JOSEPH MALLORD WILLIAM TURNER (1775—1851) stands at the head of English landscape painters. It has been said that though others may have equalled or surpassed him in some respects, "none has yet appeared with such versatility of talent." (Dr. Waagen.) The character of Turner is a mixture of contradictory elements. He possessed a marvellous appreciation of the beautiful in nature, yet lived in dirt and squalor, and dressed in a style between that of a sea-captain and a hackney coachman. The man who worked exquisitely was sometimes harsh and uncouth, though capable of a rude hospitality; disliking the society of some of his fellow-men, he yet loved the company of his friends, and though penurious in some money transactions, left a magnificent bequest to his profession. Turner owed nothing to the beauty or poetic surroundings of his birth-place, which was the house of his father, a barber in Maiden Lane, Covent Garden. But as Lord Byron is said to have conjured up his loveliest scenes of Greece whilst walking in Albemarle Street, so the associations of Maiden Lane did not prevent Turner from delineating storm-swept landscapes, and innumerable splendours of nature. The barber was justly proud of his child, who very early displayed his genius, and the first drawings of Turner are said to have been exhibited in his father's shaving-room. In time the boy was colouring prints and washing in the backgrounds of architects' drawings. Dr. Monro, the art patron, extended a helping hand to the young genius of Maiden Lane. "Girtin and I," says Turner, "often walked to Bushey and back, to make drawings for good Dr. Monro at half-a-crown a piece, and the money for our supper when we got home." He did not, of course, start from London.
The Grand Canal, Venice. By TURNER. A.D. 1834.
The Grand Canal, Venice. By TURNER. A.D 1834.
In 1789, Turner became a student in the Academy, and exhibited a picture in the next year at Somerset House, View of the Archbishop's Palace at Lambeth. He was then only fifteen. From that time he worked with unceasing energy at his profession. Indeed, the pursuit of art was the one ruling principle of his life. He frequently went on excursions, the first being to Ramsgate and Margate, and was storing his memory with effects of storm, mist, and tempest, which he reproduced. In 1799, when made A.R.A., Turner had already exhibited works which ranged over twenty-six counties of England and Wales. In 1802 he was made full Academician, and presented, as his diploma picture, Dolbadarn Castle, North Wales. In this year he visited the Continent, and saw France and Switzerland. Five years later Turner was appointed Professor of Perspective to the Royal Academy. We are told his lectures were delivered in so strange a style, that they were scarcely instructive. Of his water-colour paintings and of the Liber Studiorum it is impossible to speak too highly; he created the modern school of water-colour painting, and his works in oil have influenced the art of the nineteenth century. He visited Italy for the first time in 1819; again ten years later, and for the last time in 1840. His eccentricity, both in manner and in art, increased with age. Though wealthy, and possessing a good house in Queen Anne Street, he died in an obscure lodging by the Thames, at Chelsea, a few days before Christmas, 1851, Turner bequeathed his property to found a charity for male decayed artists, but the alleged obscurity of his will defeated this object. It was decided that his pictures and drawings should be presented to the National Gallery, that one thousand pounds should be spent on a monument to the painter in St. Paul's, twenty thousand pounds should be given to the Royal Academy, and the remainder to the next of kin and heir at law. The National Gallery contains more than one hundred of his pictures, besides a large number of water-colour drawings and sketches. In his earlier works Turner took the old masters as his models, some of his best pictures showing the characteristics of the Dutch school, as The Shipwreck, and The Sun rising in a Mist. In The Tenth Plague, and The Goddess of Discord, the influence of Poussin is visible, whilst Wilson is imitated in Æneas with the Sibyl, and A View in Wales. Turner was fond of matching himself against Claude; and not only did he try his powers in rivalry with the older masters, he delighted to enter into honest competition with painters of the day, and when Wilkie's Village Politicians was attracting universal notice, Turner produced his Blacksmith's Shop in imitation of it. In his later pictures Turner sacrificed form to colour. "Mist and vapour, lit by the golden light of morn, or crimsoned with the tints of evening, spread out to veil the distance, or rolled in clouds and storms, are the great characteristics of Turner's art as contrasted with the mild serenity of the calm unclouded heaven of Claude." (Redgrave.) Turner in his choice of colours forsook conventionality, and "went to the cataract for its iris, to the conflagration for its flames, asked of the sea its intensest azure, of the sky its clearest gold." (Ruskin.) The same critic considers Turner's period of central power, entirely developed and entirely unabated, to begin with the Ulysses, and to close with the TÉmÉraire, a period of ten years, 1829—1839.
JOHN CONSTABLE (1776—1837) was born at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, June 11th, 1776, and the sunny June weather in which the painter first saw the light seems to pervade all his pictures. Constable's father was a miller, and intended that his son should succeed to his business; it has been said also that it was proposed to educate him for holy orders. Constable, however, was meant for a painter, and became one of the best delineators of English scenery. In 1800, he became student in the Royal Academy. In 1802, he exhibited his first picture. In 1819, he was elected A.R.A., and became a full member ten years after. Constable's earlier efforts were in the direction of historical painting and portraiture, but he found his true sphere in landscape. He was thoroughly English. No foreign master influenced him, and rustic life furnished all he needed. He said, "I love every style and stump and lane in the village: as long as I am able to hold a brush, I shall never cease to paint them." To this determination we owe some of the most pleasant English pictures, full of fresh, breezy life, rolling clouds, shower-wetted foliage, and all the greenery of island scenes. He loved to paint under the sun, and impart a glittering effect to his foliage which many of his critics could not understand. Indeed, Constable was not appreciated thoroughly till after his death. He seems to have known that this would be the case, for early in his career he wrote, "I feel now more than ever a decided conviction that I shall some time or other make some good pictures—pictures that shall be valuable to posterity, if I do not reap the benefit of them." Constable did not attempt bold or mountainous scenery, but loved the flat, sunny meadows of Suffolk, and declared that the river Stour made him a painter. In the National Gallery are his: The Corn-field, The Valley Farm (see Frontispiece), (a view of "Willy Lott's House," on the Stour, close by Flatford Mill, the property of the painter's father), A Corn-field with figures, and On Barnes Common.
Trent in Tyrol. By CALLCOTT. In the possession of Mr. Samuel Cartwright.
Trent in Tyrol. By CALLCOTT. In the possession of Mr. Samuel Cartwright.
SIR AUGUSTUS WALL CALLCOTT (1779—1844) has been styled the English Claude. He was born at Kensington Gravel Pits, then a pretty suburban spot. He was, for some years, a chorister at Westminster Abbey, but early adopted painting as his profession. Callcott was a pupil of Hoppner, and began as a portrait painter. He soon devoted himself to landscape, with an occasional attempt at history. He became a full member of the Academy in 1810, his presentation picture being Morning. His best pictures were produced between 1812 and 1826, during which period he produced The Old Pier at Littlehampton (National Gallery), Entrance to the Pool of London, Mouth of the Tyne, Calm on the Medway (Earl of Durham). Callcott married in 1827, and went to Italy. On his return in the following year he soon became a fashionable painter. "His pictures, bright, pleasant of surface, and finished in execution, were suited to the appreciation of the public, and not beyond their comprehension; commissions poured in upon him." (Redgrave.) The Queen knighted him in 1837, and in the same year he exhibited his Raphael and the Fornarina, engraved for the Art Union by L. Stocks, which, if it possesses few faults, excites no enthusiasm. In 1840 appeared Milton dictating Paradise Lost to his Daughter, a large picture, which overtaxed the decaying powers of the artist. Among Callcott's later pictures are Dutch Peasants returning from Market, and Entrance to Pisa from Leghorn. As a figure painter he does not appear at his best. Examples of this class are Falstaff and Simple, and Anne Page and Slender (Sheepshanks Collection).
The Fisherman's Departure. By COLLINS. Painted in A.D. 1826 for Mr. Morrison.
The Fisherman's Departure. By COLLINS. Painted in A.D. 1826 for Mr. Morrison.
WILLIAM COLLINS (1788—1847) was born in London, where his father carried on business as a picture dealer, in addition to the somewhat uncertain calling of a journalist. The future painter was introduced to Morland, a friend of his father, and learnt many things, some to be imitated, others to be avoided, in that artist's studio. From 1807 he exhibited at the Academy, of which he became a full member in 1820. He exhibited one hundred and twenty-one pictures in a period of forty years, specially devoting himself to landscape, with incidents of ordinary life. Now he would paint children swinging on a gate, as in Happy as a King (National Gallery); children bird-nesting, or sorrowing for their play-fellows, as in The Sale of the Pet Lamb. Collins was also specially successful in his treatment of cottage and coast scenery, as in The Haunts of the Sea-fowl, The Prawn Catchers (National Gallery), and Fishermen on the look-out. After visiting Italy, Collins forsook for a time his former manner, and painted the Cave of Ulysses, and the Bay of Naples; but neither here nor in the Christ in the Temple with the Doctors, and The two Disciples at Emmaus, do we see him at his best. He wisely returned to his first style.
WILLIAM LINTON (1791—1876) was employed in a merchant's office in Liverpool, but quitted it to begin an artist's career in London. In 1821, he exhibited his first picture, The Morning after the Storm. After visiting the Continent, Linton returned to England, and produced pictures of the classic scenes he had studied. After a second foreign tour, in which he visited Greece, Sicily, and Calabria, he exhibited The Embarkation of the Greeks for Troy, The Temples of PÆstum (National Gallery), and several works of a like character.
PATRICK NASMYTH (1786—1831), son of a Scotch landscape painter, was born in Edinburgh, and came to London. His first exhibited picture at the Academy was a View of Loch Katrine, in 1811. In the British Institution Gallery of the same year his Loch Auchray appeared. It is by his pictures of simple English scenery that Nasmyth is best known. He took Hobbema and Wynants as models, and chose country lanes, hedge-rows, with dwarf oak-trees, for his subjects. Nasmyth was deaf in consequence of an illness, and having lost the use of his right hand by an accident, painted with his left. In the National Gallery are a Cottage, and The Angler's Nook; at South Kensington are Landscape with an Oak, Cottage by a Brook, and Landscape with a Haystack.
St. Gomer, Brussels. By DAVID ROBERTS.
St. Gomer, Brussels. By DAVID ROBERTS.
DAVID ROBERTS (1796—1864), a native of Stockbridge, near Edinburgh, began life as a house-decorator, and, becoming a scene-painter, found employment at Drury Lane in 1822. Marked success in this capacity led him to attempt a higher flight in architectural landscape. He exhibited Rouen Cathedral at the Academy in 1826, and very often contributed pictures to the British Institution and Society of British Artists; of the last-named body he was a foundation-member. Roberts made a tour in Spain for materials of pictures and sketches; noteworthy among the results of this journey are The Cathedral of Burgos, an exterior view, and a small Interior of the same, now in the National Gallery. Extending his travels to the East, Roberts produced The Ruins of Baalbec, and Jerusalem from the South-East. He was made a full member of the Academy in 1841, and lived to see his pictures sold for far higher prices than he had originally assigned to them. David Roberts is well known by "Sketches in the Holy Land, Syria, and Egypt."
RICHARD PARKES BONINGTON (1801—1828) passed most of his life abroad. He studied in the Louvre when a child, and gained his knowledge of art exclusively in Paris and Italy. His influence on the French school of genre and dramatic art was very great indeed, almost equal to that which Constable produced on the French artists in landscape. He died, aged twenty-seven, from the effects of a sunstroke received while sketching in Paris. Bonington excelled in landscape, marine, and figure subjects. He exhibited in the British Institution, among other pictures, two Views of the French Coast, which attracted much notice, and The Column of St. Mark's, Venice (National Gallery). Sir Richard Wallace possesses several of his best works, notably Henri IV. and the Spanish Ambassador.
Francis I. and his Sister. By BONINGTON. In the possession of Sir Richard Wallace, Bart.
Francis I. and his Sister. By BONINGTON.
In the possession of Sir Richard Wallace, Bart.
WILLIAM JOHN MÜLLER (1812—1845) was another landscape painter whose career was brief, and who chiefly painted foreign scenery. He travelled in Germany, Italy and Switzerland, and for a time practised as a landscape painter at Bath, though with little success. In 1838 MÜller visited Greece and Egypt, and in 1841 he was in Lycia. He had previously settled in London. His pictures were chiefly of Oriental scenes, and his fame was rapidly growing when he died. His works now command high prices. In the National Gallery we have a Landscape, with two Lycian Peasants, and a River Scene.
JOHN MARTIN (1789—1854) held a distinguished place as a painter of poetic or imaginative landscapes and architectural subjects. He was born near Hexham, and began the study of art in the humble field of coach painting at Newcastle. Coming to London, Martin worked at enamel painting, and in 1812 exhibited his first picture at the Academy, Sadak in Search of the Waters of Oblivion, which is one of his best works. This was followed by Joshua commanding the Sun to stand still (1816), The Death of Moses (1838), The Last Man (from Campbell's poem), The Eve of the Deluge, Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, &c. Martin's most famous works were not exhibited at the Academy, e.g. Belshazzar's Feast, The Fall of Babylon, and The Fall of Nineveh. Many of his compositions were engraved, securing for them a wide circulation. Mr. Redgrave said: "We can hardly agree with Bulwer, that Martin was 'more original, more self-dependent than Raphael or Michael Angelo.'" But if in his lifetime Martin was over-praised, he was unjustly depreciated afterwards. Many of his brother artists and the public, when the first astonishment his pictures created had passed away, called his art a trick and an illusion, his execution mechanical, his colouring bad, his figures vilely drawn, their actions and expressions bombastic and ridiculous. But, granting this, wholly or partially, it must be remembered that his art, or manner, was original; that it opened new views, which yielded glimpses of the sublime, and dreams and visions that art had not hitherto displayed; and that others, better prepared by previous study, working after him, have delighted, and are still delighting, the world with their works.
Belshazzar's Feast. By John Martin. Exhibited at the British Institution in A.D. 1821.
Belshazzar's Feast. By John Martin. Exhibited at the British Institution in A.D. 1821.
THE NORWICH SCHOOL.
We must now speak of a provincial school of landscape painters which was founded by JOHN CROME (1769—1821). The father of the Norwich Society of Artists is generally known as "Old Crome," to distinguish him from his son, who was likewise a painter. Crome, the son of a journey-man weaver, born in a small tavern at Norwich, was in due course apprenticed to a house and sign-painter. The young house-painter spent his spare time in painting something more attractive than the walls of houses, and chose the scenery round Norwich for his subjects. The flat, sunny landscapes, dotted with farms and cottages, through which the sleeping river glided slowly, and the Norfolk broads, with their flocks of wild fowl, remained to the last the frequent subjects of Crome's pencil. Determining to be a painter in good earnest, Crome, when his apprenticeship was over, eked out his scanty resources by giving lessons in drawing and painting. At the Royal Academy he exhibited only fourteen pictures, but in his native town one hundred and ninety-six. With the exception of The Blacksmith's Shop, all the works shown at the Academy were landscapes. "He wanted but little subject: an aged oak, a pollard willow by the side of the slow Norfolk streams, or a patch of broken ground, in his hands became pictures charming us by their sweet colour and rustic nature." "Crome seems to have founded his art on Hobbema, Ruysdael, and the Dutch school, rather than on the French and Italian painters; except so far as these were represented by our countryman, Wilson, whose works he copied, and whose influence is seen mingled with the more realistic treatment derived from the Dutch masters." (Redgrave.) In the National Gallery are his Mousehold Heath, View of Chapel Field, and Windmill on a Heath: all views near Norwich. A Clump of Trees, Hautbois Common (Fitzwilliam Gallery, Cambridge), is another favourable specimen of his art.
JAMES STARK (1794—1859) was a pupil of Crome, and takes rank next to him in the Norwich school. In 1812, he was elected a member of the Norwich Society of Artists. In 1817, he came to London, and became a student in the Royal Academy. There appeared some of his best works: Boys Bathing, Flounder Fishing, and Lambeth, looking towards Westminster Bridge. Illness obliged Stark to return to Norwich, where he produced his "Scenery of the Rivers Yare and Waveney, Norfolk;" a series of illustrations engraved by Goodall and others. Stark lacked the vigour of Crome in colour and drawing.
GEORGE VINCENT (1796—about 1831) is best known for his View of Greenwich Hospital, shown from the river. It was painted for Mr. Carpenter, of the British Museum, and was in the International Exhibition of 1862. Vincent was specially fond of sunlight effects or clouds in his pictures.
JOHN SELL COTMAN (1782—1842) having escaped the life of a linen-draper's shopman, devoted himself to art, and coming to London found a friend and patron in Dr. Monro. From 1800 to 1806 Cotman exhibited pictures at the Academy, and, returning to Norwich, was made a member and secretary of the Society of Artists there. In the year 1808 he contributed to the Norwich exhibition sixty-seven works. Cotman paid many visits to Normandy, and after 1834 was Professor of Drawing in King's College School, London. He was more successful as a water-colour artist than a painter in oils. He painted chiefly landscapes, marine pieces, and executed many engravings of architecture.
The Norwich school no longer exists as a distinct body.
FRANCIS DANBY (1793—1861) excelled Martin in the poetry of landscape art. He was born near Wexford, and gained his first knowledge of art in Dublin, where, in 1812, he exhibited his first picture, Evening. In 1813, he was established at Bristol as a teacher of drawing in water colour. He became known to the artistic world of London by his Upas Tree of Java, which was at the British Institution of 1820, an intensely poetic work, now in the National Gallery. His Sunset at Sea after a Storm, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1824, was purchased by Sir Thomas Lawrence. A year later Danby exhibited The Delivery of Israel out of Egypt, for which he was elected an A.R.A. He is most famous, however, for quiet scenes, calm evenings at sea, sunset effects, combined with some poetic incident, and always remarkable for great brilliancy of colour, among which are The Artist's Holiday and The Evening Gun. In the National Gallery is The Fisherman's Home, Sunrise. He never became a R.A.
WILLIAM CLARKSON STANFIELD (1793—1867) holds one of the highest places among English landscape and marine painters. Beginning life as a sailor in the Royal Navy, he sketched vessels as they passed his own. A severe fall compelled retirement from the navy. He began his art career as a scene-painter in the Old Royalty Theatre, Wellclose Square, and later became scene-painter to Drury Lane Theatre. His first exhibited picture was A River Scene in the Academy, 1820. In the same year A Study from Nature was at the British Institution. He exhibited Ben Venu, and A Coast Scene, at the Institution in 1822. In 1824, he was a foundation-member of the Society of British Artists, and sent five pictures to their first exhibition in that year. Stanfield's large Wreckers off Fort Rouge, was exhibited at the British Institution in 1828. In 1827 appeared A Calm, in the Royal Academy. From that time Stanfield's success was assured. His truthfulness in reading nature, whether in naval battle scenes, views of foreign sea-ports, or mountain and river scenery, has seldom if ever been surpassed. He became a full member of the Academy in 1835. An unwearied worker, he exhibited one hundred and thirty-two pictures at the Royal Academy. We may mention The Battle of Trafalgar; The Victory, with Nelson's Body on board, towed into Gibraltar; Entrance to the Zuyder Zee; Lake of Como, and The Canal of the Giudecca, Venice (all in the National Gallery). Among his earlier works are Mount St. Michael, Cornwall; A Storm; A Fisherman off Honfleur, and The Opening of New London Bridge.
Terminati Marina. By STANFIELD. A.D. 1840. In the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne.
Terminati Marina. By STANFIELD. A.D 1840. In the possession of the Marquis of Lansdowne.
JAMES BAKER PYNE (1800—1870), born in Bristol, began life in a solicitor's office, which he quitted to make a precarious subsistence by painting, teaching, or restoring pictures. He went to London in 1835, where a picture exhibited a year after at the Academy attracted notice, and opened the way of success. He became famous as a delineator of lake scenery, and for pseudo-Turner-like treatment of sunlight effects.
THOMAS CRESWICK (1811—1869), one of the most pleasing modern English landscape painters, was born at Sheffield. He came to London when only seventeen, and his pictures were exhibited by the British Institution and the Royal Academy in that year, 1828. Having settled in London, he delighted lovers of landscape with views in Ireland and Wales, and, later, turned his attention to the North of England, the rocky dales and rivers of which furnished subjects for his finest works. In 1842, he was elected an Associate of the Academy, and received a premium of fifty guineas from the British Institution for the general excellence of his productions. In 1851, Creswick became a full member of the Academy, and somewhat later executed pictures into which Frith and Ansdell introduced figures and cattle. There is a charm in his paintings, the character of which may be gathered from The Old Foot Road, The Hall Garden, The Pleasant Way Home, The Valley Mill, The Blithe Brook, Across the Beck. In the National Gallery is The Pathway to the Village Church. "He painted the homely scenery of his country, especially its streams, in all its native beauty and freshness; natural, pure, and simple in his treatment and colour, careful and complete in his finish, good taste prevailing in all his works, and conspicuously so in his charming contributions to the works of the Etching Club, of which he was a valued member, and also in his many designs on wood." (Redgrave.)
The Pleasant Way Home. By CRESWICK. Exhibited in 1846.
The Pleasant Way Home. By CRESWICK. Exhibited in 1846.
JOHN LINNELL (1792—1882) the son of a carver and gilder in Bloomsbury, was at first brought up to his father's trade, and had many opportunities of studying pictures. At eight years of age he copied Morland so well that his versions were often taken for originals. Soon afterwards he became a pupil of John Varley, and in his studio met Mulready and W. H. Hunt, with whom he frequently went on sketching tours. In 1807, when only fifteen years of age, Linnell sent his first pictures, A Study from Nature, and A View near Reading, to the Royal Academy Exhibition, to which for more than seventy years he was a regular contributor. He frequently painted portraits, and was particularly successful in landscapes with many trees. Mr. Ruskin says, "The forest studies of John Linnell are particularly elaborate, and in many points most skilful." For many years towards the close of his life he lived at Redhill, with his two sons and his son-in-law, Samuel Palmer, all landscape painters, near him.
During his long life he painted many hundred pictures, which are now for the most part scattered in private galleries in England. Two of his works are in the National Gallery, Wood Cutters, and The Windmill; and three at South Kensington, Wild Flower Gatherers, Milking Time, and Driving Cattle.
EDWARD WILLIAM COOKE (1811—1880), the son of an engraver, was intended for his father's profession; but he preferred the brush to the graver. In 1851 he was made an associate and in 1864 a full member of the Royal Academy, to whose exhibitions he was a most constant contributor: he also exhibited at the British Institution. His works are, for the most part, coast and river scenes, generally in England, and frequently on the Thames or Medway. Paintings by him are in the National Gallery and the South Kensington Museum.
