches; height first, and then width. A date within a bracket denotes that a drawing of the same subject appears in the catalogues of the Old Water-Colour Society as exhibited in the year in question, and is beUeved with more or less probability to be the drawing now shown. Dates not included in brackets rest on evidence independent of the catalogues. CATALOGUE. (Oii ^aintino^e. 1 . Portrait of William Turner, by himself. On paper (21^x15). Rev. T. Archer Turner. la. IfBey Mill (10JX15J). Miss Faulkner. 2. View of Oxford (11JX17J). Rev. L. R. Phelps. 3. The WyndclifiFe, Chepstow (38x60). Mr. R. W. Raper. Sa. Shotover Gravel-pits (10x15!). Rev. THE Hon. A. F. Northcote. 4. Berkeley Castle (4J x 6). Mr. M. E. Sadler. 5. Cattle (5x7). Mr. Robert Buckell. 6. Landscape (SJxiif). Mr. H. G. W. Drinkwater. 7. View on the Severn (27 x 22). Mr. j. Wicks. 8. The Woodcutters (27 x 39). Miss Faulkner. Mit4t0, ^t\xbk0, dc. 9. Three Tree Studies. The Lord Bishop of Salisbury. 10. Studies of Trees. Rev. L. R. Phelps. Water-colours. j 3 11. Aldworth Church, Berks. Mr. j. Thomson. 12. Cottages. Mr. E. A. Ryman-Hall. 13. Three Sketches (reed-pen, pencil, and brush). Mr. T. W. Taphouse. 14. Figure Studies. Mrs. Coxe. 15. Vale of Gloucester (two pencil drawings in one frame). 1821 Rev. H. W. Yule, D.C.L. 16. Two Pencil Studies. Mr. A. Macdonald. 17. Oxford, from BuUingdon. Rev. C. H. Daniel. 18. Oxford, from Port Meadow. Rev. C. H. Daniel. 19. After Sunset. The President of TRiNitY College. 20. Southampton Water. Mr. a. Murray Smith. 21. Study of Clouds. 1857 Rev. L. R. Phelps. 22. Stonehenge. Rev. the Hon. A. F. ^Iorthcote. 23. View of St. Giles'. Oxford, looking South (i4f x2i|). Rev. H. A. Harvev. (Probably i8ia^ 23a. A Cornfield (17I x 2 si). Mr. C. Cannan. 14 Turner Exhibition. 24. Oxford, from above Hinksey (zzj x 32f). 1810 (1811) Miss Davis, 25. Windsor Castle (zii x 39!). (1814. 1815) Mr. M. E. Sadler. 26. Woodland Scene, Clifton Downs (14J x 20J). Mr. T. W. Taphouse. 27. The Herdsman (19 x 38). Mr. M. E. Sadler. 28. Rollright Stones, Chipping-Norton (14JX20J). (iSog) Rev. L. R. Phelps. 29. Stokenchurch Hill (15 x 21). 1832 Miss Faulkner. 30. Conway Castle, North Wales (gf x 14^). Mr. E. A. Ryman-Hall. 31. Birdlip Hill, Gloucestershire : Malvern Hills in the dis tance (9f X 14J). Mr. E. a. Ryman-Hall.. 32. Stanton Harcourt (20x29 J). (1822) Miss Faulkner. 32fl;. Llanberis, North Wales (25^x40). (1838) Mr. F. Pearce. 33. Dolbadarn Castie, Llanberris, North Wales (iSJxsoJ). Rev. L. R. Phelps. (1820) 34. Sketch for No. 33 (6|x 13I). (Probably 1817) Rev. L. R. Phelps. 35. The Floods— View of Oxford from Botiey (17^x26^). Mrs. Frederick Symonds. 36. The Waters are out— View of Oxford from Botiey {23ix394)- 1824 Rev. L. R. Phelps. 37. Yew-trees, near Seathwaite in Borrowdale, Cumber land (zijx 37}}. (1844) Mr, F. Ryman-Hall. Water-colours. 15 Bla. St. Gowan's Chapel, Pembrokeshire (13 x 22^). 1830 (183a) Mr. F. Pearce. 38. Land's End, looking towards Scilly Islands (10! x 29J). Mr. E. a. Ryman-Hall. (1840) 39. Pordenack Castie. Land's End (10! x 29!). 1836 (1837) Mr. E. a. Ryman-Hall. 40. View from Edge HiU, Warwickshire (sof x 39), (1850) Rev. L. R. Phelps. 41. Bamborough Castle (10 x 14J). (1843) Mr. E. a. Ryman-Hall. 42. The New Forest (i6x28J).