J. M. W. TURNER, ESQ., R.A.

xi

means, he forthwith repaired to the greatest of all teachers, and sketched in the fields and by the waysides, from nature herself. His early drawings had been confined to the pencil, or at most Indian ink, but he now began to make rapid progress in the use of colours, and soon became so skilful in this branch of art, that whilst yet a boy, he managed to procure employment from Mr. Raphael Smith, a mezzotint engraver and portrait painter of considerable reputation in the immediate neighbourhood.

Here he formed an intimacy with Girtin, the founder of the English School of Water-Colour Painting, who was engaged like himself to colour prints in Mr. Smith's establishment. There can be no doubt that Turner's acquaintance with that clever and truthful water-colour painter exercised a most beneficial influence on his pencil. The style of young Girtin exhibited a manifest improvement on the hard and bald accuracy of Paul Sandby and his followers, and had he lived, he might have proved a formidable rival to his friend, whose senior he was by about two years. Unhappily, however, for the interests of art, he died in 1802, not, as has been represented, from an illness engendered by dissipated habits, but of an asthmatical complaint, which had its origin in a cold caught whilst sketching. His son, Mr. Calvert Girtin, describes his father and young Turner as associated in a friendly rivalry under the hospitable roof and superintendence of that lover of art, Dr. Monro, (then residing in the Adelphi.) Nor was Turner forgetful of the Doctor's kindness, for in referring to that period of his career, in a conversation with Mr. David Roberts, he said, "there," pointing to Harrow, "Girtin and I have often walked to Bushy and back to make drawings for good Dr. Monro at half-a-crown a

xii

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF

piece and a supper.' Girtin had received the benefit of a more regular education than Turner, having been a pupil of Dayes, and a student of the Royal Academy for nearly three years. He had also the advantage of having accompanied one of his early patrons in repeated tours among the most picturesque scenery of England, Scotland, and Wales, at a time when Turner's means afforded him no opportunity of sketching from nature beyond the outskirts of the metropolis. Girtin was the first who introduced the custom of drawing upon cartridge paper, thus avoiding the glare common to a smooth white surface. Many of Turner's early drawings were made on paper of this description; and some of the finest of his later designs, although of magical effect, were executed on coarse blue paper. If imitation be indeed, as we are assured it is, the sincerest flattery, there can be little doubt of the very high opinion entertained of Girtin by Turner, for we have seen one of his drawings of this time that might almost be mistaken for the work of his friend. Girtin's breadth of handling and knowledge of light and shade, and his acquaintance with aerial perspective, would seem not to have been lost on Turner. Had his friendly rival lived, they might have assisted each other. Their joint work of Chas. Turner, and

rum.

English River Scenery, engraved by published in 1825-6 by W. B. Cooke, is a production of high art, worthy to be a companion to the Liber StudioTurner's earliest knowledge of perspective has been ascribed to his study of Malton's Treatise,' but it seems more likely that a new occupation which he entered upon, about this time, that of supplying skies and foregrounds to the architectural drawings of Porden, an architect then in great practice, afforded him facilities for acquiring a more perfect knowledge of this branch of his art.

J. M. W. TURNER, ESQ., R.A.

xiii

His labours gave Mr. Porden such unqualified satisfaction, that he proposed to the father to receive young Turner as an apprentice without a premium. The prudent old man, however, who appeared from a very early period to have foreseen his son's celebrity, declined the flattering offer. Having furnished Mr. Porden with a liberal stock of skies for future use, the young artist now launched forth as a teacher of water-colour painting in schools and private families, and was so successful that he soon increased his charges from five to ten shillings a lesson. As his reputation advanced, he began to be employed by some of the principal publishers to make drawings for book illustrations, among others, by Mr. Harrison, of Paternoster Row, and the proprietors of the Oxford Alınanack. He was also patronised by several noblemen and gentlemen; and having received numerous commissions for topographical drawings in various parts of the country, seldom passed a season without making excursions among the most picturesque localities of England and Wales.

In 1789, Turner obtained admission as a student at the Royal Academy, with evidently a more thorough knowledge of the higher principles of art than any other student of that Institution; and by this time he began to feel his way pretty securely in his profession. Although at low prices, he was fully occupied; and what with teaching, print-colouring and sky-manufacturing, must have realised an income considerably beyond the necessities of his position. In 1790 he exhibited, for the first time in the Royal Academy, a 'View of Lambeth Palace.' This drawing, which is still in existence, has been described as an imitation of Girtin; but Turner had by this time gone to a higher school of art, and had profited too well by the study

xiv

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF

of nature to render it necessary for him to borrow from one who was inferior to him in genius.

From the list of his exhibited pictures in 1795, it would appear that he had visited, during the preceding year, Oxford, Peterborough, Lincoln, Shrewsbury, and Wrexham; from that of 1796, that he had been to Ely, Llandaff, and the Isle of Wight; from that of 1798 (his contributions for 1797 having been founded on the labours of 1796), that he had made the tour of Yorkshire, sketching several of its monastic remains, and penetrating into Westmoreland, Cumberland, and Northumberland. Of Fountains, Kirkstall, and Rivaulx Abbeys, and Temple Newsam, he has made from time to time many drawings, some of which, in the possession of Walter Fawkes, Esq., of Farnley Hall, are among his best works. He loved to represent a dilapidated castle or abbey, with the sun streaming through its gothic windows; and so extensive had been his rambles throughout England, Scotland, and Wales, that in the after period of his life, there was scarcely a scene of grandeur or interest of which he had not some pictorial recollection.

He did not, however, condescend to be very exact in his portraits of the places he professed to represent; but if you were unable to discover the objects familiar to your memory exactly where you expected to find them, the tout ensemble presented a more vivid impression of the scene than could have been derived from a mere servile transcript.

It was his sea shores, even at this early period, that afforded the clearest promise of his subsequent achieve

Four of his early drawings of the scenery of the Isle of Wight were engraved, about 1799, by the elder Landseer, the father of Sir Edwin, and have remained unpublished until the present time. Mr. Bohn having purchased the copper-plates at Mr. Landseer's sale has lately had a few proof impressions struck off.

J. M. W. TURNER, ESQ., R.A.

XV

ments; the more especially, if they happened to represent a somewhat tempestuous condition of sea and sky. Nothing could be more highly poetical than most of his scenes of this description. The amenity of Claude has a very soothing and delightful effect upon the mind; but the grandeur of Turner, in the wilder creations of his genius, leaves an impression which excites deep and lasting reflection.

After labouring assiduously as an Academy student for five years in his father's house, and for five years more in an adjoining house in Hand Court, during which period he exhibited no fewer than fifty-nine pictures, he was elected, in 1800, an Associate of the Royal Academy. He now took a house at No. 75, Norton Street, Fitzroy Square, whence he removed in three years to the more fashionable neighbourhood of Harley Street (No. 64). Although the greater part of his early drawings were more or less topographical, several were of a character which had never before been approached by a youth of his age, and evinced an acquaintance with aerial perspective which intuitive genius alone could have enabled him to acquire. It was not, however, until he had succeeded to the honours of the Academy, that he appeared to be thoroughly conscious of the affluence of his power. Some amateurs who are in possession of drawings of this stage of his career, assert that it was the soundest, meaning, we presume, the most careful period of his art, but it is generally admitted that his very early works bear no comparison with those of the middle and later eras of his art.

In 1802 he was elected to the full honours of the Royal Academy, his competitors among the Associates being so inferior to him, as to render it impossible he should be overlooked. It was then the practice of candidates for