COLLEGE HARVARD LIBRARY Luminer fund CHISWICK PRESS CHARLES WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT, CHANCERY LANE, LONDON. PREFACE HEN asked by Messrs. Bell to write "The Life WHE of Turner" for their Series of "British Artists," I at first refused, for my ideas flow but slowly, and I have not the pen of a ready writer. Moreover, the only time I can spare for literary work is after the light has failed for painting. On being again pressed I agreed to undertake the task, mainly influenced by my admiration for the work of the inimitable poet-painter who has been my study and delight since boyhood. The first thing to be done was to read all the books on the subject. To my consternation I soon found that at least seven lives of Turner had already been published. Later, in my search among the sketch-books stowed away in the basement of the National Gallery, I met a gentleman engaged on yet another exhaustive Turner biography. What chance has my little book against so many by professional writers? How can I expect to put down anything that has not been better said before? My only hope is that, being a painter, I may look at Turner's life and work from a point of view different from that of a literary man. Gilbert Hamerton, it is true, did draw a little, but his books were very much better than his pictures. An artist should be better able to distinguish and note the influences and beauties, the difficulties and limitations of another artist's work, than a critic or a teller of tales. I have tried to describe the masterpieces of Turner as they appear to a fellow painter travelling, however remotely, along the same road. The biographical facts are mostly gleaned from that confused tangle of oft-told anecdote and exaggerated description compiled by Walter Thornbury in 1861. I have sorted and arranged these scattered scraps of history in chronological order to the best of my ability. The task was not an easy one, but night after night as I went slowly through the trials and triumphs of Turner, the uncouth old wizard, with his rough manners and tender heart, somehow became more and more real to me, until at last he seemed a friend that I had known all my life. If I can only paint the man and his works for my reader as clearly as they stand before me, my labour of love will not have been in vain. W. L. WYLLIE. THE "FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE," TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH TO BE BROKEN UP, 1838. OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT OF TURNER ST. MARY'S, REDCLIFFE (1814) TO FACE 72 80 118 I 6 MARINE STUDY STUDIES OF A SHIPWRECK, No. 1. (In the Text) 12 19 FORT PITT, CHATHAM (1827) Cowes, ISLE OF WIGHT (1827 TO 1838) MALVERN ABBEY AND GATE (1827 TO 1838). LANDING OF WILLIAM OF ORANGE (1832) . ORLEANS (1833) ROUEN CATHEDRAL (1833) THE DUCAL PALACE AND CANAL (1833) TO FACE PAGE 70 72 74 76 78 80 84 86 88 88 90 92 92 94 96 98 100 102 |