Turner, Ruskin and Constable at Salisbury Author(s): Selby Whittingham Source: The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 113, No.

818 (May, 1971), pp. 272-275 Published by: The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/876641 Accessed: 06/03/2010 19:41
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=bmpl. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Burlington Magazine Publications, Ltd. is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Burlington Magazine.

http://www.jstor.org

SHORTER

NOTICES

Turner,Ruskin and Constable at Salisbury

BY SELBY WHITTINGHAM

THE first Turner water-colours which Ruskin acquired were all engraved in the Picturesque Views in England and Wales series.' A later acquisition belonged to the same series: Salisbury Cathedral, engraved in 1830.2 This subsequently passed from Ruskin into the hands of Mr George Coats,3 to one of whose descendants it still belongs, and has remained in obscurity ever since (Fig.51). The scene shows the Cathedral in the distance from Old Sarum with Harnham Hill in the background. It is almost identically the same viewpoint as that of a pencil drawing made by Turner in when the artist was preparing 1795 in the Isle of Wight Sketchbook,4 Richard Colt Hoare's abortive of for Sir Salisbury drawings the introduction of The chief are of Wiltshire. changes history shepherds and sheep in the foreground and a dramatic and dominating cloudscape. Ruskin at various times owned 3oo-odd Turners, but many of these he disposed of in his lifetime. However the Salisburyremained in his possession until his death.5 In his notes on his collection of Turner drawings he was full of enthusiasm for it: 'This drawing is of unsurpassable beauty in its sky, and effect of fast-flying storm and following sunbeams: . . . Few of the public now ever see a sunrise . . .; but we all of us are sometimes out in April weather; and its soft clouds and gentle beams are entirely within the scope of Turner's enchantment and arrest. No more lovely or skilful work in water-colour exists than the execution of the distance in this drawing.'6 However his praise was somewhat qualified when he earlier described it in volume 5 of Modern Painters: 'The plain is swept by rapid but not distressful rain ... The rain-clouds in this picture are wrought with a care which I have never seen equalled in any sky of the same kind. It is the rain of blessing - abundant, but full of brightness .. .,7
1 L. HERRMANN: Ruskin and Turner,London [1968], p. 19; cf. The Connoisseur,

172 [September 1969], p.40. the England and Wales series, cf. A. J. FINBERG: The Life of J. M. W. Turner,R.A., Oxford [1961], pp.297, 300, 307, 315, 323, 342, 374, 380, 494 if., 514. The engraving is by Radclyffe, and was published on Ist June 1830. The water-colour was exhibited at Moon, Boys and Graves in 1833 (FINBERG, op. cit., p.496, No.423), when it belonged to B. G. Windus. In 1839 Windus was described as having forty of 'the choicest' drawings from the Englandand Wales series (The Art Union [18391, P-.49). Ruskin knew Windus (FINBERG, op. Cit., p.403), but it was from White that his father purchased the drawing together with another Turner at a total cost of ?300 in August 1855 (J. J. Ruskin's accounts, Ruskin Galleries, Bembridge School, Isle of Wight). SIR WALTER ARMSTRONG: Turner,London [1902], p.276, dated the water-colour c.I828. F. WEDMORE: Turner and i; 3Glasgow InternationalExhibition, 1901, No.8 The EngravedWorksof II, P.330; W. G. Ruskin, London [1900oo], RAWLINSON" J. M. W. Turner,R.A., London, I [I9o8], pp.145-6, No.26o. 'Turner's "Isle of Wight" Sketch-Book', Walpole Society, I 4 A. J. FINBERG: pl.XXVIa. The drawing is on page 14b of the sketch-book. Turner [1911-12], visited Salisbury again in 1811 (FINBERG:The Life of J. M. W. Turner,p.I82), when he probably made the sketch for the drawing of the Cathedral spire for his newly commenced lectures on perspective (British Museum CXCV.I143; A. J. A Complete FINBERG: Bequest,London [1909], of theDrawingsof the Turner Inventory The Life of J. M. W. Turner,p.I76; Paintingsand Drawings of P.593; FINBERG: The Old Deanery, Salisbury [1967], SalisburySubjectsby Turnerand Constable, No.9). The sheet of paper of this drawing is watermarked I812. 5 It is shown in a painting of Ruskin's bedroom which Arthur Severn did in April 1900. I am indebted to Mr J. S. Dearden for this information. London [1903-12], and A. WEDDERBURN, 6 J. RUSKIN: TheWorks,ed. E. T. COOK XIII, p.441, No.38, where it is dated by the editors '1830-40'. Ruskin remarks elsewhere: 'in this entirely aesthetic painting by Turner of Salisbury Cathedral, the spire is quite perilously out of the perpendicular, and the shepherd has one eye somewhat higher than the other' etc. (ibid., XXIII, p.212). 7 Ibid., VII, p.I9o.
2 On

The tone of these remarks is enthusiastic, yet apologetic. This is understandable when Ruskin's condemnation of Constable is recalled: 'the showery weather, in which the artist delights, misses alike the majesty of storm and the loveliness of calm weather; it is great-coat weather, and nothing more. There is a strange want of depth in the mind which has no pleasure in sunbeams but when piercing painfully through clouds, nor in foliage but when shaken by the wind, nor in light itself but when flickering, glistening, restless and feeble.'8 In a letter of 1855 he wrote: 'I have just bought Turner's "Salisbury" - which I am specially glad to have, because I look upon "Salisbury" now as classic ground.'9 This was a change from his earlier attitude, when in a visit in 1848 to Salisbury he compared the Cathedral unfavourably with Giotto's Campanile,o1 and it is tempting to think that this was partly because he connected Salisbury with Constable. However, though it is generally believed that Ruskin was unreasonably prejudiced against the latter, in his critique of his art quoted above he goes on to give just praise for all that artist's qualities. The clue to Ruskin's objection to Constable is given by Professor Bell, who describes how, despite his preoccupation with morality, at an early age he dismissed Rembrandt as 'that sullen and sombre' painter, and the work of the pious Nazarenes as the 'muddy struggles of the unhappy Germans'.I" For Ruskin, a victim of periodic melancholic bouts, 'dark' always meant 'bad'.12 His comparison of Salisbury with Giotto's Campanile is prefaced by the remark: 'I shall not soon forget how profound and gloomy appeared to me the savageness of the Northern Gothic, when I afterwards stood, for the first time, beneath the front of Salisbury.' He sold Turner's The Slave Ship because the subject was too painful to live with, though he considered it one of Turner's best paintings. Hence the 'great-coat weather' of the Salisbury has to be excused by the fact that its rain is not 'distressful', but is full of 'blessing' and 'brightness'. It also had a Byronic quality ('the effect of fast-flying storm') which helped to redeem its wetness; for Ruskin was an admirer of Byron to almost the same degree as Constable detested him.13 Constable in his later works became more and more gloomy, whereas Turner progressed in the opposite direction, and it was in this period in their lives that Ruskin was growing up, which perhaps accounts for his vast preference for Turner. One of Constable's blackest paintings was the great Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, begun in 1829. His finished painting was described by the Morning Chronicleas 'Mr Constable's coarse and vulgar imitation of Mr Turner's freaks and follies'.14 It seems that for once he was trying to vie with the bravura of his more successful rival. In February I829 Constable was at last elected a R.A., and Turner came round to his house to tell him the news, and the two men sat up talking together till one o'clock in the morning.15 Did their conversation touch on Salisbury?

8 Ibid., III, p.I91.

9 Ibid., XXXVI, p.224. 10 Ibid., VIII, p.188. 11Q. BELL: Ruskin,Edinburgh and London [1963], p.17. 12 Ibid., PP.39, IO8-9. 13 'The World is well rid of Lord Byron - but the deadly slime of his touch ed. R. B. BECKETT, VI [1968], still remains' (John Constable'sCorrespondence, English Romantic p.i6i). For the Byronic element in Turner, cf. K. CLARK: Poets and Landscape Painting[1945], p.A5 (reprinted from The Memoirsand Proceedingsof the ManchesterLiteraryand PhilosophicalSociety, LXXXV, Session 1941-3). Ruskin's admiration for Byron is well known, and both he and Turner probably regarded Constable in the same light as Carlyle did Wordsworth: 'an honest rustic fiddle, good, and well handled, but wanting two or more of the strings,and not capable of much!'. 14 A. SHIRLEY: London [1949], pl. The Rainbow. A Portraitof John Constable, XIII. 15 BECKETT, op. cit., pp.312-13. Op.cit., p.242; cf. FINBERG,

272

from Old Sarum,by J. M. W. Turner. c.1830. Water-colour, 30 by 46 cm. (Private Collection.) 51. SalisburyCathedral

an Ode to Venus,by George S. Facius by Love,composes 52. Sapphoinspired and J. C. Facius after Angelica Kauffmann. Stipple engraving published by John Boydell, Ist May 1778.

53. Sappho,by Angelica Ka~uffmann.Signed and dated 1775. Canvas, 129-5 by 147'4 cm. (Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, Florida.)

SHORTER

NOTICES

At any rate it must have been about this time that Turner made his Salisbury water-colour, and that Constable was planning his grandest treatment of the Cathedral, with which he was preoccupied up till the end of his life."6 This confrontation is interesting, as rivalry between the two artists was particularly intense at this time. Constable was on the whole very generous in his appreciation of Turner, and in 1813 referred to his 'wonderful range of mind',17 but in the same year his great friend, Archdeacon Fisher, could tell him that he preferred Turner's exhibit at the Academy (Frosty Morning) to and he must always have resented the superior Constable's,18 success of Turner. In 1825 he wrote: 'I deeply feel the honour of having found an original style & independent of him who would be Lord over all - I mean Turner'.'9 However the comment of the Morning Chronicle raises the question whether he really was maintaining this independence. At any rate it was now Turner's turn to feel threatened. In the 1831 Academy exhibition Constable was on the hanging committee and placed his Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows in a better place than one of Turner's paintings, much to the latter's wrath.20 And in the following year paintings by the two artists were hung next to each other. Turner, thinking his offering to be literally outshone by Constable's, added a 'round daub of red lead' which made even the vermilion and lake of Constable's painting look weak. Constable, on seeing this, exclaimed, 'he has been here and fired a gun'.21 It is tempting therefore to think that Turner was painting his Salisbury, the 'home-ground' of Constable, deliberately in rivalry with the latter. At all events Ruskin's comments on it illustrate the importance of mood for critic and artist alike in the Romantic period, a factor which modern art historians ignore at their peril. After all, it was Constable who said: 'Painting is but another word for feeling'.22

16 The

But it is not impossiblethat the idea for it was mind beforehis visit to Salisburyin July. maturingin Constable's
(BECKETT, op. Cit.,p.251). 19 Ibid., p.191. 20 FINBERG: op.cit., p.327.
17 FINBERG, op. Cit.,p.197. 18 BECKETT, op.Cit.,p.21.

first mention of the new picture seems to be on 9th August 1829

and Turnerat Salisbury,to be published by the Friends of Salisbury let, Constable

21 Ibid., p.337. In 1826 Turnersupposedlytoned down a picture so as not to outshineone by Lawrence(ibid.,p.295). 22 BECKETT, cit., p.78. These questions will be furtherdiscussed in a pamphOp.

Cathedral.

Angelica KaufmannBY PETER A. TOMORY

THIS

'Sappho'

painting (Fig.53)1 has not been identified since John Ringling bought it in London c.I928, for then its title was, improbably, Lady as Venus with Cupid by her Side. In the 1949 catalogue of the collection Suida changed it to A Maiden with Cupid and through a misreading of the Greek failed to recognize the lady's correct identity. The lines translated read: So come again and deliver me from intolerable pain and are lines 25-26 from Sappho's first Ode to Aphrodite.
1 Angelica Kauffmann, Sappho, oil on canvas, 51 by 58 ins. (129'5 by 147'4 cm). Signed and dated, Angelica Kauffman pinx. 1775. No.329, WILLIAM E. SUIDA:

The painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in I775 (169) with the title Sappho, which, with an enlarged composition and several changes, was engraved in 1778 by G. S. and J. G. Facius.2 The plate title, Sappho, inspired by Love, composesan Ode to Venus (Fig.52) was obviously intended for a less erudite and sophisticated public, if one allows also for the cache-sex use of Cupid's drapery and the addition of the lyre. There is no case for the painting being cut down since its measurements and proportions agree with some other paintings by the artist. Sappho was probably acquired shortly after its first exhibition by John Baker Holroyd, later Baron Sheffield (1781 in the Irish peerage) and Ist Earl of Sheffield (1802 in the English peerage), for the painting was sold (Sotheby, 22nd February 1928, bt. Field) as from Sheffield Park, Sussex. There is no trace of it in earlier sales. Since it was sold with other Holroyd portraits of the period, including a portrait of John Holroyd's daughter, Dorothy by Angelica, it seems safe to assume that it was not a later acquisition by the Sheffield family. It is possible that the artist first met the Holroyds in Ireland when she was there in 1771-72. There is good reason to believe that the subject had a personal association for the artist, for apart from the evidence of an engraving Sappho by John Pye of 1774 (I have not seen this), the only other work on the subject with which she was connected was her etching after her husband's (Antonio Zucchi) Sappho Conversingwith Homer or History and Music, 1781 and she was said to have been the model for Sappho.3 Not unlikely, since Fuseli observed that 'Her heroines are herself'. Comparing the Sappho here with her two self-portraits (National Portrait Gallery 430, c.1770; Hermitage, Leningrad 7261, c.1780-5),4 there are considerable similarities in the shape of the head, the mouth in particular and the eyes. The plate title (Fig.52), while more explicit than that of the painting, is not true to the Ode, in which the poetess, sorely troubled, is expressly asking for love to come again to her. There is no question that the artist too must have been sorely troubled in and around 1775. As is well known, Angelica had contracted in 1767 a bigamous marriage with one Brandt posing as his master, Count Frederick de Horn, and although a deed of separation was drawn up in 1768, after the imposture was discovered, it was not until 1780 that she sent papers to Rome for an official annulment. Meanwhile, having first met William Wynne Ryland, the engraver, in 1767, she was in very close contact with him - suspected as being more than an artistic connection - from 1774 onwards as one of her principal print-makers.5 Ryland was married but kept his wife hidden from society. Finally, the extravagances brought on by his acquisition of a mistress c. 1780 led him to the scaffold for forgery in 1783. Another suitor was, of course, Antonio Zucchi, who though very much older, possibly afforded the promise of a safe harbour after the stormy seas of younger blood. In addition, although the claim has been discounted by his biographers, Marat later said he had seduced Angelica Kauffmann at her house in Golden Square, where he was received from time to time with his close friend, Antonio Zucchi. Marat was in England from 1767 to I777/8. Lastly, while she could not anticipate it at the time she was working on her own painting, Nathaniel Hone

2 G. S. and J. G. Facius,Sappho, an Ode to Venus, inspired byLove, composes stipple engraving 336 by 238 mm., Ist May 1778, Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design.
3 V. MANNERS

and

G.

C. WILLIAMSON:

[1924],

A Catalogue of the Paintings ...

Ringling Museumof Art [I19499].

[2969], p.48, PIs.I, 5. 5 For a list of Ryland's The Connoisseur, 12 engravingssee R. BLEACKLEY, [1905], p. x10.

notice has been taken from this source. 4 Angelika Kauffmann und Ihre Zeitgnossen. Exhibition Catalogue, Bregenz

p.22I,

n.I, the greater part of the other factual information

R.A. . Angelica Kauffmann

. London
in this

275