" opec.X2\l n
THE WATER-COLOURS OF
J. M. W. TURNER
TEXT BY
W. G. RAWLINSON
AND A. J. FINBERG
FOREWORD BY
SIR CHARLES HOLROYD, R.E.
MCMIX
OFFICES OF ,THE STUDIO'
LONDON, PARIS AND NEW YORK
PREFATORY NOTE.
THE Editor desires to acknowledge his indebtedness to the following
collectors of Turner's water-colours who have kindly lent their
drawings for reproduction in this volume : — Mr. C. Morland Agncw,
Sir Hickman Bacon, Bart., Mr. Ralph Brocklebank, Rev. William
MacGregor, Mr. W. G. Rawlinson, Mr. J. F. Schwann, and
Mr. W. Yates.
The Editor wishes especially to express his thanks to Mr. W. G.
Rawlinson, who, in addition to allowing several examples from his
collection to be reproduced, has rendered valuable assistance in
various other ways in the preparation of this volume.
111
ARTICLES.
A Foreword by Sir Charles Holroyd, R.E. . . page i
The Watcr-Colour Drawings of J. M. W. Turner, R.A.
By W. G. Rawlinson . . . . „ 4
The Turner Drawings in the National Gallery, London.
By A. J. Finberg . . . . . „ 28
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Plate I. The Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth. From the
Collection of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
„ II. The Mouth of the Avon. From the Collection
of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
„ III. Peterborough Cathedral from the North. From
the Collection of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
„ IV. The Pent, Dover. From the Collection of
W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
„ V. Distant View of Lichfield Cathedral. From the
Collection of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
„ VI. Edinburgh : from St. Margaret's Loch. In the
National Gallery, London.
„ VII. Stonehengc — Sunset. From the Collection of
W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
„ VIII. Scarborough. From the Collection of C. Morland
Agnew, Esq.
„ IX. Lulworth Cove. From the Collection of W. G.
Rawlinson, Esq.
„ X. Goarhauscn and Katz Castle. From the Collection
of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
„ XI. The Lake of Ncmi. From the Collection of
C. Morland Agnew, Esq.
XII. Turin: from the Church of the Superga. From
the Collection of C. Morland Agnew, Esq.
v
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Plate XIII.
XIV.
XV.
XVI.
XVII.
„ XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
XXI.
XXII.
„ XXIII.
XXIV.
J>
XXV.
XXVI.
„ XXVII.
„ XXVIII.
XXIX.
XXX.
The Crook of the Lune. From the Collection
of Rev. William MacGregor.
Norham Castle. In the National Gallery, Lon-
don.
Launceston. From the Collection of J. F.
Schwann, Esq.
Barnard Castle. From the Collection of W. G.
Rawlinson, Esq.
On the Lake at Petworth — Evening. In the
National Gallery, London.
Cowes. From the Collection of W. Yates, Esq.
Venice : The Salute from S. Giorgio Maggiore.
In the National Gallery, London.
Venice : Casa Grimani and the Rialto. In the
National Gallery, London.
Lucerne. In the National Gallery, London.
A Swiss Lake. From the Collection of Sir
Hickman Bacon, Bart.
Bellinzona : from the South. In the National
Gallery, London.
Bellinzona : from the road to Locarno. In the
National Gallery, London.
Lausanne : from Le Signal. From the Collection
of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
Lausanne. In the National Gallery, London.
Zurich. In the National Gallery, London.
The Seelisberg: Moonlight. From the Collection
of W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
Schaffhausen : The Town. From the Collection
of Ralph Brocklebank, Esq.
Tell's Chapel, Fluelen. From the Collection of
W. G. Rawlinson, Esq.
VI
A FOREWORD BY SIR CHARLES HOLROYD, R.E.
I AM particularly glad to write a foreword to this collection of repro-
ductions of water-colours by J. M. W. Turner, as they arc per-
haps the best renderings of the beautiful originals that I have yet
seen. The more reproductions we can have of the master's drawings
the more will it be possible to study properly his great message, and
the more will his genius be recognised. I would like to see everyone
of his nineteen thousand water-colour sketches and lead-pencil drawings
reproduced, so that we could all hold them in our hands and carry
them about with us ; for in them there is an unfailing beauty of com-
position, and a glorious truth of effect and of detail, by which Turner
managed to make complete pictures out of even the fewest touches.
No one realises Turner's full genius till he studies these drawings,
often made in the very presence of nature. They teach us to look at
her with a new and seeing eye. Their absolute truth has hardly yet
been fully recognised. I have had the fortune to carry reproductions
of these drawings with me in Wharfedale and in Venice, and I have
compared them touch for touch with nature. Often and often have I
been able to see the meaning of what appears a careless scratch or even
an accidental wriggle, only when the actual scene was before me.
They are mostly drawn from one exact spot, as may be seen by the
crossing of the branches of the trees, although these are now so many
years older, and the folding of the hills. It was in the seventies that
I first made these comparisons in Wharfedale and I still remember my
delight at recognising the gnarled markings on three ash trees a little
below Bolton Abbey ; the angle of their growth forming a rough
letter N was identical although they were mere saplings in Turner's
drawing, and even the broken bank of the river was still the same, all
the winter floods of variable Wharfc not having washed away nature's
truth to Turner's drawing. My experiences in Venice arc similar.
With the reproduction in my hand I could say that Turner drew a
particular scene from a particular flagstone on the quay, or piazza.
The lines of the houses on both sides of the canal cut one another in
the exact way they did in Turner's sketches only from one particular
spot, but from there the whole scene was complete exactly. Many
subjects were sketched from the middle of the canal and owing to the
movement of the water it was not easy to compare exactly the repro-
ductions with the scenes in nature. Curiously nearly all these scenes
from the canal were taken from the tragAetfos, or ferries, of which
there are several up and down the Grand Canal, where gondolas
wait for hire, tied to their posts, somewhat as cabs stand in their
ranks in our streets. It is possible that Turner in his economy made
use of these waiting gondolas by giving the gondolier a palanca for
permission to sit in a gondola whilst it was thus at rest. It was
an ideal place for working from in his day, for no " penny steam-
boats " then splashed up and down the canal making things rock in
their wake, but peace reigned in the reflections of the palaces.
Only very few of the drawings of which I had reproductions
went unrecognised ; one was a view from high up, probably from
some room in the monastery of San Giorgio, and others all
contained a view of a tall tower, which, from the neighbouring
buildings, ought to have been the Campanile of San Marco. But
the tower in the drawings had an extra cornice on the slope of the
pyramidal top, with supports below, which I could in no wise
reconcile with nature and which puzzled me for some time, in fact
until I saw the restoration begun on the tower of San Giorgio.
Then I found that the extra cornice and supports were a peculiar
and ingenious form of scaffolding, used for the placing of new tiles
on the steep slope of the pyramidal top — and sure enough when
I got back to London and looked at the original drawing with
a glass, the touches of water-colour indicated the scaffolding quite
plainly, and a wonderful small splash of colour enabled one to
realise the angel on the top, wings and all. I found, too, that all
drawings, in which the Campanile appeared, done by Turner during
that visit, gave the restoration works quite plainly, even when the
tower was seen from a long way off. The beauty of the touches in
Turner's drawings from nature can only be fully appreciated when
the drawing, or a reproduction of it, is compared with the actual
subject, for every bend and movement of the supple brush means
something. It is not possible to convey the drawings all over
Turner's far-stretching wanderings, but, if only we had good
reproductions of them all, what a pleasure we should all have, and
how much we should learn to appreciate his greatness. I should
like to see, as I have said, every fragment before the public. It is
practically the only way of using our great legacy fully. The
original drawings are perishable things, and must not always be
in the light ; many have faded already, let us reproduce them
while we may. The slighter sketches reproduce best, as may
be seen in this book. Such drawings as the Edinburgh from
St. Margaret's Loch, about 1 80 1 (Plate VI.) , for example. Note, too,
the splendid sketch of Barnard Castle, about 1827 (Plate XVI.) ;
how well it comes, we can almost see the brush-marks draw the
forms of the foliage, and the way Turner has used the water ; they
are perfect in their way. When Turner worked up a drawing it
became like a lovely flower with a delicate bloom upon its infinite
distances, as in the Lake of Nemi, about 1818 (Plate XL), and the
Crook of the Lune (Plate XIII.) ; they are like a gloxinia or an auricula.
2
This curious beauty of theirs was often obtained, as it appears to
me, by alterations in the surface of the paper and by colour left in
the grain of the paper after washing out or rubbing down a tone
—it alters when the lighting of the drawing is altered, and its
changeableness is part of its beauty.
I should like to see reproductions of the sketch books, made page
by page and bound in similar bindings to the originals, where these
exist. Mr. Finberg has lately put some of these books together
again — some drawings having been removed from the books for
exhibition — for purposes of the very useful inventory of our Turner
drawings that he is so carefully making for the Trustees of the
National Gallery. The books are much more interesting when seen
together. I remember one which Turner had with him in the Lake
District and you could trace his itinerary by turning over the pages.
He evidently left Keswick in the morning and drew two or three
views of Lodore and the end of the Lake of Derwentwater, the hills
getting bigger as he comes nearer to them ; familiar views of Castle
Cragg and the river come next, and to me some most interesting
views of that wide-spreading mountain Glaramara, some of them from
unfamiliar points of view ; but I was able to recognise them because
I have stayed for a month at a time in farmhouses on the lower slopes,
and I have explored that beautiful mountain's inmost caves. After
this Honister Crag and Buttermerc appear in due course. How
interesting it would be to have reproductions of such books and
follow the track of the master page by page. How we should learn
to know him and to see familiar scenes with his eye. We should find
that exaggeration was not the character of his landscape drawing,
when he was working from nature, but insight into the forms. His
effects of extra height can generally be got by sitting low on the
ground or even right in a ditch. From his drawings, from those
in this book of reproductions, we learn again a forgotten truth. Fine
drawing, form, is the essential in our art ; great and noble colourist
as Turner was, we have had other fine colourists in the British school
of water-colour painting, but it is just in his drawing and his sense
of the beauty and significance of line that he is supreme. As
Titian in Venice excelled the great colourists of his time, such as
Bonifazio and Paris Bordone, so by his drawing and sense of form
Turner excelled as a draughtsman even more than as a colourist.
CHARLES HOLROYD.
THE WATER-COLOUR DRAWINGS OF J. M. W.
TURNER, R.A. BY W. G. RAWLINSON.
WHAT makes Turner's water-colour drawings so profoundly
interesting — apart from their extraordinary and enduring
attractiveness — is the fact that in them lies before you,
plainly visible, the whole course and development of his art. And the
continuousness and regularity of that development are remarkable.
There are no pauses, no gaps, hardly a table-land ; only one steady,
continued progress. No matter how high a point he reached, he
was never content to rest there, but was always pressing onward
to fresh achievement, trying new effects, challenging new diffi-
culties even down to the last years of his life. To anyone familiar
with his work in water-colour, it is generally easy to date his
drawings within a year or two.
No doubt the growth of his art can also be traced in his oil
pictures, but with some important differences. In them, even up
to middle life, he was constantly and strongly influenced by the
work of other painters whom he was often consciously or uncon-
sciously rivalling. First Richard Wilson, then Van de Velde and
Bakhuysen, afterwards Caspar Poussin, Claude, Cuyp, Rembrandt,
Titian and others, all in turn had their effect on him. As a
result of this rivalry, his oil pictures were less spontaneous, less
sincere than his water-colours. His lack of education also unfitted
him to be the painter of the classical and sacred subjects in which
he attempted to compete with the old masters. No doubt there
were brilliant exceptions — such, for example, as Mercury and Herse,
Ulysses deriding Polyphemus, and others, but I think Ruskin was
justified in calling many of them " nonsense pictures." Moreover,
in his oil paintings Turner was constantly experimenting — not
always successfully — both with his materials and his methods and,
as a consequence, many, especially those of his later years, have
greatly suffered with time.
But in his water-colours, after his first years or training and
experiment, he was simply and always himself — he was Turner.
Paul Sandby, John Cozens, Malton, Hearne, De Loutherbourg, and
others of the older water-colour painters, all had their influence on
him, but in no case did it last long. The two men who affected
him most were Cozens and Girtin, his friend and fellow student,
of whom more will be said hereafter. But by 1800, or at the
latest 1802, Turner had passed all his contemporaries, and stood
alone, the acknowledged head of the English school of water-colour
painting, which in the first half of the nineteenth century was to
reach its zenith. Before attempting to trace the course of his art
4
from its simple beginnings to its glorious close, a few brief words
may be desirable as to his early life and surroundings.
Born, it is usually supposed (but by no means known with
certainty), in 1775, of humble parents — his father was a barber in
Maiden Lane, Strand — at a quite early age he developed unusual
powers of drawing. The barber proudly exposed his boy's works in
his shop window, and occasionally sold them for a shilling or two
apiece ; he also showed them to his customers, amongst whom
was Thomas Stothard, R.A., who praised them and advised him to
make an artist of his son. It is impossible accurately to trace his
life before 1789, when he was presumably fourteen, but it is clear
that he had only some brief intervals of schooling, first at a suburban
and then at a sea-side academy — both probably of the cheapest
and poorest middle-class type — in fact he never had any education
worthy the name. He received lessons in drawing, however, from
various teachers, including Malton and probably Paul Sandby, R.A.
At about twelve or thirteen years of age, he was placed in the
workshop of the great mezzotint engraver, John Raphael Smith,
who, like many of his craft, was also a print dealer. Here Turner,
along with his future companion Girtin, was chiefly occupied
in colouring prints for sale, but he also learnt a great deal about
engraving which was to stand him in good stead in after life.
After possibly another interval of schooling, he passed, somewhere
about his fourteenth year, into the office of Mr. Hardwick, a
distinguished architect, who employed him in drawing and tinting
" elevations," adding landscape backgrounds to plans, etc. It was
here, no doubt, that he laid the foundation of the fine architectural
draughtsmanship which is noticeable in his earliest exhibited works
and throughout his life. Long before he had mastered trees
and foliage he could render accurately the lines and structure of a
great building, as well as its intricacies of detail, as, for example,
in the West Front of Peterborough Cathedral, which he exhibited at
the Royal Academy a year or two later. Water, also, seems to have
presented comparatively little difficulty to him from the first ;
owing possibly to early studies at Brentford and Margate, at both or
which places he was at school. Very few, however, of his quite
boyish drawings — I refer to those before 1790 — have survived, and
those few are mostly copies of prints or of works of other artists.
One, Folly Bridge and Bacon's Tower, Oxford (taken from the heading
of an Oxford Almanack), may be seen in the National Gallery
(No. 613 N.G.) ; another in my possession, A Roadside Inn — the
earliest dated work by him (1786) known tome — is possibly original,
but more probably copied from a drawing by M. A. Rooker, A. R.A.
From the architect's office, at the instigation it is believed of
Mr. Hardwick himself, Turner in 1789 became a student at the
Royal Academy, and may be said to have definitely taken up an
artist's career. In the following year, 1790, he sent his first drawing
to the Royal Academy Exhibition, then held in Somerset House.
This was the View of the Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth, reproduced
here (Plate I.). For the work of a boy of fifteen, the good archi-
tectural drawing, the admirable rendering of reflected light on the
houses, the careful treatment of the figures (the costumes are quite
correct for 1790), and still more, the effectiveness of the composition
are remarkable. There is, however, nothing original in the style,
which is simply that of Malton and Sandby.
To the next year's exhibition (1791) he sent two drawings, one
of which, The Interior of King John's Palace, Eltham, is a striking
work, of great originality. Not only has it the sound architectural
draughtsmanship before alluded to, but in its strong chiaroscuro, its
rendering of sunlight breaking through the ruined windows and
lighting the gloom, its sense of poetry and mystery, it would be
creditable to any artist of mature age.
A curious phase in Turner's work of the next year — 1792 —
merits notice. Influenced probably by the pictures of De Louther-
bourg, a French painter, who had settled in England and had been
made an R.A., Turner, for a few months entirely changed his scheme
of colour, adopting a curious range of greyish and purplish browns
as his prevailing tone, in place of the pale greys, blues, and neutral
tints, which, in common with the other water-colour painters of the
period, he had hitherto employed. In this style are several drawings
of Richmond Park, one or two of a fire at the Pantheon, and many
of the beautiful scenery on the downs beyond Bristol, where, during
his early life, he often stayed with relatives. One, The Mouth of the
Avon, is reproduced here (Plate II.). In nearly all the Bristol
drawings one special feature is noticeable. Turner had evidently
been struck by the unusual spectacle of the masts and sails of the
tall East-Indiamen, which were daily to be seen in full sail under
the thick woods of the Clifton downs, beating their way up the
narrow gorge of the Avon to the port of Bristol.
Turner continued to exhibit at the Royal Academy in 1793
and 1794. He sold his drawings readily, and, although I cannot
discover any public references to his work before 1796, he must
have attracted notice, as in 1793 he received a commission — his
first — for drawings for engraving. The " Copper-plate Magazine"
(afterwards known as " The Itinerant ") was one of many serials
then in vogue which were illustrated by the water-colour painters —
" draftsmen " they were usually called — and in one of its five volumes
he is alluded to as " the ingenious Mr. Turner." He is said to have
6
been paid two guineas apiece for these drawings, with a very
small allowance for travelling expenses, it being stipulated that every
subject should be drawn on the spot. With his slender wardrobe
and his painting materials on his back, carrying usually also his fishing-
rod, he tramped the country ; he found his way into Kent, across
Wales, through Shropshire and Cheshire, on to Cumberland, and
returned by the Midlands. A reproduction of one of the " Copper-
plate Magazine " drawings — Peterborough Cathedral from the North —
will be found here (Plate III.). Although on a small scale, it is
typical of his work of this period, and it shows the strong influ-
ence on him of his contemporaries, Rooker, Hearne, and Dayes ;
yet there is always a decided individuality of his own. As the
late Mr. Cosmo Monkhouse" has well remarked of these early
drawings :—
"The great fact in comparing Turner and the other water-
colour painters of his own time is this, that while each of
the best of the others is remarkable for one or two special
beauties of style or effect, he is remarkable for all. He
could reach near, if not quite, to the golden simplicity of
Girtin, to the silver sweetness of Cozens ; he could draw trees
with the delicate dexterity of Edridgc, and equal the beautiful
distances of Glover .... He was not only technically
the equal, if not the master of them all, but he comprehended
them, almost without exception."
About this time (1793), Turner had the good fortune to attract
the notice of Dr. Monro, the leading Physician of Bethlehem
Hospital, who had a house in the Adelphi, and another at Bushey.
He was a well-known lover and patron of water-colour art, and
was in the habit of inviting promising young students, including
Turner, Girtin, Varley, and other afterwards well-known artists,
to his house, where they were given drawings by Rembrandt,
Canaletto, Gainsborough, and other deceased masters, to study and
copy ; especially also some recent sketches by John Cozens, one
of the most poetical of English painters, who had just returned from
Italy and Switzerland, where he had accompanied the millionaire
Beckford. The influence of Cozens on Turner was marked and
immediate, and the latter must have made a very large number of
transcripts of the elder painter's works ; in fact, all the very
numerous early drawings of Italian and Swiss subjects by Turner
in Indian ink and blue, which are so frequently to be met with, are
copies from Cozens, as Turner did not visit the Continent until
* " Biographies of the Great Artists — J. M. W. Turner, R.A.," Sampson
Low, 1897, p. 27. Of the many biographies of Turner, this, although
slight, gives probably the best and truest view of him and his work.
7
1 802 ; yet, as I have before remarked, all show a certain trans-
formation in passing through his hands. Dr. Monro gave the lads
half-a-crown a night and their supper, and kept their drawings.
The training was an admirable one for them, and when the
doctor's collection was dispersed at his death, it did not prove a bad
investment so far as he was concerned. Mr. Henderson, another
collector and amateur artist, afforded Turner and his companions
similar opportunities of studying and copying the works of older
painters.
From 1793 to 1796 Turner's advance in power was steady.
His subjects were varied — English and Welsh cathedrals, old castles,
ruined abbeys, village churches, country towns, waterfalls and trout
streams — the latter generally with a bridge and always with an
angler. He was himself a keen fisherman, and his anglers' attitudes
are always carefully drawn and at once recognisable. Occasionally
some striking atmospheric effect, seen probably on the spot, is
introduced. Sometimes the picture is strikingly enhanced by the
play of sunlight, occasionally by boldly treated chiaroscuro. The
architecture is invariably drawn with accuracy and taste, both
as regards perspective and detail. His colouring was a dainty
harmony of broken tints in pale blues, greens, browns, and neutral
greys. Many good drawings of this time are in private collections,
and the Print Room of the British Museum contains some fine
examples which have been preserved from light, and are conse-
quently in perfect, unfaded condition — notably Lincoln and Worcester
Cathedrals, and Tintern Abbey. Most of the English cathedrals were
drawn by him between 1793 and 1796, including, in addition to
the two just named, Canterbury, Ely, Peterborough, Rochester,
Salisbury, and York ; as well as Bath, Kirkstall, Malmesbury,
Malvern, Tintern, Ewenny, Llanthony, Waltham and many other
abbeys, together with castles innumerable — all in the delicate, "tinted
manner." He also made a large number of studies of boats and
shipping at Dover, one of which is reproduced here (Plate IV.).
It was probably there and at Margate that he laid the foundation
of the extraordinarily accurate knowledge ot everything connected
with the sea and shipping which distinguished him all his life.
His works of this early period are usually signed. The earliest
signature known to me is the one alluded to on page 5,
" W. Turner, 1786." For the next few years he signed either
simply " Turner," or oftener " W. Turner," occasionally adding the
date. In 1799, when he was elected an Associate of the Royal
Academy, he changed to " W. Turner, A.R.A.," and in 1802, on
receiving the honour of full membership, he became " J. M. W.
Turner, R.A." A few years later he was appointed Professor of
8
Perspective to the Royal Academy, and much to the amusement
of his fellow academicians he now sometimes added " I*. I'." In
the works of his later life, it is the exception to find any signature.
In Turner's drawings of this period, as in those of the early
English water-colour school generally, one is struck by a fresh-
ness, a simplicity, a new outlook on nature, which contrast with
the works of the classical painters who since the death of Rubens
and the great Dutch landscapists — Van Goyen, Cuyp, Hobbema,
Van der Capelle, De Koninck, and others — had for a century or
more dominated European art. Landscape had come to be regarded
more as a fitting background to classical story, and although often
stately, was always more or less conventional. Now, Nature was
beginning to be studied and painted for her own sake. Yet Turner,
like Byron, throughout his life recognised that natural scenery alone
never makes a completely satisfying picture — always there must be
some touch of the human element, some suggestion of human
presence, human handiwork. This, however, is entirely a different
point of view from that of the classical painters.
From the delicate tints which, up to 1795-6, had characterized
the work of Turner, in common with that of his contemporaries ot
the English water-colour school, he passed, almost suddenly, in
1797, to a larger and stronger style and a bolder range of colour,
although the latter was still limited as compared with the fuller
tones of his middle and later years. At first, in 1796, the pale
blues and greens were simply deepened and strongly accented, as
was seen in the superb drawings of Snowdon and Cader Idris
which were shown last year (1908) at the Franco-British Exhibition,
and to some extent in the Distant View of Exeter^ in the Tatham
Sale of the same year. Soon, however, these tones were combined
and contrasted with deep, rich, golden browns. In 1797, 1798,
and 1799, Turner sent to the Royal Academy Exhibitions a series
of magnificent drawings of large size, all showing a striking advance
in range and power. Eight views of Salisbury Cathedral painted for
Sir R. Colt Hoare (two are in the Victoria and Albert Museum), the
fine CryptofKirkstall Abbey (§\onnc Museum), the still finer Warkworth
(Victoria and Albert Museum) and the famous Norham Castle (the late
Mr. Laundy Walters), with several others, mark a new departure in
his art. Turner always said that he owed his success in life to the
Norham Castle. Thirty years later, when he was illustrating Scott's
works, and was the guest of Sir Walter at Abbotsford, walking up
Tweedside one day in the company of Cadell the publisher, as they
passed Norham Turner took off his hat. On Cadell asking the reason,
he replied, "That picture made me." Probably he considered that
it was to its influence that he owed his election as an Associate ot
the Royal Academy in 1799, the year of its exhibition.
Some recent writers have contended that this great expansion of
Turner's art was due to the influence of his friend and companion
Thomas Girtin, but they have adduced no evidence to support that
theory. Girtin, it is needless to say, was a very great painter,
and his early death in 1802 was a severe loss to English art. And
no doubt he and Turner, in their constant intimacy, must have
continually and considerably affected each other — indeed up to 1795
it is often exceedingly difficult to distinguish between the two men's
work. But, so far as I have been able to study Girtin's early
drawings, I cannot discover in those executed before 1797 — the year
which witnessed Turner's new departure — any of the breadth and
boldness which marked both men from 1797 onwards. Certainly
no work of Girtin's of 1796 — the year previous — approaches in force
Turner's Snowdon and Coder Idris, which already in design if not
in colour herald his all-round expansion of 1797.
Nor does the current opinion of that day appear to support the
view just alluded to — quite the contrary. The "St. James's Chronicle"
of 1 797, after praising Turner's Transept of Ewenny Priory and Choir of
Salisbury Cathedral in the Royal Academy Exhibition of that year,
goes on to remark that, " Mr. Girtin's drawings in general appear to be
formed in the style of Turner" Again, " The Sun " of 1799 devotes a
long paragraph to the eulogy of Turner's Carnarvon Castle, concluding
with the remark, " This is a drawing that Claude might be proud
to own " ; it then praises Girtin's Bethgellert, but prefaces its notice
with the observation " We do not remember to have seen the
name of the artist before the present year. The drawing is something
after the style of the preceding artist" [Turner]. Redgrave also
effectually disposes of the question in " A Century of Painters," 1866,
Vol. II., page 402.
Moreover, Turner's great drawings of 1797, 1798 and 1799
have characteristics which are not at all those of Girtin. Already
there is visible something of that wonderful delicacy, that sense of
mystery, of ' infinity,' that indefinable charm which we call ' poetry,'
which distinguishes his work — and especially his work in water-
colour — from that of every other landscape painter — work all the more
remarkable in that it proceeded from a man born in a back lane off the
Strand, without any education worthy of the name, and throughout his
life unable to speak or write grammatically — yet withal a man of
strong intellect, keenly ambitious, a reader, and a voluminous writer
of poetry.
One drawing only ot this period is reproduced here — Distant
Fieiv of Lichfield Cathedral (Plate V.). It suffers from the unavoid-
10
able reduction in size, but it is characteristic of Turner's altered
style. Unfortunately it has at some time been varnished, probably
by the painter himself, as have two others equally important, of the
same period — The Refectory of Fountains Abbey and a replica of the
Coder Llris — both of which are now in America. Gainsborough
treated several of his drawings similarly, as did Girtin, Varley,
Barrett and others of the early English school, their object being
avowedly to rival in water-colour the depth and richness of oil
painting. But not unfrequently, as here in the Lichfield, the varnish
in time disintegrates the colouring matter and produces a curious
granulated look, not unlike aquatint. Indeed, the fine Fountains Abbey
just alluded to was sold not many years ago at a well-known London
auction room, as a coloured aquatint, and fetched only £5.
After Turner's election in 1799 as an Associate of the Royal
Academy, he exhibited fewer water-colours and more oil pictures,
although he was continually producing drawings, mostly of large
size and on commission. For the next few years his style did not
greatly alter, although a steady growth in power and range is visible.
Several large views of Edinburgh and its neighbourhood, a scries of
Fonthill commissioned by Beckford, another of Chepstwo executed
for the Earl of Harewood, together with the Welsh castles of
Conivay, Carnarvon, Sf. Donafs and Pembroke, arc among the most
important. The Stonehenge reproduced here (Plate VII.) is probably
the work of about 1803-1804.
He made also during this period a few drawings for engraving,
but, with the exception of the well-known Oxford Almanacks, these
were chiefly on a small scale and gave him but little scope ; nor
was he fortunate in his engravers until in James Basire, the engraver
to the University, he met with an artist of higher standing. The
University commissioned from Turner ten large drawings for the
headings of the Oxford Almanacks, all of which he executed between
1798 and 1804. They are preserved in the University Galleries,
and arc noticeable alike for their architectural draughtsmanship,
their admirable composition, and their general breadth of treatment.
About this time, and also in connection with a commission for
engraving, he was first attracted to that Yorkshire scenery which
was afterwards to have such an important influence on his career.
Dr. Whitaker, the Vicar of Whalley, on the borders of Lan-
cashire and Yorkshire, a wealthy and learned antiquary, required
some illustrations for his forthcoming " History of the Parish of
Whalley," and Turner was recommended to him, it is said by a
Harrogate bookseller, as a young artist of fast-rising reputation.
It was during this visit that he made the acquaintance of
Mr. Walter Fawkes, the squire of Farnley, near Leeds, at whose
1 1
hospitable mansion, Farnley Hall, he was shortly to become a
frequent and an honoured guest.
It is time that reference should be made to the sketches, which
form such an important part of the volume of Turner's work in
water-colour. From the outset of his career, on every journey, he
made copious studies — at first mainly in pencil, but sometimes in
water-colour and occasionally in crayon or oil — of every paintable
spot he visited, keeping usually a separate pocket-book for each
tour. The sketches were sometimes rapid, sometimes elaborate.
Especially he made notes in colour of skies, clouds, water, and any
striking atmospheric effects which he might chance to see. These
although often slight, and usually swiftly executed, were never-
theless singularly accurate. In a pocket-book of 1798 I find
twenty-five such, with a list describing each : — Twilight, Clear, Rain
Coming, Sunny, Crimsoned, Showery, Gathering after Fog, and so on.
These sketches and studies he continued to make and to store
throughout his life, even up to his last journey on the Continent
in 1845. % the decision of the Court of Chancery, at the end
of a long litigation over his will, they were awarded — nineteen
thousand in all — to be the property of the nation, and after many
years delay they are now being admirably arranged and catalogued
at the National Gallery by Mr. Finberg, who writes on them here.
It is needless to say that to the student of Turner's life work they
are of the utmost interest and importance, and often — especially
the later ones — of surpassing beauty. The examples which have
recently (1908) been placed on view in the National Gallery are
mostly of Turner's earlier periods, but one or two belong to quite the
close of his life ; some are drawings nearly finished but discarded.
In 1802 Turner visited the Continent for the first time. He
was naturally impressed with Calais, his first French town, and
on his return he painted the well-known picture of Calais Pier
(National Gallery), and the still magnificent but now much darkened
Vintage at Macon (the Earl of Yarborough). But it was in Switzer-
land, Savoy and Piedmont that he spent most of his time, and the
results may be seen in the fine drawings of Bonneville, Chamounix,
and the Lake of Geneva in various collections, the Falls of the
Reichenbach, the Glacier and Source of the Arveron, and others at
Farnley, and the superb large body-colour sketches of The Devil's
Bridge and the St. Gothard Pass, in the portfolios of the National
Gallery. Three of his Swiss drawings he sent to the Royal
Academy Exhibition of 1803.
From 1803 to 1812 he was continually receiving commissions,
both for oil pictures and water-colours, from influential patrons,
12
including the Earls of Egrcmont, Essex, Lonsdale, and Yarborough,
Sir John Leicester, Sir John Soane, and other wealthy amateurs. In
1 807 he started his well-known Liber Studiorum in rivalry of the
Liber Veritat'n of Claude Lorraine, which had recently been success-
fully reproduced in engraving by English publishers. For this he
made about a hundred drawings in sepia — a colour he rarely used
elsewhere — as guides for the professional engravers whom he em-
ployed on the work. Nearly all these drawings, which are mostly
slight, are now in the National Gallery.
During the ten years between 1803 and 1812, Turner's style in
water-colour underwent a gradual, but a very considerable change.
He left the dark blues and deep golden browns which, as we have
seen, marked his first departure in 1797 from the "tinted manner"
of his early days, and he gradually adopted a lighter and more
natural range of colour. This new style is best seen in the work of
what is known as his "Yorkshire period," which began about 1809,
and continued, with various developments, up to about 1820. His
subjects were at first mainly taken from the neighbourhood of the
stately house in the beautiful valley of the Wharfe which has
become a place of pilgrimage to Turner students from all parts
of the world — I refer, of course, to Farnley Hall. Its then owner,
Mr. Walter Fawkes, was up to his death a kind friend and liberal
patron of the painter, who was a frequent visitor at the house,
and retained the friendship of the family down to his latest years.
Farnley Hall is still filled with drawings by Turner of its surround-
ings, the neighbouring Wharfcdale, important Swiss and other
foreign landscapes, illustrations to Scott's and Byron's Poems, studies
of birds, fish, etc. It also contains some important oil pictures
by him. To one series of water-colours — the " Rhine Sketches "
—I shall have occasion to refer later.
Ruskin admirably describes the characteristics of these 'Yorkshire
drawings' ("Modern Painters," Vol. I., pp. 124, 125) : —
" Of all his [Turner's] drawings, I think those of the
Yorkshire series have the most heart in them, the most affec-
tionate, simple, unwearied serious finishings of truth. There is
in them little seeking after effect, but a strong love of place ;
little exhibition of the artist's own powers or peculiarities,
but intense appreciation of the smallest local minutiz. These
drawings have, unfortunately, changed hands frequently, and
have been abused and ill-treated by picture-dealers and cleaners;
the greater number are now mere wrecks. I name them
not as instances, but proofs of the artist's study in this district ;
for the affection to which they owe their origin must have
been grounded long years before
'3
" It is, I believe, to these broad, wooded steeps and swells
of the Yorkshire downs that we, in part, owe the singular
massiveness that prevails in Turner's mountain drawing, and
gives it one of its chief elements of grandeur. . . I am in the
habit of looking to the Yorkshire drawings as indicating one
of the culminating points of Turner's career. In these he
attained the highest degree of what he had up to that time
attempted, namely, finish and quantity of form, united with
expression of atmosphere, and light without colour. His
early drawings are singularly instructive in this definiteness
and simplicity of aim." " Turner evidently felt that
the claims upon his regard possessed by those places which
first had opened to him the joy and the labour of his life
could never be superseded. No alpine cloud could efface, no
Italian sunshine outshine the memories of the pleasant days of
Rokeby and Bolton ; and many a simple promontory dim with
southern olive, many a lone cliff that stooped unnoticed over
some alien wave, was recorded by him with a love and delicate
care that were the shadows of old thoughts and long-lost
delights, whose charm yet hung like morning mist above the
chanting waves of Wharfe and Greta."
From 1809 to 1820, Turner's powers were rapidly developing,
and he was producing many important oil pictures, some of which
— The Frosty Morning, Crossing the Brook, Somer Hill, Walton Bridges
and Raby Castle — were, perhaps, among the finest of his whole life.
He was also busy with drawings for engraving — chiefly for book
illustrations, and probably for this reason he seems to have executed
comparatively few water-colours for commissions or for sale. One,
however, the magnificent Chryses (Mrs. T. Ashton), which he sent
to the Royal Academy in 1811, calls for notice. It is a large, im-
pressive work, closely resembling in design the Glaucus and Scylla
of the Liber Studiorum, but on a broader and nobler scale ; the
colour-scheme intermediate between that of his early and his
middle time. What is so remarkable is its extraordinary Greek
feeling. Colour apart, it at once recalls the scenery and the
sentiment of the Greek Islands, although Turner never in his life
saw them. Many will remember the effect which the drawing
produced in the Winter Exhibition of 1887 at Burlington House.
Mr. Morland Agnew's beautiful Scarborough, reproduced here
(Plate VIII.), also belongs to this period.
One of Turner's earliest series of book illustrations was his
"Southern Coast of England," which he begun about 1812 and
continued to 1826. He agreed with W. B. Cooke, a fine line-
H
engraver and an enterprising publisher, to supply forty drawings of
views along the coast, from the Nore on the east to the Bristol
Channel on the west ; many other leading water-colour artists of
the day — De Wint, Clennell, Prout, and others — being also contri-
butors. Turner was to receive seven and a half guineas apiece for
the drawings, which were of small size; but although this price
was soon raised to ten, and later to twelve guineas, he became
dissatisfied, and broke with Cooke, who, however, judging from
the correspondence, appears to have treated him fairly. He had,
moreover, given him many other commissions for drawings and had
held exhibitions of these, and the engravings from them, at his
rooms in Soho Square.
The Southern Coast drawings are elaborate, highly finished,
and in a rather warmer tone of colour than hitherto. Many
arc extremely beautiful, but in some there is visible that crowding
of lights and foreground figures, which from this time onwards is
not unfrequent in Turner's work. The majority of the drawings
are now, alas, so faded as to give but little idea of their pristine
beauty. What they all were like originally, may still be seen in the
beautiful Clovelly Bay in the National Gallery of Ireland (Vaughan
Bequest), and in the Lulworth Cove reproduced here (Plate IX.).
About the same time, Turner made a fine series of drawings,
all on a large scale, of the beautiful country which lies inland
among the hills, between Hastings and Tunbridge Wells. These
were commissions from a well-known and eccentric M.P., "Jack
Fuller," whose country-seat " Rose Hall " (now known as
" Brightling Park ") lies in the heart of that neighbourhood.
Four were effectively engraved as coloured aquatints, but were
never published ; the rest were reproduced as Line Engravings in
the "Views of Hastings and its Vicinity " (afterwards called " Views
in Sussex"), published a few years later. The scries remained
for a long time unbroken, but it was dispersed at Christie's last
year (1908). All the "Sussex" drawings were of the highest quality,
sober in colour and treatment, as befitted the character of the
scenery, but the majority have been badly faded by long years of
exposure to sunlight.
Somewhat similar in character to the " Southern Coast " draw-
ings, but a little later and even more highly finished, is a scries
which Turner made in 1818-1819 from camera obscura sketches by
Hakewill, an architect, to illustrate the latter's " Picturesque Tour in
Italy," published in 1820. Ruskin, who possessed many of these,
ranked them very highly and frequently alludes to them in "Modern
Painters " and elsewhere. In the " Notes on his Drawings by
J. M. W. Turner, R.A., 1878," his last important work on art,
'5
he describes them (p. 22) as " a series which expresses the mind
of Turner in its consummate power, but not yet in its widest
range. Ordering to himself still the same limits in method and
aim, he reaches under these conditions the summit of excellence,
and of all these drawings there is but one criticism possible — they
'cannot be better done'." By the kindness of Mr. Morland Agnew,
two of the "Hakewill" series, The Lake of Nemi (Plate XI.) and
Turin from the Superga (Plate XII.), are reproduced here.
In 1817 or 1818 Turner began the drawings which were
to illustrate one of his most famous* works, the sumptuous
"History of Richmondshire," which still admittedly remains the
finest topographical book ever published. The subjects — which
were chosen for Turner by a local committee of gentlemen —
were all taken from that romantic district in the North Riding
of Yorkshire, on the borders of Lancashire and Westmorland,
of which the town of Richmond is the centre. The work was to
be the magnum opus of Dr. Whitaker whose earlier Histories of
Whalley and Craven had also been illustrated by Turner, and his
publishers, Messrs. Longman, spared neither pains nor expense in
its production. Turner was paid twenty-five guineas each — then
his usual price — for the drawings, which are now worth from one
to three thousand guineas apiece. Although simple in style and in
colouring as compared with the work of his later years, they have
pre-eminently the charm of the 'Yorkshire period' already alluded
to. The finest of the series, The Crook of the Lune, is, by the courtesy
of its owner, the Rev. W. MacGregor, reproduced here (Plate XIII.).
The necessary reduction in size makes it difficult fully to appreciate
the great beauty of this drawing, which I regard as one of the most
consummate works of Turner. Although it must have been, one
would imagine, a most intricate and difficult subject for a painter,
and notwithstanding that he has treated it with extraordinary minute-
ness of detail — you can find at least twenty different walks in it — yet
all this wealth of exquisite detail is perfectly subordinated to the unity
and harmony of the composition as a whole. The other " Richmond-
shire " drawings are scattered in various collections ; many, alas, are
sadly faded from constant exposure to light, notably the Hornby Castle^
in the Victoria and Albert Museum, which has become a complete
wreck.
May I be permitted here to draw attention to the fact — apparently
little known, but none the less true — that, with the exception of some
of the darker early works, no Turner drawing can be continuously exposed
unprotected to light, without its ruin being eventually only a question of time.
The more delicate — the more "Turneresque " it is — the quicker will
that ruin be accomplished. Usually the fading is so gradual that
16
it is unnoticed by the owner, but it is certain, and, it need not be
added, the depreciation in value is equally certain. I would refer
anyone who thinks this an over-statement to the Blue Book on the
subject, published in 1888 (Report of the Science and Art Depart-
ment on the Action of Light on Water-Colours. H.M. Stationery
Office, 1888). Several striking object lessons of the effect of ex-
posure may also be seen at the National Gallery in Turner drawings
which have been returned after exhibition in provincial Galleries.
Up to about 1830, Turner's finished drawings were mainly in
transparent water-colour, but from a quite early period he employed
body-colour in his sketches, especially whenever speed was necessary.
" Body-colour," it need hardly be said, is ordinary paint mixed with
Chinese white or some other opaque white substance in place of water,
and is frequently used on a grey or neutral coloured paper, by which
means the work is much more rapid. He had recourse to that method
on one memorable occasion. In 1817 he went for a three weeks'
tour in the Rhine district, and during that time produced no less
than fifty drawings of fair size, i.e., at the rate of about three a day.
He first stained the paper a uniform bluish-grey, which, although
itself sombre in tone, effectively shows up the body-colour work,
and must have effected an immense economy of time as compared
with ordinary transparent colour. When he returned to England he
took the drawings in a roll straight to Farnlcy Hall, and Mr. Fawkes,
to his delight, bought them at once for £5°°- F°r a l°ng iimc tncY
remained in a portfolio unbroken, one of the treasures of the house,
but a few years ago some were dispersed at Christie's. One of these,
Goarhausen and Katz Castle, is reproduced here (Plate X.).
In 1818 Turner went North to make drawings for "The
Provincial Antiquities of Scotland," an important illustrated work
in which Sir Walter Scott, then in the height of his Wavcrlcy
fame, was keenly interested, and for which he was gratuitously
writing the letterpress. Sir Walter wished the illustrations to be
given to a fellow Scotsman, the Rev. John Thomson, of Dudding-
ston, an able landscape painter, but the publishers insisted that
Turner's was the name in vogue with the public, and the work
was accordingly divided. The drawings, which are all highly
finished and of fine quality, are entirely of Lowland scenery,
including Bothwell, Crichton, and Roslyn castles, three or four
Edinburgh subjects — one, Edinburgh from the Calton Hi//, very
striking — and the seaside fortresses of Tantallon and Dunbar. They
were afterwards presented by the publishers to Sir Walter in
recognition of his services in ensuring the success of the book, and
they remained at Abbotsford until quite recent years.
In 1819 Turner paid his first visit to Rome, and remained there
«7
some time, going a good deal into English society at the Embassy
and elsewhere. He painted a few oil pictures, but not many water-
colours ; among the most interesting is a fine series of studies in
the Campagna, most of which are in the National Gallery. (The
" Hakewill " drawings of Rome were probably all finished before
he left England.)
His visit to Rome would appear on the whole to have unfavour-
ably affected his art. His oil paintings especially, from this time
began to be more and more fantastic in subject, florid in colour, and
complicated in design. No doubt there are brilliant exceptions,
such as Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, and others, but the old simplicity
and sobriety had gone. In the water-colours also the tendency to
"foxiness" and florid colour is noticeable, although not so pro-
nounced ; it is visible in the Campagna sketches just alluded to. The
change was soon recognised by his admirers. In 1820 (the year
following), I find in the "Annals of the Fine Arts" the following
discriminating criticism of an exhibition of his works which was
held that year at the town house of Mr. Fawkes of Farnley :—
" Turner appears here in his original splendour and to his
greatest advantage. Those who only know the artist of late and
from his academical works will hardly believe the grandeur,
simplicity and beauty that pervade his best works in this
collection. . . . The earlier works of Turner before he visited
Rome and those he has done since for this collection are like
works of a different artist. The former, natural, simple and
effective ; the latter, artificial, glaring and affected."
From 1820 until about 1840, apart from his sketches, Turner's
work in water-colour was almost entirely for engraving. This
entailed a great demand on his time, as he invariably also super-
vised the execution of each engraving. Proof after proof had to be
submitted to him, to be returned by him again and again, touched,
scraped, and drawn upon for correction, before he would pass it. As
he had an intimate knowledge of the engravers' technical processes
and always took pains to explain to them his reasons for the altera-
tions which he required, he gradually educated them to understand
his aims and methods, and so stimulated their ambition, that the best
of their plates mark probably the highest point which landscape
engraving in line has ever touched. I refer especially to those
of "The Southern Coast," Rogers's "Poems" and "Italy," "Byron's
Works," " Scott's Poetical and Prose Works," and " Picturesque
Views in England and Wales."
In 1824 we find Turner at work on the well-known "Rivers
of England," the drawings for which, along with its companion series
18
"The Ports of England," have for so many years — too many, alas, for
their welfare — been exposed for long periods and daily copied at the
National Gallery. These show a richer and more elaborate colour-
scheme, as compared with the simpler work of the "Yorkshire"
period. An example, the Norham Castle (No. XIV.), is given here.
Both series were well reproduced in mezzotint on steel, which
metal had just begun to supersede copper for engraving.
In 1826 he commenced what was to have been his magnum opus
in line engraving — his " Picturesque Views in England and Wales."
In this ill-fated work, which was from first to last commercially a
failure, he proposed to depict every feature of English and Welsh
scenery — cathedral cities, country towns, ancient castles, ruined
abbeys, rivers, mountains, moors, lakes and sea-coast ; every hour of
day — dawn, midday, sunset, twilight, moonlight ; every kind of
weather and atmosphere. The hundred or more drawings which
he made for the work are mostly elaborately finished and of high
character. Some are perhaps over-elaborated ; in some the figures
are carelessly and at times disagreeably drawn ; but for imaginative,
poetical treatment, masterly composition, and exquisite colour, the
best are unsurpassed. I have ventured to say elsewhere, that in
my opinion there arc at least a dozen drawings in the " England
and Wales " series any one of which would alone have been sufficient
to have placed its author in the highest rank of landscape art. Two
of the series are represented here — Mr. Schwann's beautiful
Launceston (Plate XV.) is the earlier (1827) ; the striking and very
attractive Cowes (Plate XVIII.), belonging to Mr. Yates, is a few
years later. Turner was paid at the rate of sixty to seventy guineas
apiece — to-day they are worth from one thousand to two thousand
five hundred guineas each.
A new phase in his water-colour art of 1830-1836 calls for
notice, viz., his numerous small drawings for •vignette illustrations,
the first and the most important of which were for the far-famed
plates of Rogers's " Poems " and " Italy." The drawings for these
are markedly different from any of his previous work, and many of
them strike what I cannot but regard as an unpleasant note.
Marvels of execution, delicate, highly imaginative, and poetical in
feeling as they are, they are often strangely forced and extravagant
in colour. And this applies to nearly all his drawings for
I'igrifffes. Probably his reason for thus falsifying his colour was
connected with the form of engraving, as at the same time he was
producing some of his finest and sanest work for the " England
and Wales," "Turner's Annual Tours" (now better known as
the " Rivers of France") and other engravings of ordinary (not
vignette) shape. Whatever may have been his motive, it appears to
'9
me that owing to this unnatural colouring, the exquisitely engraved
vignettes themselves are in many cases finer than the drawings for
them.
Many, however, of the small drawings of this time are superb,
including several of those on grey paper. In the " Rivers of France "
series, Jumieges, Gaudebec, Saint Denis, Rouen from St. Catherine's Hill.,
and The Light Towers of 'the Heve (all in the National Gallery), are master-
pieces, as are also many of the illustrations to " Scott's Poetical and
Prose Works." In Turner's later years he frequently did not sell his
drawings for engravings, but lent them to the publishers, charging
usually five to seven guineas apiece. He kept many in his possession
up to his death, as he did nearly the whole of his sketches. One
day he brought the sixty drawings for the " Rivers of France " to
Ruskin, rolled in dirty brown paper, offering them to him for
twenty-five guineas apiece. To Ruskin's grief he could not induce
his father to spend the money. In later years he tells us he had
to pay £1,000 for the seventeen which he gave to Oxford !
A long succession of books were illustrated by Turner between
1830 and 1836, containing in all nearly three hundred and fifty plates,
mostly of small size. When it is remembered that he also closely super-
vised the smallest details in the engraving of each one, and that at the
same time he was engaged on a number of oil pictures of the highest
importance many of which were finished and exhibited, and others
left in various stages of completion (including most of those recently
added to the Tate Gallery), it may be doubted if such a volume of
work was ever before produced in six years by any painter. With
1838, however, his work for the engravers practically came to an end.
He was now a rich man and able to refuse tempting offers for the
pictures which he had determined to leave to the nation ; as for
example his Old Temeraire, which a wealthy Midland manufacturer
is said to have offered to cover with sovereigns.
From 1838 to 1845, when his health began to fail, he spent
an increasing time each year on the Continent, and it was during
this period that his water-colour art passed into what many regard
as its highest, as it was its latest phase. I refer especially to the
magnificent Sketches of this time, the large majority of which are in
the National Gallery. He revisited Venice, which had cast her
enchantment on him in earlier years, and he returned again and
again to the Lake of Lucerne, which, after Yorkshire, was probably,
up to the last, of all places in the world the dearest to his heart.
It would be difficult to say how many times he drew the town, the
lake, the mountains, and especially the Righi. There are the Red
Right, the Blue Righi, the 'Dark Righi, the Pale Righi, and a hundred
other versions — each different, each a ' vision of delight.' He made
20
drawings also in many neighbouring parts of Switzerland, Piedmont,
and Savoy.
The sketches and drawings of this period have all the old
delicacy, combined with a greater breadth of treatment, and an
amazing wealth and range of colour. Sixty years' experience had
given Turner's hand — which up to the very last retained its extra-
ordinary delicacy and certainty — a marvellous cunning. In many
cases the drawings were swiftly painted, in others carefully stippled
in details ; usually with a dry brush worked over body-colour.
Sir Hickman Bacon's beautiful Swiss Lake (Plate XXII.), Lausanne
(Plate XXV.), The Seelisberg, Moonlight (Plate XXVIII.), Mr. Ralph
Brocklebank's highly finished SchaffJiausen (Plate XXIX.), and
Tell's Chapel, Fluelen (Plate XXX.)— which Ruskin believed to
be Turner's last sketch on the Continent — along with most of
the reproductions from the National Gallery, arc examples of this
time.
This last phase of Turner's art was, however, at the time neither
understood nor appreciated, probably owing largely to the new
development which had recently taken place in his oil pictures.
In these he had set himself, in his old age, the last and hardest tasks
of his life — the painting of pure light, of swift movement, of the
tumultuous, elemental forces of Nature. Some of the Venice subjects,
the marvellous Snow Storm at Sea, and the Rain, Steam and Speed, were
entirely misunderstood and ridiculed. "Blackwood's Magazine" led
the attack, and " Punch " and Thackeray added their satire. No doubt
several of his late oil pictures were far-fetched in subject, fantastic in
treatment, and eccentric in colour. Probably, also, no one knew better
than he that he had not reached the goal of his ambition ; but he
also knew that his critics understood his aims as little as they did
the difficulties which he had to encounter in striving to reach them,
and the old man felt the attacks keenly. Ruskin tells us that he came
one evening to his father's house in Denmark Hill, after an especially
bitter onslaught on the Snow Storm at Sea — Vessel in Distress off
Harwich, of 1842, which the critics had described as " soapsuds and
whitewash." Ruskin heard him, sitting in his chair by the fire,
muttering to himself at intervals " Soapsuds and whitewash," again
and again and again. " At last," he says, " I went to him asking
' Why he minded what they said ? ' Then he burst out ' Soapsuds
and whitewash ! What would they have ? I wonder what they
think the sea's like. I wish they'd been in it.' ' As a matter of
fact, Turner had actually been on board the boat at the time lashed
to the mast, at the risk of his life.
Nor has the work of his later years always been understood in
our days. Not many years ago a distinguished German oculist
21
read a paper at the Royal Institution which was afterwards published
in which he endeavoured to prove that what he considered eccen-
tricities of colour in Turner's later oil pictures were due — not to his
attempts to paint the unpaintable — but to a senile affection of his
eyes, which caused an unnatural distortion of his vision to yellow in
everything. But Professor Liebreich can hardly have been aware that
although the oil pictures upon which he rested his theory, being
mainly attempts to depict objects or scenery seen in full sunlight,
necessarily tended towards yellow as their prevailing colour, yet at
the very same time, and up to his death, Turner was daily producing
the sanest, most delicate, most refined water-colour drawings in the
palest as well as the deepest tones of every colour on his palette !
All the Swiss, Venetian and other sketches of 1838 to 1845, which
are the crowning glory of the Water-Colour Rooms in Trafalgar
Square, were executed during the period when, according to
Professor Liebreich, Turner's sight was permanently and hopelessly
affected ! No doubt he recognised that water-colour was unsuited
as a medium for his new aim at painting pure light, and confined
himself accordingly, for such subjects, to oil painting.
The attacks of the critics, however, had had their effect on
the public, and Turner in his later years began to find difficulty in
selling even his drawings. Ruskin, in his " Notes on his Drawings
Exhibited at the Fine Arts Society, 1878," tells with inimitable
charm and pathos how the old painter, returning in the winter of
1842 from a tour in Switzerland, brought back with him a series
of important sketches, fourteen of which he placed, as was his
custom, in the hands of Griffiths, his agent, with a view to the
latter's obtaining commissions fa finished drawings of each. Although
the price asked for a large finished drawing was only eighty guineas,
and notwithstanding the great beauty of the sketches, nine commis-
sions only could be obtained. Ruskin, his father, Munro of Novar,
and Bicknell of Herne Hill, all chose one or more, but other former
patrons saw in them what they regarded as a new style, and declined
them. Thirty years after, Ruskin — with pride for Turner's sake,
he tells us — sold his Lucerne Town for a thousand guineas ; it has
since changed hands at two thousand. The Lake of Constance, which
at the time no one would buy, was given to Griffiths in lieu of his
commission ; it fetched two thousand three hundred guineas at
Christie's in 1907 ! After 1845 Turner's health gradually failed;
he continued to work at his oil paintings up to his death in 1851,
but, so far as is known, he executed comparatively few water-colour
sketches or drawings during his last years.
Little has hitherto been said as to Turner's technique in water-
colour although the subject is one of great interest, but, unfortunately,
22
my point of view is solely that of a student, and technique can only
be adequately dealt with by an artist. Much valuable information,
however, on the question will be found in Redgrave's " Century of
Painters," Vol. I., and in Roget's " History of the Old Watcr-
Colour Society." From the first he was a great innovator, choosing
his materials and often inventing his methods without regard to
custom, precedent, or anything but the attainment of the precise
effect which he desired at the time. Signs of scraping, spongeing,
the use of blotting-paper, etc., are constantly to be seen in his
drawings. In some, including one in my own possession, the marks
of his thumb are distinctly visible in places. But the result always
justified the means employed ! With his oil pictures, especially
those painted after 1830, his experiments, as we know, were often
disastrous in their ultimate effects, but it is extremely rare to find any
of his water-colours which have suffered in the smallest degree when
they have been properly kept. But alas, as has already been pointed
out, only too many, and amongst those some of the finest, have
been, and still are being, irretrievably damaged and changed by con-
tinual exposure to light, both in Public Galleries and on the walls of
their owners.
In the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to avoid adding to
the already sufficient volume of ' zsthetic criticism ' of Turner's
art, and I shall confine myself now to the briefest summary of what
seem to me the distinctive features of his work in water-colour.
What first strikes one in his drawings, apart from their technical
skill, is their individuality; they always stand out amongst the work
of other artists, however great. The chief cause of this is hard to
define, but I should say that it is that they almost invariably possess
a certain quality of imaginativeness, of what is termed ' poetry.' No
matter how simple was his subject, he instinctively saw it from
its most beautiful, its most romantic side. If it had little or no
beauty or romance of its own, he would still throw an indefinable
charm round it by some gleam of light, some veiling mist, some far-
away distance, some alluring sense of mystery, of * infinity.' And
Turner was a true poet, although he had little enough of the look or
the manners of one. Throughout his life he was a reader and a
voluminous writer of poetry, but his want of education debarred him
from ever expressing himself coherently in verse. The same cause,
together with his lack of a sense of humour, interfered also with the
perfect expression of his art, especially in his classical and religious
pictures, and prevented him from seeing what was incongruous or
at times unpleasing in them. But only a poet deep-down could have
won as he did from Nature her most intimate secrets ; could so
23
have caught and so inimitably have portrayed her every mood and
charm.
And it is this impress of his deep love for the beauty and the
grandeur of Nature — a love as strong as Wordsworth's, as intense as
Shelley's — which is perhaps the greatest cause of the enduring
attractiveness of Turner's work. Without it, he would never have
toiled as he did all his life, from dawn to dark, year in and year out,
observing and recording in those nineteen thousand studies every
kind of natural scenery, every changing contour of mist and cloud,
every differing form and structure of tree, every movement or
reflection in water, every transient effect of light, storm, wind or
weather.
Then he often had a deep meaning in his pictures, beyond what
was to be seen on the surface, beyond, perhaps, what he himself could
have always explained. Sometimes, no doubt, it was far-fetched,
•sometimes fantastic, yet it gives a character to his art which mere
technical skill or perfect design do not by themselves attain. By
the modern school of landscapists this would probably be regarded
as a defect or even a heresy. Pictorial art, they say, should not be
' literary,' should not be intellectual. But to me it seems that the
work of the highest artists — of Leonardo, Michael Angelo, Holbein,
Rembrandt, for example — almost invariably appeals to the intellect
as well as to the senses. Mind, sensibly or insensibly, intentionally
or unintentionally, speaks to mind. As has been well said apropos
of Ruskin's writings on Turner : " What if Ruskin's torch lights
*' up some beauty that the painter himself was never aware of?
" As a great man's inventions will carry more readings than his
" own, so the meaning of a great painter is not to be limited to his
" expressed or palpable intentions. There is a harmony between
" the imaginings of both and Nature, which opens out an infinite
" range of significance and supports an infinite variety of inter-
'" pretations."
After Turner had attained manhood — say from 1807 onwards —
his creative power constantly and increasingly made itself felt. It
is more evident in his oil pictures than in his water-colours, because
in the latter, more or less throughout his life, hs was employed on
illustrative, topographical, work. But at an early period it is visible
in his drawings, notably in his Liber Studiorum (1807-1819).
Leaving aside actual landscapes such as Solivay Moss, Ben Arthur, etc.,
his creative, imaginative power is seen in such subjects as JEsacus
and Hesperie, Peat Bog, Procris and Cephalus, The Lost Sailor and
other plates of the Liber. It also appears from time to time in later
drawings. Yet a recent biographer has advanced the astonishing
theory that, whatever were Turner's merits, up to almost the end of
24
his life he was not a " creative " artist, merely an illustrator, and this
idea has been characteristically caught up and repeated by the latest
German writer on Modern Art. But is there any truth in it ?
I think not. The painter of The Frosty Morning, and Crossing the
Brook (National Gallery) ; of The Guardship at the Nore (Lady
Wantage) ; of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Ulysses Deriding
Polyphemus (National Gallery) ; of The Shipwreck (National Gallery),
and a dozen other great Sea Pictures, not a " creative " artist ? The
draughtsman ofChryses (Mrs. T. Ashton), The Land's End (" Southern
Coast"), The Longships Lighthouse ("England and Wales"), The
Alps at Daybreak and The Vision of Columbus (" Rogers's Poems "),
The Plains of Troy ("Byron's Poems"), The Mustering of the Warrior
Angels (" Milton's Poems ") ? If these, and scores of others which
might be added, are not examples of " creative " art, where are
" creative " landscapes to be found ? Is Martin's Plains of Heaven
to be regarded as the type ? Or is there no such thing as " creative "
landscape art ? But, after all, does the question need arguing ?
May one not just as well ask whether Botticelli, Michael Angelo,
Raphael, Rubens, Rembrandt, were " creative " artists ?
Of Turner's technical skill in water-colour, there is no need to
speak ; his command of his material was absolute and has never been
equalled. And his sense of design, of balance, of rhythm — of what
is termed " style " — was always present. He had caught it at the
outset of his career from his close study of Richard Wilson, who
had inherited it as a tradition from Caspar Poussin, Claude, and the
painters of the seventeenth century. Rarely is there anything
tentative about his drawings. They arc decisive — the design was
almost invariably seen by him as a whole, from the beginning.
Often his work did not please him, and if it was finished it was
discarded ; if unfinished, it was carried no further — as may be seen
in several of the drawings recently (1908) exhibited at the National
Gallery, and a good many of the oil pictures at the Tate Gallery.
He was also emphatically a great colourist — one of the greatest ;
during the latter half of his life he thought in colour, and composed
in colour, and it was with him an integral part of every design.
That is why his drawings can never be adequately reproduced by
ordinary photography. During middle life, as has been pointed
out, his colour at times became forced and florid, but it was never
more pure, never more beautiful, never more noble, than in his
latest sketches.
At times, no doubt, Turner's water-colours, especially those
executed between 1820 and 1836, have a tendency to undue
complexity of design, and to overcrowding both of subject and
lights. Possibly to some extent this was due to the prevailing
25
standard of English art and English taste at that time. Then,
perhaps even more than now, high finish was too often unduly
insisted on. But you will never find too high finish or over-
crowding in the drawings which he made for himself I His
figures, also, were frequently unsatisfactory. It was not that he
could not draw them — at first they were dainty and careful, as
may be seen in the two early drawings, Plates I. and III. But in
his later years he seemed to regard figures simply as points of light,
colour or composition — they were always effective as such — and he
often treated them carelessly — sometimes even coarsely — to the
detriment of some of his otherwise most beautiful works.
to me, was wholly different in nature from theirs.
During his life, as we have seen, he made thousands of sketches,
some slight, some elaborate, of places, scenery, and natural effects—
' shorthand memoranda,' so to speak — many of which may certainly
be called ' impressionist.' But all these were founded on, or were
intended to add to, his accurate, minute and exhaustive study of natural
forms, and a draughtsmanship which has probably never been equalled by
any other landscape painter.
Then, as is notorious, he frequently altered certain features of
landscapes or buildings to suit the requirements of his pictures—
their symmetry, their accent, their colour-scheme — or in order
to convey some suggestion as to their meaning. In a letter still
preserved, he declares himself opposed to literalism in landscape—
" mere map-making " he terms it. And when for any reason he
thus altered the actual features of a scene, he still almost always
contrived to preserve the impression of it as a whole — usually under
its best aspect, at its choicest moment. In this sense also he was an
' impressionist.'
Again, when towards the close of his life he began to attempt
the representation (mainly in oil colour) of pure sunlight — as in
his latest Venice pictures ; or of form in swiftest movement — as in
Rain, Speed and Steam ; or of the mighty contending forces of Nature
— as in his Snow Storm off Harwich, he painted such subjects in the
only method by which they could be intelligibly rendered. In
the same way Whistler, in his Nocturnes, demonstrated for the first
time in Western art, the beauty of prosaic and even ugly objects,
seen in dim light. Both perforce adopted the ' impressionist '
method, because it was the only effective, indeed the only possible
one.
26
But to me it appears that there is all the difference in the world
between these phases of ' impressionist ' art and the principles of
the modern landscape school, whose works a brilliant set of writers
in the press of to-day are continually calling upon us to admire.
The advanced ' impressionists ' both in France and in England
seem to go out of their way to represent the ordinary aspects of
nature with a manifest determination to avoid any but the vaguest
rendering of form, no matter how clearly defined in such circum-
stances those forms may seem to ordinary Philistine vision. They
also ordinarily abjure as ' literary ' any kind of appeal to the
intellectual faculties, and apparently confine their aim to the pro-
duction of a more or less startling, but generally cleverly managed
patterning of light, shade, and colour, obtained usually by means of
masses of coarse, solid, and often ragged pigment, carefully arranged
so that the effect intended may be found, like a fire-plug, at a
certain exact, calculated spot. Surely Turner's ' impressionism '
was far removed from this ? Surely it is hard that he should be
charged with being the precursor of the landscape school to which
I have alluded, whatever may be its merits ?
Possibly it is too soon as yet to predict what will be Turner's
ultimate place in art. Like every really great artist (I use the word
in its widest sense) he will be judged, not by his defects or his
mistakes — even if they be many and palpable — but by the heights to
which he attained, and the mark which he has left for others to
follow. For myself, I believe that if his water-colours are allowed
to remain unfaded for future generations, they, along with his best
oil pictures, will be counted worthy to entitle him to a place amongst
the greatest painters of all centuries and all schools.
W. G. RAWLINSON.
[In common with the Editor of The Studio, I desire to acknowledge
my deep obligations to the various owners of valuable drawings by Turner,
who have kindly allowed them to be reproduced here. There were, however,
others which I should like to have seen represented, but as these were not
available, the Editor desired to replace them with examples from my own
collection. This must explain what will otherwise seem the undue proportion
of the latter.— W. G. R.]
THE TURNER DRAWINGS IN THE NATIONAL
GALLERY, LONDON. BY A. J. FINBERG.
THE usual way of painting a landscape nowadays is for the
artist to take his easel and canvas out into the fields, and to
work as far as possible with the scene he is representing
before his eyes. The scene, with the artist's chosen effect, is of
course constantly changing, so the artist can work only for a short
time each day. The effect itself will probably last for a period
varying from a couple of minutes to about half an hour, according
to circumstances ; but the painter may be usefully employed in
getting his work into condition for about an hour before the effect
is due, and he may work on for perhaps another hour while the
effect is still fresh in his memory. As one sitting of this kind will
not enable the artist to carry his work far, it is necessary that he
should return day after day to the scene ; and if he is determined to
paint it entirely on the spot, he must be prepared to devote some
months at least to the work.
The habit of painting and finishing pictures entirely out of doors
was, I believe, introduced by the Pre-Raphaelites during the fifties,
but before this, Constable and other artists had worked largely from
rather elaborate colour studies made out of doors. Turner did not
work at all in this way. All his pictures were painted in the studio,
and generally from very slight pencil sketches. So far as I know
he never made even a slight colour study from nature for any of his
pictures.
As the methods of work employed by the great artists are of very
great interest, I think it will be worth while to take one of his well-
known works and to trace its evolution somewhat in detail. The
beautiful drawing of Nor -ham Castle, reproduced here (Plate XIV.),
will do very well for this purpose.
This drawing was made to be engraved in a series known as the
" Rivers of England." Charles Turner's really fine mezzotint of it
was published in 1824,50 the drawing must have been made at least
a year or two before this date. The pencil sketch on which it was
based was made some quarter of a century earlier — to be quite
accurate, in the summer or autumn of 1797.
At that time Turner was a young man of twenty-two, but he
had already made his mark as one of the best topographical and
antiquarian draughtsmen of the day. He had been a regular
exhibitor at the Royal Academy for eight years, and publishers and
amateurs were beginning to compete for his productions. It was
his habit every summer to map out for himself a lengthy sketching
tour, his aim being to accumulate in his portfolio a pencil drawing
28
made by himself of every building or natural feature that he might
be called upon to illustrate. These subjects were dictated by the
taste of the time, which generally ran towards the ruined abbeys and
castles of the middle ages. As Turner's subject-matter was prescribed
for him in this way, he did not, like the modern artist, have to waste
any time looking for promising subjects. He had merely to study
the numerous guide-books that were even then in existence, to make
out a list of the more important castles, abbeys, and Gothic buildings,
and to hurry from one to the other as fast as the coaches or his own
sturdy legs could carry him. The methodical and stolidly business-
like manner in which he set about and carried through this part of
his work is calculated to shock the gushing and casual temperament
of the artist of to-day.
Turner's programme in 1797 was an extensive one, and, what is
much more remarkable, he carried it out. He seems to have taken
the coach into Derbyshire, as he had already appropriated everything
of interest in the Midland counties. He carried two sketch books
with him, each bound handsomely in calf, the smaller with four
heavy brass clasps, the larger with seven. The pages in the smaller
book measure about 10^ by 8^ inches, those of the larger about
14^ by io£. Both these books are now in the National Gallery
collection, and will shortly, I hope, be made accessible to students
and the general public.
The campaign opens with two drawings of, I think, Wtngfield
Manor, then comes a church with a tall spire on a hill which I
cannot identify ; then we have one drawing of Rothfrham Bridge with
the chapel on it, then one of Conisborough Castle, single views of the
exterior and interior of Doncaster Church, three different views of the
ruins of Pontefract Church, and then two neat drawings of the Chantry
on the Bridge at Wakefield. It is not till he gets to Kirkstall Abbey
that the artist seems to pause in his breathless rush to the North.
There are no less than nine drawings of this subject, all made from
different points of view ; one of these leaves containing the sketch
of the Crypt — from which Sir John Soane's impressive water-colour
was made — contains just a fragment of colour, and has been for
many years among the drawings exhibited on the ground floor of the
National Gallery. In this way we can follow Turner to Knares-
borough, Ripon, Fountains and Easby Abbeys, Richmond, Barnard
Castle, Egglestone Abbey and Durham, and then along the coast to
Warkworth, Alnwick, Dunstanborough, Bamborough and Holy
Island. Judging from the drawir— ; I think it pn. able that Turner
spent the best part of a day at \ Island, but he got to Berwick
in time to draw a general view ct t.nc town and bridge, and to make
a slight sketch with his limited gamut of colours — black, blue, and
29
yellow only — -of the evening effect. The next morning he was up
in time to see the sun rise from behind the towers of Norham Castle,
and to trace a slight and hurried pencil outline of the main features
of the scene. There is only this one sketch of the subject, and it
does not contain the slightest suggestion of light and shade or of
effect. But there were Kelso and Melrose and Dryburgh and
Jedburgh Abbeys close by waiting to be drawn, and Turner evidently
felt he must hurry on. Having drawn these ruins in his neat and
precise way he turned south and struck into Cumberland. In the
larger sketch book a drawing inscribed Kesivick follows immediately
after one of the views of Melrose Abbey. Then comes Cockermouth
Castle, the Borrowdale, Buttermere, St. John's Vale, Grasmere, Rydal,
Langdale, and Ulleswater with Helvellyn in the distance. Then follow
in rapid succession Ambleside Mi//, Windermere, Coniston, Furness Abbey,
Lancaster, and after a single drawing of Bo/ton Abbey we find ourselves
in York, where the Cathedral and the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey
and Bootham Bar must have detained the artist for perhaps two or
three days. The tour, however, is not yet at an end, for the Hon.
Mr. Lascelles (who became Earl of Harewood in 1820) wants some
drawings of Harewood House and of the ruins of Harewood Castle,
and Mr. Hewlett wants some subjects to engrave in his forthcoming
" Views in the County of Lincoln." It is, therefore, through Howden,
Louth, Boston, Sleaford, and Peterborough that Turner makes his
way back to London. He must have been back by September, for
among the drawings exhibited at the Royal Academy in the following
May was one described as "A Study in September of the Fern House,
Mr. Lock's Park, Mickleham, Surrey." He can, therefore, hardly have
been away much more than three months, if so long, but his strenuous
vacation had yielded an abundant crop of useful material.
It must have been October before Turner was fairly back in his
studio in Hand Court, Maiden Lane, and had settled down to work
up this material. By the following April he had four important
oil paintings and six water-colours ready for the Exhibition. One
of these oil paintings (the Dunstanborough Castle] now hangs in the
Melbourne National Gallery, to which it was presented by the late
Duke of Westminster ; two others (Winesdale, Yorkshire — an Autumnal
Morning and Morning amongst the Coniston Fells) hang in the little
Octagon room in Trafalgar Square, and the fourth is on loan to the
Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. This is the Buttermere Lake,
•with part of Cromack Water, a really fine painting, though it has
darkened considerably. As the first important oil painting in which
Turner's genius was clearly manifested, I should rejoice to see it
hanging in Trafalgar Square. The pencil drawing on which it was
based contains some work in water-colour, possibly made direct from
3°
nature, but the details and general effect have been entirely recast
in the finished work. Among the water-colours were the gloomy
and superb Kirkstall Abbcy^ now in the Soane Museum, to which
I have already referred, and the drawing of Norham Castle, with
which we are now more particularly concerned.
The drawing exhibited in 1798 is not the one here reproduced.
The exhibited drawing is probably the one now in the possession
of Mr. Laundy Walters. A photographic reproduction of it was
published in Sir Walter Armstrong's "Turner" (p. 34), and it is
worth pausing a moment to compare this with the original pencil
sketch and to consider in exactly what relation these two drawings
stand to each other.
The usual way of describing the process by which a slight
sketch from nature is converted into a finished drawing is to say
that the artist copied his sketch as far as it went and then relied
upon his memory for the further elaboration that was required.
An artist's memory is assumed to consist of images of the scenes he
has witnessed, which he has some mysterious power of storing
somewhere in his mind, something like, I suppose, the undeveloped
exposures in a Kodak. According to this theory we should have
to assume that the particular sight of the sun rising behind Norham
Towers which had greeted Turner on the morning he hurried from
Berwick to Kelso had been treasured up in the inner recesses of his
consciousness, and then some months afterwards, when the appro-
priate moment came, he had only to select this particular image
from among the millions of other images in the same mysterious
storehouse, to develop it and copy it on to his canvas. I need
hardly add that this desperate theory is quite fanciful and absurd,
and in flat contradiction to the teachings of modern psychology.
A description that would not be open to such objections would
run something like this : When we are dealing with the processes
of artistic creation we have to assume an intelligent human agent,
and analogies drawn from purely mechanical sources can only
mislead us. We must not assume that an artist's senses and
intellect work like the mechanism of a camera, or in any other
abnormal way, unless we have some strong evidence to support
us. And we must also remember that a visual image is a useful
abstraction in psychology, but in the conscious life of an intelligent
human being it is merely an element within the ordinary life of
thought and feeling. Let us therefore assume that Turner not only
made no effort to retain the exact visual impression of the scene in
question, but that he did not even attempt to separate this impression
from the general whole of thought and feeling in which it was
experienced. The particular matter of sense-perception would then
3'
become incorporated in the general idea ot the object— in the
ordinary way in which sense qualities are preserved in ideas.
When Turner therefore sat down to make his picture, what he
would have prominently and clearly before his mind would be a
general idea of Norham Castle as a ruined border fortress, a scene
of many a bloody fray and of much bygone splendour and suffering.
In short, his idea would be what the art-criticism of the Henley
type used to describe contemptuously as " literary " ; that is, it was
steeped in the colours of the historical imagination, and was practi-
cally the same as that which a man like Sir Walter Scott or any
cultivated person of the present time would associate with the same
object. Instead, therefore, of having a single image before his
mind which he had merely to copy, Turner started with a complex
idea, which might, indeed, have been expressed more or less
adequately in the terms of some other art, but which he chose on
this occasion to express in pictorial terms.
In this way we can understand why Turner did, as a matter ot
fact, frequently and constantly attempt to express his ideas in the
form of verbal poetry, and why, in the drawing we are now
considering, he felt himself justified not only in filling out his
sketch with details that were neither there nor in the real scene,
but also in taking considerable liberties with the facts contained in
the sketch, altering them and falsifying them in ways that could
not be defended if his aim had been to reproduce the actual scene
itself. The colouring too of Mr. Walter's drawing owes much more
to Turner's study of Wilson's pictures than to his visual memory of
natural scenes ; that is to say, the colour is used as an instrument
of expression, — as a means to bring the imagination and feelings
of the spectator into harmony with the artist's ideas, as well as to
indicate in the clearest possible manner that it was not the artist's
intention to represent the actual scene in its prosaic details.
This picture, with the others exhibited in 1798, settled the
question for Turner's brother artists and for himself that he was a
genuinely imaginative artist and not a merely clever topographical
draughtsman. The following year he was elected an Associate of
the Royal Academy, at the early age of twenty-four, and throughout
his long life he always regarded himself as entitled to take any
liberties with actual topographical facts that the expression of his
ideas demanded.
The success of the first Norham Castle drawing induced Turner
to repeat the subject several times. The late Mrs. Thwaites had
another water-colour of it in her collection, there are at least three
unfinished versions in the National Gallery, and I have seen a
version of it in oil. The subject was engraved in the " Liber "
32
from what purported to be the picture in the possession of the
Hon. Mr. Lascelles, but really from a fresh design made by the
artist. Then Turner painted the subject again for Mr. Fawkes of
Farnley, and again, about 1822 or 1823, he made the drawing
for the " Rivers of England " series, here reproduced. What is so
interesting in all this is that the details in each of these versions arc
different, yet they all seem to have been based on the same pencil
sketch. The relative size of the castle varies in each drawing, as
well as the details of its embrasures and crumbling masonry ; the
character of the river banks also varies. In the earlier versions the
right bank is steep and rocky, as suiting the solemn and gloomy
effect of the subject ; in the latest version, where the humble pastoral
life of the present is thrown more into prominence, this bank becomes
flat and peopled with fishermen, their boats and cows.
In one of the many anecdotes told of Turner he is represented
as saying to an artist who had complained of the disappointment
he had experienced on revisiting a certain place, " Don't you know
you must paint your impressions" — or words to that effect. I don't
know how true the story is — and I may confess that I have almost
got into the habit of disbelieving all the stories told about Turner—
but whether true or not this particular anecdote is certainly well
invented. Turner knew quite well how large a part his subjective
feelings and ideas played in all his work, and it made him shy of
revisiting places that had once impressed him. But when he spoke
of his " impressions " we must be careful not to suppose that he
could have used the expression in the way it is often used now.
He did not abstract his particular visual impressions from the
emotional and ideational context in which they were experienced.
In so far as Impressionism means this kind of abstraction, Turner
was never an impressionist. And as his first ideas of places were
steeped in the colouring of his own subjective life, so his ideas were
ever taking on different hues as his temper and character changed.
In this way he could use the same sketch again and again and
always get different effects from it ; the sensuous datum was merely
a point of departure for each fresh improvisation, a form into
which he could pour his meditations, but a flexible, plastic form
which readily took the shape of its spiritual content.
These considerations may help us to understand what is apt
at first to strike the student of Turner's drawings and sketches as
strange and incomprehensible. Turner was always sketching from
nature, and often making drawings that contain an amazing wealth
of detail and definition, yet the usefulness of his sketches seemed to
vary in inverse ratio to their definition and to the time spent upon
them. The beautiful drawings never seemed to lead to anything,
33
all the pictures being painted by preference from the slightest and
vaguest sketches. Thus the sketch book which contains the sketch
of Norham Castle is rilled with over ninety drawings, most of them
full of detail and delightfully precise and graceful in handling.
Turner made good use of most of this material, but the most prolific
"breeding" subject — to use one of Richard Wilson's expressions-
was unquestionably the hurried scribble of Norham, which was so
slight as not to indicate even the general shape of the ruined tower
with precision, and which left the number of windows or embrasures
entirely undetermined. But when we see how Turner used his
sketches we can easily understand that this absence of definition
must often have been a positive advantage to him when he came to
paint his pictures. There was less " to put him out," fewer
obstacles in the way of his subjective utterance, the form was more
fluid and tractable to his immediate purpose. The more detailed
studies were of course not wasted, for the knowledge they gave him
enabled him to fill out the slightest hints of his " breeding "
subjects with an inexhaustible wealth of plausible detail.
The National Gallery collection contains just on three hundred
of Turner's sketch books, and practically the whole of his work
done immediately in the presence of nature. This data enables us
to speak with absolute authority upon the difficult question as to
the relation between Turner's art and nature. They prove that he
very seldom, if ever, painted a picture simply " out of his head."
In everything he did — even, I believe, in the case of what have
been called his classical nonsense pictures — there was a nucleus of
immediately perceived fact. This sensuous basis is seldom, if ever,
absent from his work, but it is invariably overlaid and distorted
by the purely subjective forces of the artist's personality, which
appropriate the data of sense, and mould them into any shape they
choose. It is impossible, especially since " Modern Painters " was
written, to overlook the important part played by natural fact in
all of Turner's creations, but it is just as important not to overlook
the equally obvious and certain truth that Turner never uses nature
simply for its own sake, but only as a means of expression. The
methods employed in the particular case we have just studied are,
with few exceptions, the methods which he adopted during the
whole of his career.
Yet Turner did undoubtedly upon occasion paint in oil directly
from nature. An instance of this kind is described by Sir Charles
Eastlake in "Thornbury " (p. 153, 3rd edition). Eastlake met Turner
during his second visit to Devonshire, probably in the summer
of 1813, and accompanied him to a cottage near Calstock, the
residence of Eastlake's aunt, where they stayed for a few days.
34
Another artist was with them, a Mr. Ambrose Johns, of Plymouth.
It was during their rambles in the neighbourhood of Calstock that
Turner gathered the material for his picture of "Crossing the Brook"
Eastlake says that " Turner made his sketches in pencil and by
stealth," that is to say, he did not like to have people looking over
his shoulder while he was at work. The sketch book Turner used
on this occasion is with the others in the National Gallery. But
after the three artists had returned to Plymouth, " in the neigh-
bourhood of which he (Turner) remained some weeks, Mr. Johns
fitted up a small portable painting-box, containing some prepared
paper for oil sketches, as well as the other necessary materials.
When Turner halted at a scene and seemed inclined to sketch it,
Johns produced the inviting box, and the great artist, finding
everything ready to his hand, immediately began to work. As he
sometimes wanted assistance in the use of the box, the presence
of Johns was indispensable, and after a few days he made his oil
sketches freely in our presence. Johns accompanied him always ;
I was only with them occasionally. Turner seemed pleased when
the rapidity with which those sketches were done was talked of;
for, departing from his habitual reserve in the instance of his pencil
sketches, he made no difficulty of showing them. On one occasion,
when, on his return after a sketching ramble to a country residence
belonging to my father, near Plympton, the day's work was shown,
he himself remarked that one of the sketches (and perhaps the
best) was done in less than half an hour." " On my enquiring
afterwards," Sir Charles Eastlake adds, "what had become of those
sketches, Turner replied that they were worthless, in consequence,
as he supposed, of some defect in the preparation of the paper ; all
the grey tints, he observed, had nearly disappeared. Although
I did not implicitly rely on that statement, I do not remember to
have seen any of them afterwards."
There are about a dozen small oil sketches of Devonshire
subjects in the National Gallery, which are doubtless part of those
made under the circumstances described by Sir Charles Eastlake.
They are made on a brownish millboard, prepared with a thin
coating of paint and size. On the back of one of them there
happens to be some lettering showing that Johns had laid violent
hands on the covers of some parts of William Young Ottley's
" British Gallery of Pictures," then being issued serially. Several
of these paintings have long been hung among the exhibited
drawings ; e.g., Nos. 746, 750, 754, 758, and one, No. 849, which has
somehow got the obviously incorrect title of Bridge over River Lugwy,
Capel Curig. These paintings have undoubtedly sunk very much
into the absorbent millboard, thus proving that Turner's remark to
35
Eastlake about the disappearance of the grey tints — which he " did
not implicitly rely on" — was justified. But otherwise the work
is in good condition, and I have very little doubt that when
Mr. Buttery comes to take them in hand, he will be able to bring
them back to something like their original freshness. The chief
point of interest with regard to them, from our present point of
view, is the curious fact that Turner does not seem to have made
the slightest use of them in any of the Devonshire pictures he
painted on his return. He evidently found his tiny little pencil
sketches much more suggestive and adaptable to his purposes.
Even the large oil picture of Crossing the Brook is based entirely on
his slight and rapidly made little pencil notes. Another point of
interest is that even when painting in oil face to face with nature
he did not merely copy what he had in front of him. As our
illustration shows, these sketches are as carefully composed as his
pictures. They are indeed only technically sketches from nature ;
in reality they are designs for pictures or pictures in miniature,
though they happen to have been painted out of doors. Even in
working direct from nature Turner remained firmly entrenched in
his artistic position as the master of nature. He still retained his
power of selection, taking what suited his purpose, ignoring the rest,
and supplementing from the stores of his own knowledge what for
his purpose were the defects of the momentary image before his eyes.
The fact that Turner always worked in this way makes it
' exceedingly difficult to separate his sketches from nature from the
studies or designs for his pictures. Throughout his sketch books
and amongst his loose drawings there are a large number of sketches
in colour, and one's first impulse is to assume that these were made
immediately from nature. But careful observation shows that Turner
was in the constant habit of working over his pencil sketches in colour
when away from the scenes he had depicted. In this way the
beautiful little sketch of " Edinburgh from St. Margaret's Loch" here
reproduced (Plate VI.), is much more probably the draft of a picture
the artist had in his mind's eye than a study from nature. But the
point whether such a drawing was made " on the spot " or not is rela-
tively unimportant ; what is more important is to realise how very
small a part the merely imitative or representative study of the colour
and tone (as opposed to form) of nature played in Turner's work.
His colour is never merely descriptive. The whole bent of his mind
is so essentially pictorial that, whether he works face to face with
nature or from what is loosely called " memory," his slightest sketch
as well as his most elaborate work is always an attempt to express
a subjective conception, and never a merely literal transcript of what
is given in sense-perception.
36
Perhaps the most important group of drawings in the national
collection are those which Turner made during the last ten years
of his working life, i.e., between 1835 and 1845. These drawings
were not made for sale or for exhibition, hence Mr. Ruskin's
description of them as " delight drawings," because they were done
entirely for the artist's own pleasure and delight. Several of them
are reproduced in this volume, among them the beautiful sketch
of "Lucerne" (Plate XXI.) realized for Mr. Ruskin in 1842,
the almost equally fine " Bellin-zona, from the road to Locarno"
(Plate XXIV.), and "Zurich" (Plate XXVII.).
These inimitable and delightful sketches have been very widely
admired, as they deserve to be, but they have also been praised,
somewhat perversely as it seems to me, for their truth and accuracy
of representation. As Mr. Ruskin has pointed out, these sketches
" are not, strictly speaking, sketches from nature ; but plans or
designs of pictures which Turner, if he had had time, would have
made of each place. They indicate, therefore, a perfectly formed
conception of the finished picture ; and they are of exactly the
same value as memoranda would be, if made by Turner's own hand,
of pictures of his not in our possession. They are just to be regarded
as quick descriptions or reminiscences of noble pictures." Mr.
Ruskin is also unquestionably correct when he adds " that nothing
but the pencilling in them was done on the spot, and not always
that. Turner used to walk about a town with a roll of thin paper
in his pocket, and make a few scratches upon a sheet or two of it,
which were so much shorthand indication of all he wished to
remember. When he got to his inn in the evening, he completed
the pencilling rapidly, and added as much colour as was needed to
record his plan of the picture" (" Ruskin on Pictures," pp. 86-7).
It is not my intention now to dwell upon the beauty of these
incomparable drawings, on their passionate intensity and emotional
sincerity, their nervous eloquence and elusive suggestiveness. The
point I wish to insist on at present is that they must not be
regarded as attempts to reproduce or imitate the merely superficial
qualities of physical nature, as attempts to give an accurate repre-
sentation of effects of air or light, or of the shapes and forms of
mountain, water or cloud. The artist is not immersed in the
definite character of physical objects. He seems to feel that as
a spiritual and self-conscious being he is something higher than the
merely natural, and it is as modes of expression of human freedom
and self-consciousness that these lyrical fragments must be regarded.
The colour and tone of Turner's work must therefore be taken
as strictly ideal, that is, as a medium of subjective expression, as a
mode of spiritual manifestation, and not as an attempt to represent
37
the merely abstract qualities of sense-perception. And what is true
of Turner's colour and tone is also true of his form. I doubt if he
ever made a tolerably careful and elaborate drawing of a natural
scene from the beginning to the end of his long career — nearly all
his elaborate drawings being of architectural subjects. But instead
of the prosaic and plodding drawings that other artists make (see,
for example, the elaborate pencil studies of trees by Constable in
the Victoria and Albert Museum), we find hundreds and hundreds
of nervous, eager pencil sketches. When we come to study these
ravishing sketches with care we make the astonishing discovery that
the bugbear of the drawing school, the prosaic accumulation of par-
ticular physical facts known in art academies as " nature," is simply
a hideous abstraction of the theoretical mind. Nature, in this sense
of the word, never existed for Turner. The world he saw around
him was replete with intelligence, was permeated with spirit ; where
other artists see only the bare, unrelated physical fact and sensuous
surface, his mind is already busy with the inner and invisible signifi-
cance, and his cunning hand is instantly shaping forth a pictorial
embodiment of his own insight and passionate convictions.
On the whole, then, this was Turner's consistent attitude towards
nature, though of course, in his earlier years, his sketches were com-
paratively less swift and eloquent than they afterwards became. And
there was indeed a short period during which the merely physical
fact was forced into undue prominence. This period culminated
in the first visit to Italy in 1819—1820. Here the novelty of the
scenery and buildings stimulated the thirst for detailed observation
which had been gradually growing on Turner during the previous
six or seven years. But in England the very quickness and strength
of his intuitions had always prevented the desire for precise observa-
tion from gaining the upper hand. In Italy his powers of intuition
were useless. He was disoriented. Everything disconcerted and
thwarted him. His rapid glance no longer penetrated to the inner
essence of the scenes around him. He did not understand the people
and their ways, and their relation to their surroundings. For a time
he seemed to become less certain than usual of his artistic mission.
But he set to work with his usual pluck and energy to assimilate
his strange surroundings by tireless observation of the outside. The
result was a vast accumulation of disorganized or of only partially
organized impressions.
It is conceded on all hands that Turner's artistic work went all
to pieces as a result of his Italian experiences. The Bay of Baice
contains faults altogether new in his completed works. Even the
feeblest of his earlier works had been animated by some central idea
or emotion, to which all the parts were subordinated, and which
38
infused into them whatever of life or significance they possessed
In the Bay of Baict the artist has an unusual quantity of material on
his hands, but he can neither find nor invent a pictorial idea to give
coherence to his disconnected observations. The picture is made up of
bits of visual experiences elaborately dovetailed into one another, but
which absolutely refuse to combine into any kind of conceptual unity.
Yet if we confine our attention to the merely formal and abstract
side of art, there is assuredly much to move us even to enthusiastic
admiration among the immense quantity of sketches accumulated
during this Italian visit. The very fact that Turner's inspiration
was checked prevented his sketches from possessing their wonted
rudimentary or forward-pointing character. Instead of being hasty
drafts of the pictures that thronged instantly into his mind upon
contact with the scenes of his native land, they became more like
the drawings which less completely equipped creative artists arc in
the habit of making ; they became "studies" in the modern use
of the term. The conditions of their production gave full play to
Turner's marvellous powers of draughtsmanship and formal design.
Before drawings like Rome from Monte Mario who can help waxing
enthusiastic over the exquisitely deft and graceful play of hand, the
subtle observation and the almost superhuman mastery of the design ?
No wonder Mr. Ruskin has declared that " no drawings in the world
are to be named with these ... as lessons in landscape drawing "
("Ruskin on Pictures," p. 157). But before assenting wholly to
this dictum we must remember that, in spite of all their attractive-
ness, Turner found these drawings worse than useless for his general
artistic purposes, and that only bad and foolish pictures came from
them ; and the more carefully we study the matter the more clearly
do we see that nothing but bad and foolish pictures could come
from work in which the spirit of curiosity and of cold and accurate
observation is predominant.
We have fixed our attention thus far upon the sketches and
drawings made from nature in the National Gallery collection, to
the exclusion of the finished water-colours. This may seem all the
more inexcusable, as I have preferred to treat these sketches rather
with regard to their bearing upon the artist's finished work- — as stages
in the development of the complete work of art — than as independent
productions which can be accepted entirely for their own sake.
But in a short paper like the present it is impossible to do justice
to all the sides of such an important collection as the Drawings of
the Turner Bequest. Numerically, the finished drawings form only
a small fraction of the whole collection — about two hundred out of
a total of over 20,000 drawings. Among them are about two-thirds
of the " Rivers of France " drawings, and most of the " Ports " and
39
" Rivers of England," and Rogers's " Vignettes." These drawings
were engraved during Turner's lifetime and under his active superin-
tendence ; they are, therefore, amongst the best known of his works.
The whole of the finished drawings have, moreover, been constantly
on exhibition for more than fifty years. There remains, therefore,
little either of praise or blame to be said of them that has not already
been said many times. While, on the other hand, the studies and
sketches are only now on the point of being made accessible to the
public.
The practically complete series of Turner's sketches and studies
from nature seems to call for comprehensive treatment. Their careful
study throws a wholly new and unexpected light upon the funda-
mental and essential qualities of Turner's attitude towards nature, and
therefore upon the essential character and limitations of his art. Or
where the light is not altogether unexpected — as it would not be
perhaps in the case of a diligent and methodical student of Turner's
completed works — the sketches amplify and illustrate in an abundant
and forcible way what before could only have been surmised. I
propose, therefore, to devote the remainder of my limited space to
an attempt to indicate as briefly as possible the main features of
Turner's conception of nature, as it is revealed in his sketches, and
to point out its importance both for the proper understanding of his
finished work and for its bearing upon some adverse criticisms that
have been brought against his work.
In my opening remarks I ventured to contrast Turner's attitude
towards nature with the attitude of the majority of contemporary
artists. My intention in thus opposing these two different methods
of work was not to suggest that one of them was either right or
wrong in itself, or that one way was necessarily better or worse than the
other. My intention was exactly the opposite. There is not one
type of art production to which all artists must conform, and two
totally different methods of procedure may each be positively right
and equally valid. I will even go farther than this and confess that
I regard the present-day method of working from nature as the only
right and proper way of attaining the results that are aimed at. But
it is the result, the purpose of the artist, that justifies the means, and
this applies with just as much force to Turner's way of working as to
the modern way. To condemn Turner's procedure, therefore, simply
because it differs from that now in vogue, would be as unwise and
unfair as to condemn the modern way because it differed from his.
Different conceptions of the aim and scope of art involve different
attitudes towards nature, and necessitate different methods of study.
Let us begin with the current conception — the conception of the
landscape artist of to-day and of the public for which he works. The
40
aim of this art is what is called " naturalness," that is, the picture
should be made to look as much like nature as possible. The
standard of excellence here is just the ordinary common appearance
of physical reality. A picture that looks like nature is good, and
one that looks " unnatural " is therefore bad. This kind of art is
capable of giving a great deal of innocent pleasure to people who like
to be reminded of scenes they love or are interested in. But it has
its limits. It cannot go beyond the bare physical world. And it is
bound to treat even this limited area of experience from a strictly
limited point of view. It is bound to take the physical world as
something which exists in entire independence of the spectator, as
something which is indeed given in sense-perception, but which the
spectator emphatically finds and does not make. Now so far as we
take nature in this sense we have to do with an external power
which is utterly indifferent to our merely human aims and purposes,
and the artist can only look upon himself as a passive recipient, a
tabula rasa, on which external nature is reflected. This is the stand-
point of the prosaic intelligence, the level upon which much of the
ordinary reflection and discussion of the day moves.
But man is not really a passive mirror in which a foreign nature
is reflected, nor is he satisfied merely to submit himself to natural
influences and vicissitudes. Man is never really satisfied to take the
world as he finds it, but sets to work to transform it into what he
feels it ought to be. The social and political world, with its realms
of morality, art and religion, came into existence as a protest against
the merely natural. In this world, created and sustained by human
intelligence and will, the physical world is not abolished or destroyed,
but it is transformed into a more or less willing accomplice of a
strange and higher power. It is in this new form which nature
assumes under the sway of intelligence and will that we find it in
Turner's works.* Mn his presence the external world loses its stub-
born inditR-rence to human ^ms ^nfl M^omes saturated with purely
human aspiration and emotion. Its colours and shapt^ cea>e to belong
ly physical world. They become instead the garment in
oTTthf jnwar^ cpi't-imyl ^a,f'"-* of the yUtf robe« itself. Nature
in this new aspect is no longer 3 m^r^y • htfitile a
jystem of laws i a. soul kas.Jv*-n Hjeafhed into jt whjcl
j5T3emical with our own.
~Now it is evident that these two kinds of art, the passive and
* Turner's conception of nature, 1 may remark, is identical with that
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who says : " My notion of nature comprehends
not only the forms which nature produces, but also the nature and internal
fabric and organisation ... of the human mind and imagination."
(Seventh Discourse.)
4'
/the active, with their totally dissimilar aims, cannot and ought not
/ to represent nature in the same way. The art which uses nature as
a medium for the expression of ideas and feelings cannot attain its
object by representing physical objects in the simple and direct
way appropriate to the art which aims merely at naturalness. The
artist's intention must make itself manifest even in the manner in
which he represents physical objects, — indeed, he has no other way
of expressing his ideas. * The active or creative artist will therefore
make it clear that he has broken entirely with the disconnected,
accidental and prosaic look of everyday existence which it is the
one aim of the passive artist to retain."
From this point of view the charges that are often brought
against Turner, that his colour is forced and unnatural, will leave us
cold and indifferent. To make such an objection is merely a proof
of mental confusion. '* The creative artist must break with the p_rosaic
vision of nature, if only to make it evident that his objects are not there
for their own sake and for their immediate effect, but to call forth a
response and echo in the mind of the observer. * Turner's colour—
" dyed in the ardours of the atmosphere " — is one of his most potent
instruments of expression, and must be judged as we judge, let us say,
the verbal magic of Shelley's verse, as a work of free beauty, fashioned
in response to the deepest and truest cravings of man's nature.
That Turner's art moves mainly among the highest interests of
man's spiritual nature accounts to some extent for the pre-eminent
position he now occupies among modern artists. It is always as an
artist conscious of man's high destiny that he claims to be judged,
and though he often stumbled and his hand faltered, he never once
sank to the level of the passive and prosaic imitator of nature's
finitude. This is not the place to inquire minutely into Turner's
failings and shortcomings, nor to study their connection with the
innumerable masterpieces in which he dared and sometimes attained
the very highest of which art is capable. An adequate discussion of
the subtle inter-connection of Turner's triumphs and failings would
involve the raising of questions of which English criticism seems to
prefer to remain in happy ignorance. I cannot therefore attempt
to justify my conviction that he is not only the greatest artist our
nation has yet produced, but also one of the greatest of modern
artists, a man we must rank with Rembrandt and Jean Francois
Millet. But this at least will be generally conceded, that he fully
deserves that consideration and sympathy, which the ready instinct of
mankind reserves for those who devote themselves without stint and
without measure to the highest and most difficult tasks.
A. J. FINBERG.
42
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SKETCHING
GROUNDS
EDITED BY CHARLES HOLME
MCMIX
OFFICES OF UTHE STUDIO"
LONDON, PARIS & NEW YORK
ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR.
PAGE
Winchclsea Meadows. By Albert Goodwin, R.VV.S. ... ... 9
Distant View of Arundel Castle from the Downs. By Sutton Palmer 17
The Mouth of the Thames. By Charles Pears ... ... ... 35
A Welsh Cottage. By Onorato Carlandi ... ... ... ... 53
A Liddiesdale Landscape. By Thomas Scott, R.S.A. ... ... 63
Tarbcrt, Loch Fync. By R. M. G. Coventry, A.R.S.A., R.S.W. 93
Autumn — Glen Moriston. By A. Brownlie Docharty ... ... 101
A Glimpse of the Atlantic. By George Houston, A. R.S.A. , R.S.W. 1 1 1
Cutting Kelp Weed. By W. H. Bartlett 125
New York from Cortland Street Ferry. By Joseph Pcnncll ... 139 •
The City of Fez. By John Lavery, R.S.A. ... ... ... 149
The Palace, Avignon. By H. Hughes-Stanton ... ... ... 167
The Convent, Bormes-les-Mimosas. By Walter Donne ... ... 179
The Pyrenees from near Fanjeaux. By Gordon Home ... ... 191
Approach to the Public Gardens, Venice. By Wilfrid Ball, R.E. ... 201
The Cliffs of Capri. By A. Romilly Fedden, R.B.A 213
Scheveningen. By Herbert Marshall, R.W.S. ... ... ... 235
ARTICLES.
INTRODUCTION PACE
By Alfred East, A.K. A., I'.R.B.A., R.E. i
SUSSEX
Described by Marcus B. Huish. Illustrated by Albert Goodwin, R.W.S.,
Ruth Dollman, Marcus B. Huish. Sutton Palmer, and A. Wallace
Rimington, A.R.E., R.H.A 5
WAREHAM
Described atul illustrated by Claude Hayes, R.I. ... .. ... 21
THE LOWER THAMES
Described and illustrated by Charles Pears ... ... ... ... 31
ROCHESTER
Described and illustrated by E. W. Charlton, R.E 39
NORTH WALES
Described and illustrated by Onorato Carlandi ... ... .. 47
THE SCOTTISH BORDERLAND
Described by Alexander Eddington. Illustrated by Thomas Scott, R.S.A.,
and T. Marjoribanks Hay, R.S.W. ... ... .. ... ... 59
EAST LOTHIAN
Described by Alexander Eddington. Illustrated by Robert Noble,
R.S.A., and T. Marjoribanks Hay, R.S.W. ... "... ... 69
THE COAST TOWNS AND VILLAGES OF FIFE
Described by Alexander Eddington. Illustrated by Robert Noble,
R.S.A., Chas. H. Mackie, A R.S.A., R.S.W., T. Marjoribanks Hay,
R.S.W., and Robert Hope ... 79
TARBKRT, LOCH 1 VM , AND THE FIRTH OF CLYDE
Described by J. Taylor. Illustrated by R. M. G. Covent:
A.R.>. \.. R.S.W. ... 87
THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND
Described by J. Taylor. Illustrated by A. Brownlie Docharty ... 97
IONA
Described by J. Taylor. Illustrated by George Houston, A.R.S.A., R.S.W. 107
THE WEST COAST OF IRELAND PAGE
Described and illustrated by W. H. Bartlett ... ... ... ... uy
NEW YORK
Described and illustrated by Joseph Pennell ... ... .. ... 129
THE ATMOSPHERE OF MOROCCO
Explanatory Note (?) by R. B. Cunninghame Graham. Illustrated
by John Lavery, R.S.A. ... ... .. ... ... ... 143
CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX
Described by James Williams. Illustrated by W. H. Charlton,
Ruth Cobb and Florence Lewis ... ... ... ... ... 153
AVIGNON AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD
Described and illustrated by H. Hughes-Stanton ... ... ... 163
BORMES-LES-MIMOSAS— A WINTER SKETCHING GROUND
Described and illustrated by Walter Donne ... ... ... ... 173
THE PYRENEES
Described and illustrated by Gordon Home .. ... ... ... 183
VENICE
Described and illustrated by Wilfrid Ball, R.E. 195
CAPRI
Described by Katharine Fedden. Illustrated by A. Romilly Fedden,
R.B.A 205
THE WACHAU
Described by A. S. Levetus. Illustrated by Gustav Bamberger, Oswald
Grill, Alois Haeinisch, Luigi Kasimir, Richard Lux, Anton Novak,
Emil Strecker, Max Suppantschitsch and Eduard Zetsche ... ... 217
HOLLAND
Described and illustrated by Herbert Marshall, R.W.S. .... ... 229
STOCKHOLM
Described and illustrated by Count Louis Sparre ... ... ... 239
BOARDSHIP AS A SKETCHING GROUND
Illustrated by Geoffrey Holme ... ... .. ... ... ... 247
VI
INTRODUCTION
IiV AI.I-KKD EAST, A.R.A., P.R.B.A., R.E.
IF half-a-dozen people visited some
beautiful spot you would find that their
appreciation would be expressed in
different ways. Some would be moved
to express their admiration of one thing',
while others would be led to acclaim their
appreciation of another; yet all might be
agreed as to the general beauty of the
place. The beauty of its tone would excite
the admiration of one, the conjunction of
its colour would raise the enthusiasm
of another, while a third would be led
to exclaim upon some topical charm — a
quality that might be expressed by words
rather than paint. And although they all
might agree in the main as to the beauty
of the place, each would have his own
especial reason for his admiration. And so
if they were painters, painting the same
spot, all their sketches might convey to the
spectator the sensations of appreciation of
anyone who had seen the place, but they
would differ greatly in the manner by which
that sense of its beauty was conveyed. One
might attempt to realise the facts as pre-
sented to his eye; another might treat the
scene as the material by which he could
express his ideal. One might select only
what he felt to be the essentials of the place,
and which gave it its peculiar charm ; while
another might take all that it offered, believ-
ing it to be the better way of conveying to the
spectator the same truth. It is possible that
one artist might soften the contrasts of colour
to obtain breadth, while another might
enhance them to give his sketch "snap."
Thus the whole question depends upon
the personal temperamental attitude of the
painter, and the result is much more inter-
esting than if the work were treated with
tin- photographic and automatic indifference
<>t' the camera, in which there would be no
expression of character. It is chiefly this
personal factor which makes art interesting,
and in nothing does the idiosyncrasy of
the artist appear so much as in the vivid,
spontaneous impression of nature, qualities
which a sketch should always include.
There is a wide-spread opinion that a
sketch is an incomplete picture. Nothing
could be more misleading. A sketch is a
distinct work of art, separated from, and
different to, the deliberate effort of the artist,
and should convey, in the fullest manner,
the quick, vivid impression of the place. It
should mark a moment in which the con-
junction of all things reveals the scene at
its best ; it should show a quick analysis of
the materials which build up the scene, and
which have made it sufficiently attractive for
the artist to paint. Hut an unfinished pic-
ture is merely the incomplete idea of the
painter. A sketch should be a complete
thing, as individual, as comprehensive,
within its limitations, as a picture. Its
difference lies in the difference of its aim ;
and if the aim and object be attained, then
it is a work of art. One would not claim
for an instant that it reaches the high
place a picture should attain, because
it expresses only the effect of the moment
on the mind of the painter, while the picture
combines subtleties of thought, careful con-
sideration of conjunction of form and colour,
a charm of composition, and rhythm of line
which the sketch may not offer. We look
for the impression of the moment in a
sketch, but the experience of years in a
picture. A fine work of art should include
the feeling of spontaneity of a sketch
with the satisfaction of the sense of com-
pletion of a picture.
Allowing that the personal attitude to
nature is interesting, then it naturally fol-
lows that it would be interesting to hear
from painters their own description of the
painting-ground they love best, to know
what has appealed to them to cause them
to select it as the arena of their work ; and
we see, and rightly so, the deep influence
which the country has exerted upon the
mind of the painter. It is obvious in his
i
Introduction
work what kind of landscape has been the
cause of the formation of his particular
style. It is true that retrospective art has
been one of the principal factors in the
formation of a style of the modern land-
scape painter. We see the influence of
Claude upon the mind of Turner, and of
Constable upon the painters of the Barbizon
School. That is understood and allowed.
But apart from that there is a very deep
feeling excited by the neighbourhood in
which the painter finds himself. This may
not be appreciated by the artist himself,
but it does exert an influence which in many
cases is profound, and one that has a lasting
impression upon his work. If the artist be
surrounded by what is dignified and great
he will show those qualities in his work,
in proportion only to his power of recep-
tivity. One can trace in the work of Titian
the influence of the hills by which he was
surrounded in his youth ; and we see in the
works of Teniers and Morland that they had
come closely in contact with things that
were sordid. Who can doubt but that the
courtly surroundings of Velasquez in-
fluenced him in that quality of dignity and
style which marks his work r If we accept
this view, we at once see how important
it is for the landscape painter to select
a painting ground that will elevate
his thoughts and inspire his imagination
instead of choosing that which is merely
pretty and picturesque.
It is not the business of the artist to
express what is obvious to every one ; if it
were, he would prefer the actual fact to
the painted one. We want no imitation,
even if it were done to the point of de-
ception ; but what we do look for is the
strong, vivid and frank impression of a
cultivated mind. I can imagine Turner,
when looking upon any scene in nature,
saying to himself, " What does this convey
to me, and what great phase of nature does
this material serve to express ? " What
was useless for his purpose he deliberately
ignored, and aggrandized the material which
was to justify the purpose he had in view.
So that nature to the painter, as well as to
the builder, offers the material by which
great things can be built ; and we can read
between the lines of the artist's work the
exact mental attitude he held when he
painted any particular scene.
I can imagine one artist waxing very
eloquent on the charms of a place which
did not in the slightest degree affect
another; and I can imagine one painter
sitting down to a subject that had not the
remotest interest to other artists ; and as
it is of the most vital importance that he
should have the deepest interest and appre-
ciation of the place he proposes to paint, it
is all the more necessary to select one that
is in attune with his own personality. It is
often said that a painter paints his own
country best, and the reason of that may
be looked for in the fact that he loves it most.
That is not enough, however ; he must
know it as well as love it, he must get it
all by heart. He must become thoroughly
acquainted with the material with which it
is composed — saturated with it — before he
can express it with that swift sensibility
which marks the highest quality of his
sketch. He must not read nature to
you, he must recite it. If he simply
reads it he does not put into it that
expression that the words, or rather forms,
should convey.
It is interesting, no doubt, to visit the
scene upon which the genius of a great
man has built up his composition ; but
it was not merely the scene that led to
the success of the work, but the artist
who saw within that scene those qualities
which may have been unnoticed by another.
Do not, for one moment, believe that by
visiting a particular spot where this or
that famous picture was painted you can
do the same ; that is a very great fallacy,
quite as big an one as thinking that if you
followed the same system or used the same
colours or brushes as Turner or Constable,
you could produce the same quality of
work. Many believe that the highest
form of art can be taught ; they do not
know that the most direct expressions of
painting, simply done, must have behind
them years of thought and consideration,
combined with the most careful judgment.
Painting is a matter of knowledge. If any
painter knew as much as Turner he could
express as much, but so many do not take
the trouble — or have not the capability of
Introduction
taking the trouble— to get behind, as it were,
thiMilivinus to what after all is the real thing.
I liis accounts for all the tricks and subter-
futf''s by which so many seek to attain
their end, which are, in themselves, super-
ficial and inexpedient, and arrest one's
attention at the paint, instead of carrying
one beyond that material. We have, for
example, some of the pigmentary school
who believe by a process — learned, no
doubt, as a scientific theory — that they can
express th»- ^t-nsations of the moving air;
and by placing side by side pure colour of
the spectrum they can give you the actual
sensation of light, which no doubt they
<ln, but without any consideration of the
equally important matters which are as
essential for the building up of a great
work.
One should follow his own feelings in the
selection of a subject, and when selected
choose to express it in his own way. Hut
we cannot, and must not, think that because
we are working in Dedham Vale we can
be as great as Constable.
Hut what is really interesting is to learn
what kind of country appeals to well-
known men, and to observe how far personal
contact has affected their work. This is a
question of great and absorbing interest,
and the following articles on Painters'
Sketching Grounds will be appreciated
both by the artist and the layman.
ALFRED EAST.
SUSSEX.
SUSSEX.
Di-s( Kiiii-i) I'.Y MARCUS i'.. iiri.sn.
ILLUSTRATED BY ALBERT GOODWIN, R.W.S., RUTH DOLLMAN,
MARCUS B. HUISH, SU1TON PALMER AND A. WALLACE RIMINGTON,
A.R.E., R.ll.A.
IT is setting a somewhat difficult task
before a denizen of any county in our
fair island to ask him to pen an un-
biassed account of the advantages
which it offers to the artist who would visit
it tor sketching purposes. For there are
few Englishmen who do not hold their own
countryside in so much esteem that they
see it through rose-coloured glasses, and
believe that there are few places with which
it can be compared. This is, perhaps,
especially true as regards those whose good
fortune it is to have a home in Sussex.
A Suffolk man would probably, and a
dweller in Essex would certainly, not
burst forth at once into laudation of
his county's beauties, but one cannot be
long in the company of one from Sussex
without those of the neighbourhood
from which he hails being brought
prominently to your notice. He has good
cause for the faith that is in him. His
county does not possess all the beauties of
the larger shires of Devon or York, nor
of the Cumberland Lake District. But to
compare a county more nearly its size
(Derbyshire, for instance, renowned for
its beauty), if Sussex has no such
beautiful rock-confined streams as the
Dove, or the Derwent in Millers Dale,
and no such moorlands as those of the
Peak District, it has, as sets-off, a seacoast
HAYTIME — RYE
BY ALBERT GOODWIN, R.W.S.
7
Sussex
of varied interest, a Weald of far-embracing
views, and Downlands which are almost
unique in their fascinating outlines, placidity
of aspect, and ever-varying colour hues.
A.nd to these may be added, for the mass of
artists who inhabit the metropolis, the
great advantage of accessibility. Even the
Brighton line (so loth to cater for any
passengers except those who will be content
to disgorge themselves on one of its sea
fronts) will land one at most parts of the
county within a couple of hours.
Accessibility had doubtless much to do
with the popularity of Sussex in the artist's
mind in pre-rail and bicycle days, when
few of them journeyed far afield or had any
ambition for extended travel in pursuit of
subjects. It is true that to anyone seeking
for old illustrated records of the county
material is singularly deficient, much more
so than in the case of other counties, and
that which does come to light, repeats again
and again the same subjects, drawn almost
without exception for book illustrations :
illustrations of the castles — Pevensey,
Hurstmonceaux, and Bodiam ; or of the
seaports, Hastings and Brighthelmstone ;
or of the capitals, Chichester and Lewes.
Even Turner came hither with this intent.
The sketching grounds that have been
occupied by the artists of to-day are almost
without exception either on, or near, the
southern edge of the county, although,
as I shall show later, an abundance of
material is to be found in other parts. I
will therefore, to commence with, follow the
beaten tracks which take us first of all to
the coastline. Starting then at the extreme
eastern end of the county we find Rye and
Winchelsea. These appear to have been
known but little to the first generation of
artists, although George Barrett exhibited
pictures of Rye in 1808 and 1814, and
Copley Fielding in 1823,* and it is only
* NOTE. — I am indebted to Mr. Algernon Graves for these
and other dates. He is now turning his untiring efforts
towards tabulating the places illustrated by members of the
Royal Water-Colour Society.
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BY ALBERT GOODWIN, R.W.S.
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RYE FROM THE EAST
amongst the elders now living of our Old
Water-Colour Society that there are to be
found those who may claim to have
thoroughly exploited them. Herbert
Marshall and Albert Goodwin are amongst
those who have made these towns their
own, and amongst the latter's most beauti-
ful drawings must be counted some of the
grey and red Cinque Port of Rye. Both
it and Winchelsea possess good inns
for artists, although the " Mermaid " at
the former has now been taken posses-
sion of by golfers, who threaten to oust
the painter from what was once looked
upon as his peculiar possession. There
are other towns in Sussex which retain
much of their eighteenth-century character,
but Rye carries one back much further
than that, and it is a mediaeval town that
you come upon as you enter the old gate-
ways, both here and at Winchelsea. As re-
gards the first named, subjects abound, both
of its streets and of the town and harbour
from the flats.
The Sussex coastline, although an ex-
BV ALBERT GOODWIN, R.W.S.
tended one, does not present such interest-
ing features as that of other counties that
stretch down to the English Channel.
Hastings used to be a favourite sketching
ground for artists in the middle of the last
century, when marine painters such as
Bentley and Callow enjoyed nothing so
much as depicting heavily-booted sailors
unloading fish from their cobbles. These
can still be painted at Hastings, but much
of the picturesqueness of the old town, with
its background of cliff and castle, has
disappeared.
Chalk cliffs require very dexterous hand-
ling, and especially those that guard the
land from Beachy Head to Brighton ; they
can hardly be recommended as subjects for
sketching. West of Brighton, sandy ex-
panses of shore may be found which have
the advantage of pointing south-westwards,
and therefore in autumn afford fine subjects
at sundown. Arthur Severn has per-
petuated more than one of these most
luminously.
Within reach of Brighton, Shoreham has
1 1
Sussex
WASTE LANDS, RYE
retained many of its old-world character-*
istics. It is the only place in Sussex,
Newhaven perhaps excepted, where much
shipping is to be found, and the River
Adur at both low and high water affords
good subjects, especially where the old
wooden bridge spans it, and Lancing
College, which stands up like a Cistercian
monastery, and old Shoreham church form
objects of interest in the landscape. David
Murray, some years back, sent more than
one picture of the old bridge to the Academy,
and Prout, Fielding, Duncan and Birket
Foster have all painted it. Bosham, dis-
covered, I believe, by Joseph Knight, pre-
sents more of this kind of sketching, but it
has of late years been too much exploited
by artists, who repeat too often the few views
of the sluggish tidal estuary of Chichester
Harbour bordered by a straggling village.
It is curious how fashion, and perhaps the
knowledge of comfortable quarters, congre-
gates artists. Pagbourn harbour, near
Selsey Bill, with its wooded shores and
lagoon-like reaches, lies almost undis-
covered, and the upper waters of Ports-
mouth harbour at Fareham are really fine,
but no artists will go thither until they are
12
BY ALBERT GOODWIN, R.W.S.
shown the way. Comfortable quarters
had undoubtedly much to do with Fittle-
worth being such a favourite place for
artists some years ago. It was discovered,
I believe, by Mr. A. W. Weedon, who
sent me there in my salad days. I
remember being the cause of sad dis-
grace for the buxom widow who then kept
the " Swan " Inn, and who was a prime
favourite with artists. Her landlord was
a brewer at Arundel, who posed as an art
collector, coming over whenever an artist
appeared and usually obtaining for a five-
pound note a good example from the new-
comer's portfolio. My arrival was duly
announced, the brewer drove over the
dozen miles from Arundel, came to where
I was sketching, looked over my shoulder
and fled, leaving behind him at his hostelry
some very strong language as to the good
lady's ignorance of what an artist was.
Fittleworth is a good centre for work of a
not very exciting, but varied, pastoral
character. It has a bridge, a mill, a
sluggish stream and a gorse-covered com-
mon, whence fine sunsets can be garnered.
The "Swan" has been termed a second
Diploma Gallery from the decorations
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Sussex
BRIDGE AT OLD SHOREHAM
that have been left there by visiting
artists.
Mr. Wallace Rimington, some of whose
sketches appear here, cannot speak too
highly of this western side of the county.
He advises entering Sussex from Hasle-
mere, when Fernhurst will be found to
present very fine woodland subjects. North
.Chapel contains many old houses and a
very quaint inn. The country between this
and Midhurst is wooded with magnificent
elms and beeches, and has interesting
•
BY A. WALLACE RIMINGTON, A.R.E., R.B.A.
patches of common. Cowdray and its ruin
are always attractive to the painters. Pet-
worth with its park should also be visited
by artists, if only to see the Turners which
he painted there, in emulation probably of
the magnificent Claude, alongside of which
they hang : the town itself is full of subjects
for those who limn domestic architecture.
Working along the little stream of the
Rother we pass Fittleworth, and gain the
main Portsmouth line at Pulborough, where
there is a good inn and plenty of material,
especially on the flats,
with their distant
views of the Downs seen
over the woods at Par-
ham. Arundel, Am-
berley, and the banks
of the Arun are too
well known to artists
to need more than men-
tion here, and so we
will strike eastwards
towards the Adur. On
our road thither we
have a good bridge at
Stopham, and pines
and moorland near
Washington. Storring-
ton is somewhat disap-
pointing; but Steyning
VILLAGE OF NORTH CHAPEL BY A. WALLACE RIMINGTON, A.R.E., R.B.A. is full of hoUSBS of all
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NEAR STEDHAM
BY A. WALLACE RIMINGTON, A.R.E., R.B.A.
IN THE VALLEY OF THE ARUN
16
BY A. WALLACE RIMINGTON, A.R.E., R.15.A.
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periods, from the fifteenth century onwards.
So we pass through the Adurgap, which has
not the beauties one would expect of it.
Copley Fielding was the first to recognise
and paint the beauties of the South Downs,
but it was reserved for H. G. Hine to
discover their sweetness of contour, their
varied colourings, the greys lying in their
hollows, and their loveliness at all hours
of the day, notably at sundown. Alfriston,
which lies between the Downs, with its
quaint buildings, is a headquarters for
artists, and the Cuckmere Valley and Firle
Beacon figure in many sketches by Thorne
Waite and Sir E. Waterlow. Very lately
a young artist, Ruth Dollman, has
deservedly attracted attention by quickly
gaining knowledge of the varied features
of the Downs, and especially of their dove-
coloured hues, near her home at Ditchling.
Lewes is most picturesquely situated,
has many quaint old houses, and the river,
both above and below the town, offers
many attractive subjects, as at Rodmell,
as one nears Newhaven, wfyich is little
known. At Newhaven the shipping often
presents picturesque variety. Copley
Fielding drew hereabouts, and many an
artist has sketched the old Martello Tower
at Seaford, but that place now presents no
subjects of which there are not better to
be found elsewhere.
Ruins are fortunately out of fashion now,
but there are a goodly number in Sussex
for those who seek them — Cowdray,
Amberley, Hurstmonceaux, Bride Place,
Bodiam, Camber, Bramber, Mickleham, etc.
Picturesque cottages and village streets
are to be found almost everywhere, but the
old windmills are rapidly disappearing;
the two above the Clayton tunnel have fur-
nished subjects for many an artist, and
others are to be found at Winchelsea,
Mailing, and Angmering.
Artists have hitherto avoided Mid-
Sussex, probably because the railway
facilities are so indifferent, but a bicycle
ride will unfold beauties everywhere, espe-
cially in the forests, parts of which stretch
from east to west right across the county —
Ashdown, Worth, Balcombe, Tilgate, and
St. Leonards. In spring the silver birches
in Worth and St. Leonards, above a carpet
of primroses and bluebells, afford a glimpse
of fairyland, especially when the fair
distant views over the Weald almost rival
the latter in tenderness of hue.
MARCUS B. HUISH.
COURTHOUSE FARM, NEAR LEWES
2O
BY RUTH DOLLMAN
WAREHAM.
W ARK HAM.
DESCRIBED AND II I I SI RATED BY CLAUD! IIAVI s, K.I.
FOR an all-round sketching ground I
do not know any better place than
U'.irrham, in Dorset, the town its--lt
bring picturesque and full of small
bits, and combining with this that which is
more important, i.e., a good centre from
which one can get to a fine landscape
country. We have two rivers here flowing
through the town, over which are placed
M-veral picturesque bridges and water-mills,
providing subjects at every turn. And for
those who like architecture, there is a fine
old Saxon church and innumerable old
houses and street corners worthy of being
translated either into black-and-white or
colour.
Hut the joy to me personally is to get
right away from the town and find myself
on the moors between Stoborough and
Corfe. Here, indeed, is a feast for the
painter who loves the open country. Vast
stretches of moorland are broken by silver,
sandy roads, and backed at every turn by
the low-lying hills of Purbeck, which seem
to take a quality of colour peculiarly their
own, possessing distinct characteristic-
which one can only describe as the
" Dorset " blues or greys. Subtle and
delicate they are at times, and densely rich
at others; and given a south-westerly wind,
for instance, they seem to put on velvet
coats, and at other times a silver apparel.
There is a place that I call " my find," a
piece of rough ground at the foot of Creech
Barrow, which, though at first disappoint-
ing (because of its complex character), will
well repay the artist for a succession ot
visits. I have often found in other counties
that, after walking over miles of heath and
not finding anything quite to suit one's
idiosyncrasy, suddenly one makes a swerve
to the right or left, and is confronted
with what is mentally translated, in the
parlance of the artist, as "stuff for months."
THK 01. 1) MAKkH ri.Ath. \v\KMl\M
BY CLACDK HAVKS, R.I.
23
Wareham
OLD HOUSES AT STOBOROUGH
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.I.
This, then, is the sort of place that I
refer to above. I have only mentioned
up to the present the result of a lead
from one road (south) from Wareham
to Corfe. Now let us take another —
the (west) road to Dorchester. Here we
get many small hilly fields (on which,
when I was last there, was growing
wheat) running down to green flats,
and the river Frome intersecting them,
with the beautiful hills again forming
a background. On tfie right of the
Dorchester road there are flat moors
covered with heather in July, with
convenient broken sand-pits occasion-
ally, giving character to the foreground.
Away from here, and further on the
road to Dorchester, there is a fine
specimen of a water-mill, situated on
the river Frome, and called Stoke
Mill. There are at least five or six
good compositions here ; but unfortu-
nately one of the best has been un-
pleasantly modified by the breaking
24
down of a fine black poplar (through
late storms) which gave a character to
the place
Not Jar from here is the village of
Wool, with the river Frome picturesque
at every turn, and dominated by the
beautiful old stone bridge, which almost
touches the celebrated ancient Manor
House immortalised by Hardy in his
novel " Tess of the D'Urbervilles."
Now let the reader follow me back
in imagination to the town of Wareham
again, and from there start on another
road, for the country I have been describ-
ing must be three or four miles away from
our centre ; and I take it that distance
is about enough to travel in the day it
one wants to work with any chance of
success. We have taken the south and
west roads, now let us take the east,
which starts from the middle of the
town. We pass a few old houses and
ENTRANCE TO OLD HOUSES AT STOBOROUGH
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.I.
ON THE MOORS NEAR CORFE
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.I.
STOKE MILL ON THE FROME, DORSET
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.I.
25
Wareham
LOOKING TOWARDS CORFE
BY CLAUDE HAVES, R.I.
another. Before de-
scribing the environs
of Wareham further,
I may mention that
there is a fine old
stone bridge between
Wareham and Stoke,
called Holme Bridge,
which, as well as being
a picture in itself, is
surrounded by beauti-
ful flat country with
good foregrounds of
reeds, and with gene-
rally a punt or two to
help the composition.
We have now done
south, west, and east
streets, within a radius
of three - and - a -half
courts on both sides, good enough to miles of the town. If we go back to the
portray, and, getting beyond the precincts railway station and start out in an easterly
of Wareham, see farms on the left and direction (along the main road to Poole), we
marshes on the right. Of course one can will find a class of scenery quite different
always find small close subjects on farms, to any hitherto described. The hills here
but it is these marshes, with their broken are covered with bracken and heather, and
foot-bridges, little streams, grey reeds, and are fine and big in line, helped by groups
swampy rich green foreground, inter- of picturesque Scotch firs, with an occa-
mingled with purple earth (approaching
rich blacks in places), that move me most.
The casual observer will possibly say,
" What is here ? I see nothing ! Flat
country, etc., etc." But
wait, for, as we look
again, we notice a little
amber light in middle
distance. Ah, that is
better ; a cloud is pass-
ing over and nature
has concentrated and
given, to those who can
see, a picture. The
commonplace turned
into the beautiful.
Nature is a big piano-
forte and the artist
must play upon it.
Branksea Island and
Poole form a fine back-
ground to the marshes,
looking in one direc-
tion, and Redcliffe and
the Purbeck hills in
26
sional silver-stemmed birch. These, and
the simple line of the Dorchester hills,
make some fine compositions. The disused
gravel-pits, filled with water, also help
LOOKING TOWARDS POOLE
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.
-
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H O
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Wareham
IN THE WAREHAM MEADOWS
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.I.
NEAR REDHILL FARM, WAREHAM
28
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.I.
••
BETWEEN STOBOROUGH AND POOLE
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.I
ON THE ROAD TO ARSE
BY CLAUDE HATES, R.I.
Wareham.
IN THE WAREHAM MEADOWS
BY CLAUDE HAYES, R.I.
matters, and the gravel itself takes on a
fine tender purple.
Before concluding, I should call the
reader's attention to a place called Arne,
about three-and-a-half miles from Ware-
ham, reached through Stoborough by turn-
ing to the left opposite the New Inn. All
along this road the moors are good, and
get better as one approaches Arne, which
is quite Scotch in character, and from
which you can obtain a good view of Corfe
Castle and hill. Another good view of the
Castle is obtained from the Dorchester
road, midway between Wareham and
Holme Bridge. I have not mentioned the
good subjects close to the town, such as
" Bag's " mill and the old mill, for they
are too obvious to be missed by anyone in
search of the picturesque.
There are plenty of apartments to be had
at the Old Priory and other places in Ware-
ham, also at Stoborough, a village one
mile from the town.
CLAUDE HAYES.
THE LOWER THAMES.
THE LOWER THAMES.
DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED BY CHARI.KS IM-.ARs.
THE Lowi-r 1 li.mi'-s, th>- ^r.-atest
ship track of the world, is not in
itself to be regarded as a bi-uuty-
spot ; anyhow, it has not been
"boomed" as such. For its beauty is the
kind that appeals not to such as hie them
to the advertised beauty-spots, where the
philistine gaze is rewarded with that
obvious charm that is faithfully reproduced
in railway pamphlets. There are none of
those wild-irised banks and babbling water-
ways. Indeed the wild flowers that grow
there are scentless, for they blossom near
the sea, and the sound of the water is a
swirling roaring cry of mighty haste.
What then is there to paint ? Let the
artist-reader come aboard — paint-box withal
and canvas laden.
Mind the paint as you step aboard, for if
I cannot paint pictures as well as I should
like, I do take a savage pleasure in keeping
clean the topsides of the " Mave Rhoe."
Oh, yes, the yacht is quite small — only four
tons, but I have sailed her single-handed
through some weather that might have
frightened bigger craft.
The sun is setting, and Greenhithe is
always beautiful. It has an old-world air,
enforced by the ancient three-deckers —
those wooden walls of Old England, with
their chequered sides, which are now
as training ships. But we are blast about
Greenhithe, for it is our home port, where
the yacht lies what time her skipper is
ashore. So the sails are set, the hook
comes up with a rattle of cable chain, ami
we are off seawards.
Be not impatient about these nautical
terms and talk of yachts and sailing, for
you can never know the Lower Thames
without them. Look at that cluster of tan-
sailed barges ; the setting sun glows upon
those sails in a way that you must
remember. You want to stop and paint
them. You cannot, the effect will not last,
and there will be many such and others
too The Lower Thames is all effects,
that is why I asked you to come aboard, for
the only way of seeing these is to be afloat.
You will see the night with its stars as you
have never seen it before ; there will be such
dawns and sunsets as will fill you with
silent awe. The fog will wrap you in its
blanket — that mystical woof of many hues ;
you will hate its clammy fingers until, like
that of moodish maid, its warm caress will
turn your head.
The night has spread her velvet mantle
over us. Those funereal smears ahead are
barges ; those jewels, emerald and ruby,
"THE USUAL THING ON THE THAMES"
BY CHARLES PEARS
33
The Lower Thames
THE "LOBSTER SMACK INN, CANVEY ISLAND
BY CHARLES PEARS
are their side-lights. That gold-bespangled
mass coming towards us is a liner churning
up a grey mass of foam at her bows. She
is in from South Africa. Did you ever see
so many vessels pass you and at such close
quarters : They hail from all over the
world.
Those lights, from whereabouts come
those grovelling grinding sounds, belong
to Grays with its chalk mills, and right
ahead you see the many lights of Graves-
end. These two places are full of interest
and little bits of paintability. Upon our
return you will see the little Tilbury fort
sun bathed, and ships and steamers ot
every class and nationality, which are now
indicated only by their riding lights.
After the lights of Gravesend we shall
have nothing but the swirling tide and
wind-blackened water, for the banks are
low. The river's gloomy pathway leading
to the sea, whose gentle heave we are
already feeling, will in its utter blankness
appeal to the morbid side of your imagi-
nation, I warrant. But, ye gods ! wait
until the moon comes out, splattering the
water with molten silver !
The little white flashing light ahead is
34
the Ovens buoy ; it marks a dangerous spit
of mud which runs out nearly to the middle
THE ANCHORAGE,
BURNHAM-ON-CROUCH
BY CHARLES PEARS
I
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as is a 1
.oy ; it marks a dang<
i-hich runs out nc.
alre,'.
appt
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The Lower Thames
"A WARNING NOTE" — A WRECK. UPON THE MAPLIN SANDS
BY CHARLES PEARS
of the river. That red light beyond is the
Mucking, which is the first lighthouse be-
fore the sea. Upon the marshes, beyond
either bank, there is much subtlety of colour.
We shall soon be in Hole Haven, the
little creek which helps to make Canvey
an island. We shall sleep there. When
you wake up again you will think you are
in Holland. For there, Dutch eel-schuijts,
as at London Bridge, have free moorings ;
and Canvey is surrounded by a wall built
by the Dutch in the time of Charles II., the
island being some fifteen feet below the
high-water level of the sea. There will be
many other yachts there, for it is a place
beloved of yachtsmen. Indeed, the " Lobster
Smack" Inn possesses a log-book, where-
in humorous, poetical, and artistic tribute
has been paid to the place by the many
yachtsmen who have visited it. We shall
find plenty to paint in the pretty Canvey
village — the meadows with their bulrushed
dykes and the quaint effect of steamers
steaming and ships sailing beyond the
wall far above the level of the eye.
Then we can choose a calm day and run
aground upon the Blyth sands, and paint
the opalescent mud stretching away for
miles, with the shipping of Sea Reach
coming and going beyond ; or, looking in
the other direction, the flat stretches of the
marshland with the wooded Kentish hills
beyond. We can, another day, drop anchor
opposite and paint the lights of Southend
as they struggle through the twilight and
the mellow sea mist that stretches across
the six miles of the river's mouth. Then
there is Benfleet, Leigh, and Shoebury.
We might also run through Havengore
Creek to Burnham-on-Crouch, which is a
well - known yachting centre, where the
glory of some five hundred shapely yachts,
their riding lights twinkling in the water,
provides one of the most beautiful sights
possible.
But enough ! Someone said, " See Venice
and die." I have not seen Venice, but I
have seen the Lower Thames, and I live —
live to go there again and again.
CHARLES PEARS.
SEA REACH
BY CHARLES PEARS
ROCHESTER.
ROCHESTER.
DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED BY E. W. CHARLTON, R.E.
UNDOUBTEDLY it is the Medway
which especially attracts the artist
at Rochester. In saying this I
intend no disparagement, as a
sketching ground, to the city itself ; because
where there is a venerable cathedral, ancient
gateways in the precincts, a noble eleventh-
century castle keep, and many buildings
of antiquity and quaintness outwardly and
inwardly, there cannot be anything wanting
to place on pictorial record.
Nevertheless the river entices one away
from these. She is so busy, so restless, so
fascinatingly arrayed in harmonious colour
on bank and stream, glorying in natural
beauty and fortunate in additional pictur-
esqueness by the hand of man in — above
all— her shipping, of which the tan-sailed
barge seems to claim pride of colour as
well as of place.
Being distinctly commercial, the Medway
shows her prosaic side here and there, but
she is faithful to the artist in her never-
failing offers of excellent — indeed beautiful
— subjects, given the necessary skill for
judicious shortsightedness. Owing to her
somewhat abrupt curves both above and
below the bridge, distances of much variety
may be profited by according to light and
effect, and endless foregrounds of value
fashion themselves to the observant and
critical eye.
There is a plot ot waste ground on the
Strood side lying immediately below Frinds-
bury Church which is replete with artistic
wealth. Here are carpenters' and boat-
builders' sheds, small vessels of all sorts
under repair, and everywhere around that
veritable confusion of apparently waste
material which can be turned to such good
account in a picture. Mulls red and hulls
green rest upright on the ochreous and
subtle coloured mud, with men aloft and
men on deck all mirrored in a tide pool.
BOATYARD AT 11RIDGE REACH
BY E. W. CHARLTON, R.E.
4'
Rochester
LIMEHOUSE REACH FROM CHATHAM
BY E. W. CHARLTON, R.E.
Here forlornly on her side, hiding her
broken deck, lies a derelict alongside a
rickety plank staging ; there, heeled over
shorewards, is a small battered wreck so
rotten that she is partly filled with tide
rubbish. Behind, just beyond the cradles
on the slips, are trim hulls shining under a
whole palette of new colour, ready for the
launching; and moored to the bank are
barges and boats, dull blue, sky blue,
amber and white, patiently awaiting their
turn for smartness and freedom. .
And out upon the glistening river vessels
large and vessels small pass by, beneath
the ancient city where the four turrets of
Gundulph's lofty keep and the spire that
crowns his own cathedral tower, break the
long line of the distant hills to pierce the
silvery sky. There is more peace on
river and shore here than further down, as
the bridge denies passage to all but small
craft, and therefore large ships lie quietly
at moorings.
It is as interesting as it is instructive
to go down to the esplanades at either end
of the city bridge and hastily sketch the
42
barges tacking up on the flowing tide in
the face of a freshening breeze ; to watch
the masts and sails lowered just enough to
clear the arch, the hoisting when the boat is
free of the piers, till gathering way by slow
degrees at each turn of the windlass for-
ward, the folds of the sails are taut again,
and she speeds away on her journey.
Perhaps the river is busiest towards
Chatham, where a succession of yards and
wharves afford privacy and shelter for
work; and I might say here that I have
never met with anything but the utmost
courtesy from the owners in response to
my requisitions for leave of entry From
almost anywhere on this side there is
something to be attempted, something
done. A tug may be rounding the bend
with barges in tow, swinging them along in
a zig-zag line to fetch up by a row of others
idle at their moorings ; then quickly hitch-
ing on a couple of the lazy ones she steams
away, half hidden beneath the volume ot
her smoke flung all across the river by the
breeze, hurrying to nothingness, the flotilla
forming a graceful curve to pass round the
'
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= 1
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— —
Rochester
stern of a barquentine, whose bright green
sides turn the green of the water to a dingy
grey. Outward bound goes a full-rigged
ship with a cargo of cement, her masts and
yards gleaming white against the stacks of
lofty chimneys in the background. Racing
along is a Government launch from the
dockyards close at hand, and in the wake
of the big ship a small sturdy craft goes
thrumming by with a Conservancy gas
buoy floating captive astern. Further up
lies a foreign barque unloading barrel
staves ; and further still, rising high above
a medley of lighters, are two or three large
steamers noisily unburdening cargoes of
coal. In and out, bright spots of umber,
barges wind their way, tearing along with
swish and swirl, eager to unladen. Oppo-
site are the cement works, smothered in
white and yellow dust, and beyond are the
grey-green hills. Away to the left stands
Rochester city, richly purple in the evening
light, set against a pale green belt of trees,
which slopes away to disappear in opales-
cent mistiness.
The scene is beautiful, full of incident,
colour, and effect ; but it is only one of
many which require little seeking along
the banks. There is a lane close to Roches-
ter station leading under the railway to a
large space of waste ground lapped by the
river, where — especially in the morning —
grand subjects lie at the mercy of the
industrious. There is the fine view, rather
erring on the panoramic side, from the
edge of the chalk cliffs by Frindsbury,
which has often found its way on to canvas,
copper, or paper. There is the winding
river above the bridge, where a back-
ground is completed by the grey old keep
and rampart walls commanding the Danish
earthworks ; and there are the wharves for
timber and for grain, the yards for building
barges, the creeks and basins, and the
UNLOADING COAL AT LIMEHOUSE REACH
44
BY E. W. CHARLTON, R.E.
J
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H
.
O X
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- >
_ -
Rochester
mills, which stretch away along the shores
of Rochester's three Reaches — "Tower,"
"Bridge," and " Limehouse."
In the city, very alluring to workers who
choose studies endowed with antiquarian-
ism, are the cathedral, the castle, the old
Eastgate House, the quaint Guildhall,
ancient arches and gateways, and here
and there houses and buildings claiming a
beauty of their own, enriched by antiquity,
solemn and dignified. Rochester, indeed,
holds out innumerable gifts to those who
are willing to accept them, and make good
use of their great value to the advantage of
art by art itself. But with no disrespect
to her magnificent possessions, built in the
days of long ago— treasures in which men
of Kent and Kentish men do, and in which
every Englishman should justly take a
pride — it would neither be ungracious nor
without reason to suppose that an artist's
choice from all those gifts would be the
busy river with its ever-changing scenes.
E. W. CHARLTON.
ROCHESTER CASTLE BY E. W. CHARLTON, R.E.
46
NORTH WALES.
NORTH WALES.
DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED BY ONORATO CARLANDI.
WERE it not imperative for human
nature to change, how could one
explain the desire of British
artistic people to go abroad and
look for painting grounds which are often
inferior, very much inferior, to those they
can easily find near their own home r
And I think that the forty years of artistic
friendship with the simple solemn lines of
the Roman Campagna, have made me enjoy
better the richness of line and exuberance of
colour one so often finds in the British Isles.
Of all the places I have visited, and
where I have painted and had sketching
classes, North Wales most completely takes
my fancy, so much so that I have been
there three seasons at different intervals,
and dearly hope to see again the fascinating
little lakes and the stately forms of its
mountains, pervaded with that indescrib-
able and mysterious blue haze which goes
from silver to intense lapis-lasuli.
I much prefer to enter X«.rth Wales by
the Conway estuary, where the simplicity
of the lines and subtlety of colour invite
you to study all the most modern problems
of painting. The town of Conway is full of
beautiful mediaeval ruins, starting from the
Castle, and that fascinating Plas-Mawr,
where the Royal Cambrian Academy has
its seat and its annual exhibitions.
The striking history of Wales is to me
an additional interest, as I firmly believe
that wherever we go to paint, by taking
into our hearts the tradition of the land
which pleases our eyes, we surely shall put
more emotion even into the simplest sketch.
And all through Wales I feel the powerful
effects of both history and legend that so
well harmonize with the reposeful solemnity
of the landscape.
Following up the river and passing Llan-
rw-t, where are Gwydr Castle, a gem of
picturesquenes.x, and I nigo Jones's bridge —
THE LLUCWY RAPIDS, BETTWS-Y COED
BY ONORATO CARLANDI
49
North Wales
a pleasing specimen
of many of its kind
in the British Isles —
one reaches the world-
famed Bettws-y-Coed
(the house of prayer
in the forest). It is
quite useless that I
should attempt, with
my poor words, to
describe a spot where
the soul of the great
David Cox is so
living, permeating
every stone, every
tree, every ripple ot
its beautiful rivers.
What headquarters
for painters ! Just
because it is so per-
fect it has been ot
late a little neglected, though David Murray
and other artists have recently done splen-
did work there.
On my last visit, two years ago, I saw
an elderly gentleman seated under the
porch of the " Royal Oak " ; and some
days after, a few yards from where I was
sketching at Capel-Curig, I saw him again,
at work near a young man of whom he asked
for some white paint. And my mind went
back to about thirty years ago when I had
ERICA TETRALICA
OGWEN VALLEY, FROM THE FOOT OF TRYFAN BY ONORATO CARLANDI
50
BY ONORATO CARLANDI
seen him, a young man then — like the one
near him now — issuing from one of the
cottages near the road with a huge canvas
on his shoulders — and more than once
coming to see his "brothers-of-the-brush "
(among whom was that deeply-lamented
Frank Holl), at that lovely little inn, called
then the Tan-y-Bvvlch Hotel, which is now
kept by a famous cricketer. Mr. Leader
was far from thinking I knew him and was
admiring the charming unity of pursuit of
the father and son in
that still day by the
lake of Capel-Curig.
From Bettws it is
very easy to reach
all kinds of different
scenery — Elsi lake
and its breezy moor
would be enough for
a lifetime. Going up
the Lledr valley, the
scenery is quite differ-
ent, and all along the
banks of that little
river the sketcherwill
find no end of sub-
jects. In fact, the
only drawback to this
district is that one is
overwhelmed with the
abundance of material.
—
X
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~ ;
- ^
28
H .'
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W c/)
H a
North Wales
PONT-Y-CARTH BY ONORATO CARLANDI
(By permission of Miss F, E. Howell.}
52
Through this valley, the railroad is
very handy for daily expeditions, and
pedestrians will find easy roads and
delightful mountain paths, on hills
covered with gorse and heather. Oh !
the feast of the heather ! What an end-
less pleasure for the painter,' with that
magnificent Moel Siabod always there
to crown it !
And when you reach the little town
of Dolwyddelen you will find a small
church that has made me despise St.
Peter's. One wet evening I got there
when a Welsh funeral was taking place.
The small group round the grave, in
a nest of grasses and sheltered by
beautiful trees, was singing. How often
we owe deep gratitude to people who
know nothing of it ! For I and the
dear companion who was with me
that grey evening were moved to soft
tears, and never shall we hear better and
more convincing music. The Welsh
are such musical people. Thirty years
ago I and a friend, who was both a
musician and a painter, were sketch-
ing at Portmadoc (another exquisite
place for artists) ; we hid behind bushes
to listen to the part songs that some
young men were singing as they came
out of the factories at evening, and col-
lected on a knoll that commanded a
beautiful view. We called that the
recompense of our daily toil.
All the Snowdon district is simply
marvellous, and it is too well known to
need description. But I cannot help
speaking of the Ogwen Valley, where I
have spent some of the happiest days of
my life. Easily reached from every part
of the Principality, on the edge of
Ogwen Lake is a charming little cottage
where the company is in perfect harmony
with the place. The few visitors who
come to rest there are either anglers or
sketchers.
I found there what I thought was
perfection for those that ask the little
that is needed to be happy and which
is very difficult to find.
A very short ascent from this cottage
brings one to Llyn Idwal— in a perfect
amphitheatre of such mountains ! And
en
I
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o
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O
33
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a
North
there in front of you is th»> Devil's
Kiti hen, and a little more to the
ri^ht the fatal Devil's Stain
win n- strong young Britons come
to learn contempt for fear.
Had I to leave my native
Rome I would like to dwell in
the awed contemplation of the
Divine Voice that is up there.
There you can, day after day,
paint the innumerable effects and
try to fathom the secrets of the
mists; and, looking back to the
valley, your hand will tremble
with joy at the sight of the ranges
jewelled by the glimpses of the
sun.
And if you love the raising
of humanity to noble ideals of
strength, you can see, as I did,
youths from college trying for
hours patiently to escalade the
most perilous peaks. I painted
The Monolith in souvenir of two
boys who passed by me to climb
it on a misty morning. Like
a curtain on a mighty stage
the mists lifted and came down
at intervals on the striking scene.
All was silence that spoke of the
Power that dominates the world.
There, to the left, appeared and
disappeared two white specks,
and I prayed for their safety.
They came down without the
coveted victory and glanced at
me with shame; they knew I
had witnessed their failure. But
they were wrong. I admired
them more than if they had had
an easy success, as I saw in their
faces that they would go the
next day and the next, till they
should reap the prize of their
constancy.
This has little to do with sketch-
ing, but there it was, the whole
picture complete, as I have de-
scribed it.
Feed equally the spirit and
the heart, the hand will easily
conquer.
ONORATO CARLANDI.
THE MONOLITH ON THE GLYDERS
BY ONORATO CARLANDI
(fy ftrwisiiau of A/at D. Lcttt)
55
North Wales
GLAX COXWAY
BY OXORATO CARLAXDI
LLYN IDWAL
I!Y ONORATO CARLANDI
.v '.-. --
THE SCOTTISH BORDERLAND.
THE SCOTTISH BORDERLAND.
DI:S< RIHI.I) i-.v AII.XAXM K [-DDINGTON.
ILLUSTRATED BY THOMAS SCOTT, R.S.A., AND
T. MARJORIBAXKS HAY, R.S.W.
FROM Clyde Law to Berwick-on-
Tweed and from Carter Fell to the
southern slopes of the Moorfoot
1 1 ills we are in the Scottish Border-
land. It is a big stretch of country to be
a mere fringe, but the Scottish people,
parsimonious in many other things, have
been generous here in their appellation.
From the days of the Cymri, when Merlin
the Wild lived in the forest of Tweedsmuir,
it has been a home of romance ; and in the
early and mediaeval life of the Scottish
nation was inhabited by numerous clans
whose predatory life has left many traces
in the ruined castles and peel towers that
are dotted over its billowy surface ; while
in the eastern valleys are the Davidian
Abbeys that are still its glory and pride.
What Scott and Hogg, Thomson and
Leyden did for the Border in literature
has been done in art by Turner and
Thomson of Duddingston, and in more
recent days by Sir George Reid and Thomas
Scott of Selkirk. The latter has almost
entirely devoted himself to Border subjects,
especially in the valleys of the Yarrow,
Ettrick and Teviot.
The spirit of the uplands is pensive ; their
smooth and rounded hills, largely bare of
vegetation other than the " bent sae
broon," do not lend themselves to
impressive compositions, but the lower
reaches of the valleys, and particularly that
of the Tweed, which is the dominant river,
strike a joyous note and are luxuriant in
their foliage. 1 he deep wind-swept gorge
where the placid Annan takes its rise in
what is called " The Devil's Beef Tub "—a
LOCH SKENE, SELKIRKSHIRE
BY THOMAS SCOTT, R.S.A.
6l
The Scottish Borderland
reminder that it was a cattle fastness in the
raiding days — and the tarn of Loch Skene
(page 61), nearly 2,000 feet above sea-level
near the head of Moffat Water, have an
aspect of sublime grandeur, otherwise the
scenery is of a softly alluring type.
On the Teviot, Branxholm, the ancient
seat of the ducal family of Buccleuch, that
figures so prominently in Scott's " Lay ol
the Last Minstrel," and " Goldielands," the
last inhabitant of which was hung above
its gate for rieving, are noted beauty spots.
With an old square tower forming part of
the modern mansion, the situation of Branx-
holm on the summit of a bold bank over-
hanging the river makes an impressive
picture, even unaided by historic associa-
tion. At Jedburgh, in the romantic
valley of the Jed, the ruins of the Gothic
abbey are best sketched from the opposite
bank of the stream, and one old doorway is
a magnificent example of pure Norman
work. A little further up the valley some
luxuriant trees in their umbrageous pictur-
esqueness almost vie with the grand old
oaks of Cadzow. On the Yarrow, a stream
which has furnished themes for the poets
from the time when Wat o' Harden lived
at Dryhope Tower to Wordsworth and our
own day, there is, in the lower reaches,
some rich sketching ground, especially
in the neighbourhood of Newark Castle
(below). It was at Newark that the
Duchess of Buccleuch and Monmouth
listened to the story of the aged harper as
told in Scott's "Lay," and in the castle
courtyard Lesley hung a hundred of Mont-
rose's men after the battle of Philiphaugh.
From its birchen bowers Newark still looks
forth in its majesty on a fair world, and
by the wayside near by, nestling at the
base of the hill, are the ivy-covered ruins
of the cottage where Mungo Park, the
great African traveller, was born. Near
Yarrow Kirk, the broken bridge of Deuchar,
only one arch of which remains, has
attracted many an easel and camera.
St. Mary's Loch (page 67), where Yarrow
NEWARK CASTLE, SELKIRKSHIRE
62
(By permission of Mrs. X. H, Dunn)
BY THOMAS SCOTT, K.S.A.
CO
oc
CO
o
UJ
a.
i
CO
111
5
o
///'• Sect fish
1 1 \k\VOOD TOWI-K, M I KIRKSHIRE
takes its rise, is under certain aspects
very beautiful. From the hostelry ot
Tibbie Shiel, so much frequented by
Hogg and Christopher North on their
angling expeditions, St. Mary's Loch is
charming in the early morning light, and
at its northern end quite a different type
of picture can be created with, as an appro-
priate foreground, the disused graveyard on
the hill where Douglases and Cranstouns
Scotts and Kerrs lie side by side, old
rivalries forgotten in the last long sleep.
Oakwood Tower on the Ettrick (above),
about three miles from Selkirk, once the
home of Wat o1 Harden's son 'William,
whose reputedly romantic wedding is im-
mortalised in the ballad "Muckle Mou'd
M'"sr," stands on a spur of the hill and
composes well in a valley that is more
rugged than Yarrow.
Where Tweed leaves the Southern High-
lands and turns eastwards to the sea, the
ruined stronghold of Drummelzier (page 66),
now the centre of a peaceful homestead, is
IIV THOMAS SCOTT, R.S.A.
typical of the change that has come over
the Borderland, and near Peebles the old
Castle of Neidpath is a favourite resort.
At Traquair, once a seat of the early
Scottish kings and now reputed to be
the oldest inhabited house in Scotland,
we have, in the modern portions, a sugges-
tion of a French chateau ; while in that
bend of the stream between Caddonfoot
and Abbotsford, so little known to the
ordinary traveller, we have some of
the most beautiful reaches of the river,
especially at Yair Bridge and ' Fairnielee,
once the residence of Alison Cockburn,
authoress of " The Flowers o" the Forest.''
Mrlrose and Dryburgh Abbeys are known
to everybody. From the hill at Bemersyde,
above Dryburgh, one obtains a magnificent
view of the three Eildons where King
Arthur ami his Knights are said to be
waiting the blast of the trumpet that will
call them back from Fairyland. This view
point is one of the few places on the Borders
where a wide prospect composes itself
65
The Scottish Borderland
DRUMMELZIER CASTLE
BY T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
BERWICK-ON-TWEED
66
BY T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
The Scottish Borderland
naturally into an effective picture. When
one is in this district it is worth making a
detour to Smailholm Tower where Scott
spent part of his boyhood, the scene of his
ballad of " The Eve of St. John." At the
junction of Teviotand Tweed good sketches
may be obtained, as also at Kelso, where
the ruined abbey is a distinctive feature of
the town. Nearing Berwick. Xorham Castle
looks well crowning its steep and wooded
bank, and a little-known old mill at Horn-
cliffe near by makes a pretty sketch.
I'.'-rwick (page 66), either from the Foulden
Road looking over the town to the sea, or,
as Mr. D. Y. Cameron has painted it, from
the Tweedmouth bank of the river, is
most picturesque. It is the only walled
town north of the Tweed, and within the
circumvallation are some quaint corners,
though repeated sieges and burnings have
destroyed most of its medievalism. The
valley of the Eye, near Ayton, furnished
J. C. Wintour with many a romantically-
tn-ated landscape, in some of which the
red sandstone tower of Ayton Castle is a
prominent note.
The bold and rugged coast of Berwickshire
is a field of study in itself. At Burnmouth,
where three fishingvillages form a straggling
broken line on a narrow strip of ground
between the precipitous cliffs and the sea,
many pictures may be obtained. Specially
fine is a view of the southern hamlet of the
group, named Ross, best seen from the top
of a short ravine that opens out to make a
frame-work for the red-tiled houses with the
sea as a background. Eyemouth Harbour,
though not so picturesque as before recon-
struction, is still worth one or two sketches.
Mure of a similar type may be had at the
quaint fishing hamlet of Cove, north of St.
Abbs' Head, and at St. Abbs ; both on the
northern and southern sides of the bold
headland there is some glorious rock
scenery.
ALEXANDER EDDIXGTON.
ST. MARY'S LOCH, SELKIRKSHIRE
BY THOMAS SCOTT, R.S.A.
67
DIRCHES AT FOULDEN, BERWICKSHIRE
BY T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
68
EAST LOTHIAN.
EAST LOTHIAN.
DESCRIBED 15 Y A 1. 1. XANDER EDDIXGTON.
ILLUSTRATED BY ROBERT NOBLE, R S.A , AND
T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
Till, discovery of East Linton as a
sketching centre was made when
John Pettie, the son of a grocer in
the place, took to art, and was
followed by Arthur Melville, who spent his
boyhood in the village and worked and
saved industriously till he acquired a
modest little capital sufficient to warrant
his embarking on an artistic career. It is
now twenty-three years since Robert Noble
took up his residence there, and he says he
has not yet by any means exhausted its
resources. Martin Hardie, who was born
at East Linton, Austen Brown, Joseph
Farquharson, Coutts Michie, Robert Mac-
gregor, J. Campbell Noble, James Pater-
son, Arthur Friedenson, Grosvenor Thomas,
David Gould, J. Whitelaw Hamilton, and
others of the Glasgow School, R. Payton
Reid, John Menzies, Andrew Douglas, and
many of the younger men and women
have studied there for longer or shorter
periods. The village is never without
artists in the summer months, and within a
half-mile radius them are more subjects for
pictures than can be found in any other
area of the same size, perhaps, in Scotland.
East Linton is on the left bank of the
Tyne, which tumbles over a rocky ledge
and then wanders through a meadow
fringed with willows. At the linn the
banks are high and precipitous, a hundred
yards further on they are level and pastoral.
The change is phenomenally swift and com-
plete. Immediately beneath the waterfall
willows and elms grow from the edge or
MOUTH OF THF. TYNE, EAST LOTHIAN
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A
7«
East Lothian
the stream to the top
of the right bank ;
on the left are a
group of corn-mills
with undershot water-
wheels, and behind are
the red-roofed houses
of the village. Parti-
cularly when the river
is in flood the linn has
a distinctly Highland
aspect, and one artist,
by introducing a slight
suggestion of moun-
tains— not much was
needed — made from it
an impressive High-
land landscape.
Standing near the top
of the bank, with the
screen of willows as a
filmy foreground, the
view of the stream, mills and
reminiscent of some reaches of
EAST LINTON
village is
the valley
MILL BUILDINGS AT EAST LINTON
72
BV ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
01 the Saone. The dull broken reds,
modified with patches of olive, form a beau-
tiful colour scheme
with the grey-greens
of the willows ; and
this aspect has par-
ticularly attracted
those members of the
Glasgow School who
have worked at East
Linton, and are more
under French influ-
ences than their east-
ern brethren.
A couple of hun-
dred yards down-
stream are a mill and
corn kiln in present
use, the latter cen-
turies old. The kiln
has been buttressed to
preserve its stability,
and with its quaint
outside winding stone
stair and pool of water
in front, arched over
by an old alder-tree,
it forms a picture of
a type rarely met with
in such satisfying per-
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A. fection of line and
/•'us/ Lot In nn
IIRIDGE AND LINN ON THE T\ M
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
OLD WAUGHTON
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
73
East Lothian
colour. Between the mill and the linn
the meadow bank of the river is lined
with willows, unpollarded, and their
graceful forms, the beauty of their greys,
so charming when other trees are a
bright green, and their soft reflections
in the water, give the landscape a char-
acter that is not at all common in Scot-
land, if, indeed, it is met with at all
anywhere else so far north. Preston-
kirk Church is also a favourite subject
as seen from this meadow, the trees
obscuring the lower modernised part ot
the edifice and only allowing one to
see the Dutch spire, which, under this
aspect, is so much in keeping with the
landscape.
From Linton to the sea the Tyne has
a course of three miles, showing fresh
aspects all the way. The district is
also noted for its small orchards, and
WILLOWS AT PRESTONKIRK
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
74
WILLOWS AT EAST LINTON
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
the apple-blossom in spring, associated
with ruinous or semi-ruinous houses,
provides good paintable material. Har-
vest-field subjects, with wooded land-
scape for mid-distance and the sea as
a background, are, owing to the con-
figuration of the country, procurable in
variety. Up the Tyne from East Linton
to Haddington is a delightful excursion,
with quite a different type of scenery,
the landscape being less open and the
river forming many deep, tree-fringed
pools. At Haddington, birthplace of
Knox and Samuel Smiles, the old
church, called "The Lamp of Lothian,"
in the choir of which lie the remains
of Jane Welsh Carlyle, is still beauti-
ful, notwithstanding its partial restora-
tion. Here and at the Nungate, where
the old bridge spans the Tyne, is a
good sketching ground ; while the sur-
rounding district, southward to Gifford
and Yester, where there is a Goblin
Hall, has furnished material to Mr.
W. D. McKay, the Secretary of the
East Lothian
The coast line of
East I.othian between
Cockenzie and North
Berwick is low, but
very varied in outline.
At Cockenzie the old
custom of selling the
fish on the beach is
observed, at least once
yearly and at other
times when the tide
is exceptionally low,
so that artists wishing
to depict this interest-
ing survival would re-
quire to choose their
time. The garb of the
fisherwomen is, in its
way, as picturesque as
at Scheveningen. For
a mile or two to the
east, between the
coast road and the
Royal Scottish Academy, for many a beau- sea, is a narrow stretch of links, on which
tiful and characteristic picture. the gorse and the wild rose flourish, and
RED-HOUSE, LONGNIDDRY
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
ATHEISTAXK.FORD VILLAGE
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
75
East Lothian
Mr. Marshall Brown's
pictures that have
been reproduced in--
THE STUDIO have
been obtained there.
East of North Ber-
wick the rocky shore
is a most suitable fore-
ground for the Bass
Rock — in early days
the home of St. Bal-
dred, later a prison
house for many a Cove-
nanter, the last place
in Scotland to yield to
the Prince of Orange,
and now the home of
thousands of sea-fowl.
About a mile further
east the grim ruin
of Tantallon, where
Archibald Bell-the-Cat kept a princely Thomson of Duddingston made it the sub-
retinue, crowns the precipitous cliff, and ject of one of his principal pictures,
shows no change since the time when At Dunbar, where some crumbling ruins
THE LINN, EAST LINTON
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
THE COVE, COCKBURNSPATH
76
BY T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
East Lothian
inilir.it.- tin- once powerful stronghold of the
Earls of March and Dunbar, so valorously
defended by " IJlack Agnes" in the absence
of her husband, the picturesque has not yet
been entirely obliterated by the growing
popularity of the town as a seaside resort.
Eastward from Dunbar the cliffs gradually
ascend till they culminate in height on the
farms of Dowlaw and Lumsdaine, pierced
at intervals by several deep and rugged
vall.-VM The ravines of the Dunglas burn
and the Pease, the latter over 150 feet
deep for about two miles inland, provide
some attractive subjects, and though from
1 umglas to Lumsdaine we are in Berwick-
shire, the Border Country does not really
commence till we get to the summit of the
Lammermoor hills. At the Cove (opposite
page), a fishing hamlet at the base of pre-
cipitous cliffs over loofeet high, some most
attractive sketches may be made. Cock-
burnspath has its old market cross (illus-
trated below) and its venerable tower, and
MX miles to the east are the picturesque
ruins of Fast Castle. Though the latter are
not so prominent a feature of the narrow
precipitous promontory on which they stand
as when painted by Thomson of Dud-
dingston, they will still repay a sketch by
those who have the hardihood to over-
come their comparative inaccessibility.
Coastwise or inland, East Lothian has
infinite variety of a Lowland type, and on
the breezy uplands of the Lammermoors,
where many a wimpling burn threads its
way through the heather to the sea, one
comes in touch with Nature in some of her
most winning, though oft-times elusive,
moods.
ALEXANDER EDDINGTON.
Ill I. CROSS, COCKBURNSPATH
BY T. klARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
77
THE COAST TOWNS AND VILLAGES
OF FIFE.
THK COAST TOWNS AND VILLAGES
OF FIFE.
IMS. KH',11) I-.V A I I XANDI.K EDDINGTON.
II. I LJSTRATED BY Rnltl-.KT Nol',1.1 , K.s.A.. (HAS. II. M.\« KII, A.1O
K.SAV.. I. MARJnKlMAXKs HAY, K.SAV., AND ROBERT HOPE.
IN no county in Scotland is there to be
found to-ilay such rviil'-nce of the
historic an«l so much of the quaint and
pictun-M|uc in its ilomi-stic architec-
ture as is st-en in I-'ife. The traditions of
the county extend from the time when
St. Krgulus landed at St. Andrews in the
fourth century and St. Serf fathered the
little Kentigern, who was born at Culross
ami afterwards became the patron saint ot
Glasgow. Through the stormy times of
Scottish history Fife is a continuous thread
— sometimes golden.-more often the reverse.
Studded throughout the county are many
castles and palaces that at some period
have housed royalty or borne their share
in civic and ecclesiastical strife. Falkland
was the scene of Albany's murder of the
young Duke of Rothesay, heir to the
throne ot Robert III. ; Dunfermline Abbey
was the shrine of the saintly Queen Margaret
and the Bruce, as well as several other
of the early kings and queens; Balwearie
gave birth to Michael Scott the "magician";
" Robinson Crusoe." who made that won-
derful voyage which provided English
literature with one of its greatest romances,
- born at Largo; Cardinal Beaton burned
the heretic in the courtyard of his palace
at St. Andrews, for which Knox and his
fellow-reformers exacted retribution by
purging the county of its Popish symbols ;
and at Cults and Pitlessie we are on the
home ground of Sir David Wilkie, Scot-
land's greatest genre artist. The remains
of many one-time noble edifices give a
certain dignity to the agricultural and
mining Fife of to-day, and in their pictur-
esque decay, or even in their restored
grandeur, find favour in the eyes of the
twentieth-century artist.
The spirit of modernity is, however, very
much alive in the " Kingdom," as Fife is
still dubbed, and many a fair landscape is
<. I KI -
BY ROBERT NOBLE, R.S.A.
8l
The Coast Towns and Villages of Fife
now disfigured by colliery chimneys,
while prosperity has transformed most
of its interior towns and villages. The
great charm of the county is its southern
selvage — that beautifully varied line of
low coast indented with gently curving
bays, which extends from Culross on the
west to Crail on the east, a distance of
AN OLD WYND, CULROSS
BY ROBERT HOPE
AN OLD COURTYARD, CULROSS. BY ROBERT HOPE
that the sea can be cruel as well as
caressing.
Culross, the most westerly of these
picturesque towns, does not now belong
to Fife, but forms part of a small detached
portion of Perthshire. The castle of
Macduff, whose lady fell a prey to
forty miles, in which
one hardly ever loses
sight of some quaint
village or township.
With a delightful in-
consequence and ab-
sence of any general
plan these human habi-
tations straggle along
the coast, never by
chance sending their
feelers landwards, but
taking their stand
where the ozone from
the North Sea can
play about their crow-
stepped gables and
high - pitched roofs,
even at the risk ot
unwelcome reminders
82
CULROSS FROM THE TERRACE
BY ROBERT HOPE
The Coast 7'<>.v;/s (tint I 'i //ages of l;ifc
LARGO HARBOUR
BY T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
ST. MONANS CHURCH
BY T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
83
The Coast Towns and Villages of Fife
Macbeth's ambition, is
gone, so are the girdle
craftsmen, the salt-
pan workers and even
the coal miners ; the
ancient royal burgh is
but a wraith of its
former self, a derelict
in these days of indus-
trial progression. It
is this detachment from
modern progress that
makes the charm of
Culross to-day. The
town elbows a place
for itself between the
steep, wooded cliff and
the sea, and the artist
will find the pictur-
esquely antique crowd-
ing in narrow closes
and "pends," sometimes presenting their
fronts embellished with ancient devices
carved into the stonework, at others their
gables, while their red roofs lighten up the
dull greys of the walls. The town hall,
still used by the burgh " fathers," is a
feature of the main street, and the parish
church, with its composite architecture,
carries one back to the days of Leighton.
Many of the dwelling-houses date from the
ST. MOXANS
BY ROBERT HOPE
BY CHAS. H. MACKIE, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
(By permission ofj. S. Sturrock, Esq., W.S.}
end of the i6th or beginning of the i7th
century, and one of the most picturesque of
these was the residence of the Colonel
Erskine, who was so fond of a law plea that
on his deathbed he grumbled at the
preferment of his illustrious son, Lord
Erskine, saying, " I hae ten guid ganging
cases in the Court o' Session, and that idiot
Jock, my son, will be settlin' them a' in a
month." Figure subjects will be found
with difficulty in Culross — the average
Fifer is too exclusive for that — tout there
is material for backgrounds for figure
subjects that it will not be easy to find
elsewhere.
Eastward from Culross there is nothing
distinctive, except the ruined castle of
Rosyth standing sentinel on a low reef
of rocks, till we come to Inverkeithing,
another of the Royal Burghs, and likely,
with the advent of the naval base, to
lose much of its picturesqueness. From
the golf course on the other side of the
bay, when the evening sun plays on the
straggling lines of houses, and the receded
tide has left the inlet a mudflat dotted
with pools of water, the picture is one
that can be transcribed without varia-
tion. And on closer acquaintance the
town, though modernised, contains some
quaint architecture. The tower of the
Town Hall gives a Dutch aspect to the
Tin- Contt /<>:.•//•, nitJ
of I'ife
HTTENWEEM FROM THE EAST
main street, but the most interesting house
in the burgh is that known as " The
Palace," in which Arabella Drummond,
queen of the weak but well-intentioned,
Robert III. and mother of James I., re-
sided at the date of her death in 1403.
craft, for the mo<l«-rn
trawl-T is unknown
in I-'ifi- till we reach
Anstruther and
Cellardyke, miles on-
w.inl, \\h--n-tlir 1-irth
is at its wi'liM. 'Ihe
fishers' houses line
the beach, some with
thfir backs to it,
others their gables,
and when the men
are busy at net mend-
ing, or the women
baiting their lines,
the artist need
never lack material,
while the chubby
\vt-ather - tanned
children, who are a
numerous progeny,
are ever ready to oblige.
Largo, still further to the east, becomes
in summer time an Edinburgh suburb, but
the beautiful curve of its bay and its fine
sands make it an excellent sketching
ground for those who wish placid ^,MM apes
BY ROBERT HOPF.
With its vaulted chambers and barnacle in glowing sunshinr, such as Mr. Hugh
out-buildings it makes
an attractive picture.
At Dysart, near
which is Ravenscraig,
a stronghold of the
St. Clairs and the
battlemented tower
of St. Serf, we come
upon much to remind
us that in former
times there was so
great a trade between
Fife and the Nether-
lands as to give the
port ot Dysart the
name of Little Hol-
land. Even yet Dutch
vessels patronise its
harbour and seem not
incongruous in their
surroundings. Still
further east of Buck-
haven one finds all the
picturesque parapher-
nalia of the fishers' INVKKKKITMING FROM THE BAY BY ROBERT HOPE
The Coast Towns and Villages of Fife
Cameron has painted
for the last dozen
years and more, while
the " Crusoe " inn at
the harbour has fur-
nished many a sketch.
On our way to St.
Monans the ruin of
Newark Castle, once
the home of David
Lesley, the hero of
Philiphaugh, is well
worth a sketch, and
at St. Monans and the
neighbouring burgh
of Pittenweem, two
greatly frequented
artist resorts, subjects
abound. St. Monans
Kirk, five centuries
old, and all that re-
mains of the chapel dedicated by David II.,
stands on the cliff by the sea, a picturesque
landmark, which, from whatever point we
view it, charms with its Gothic simplicity.
At Pittenweem the harbour vies with St.
Monans in the fine grouping of the houses,
and a sketch-book may be filled easily with
interesting subjects. Towards Crail some
of the cliff scenery may repay the artist,
but east of Pittenweem the interest flags
till the " East Neuk " is rounded, and we
;
NEWARK CASTLE
ABBEY AND CASTLE OF ST. ANDREWS
86
BY T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
look from the harbour ot St. Andrews at
the towers of St. Regulus on the cliffs
above, and across at the Castle where
Cardinal Beaton held his court. The
Reformers made "siccar" with the fine
Cathedral, reducing the noble edifice to
crumbling walls in one day. The Augus-
tinian and Dominican monasteries were
also destroyed, but the beautiful ivy-
covered window of the Chapel of the Black
Friars remains to embellish the street
architecture, and the
picturesque gateway,
called "The Pends,"
is the sole relic of
the settlement of the
Augustinians. St.
Andrews does not
now hold ecclesi-
astical sway over
Scotland, but in one
sphere it lays down
the law. The Royal
and Ancient Club
rules the world of
golf, and itslinkshave
been the scene of
many an encounter be-
tween the greatest ex-
ponents of the game.
ALEXANDER
EDDINGTON.
BY T. MARJORIBANKS HAY, R.S.W.
TARBERT, LOCH FYNE, AND THE
FIRTH OF CLYDE.
TARBERT, LOCH FYNE, AND THE
FIRTH OF CLYDE.
DES< RIUI I) IJY J. TAYLOR.
Il.l.rslRATI.D I'.V K. M. G. COVENTRY, A.R ^ .\ , R.S.W.
Tl 1 1 . ship that goes a-sailing, parti-
cularly when manned by fishermen,
lias ever had a wonderful fascina-
te m tor tin: artist ; and where may
it be found under fairer conditions, or in
choicer surroundings, than on the south-
west coast of Scotland with archipelagos of
islands, and groups of lochs, that at once
provide natural harbours and make a
coast line of rare and alluring picturesque-
ness ?
The chief centre of the west coast fishing
industry is Tarbert, a quaint old port,
situated near the mouth of Loch Fyne,
where the west loch all but succeeds in
making peninsula Cantyre into an island.
Tarbert is contiguous to the far-famed
Kyles of Bute, and some of the most
typically charming scenery in Scotland ;
the district is therefore an inviting one to
the artist seeking inspiration. A centre
that has attracted such painters as William
McTaggart, Colin Hunter, David Murray
and R. M. G. Coventry, and has provided
subjects for some of the best pictures in
other years, needs little commendation
to-day.
Tarbert is no modern place with a
history of hustle, though, truth to tell, the
modern spirit is robbing it somewhat of its
old-time attractiveness, by introducing the
" smart " villa and ecclesiastical edifice,
that have a certain incongruity with a
record dating back beyond the middle of
the thirteenth century, when Donenald
Makgileriste, Lord of Tarbard, gave to the
THE HARBOUR, TARBERT
BY R. M. G. COVENTRY, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
8g
Tarbert, Loch Fyne, and the Firth of Clyde
TARBERT
BY R. M. G. COVENTRY, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
monks of Paisley a charter, with the right
to cut timber on his lands. A little way
from the port there stands the ruin of an
ancient castle, common enough relic in
the fighting west; it was built in the
fourteenth century, and
it gives an antique
character to the place.
There is a fine nat-
ural harbour, around
which the little houses
are grouped, and from
which, when the sun
is going down, the fleet
sails away to the fish-
ing ground, returning
in the early morning
with the night's catch.
Then truly the scene
is animated, rich in
local colour, groups of
boats of various build,
with gentle motion on
the throbbing water ; rich brown nets
studded with " silver " herring ; piles of
boxes, scattered in careless order ; stal-
wart fishermen in blue flannel and plaiding,
long sea-boots and big sou* westers, all
A FOREST MILL ' — WEST LOCH, TARBERT
QO
BY R. M. G. COVENTRY, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
THE HAVEN, DUNURE. BY R. M. G.
COVENTRY, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
Tarbert, Loch Fyne, and the Fifth of Clyde
happily grouped in the morning' sunshine,
or grey drizzle, in either case a subject
for the finest brush.
It was here that David Murray painted
My Love has Gone a- Sailing, purchased by
the Chantrey Bequest ; and Colin Hunter's
fine picture, The Silver of the Sea, was
suggested by the " Caller herrin' " lying
around, almost from the standpoint where
Coventry sketched our coloured reproduc-
tion. Tarbert may be claimed as the early
sketching school of some of the artists
named ; indeed, it was Trawlers Waiting for
Darkness, painted here, that brought im-
mediate fame to Colin Hunter, and induced
him, like many another celebrated Scots-
man, to settle in London.
The whole village and district is paint-
able ; rich in seascape,
landscape and atmos-
pheric effects, whether
the morning be lumin-
ous, or grey clouds
drift athwart the sky :
whether the evening
be resplendent with
the red glow of a west-
coast sunset, or som-
bre with the humidity
that quickly settles
around. Restriction
to roaming over hill
and dale is unknown,
and many a fine
sketching excursion
may be made.
A climb up Roebuck
Hill, a little to the
north of the village,
affords a rare pros-
pect ; Tarbert nestles
at the foot, beyond,
like a sheet of silvered
glass, when the day
is clear, lies Loch
Fyne ; and again be-
yond, the Bute and
Ayrshire coasts, all in
a vision of loveliness.
At the distance of
a mile west Loch
Tarbert is situated, a
romantically pretty
spot, where a natural amphitheatre is formed
by the gentle slopes of the low-lying hills.
Abundant and varied foliage grows here,
on the oak, birch, and mountain ash, on
the hazel, willow, and prickly bramble,
thinned here and there by winter storms,
but none the poorer in point of composition
because of this.
Hamilton Macalum, painter of sunlight,
was so enamoured of Loch Fyne, that he
had a studio by its margin, to capture sun-
beams there. Many other artists make
regular visits during July and August, the
best painting months, because the height of
the fishing season is then. At such time
the variety of incident and colour is a per-
petual charm to the painter; the sea, the
sky, the stunted hills, are all transform-
EARLY SPRING DUNURE BY R. M. G. COVENTRY, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
O2
4
I
6
5
K
'
I
on
prickly braml
winter
:<oint of com]
Hamilt' uiim, painter of sunlight,
moured of Loch Fyne, that he
its margin, to capture sun-
bea Many oth^r artists make
ts during '.ist, the
' painting montl fight of
•h time
<>f incid' our is a per-
al charm to th the
, the stunted h transform-
qu
.
• if lovelin
At the distant
a mile west
Tarbert \
romantically
02
URE
I
Tarbcrt, Loc/i I<ym\ and flic /•"/>/// of Clyde
DUNURE CASTLE
BY R. M. G. COVENTRY, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
ingly affected by the weather, which here
may change many times daily, pictures of
clear daylight alternating with shade with
kaleidoscopic suddenness.
It must not be supposed, however, that
shadow dominates the;
Scottish atmosphere:
where would Coventry
get his brilliant effects,
his animation, his spark-
ling colour, if perpetual
mist hovered over the
Scottish landscape, as
some artists seem to sug-
gest? It takes more than
a happy temperament
and luminous palette to
convey the feeling of sun-
light ; the quality must
first exist, and by Loch
Fyne shore it is to be
found in unmitigated ful-
ness, and Coventry goes
there to paint it. But he
does not linger there all the time .Through
the Sound of Bute, along the Firth of
Clyde, by the Carrick coast of Ayr, to the
little fishing hamlet, Dunure, is a transi-
tion from one favourite marine sketching
BALLOCHANTUAY, CANTYRE
BY R. M. G. COVENTRY, A.R.S.A , R.S.
95
Tarbert, Loch Fyne, and the Firth of Clyde
ground to another, with contrast and simi-
larity between them.
In truth the whole coast line, from
Greenan, and the heads of Ayr, on to
Ballantrae, is one long sweep of picturesque
beauty, over which the artist might well
tarry.
At Dunure, Coventry closely studies the
sea ; it comes rolling in brokenly, with a
long swell, induced by the motion of the
Atlantic, and quickened as it comes through
the channel formed by the North of Ireland,
and the jutting point of Cantyre. The
sleepy haven, the pebbly beach, the idle
boats, the old seagirt castle, the fisher
folk, and the wrack cart, are teeming
with suggestion to an artist with the
versatility of a Coventry.
And if there be anything in the associa-
tion of genius, it may count a little that
when Burns was a youth he spent some
summers near by schooling himself to
become the sweetest artist of song in all
the land.
At Tarbert or Dunure it is a pretty
sight to watch the fleet of fishing boats
departing to or returning from the fish-
ing ground, and a fine study to follow
the line and colour, and picturesque
setting, when the boats lie grouped in
the little harbour, by the old quay wall.
J. TAYLOR.
THE AYRSHIRE COAST
BY R. M. G. COVENTRY, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
Q6
THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.
THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND.
DESCRIBED BY J. TAYLOR.
ILLUSTRATED BY A. BROWNLIE DOCHARTY.
IT will be generally conceded that no
part of the world better repays the
thoughtful attention of the landscape
painter than the Highlands of Scot-
land ; Scott and Byron have sung their
praises, Alexander Fraser, James Docharty,
and a host of others have limned their
beauties, all in a way worthy of subject and
scene. The author of " Waverley " has made
the northern part of our island better known
to the traveller than the Swiss or Tyrolean
Alps ; William Black has carried the in-
terest into the most magical district of all,
the western isles, that constitute a coast
line of geographical uniqueness. The artist
might shoulder his sketching parapher-
nalia, go on a random tour in the high-
lands, and find a wealth and charm ot
subject material altogether in excess of
expectation or requirement.
From Glasgow as starting point a short
and easy journey brings typical highland
scenery; scarcely is the throbbing centre
of civilisation left behind ere the Rob Roy
country is reached — Aberfoyle, or the beau-
tiful district that skirts the south-eastern
shore of Loch Lomond. The Callendar
and Oban, and the West Highland Rail-
way, reveal an unending panoramic charm
of hill and valley and beauteous plain, of
loch and stream and wooded glade : while
the line from Fort William to Mallaigand on
to Skye, through the country where Prince
Charlie raised his standard when the clans
gathered, cuts through a district of indescrib-
able attraction from asketchingpointof view.
<% THRO* THE GLEN '
BY A. BROWNLIE DOCHARTY
99
The Highlands of Scotland
HIGHLAND LANDSCAPE
But for wild highland scenery suggestive
of the character and history of the Celt, the
artist would do well to go farther north, to
the centre of the old Caledonian forest,
where Nature is still to be found in a pri-
mordial mood, unspoiled by the guiding
hand of man.
A step beyond Fort William, Banavie
and a good hotel will
be found, where at
the very base of Ben
Nevis some excellent
sketching ground lies
near. Here the south-
ern extremity of the
Caledonian Canal is
located, and sailing
along the beautiful
well - wooded banks
many favourable
sketching centres will
be noted before Fort
Augustus is reached,
a point of objective
for the artist in search
of one of the finest of
highland sketching
grounds.
The canal cuts the
big county Inverness
into two parts; the OLD CALEDONIAN FOREST
100
westerly one is wild
and romantic, the
scene of forest where
the wood was planted
and is tended by Na-
ture ; of steep, pine-
clad hill on which
tree and shrub grow
sparsely toward the
summit ; of lonely,
shady glen where the
heather and the
bracken lie untrodden
as they turn to purple
and gold ; of turgid,
white crested stream,
in hot haste when in
spate ; such a locality
as inspired Byron with
a sneer at the " tame,
domestic beauties " of
his own delightful
country; the tragic! battle-ground in the
final act of the rebellion in '45.
From Fort Augustus, a delightful high-
land hamlet, in and around which the artist
will find inspiration, it is but a short dis-
tance to three great glens that take
parallel courses from the canal and Loch
Ness toward the western seaboard. Glen
BY A. EROWNLIE DOCHARTY
BY A. BROWNLIE DOCHARTY
and
But
of the t i
st would
tur
clad hill on which
tree and shrub grow
!y toward the
summit ; of lonely,
shady glen where the
heather and the
• untrodden
•• turn to purple
of turgid,
-ed stream,
.hen in
locality
on with
ime,
tic beauties " of
his own delightful
>untr tragic"} battle-ground in the
he rebellion in '45.
Froi I Augustus, a delightful high-
land h t, in and aroun
will find inspiration, i
tance to three great gl
parallel L ourses from the
Ness towrttd the west'
ig grour
• lere the
•
oc
o
8
z
o
<
>•
Z
o
<r
O
Z
111
z
z
3
I-
I he Jliif/i/tii/t/s of Scot Jain/
AI.TKIKIK BRIDGE
BV A. BROWNLIE DOCHARTV
Aftric lies to the north, a favourite sketch-
ing ground of John MacWhirter, R.A. ;
Glen Garry to the south ; Glen Moriston,
from twenty-five to thirty miles long, lies
between, carefully studied from end to end
by A. Brownlie Docharty.
The charm of Glen Moriston lies in its
wholly natural character, no such utili-
tarian idea as afforestation will here disturb
Nature's enchanting scheme of form and
colour, planned in the most orderly con-
tuMon. Here is presented a great stretch
of uninterrupted sketching ground with
endless variety of subject and composition.
Birches grow in bewildering profusion with
" silver " bark, and drooping branch, after
the manner of a " weeping willow,1' and
around them gather atmospheric effects
startling in their transformation. On a
dull, grey wintry afternoon, the massed
birches throw back a purple reflection, in
sympathy with the sombre mood, but when
sunlight disperses the gloom, the purple
changes to brightest orange. On a clear
day, when the south-west wind chases the
fleecy clouds, and the air is rarefied and
luminous, every tree and twig ha? an
exaggerated meaning, distance seems in-
terminable, the cool, clear blue in the sky
finds a rare contrast in the rich, warm
colour lurking on the hills. When the
grey mist falls and the air is charged with
moisture, the summit of the hill obscured,
and distance diminished, there comes the
atmosphere so familiar in Scottish land-
scape art, a fitting environment for the
Celt with a gloomy past, and a present that
holds the chance of expatriation.
The artist makes memoranda of all this
in lovely glen Moriston, pre-eminent among
highland sketching grounds for typical
scenery and quick changes in atmospheric
effect. In spring and early summer the
freshness of the new green, and the vigour
103
The Highlands of Scotland
SPATE IN GLEN MORISTON
BY A. BR
of unstinted growth are inspiring; in early,
autumn, just before the bloom leaves the
heather, as the bracken turns to gold, the
combination and richness of colour are
alluring. Then the river Moriston, often
swollen and furious, troubled by a hundred
cascades from the hills, gives animation to
the scene, as it rushes
between the birch-
clad banks in hot
haste and fury.
A. Brownlie Doc-
harty paints the high-
land landscape with
unsurpassed fidelity
and power ; artifici-
ality has no attraction
for him, Nature in
choicest, freest mood
is his enchantress.
The still loch and
fertile plain make no
appeal to him, but the
wild glen, the foam-
ing river, the grouped
or solitary trees, the
thickly scattered
bracken, the bloom-
ing heather, in all the
splendour of highland
attractiveness, awake
that love and under-
standing of Nature he
so forcibly transcribes
on canvas. Docharty
sacrifices not genius
at the shrine of versa-
tility ; he is a land-
scapist first and last,
perpetuating the best
traditions of Scottish
landscape painting,
and he brings a ripe
judgment and here-
ditary inclination to
the task.
Glen Moriston is the
scene and centre of
the thrilling Jacobite
story, that with all its
tawdriness has left a
glamour in the High-
lands after a century and a half of sober
reflection. This romantic atmosphere
quickens the imagination, as the natural
grandeur charms the eye, and the glen
thus makes a double appeal to the artist
who seeks inspiration there.
J. TAYLOR.
LIE DOCHARTY
native • wealth
104
and
"NOVEMBER" — GLEN MORISTON
BY A. BROWNLIE DOCHARTV
The Highlands of Scotland
THE CLUNIE HILLS
BY A. BROWNLIE UOCHARTY
ROAD AND RIVER, GLEN MORISTON
BY A. BROWNLIE DOCHARTY
105
IONA.
IONA.
DESCRIBED BY J. TAYLOR.
ILLUSTRATED BY GEORGE HOUSTON, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
HE must be strangely constituted
to whom lona, the little isle
thrust out into the blue waters
of the Atlantic by one of the
most westerly points of Scotland, fails
strongly to appeal. The geologist, his-
tori.m, ri-livjious devotee, antiquarian, and
artist, can all meet on this inner hebridean
island, and find a wealth of interest un-
equalled in any other part of our country.
The strata, according to the late Duke of
Argyll, dates back to the earliest forma-
tions ; Columba drew the attention of all
men to his missionary settlement more
than thirteen hundred years ago ; it was
the nursery ground of Christianity in
Britain ; examples of ancient architecture
and sculpture still remain ; and peculiarly
attractive combinations and effects in sky
and sea and land abound.
Tradition and legend may here be left
alone ; it may be accepted that the sixth-
century Irish missionary became the Ionian
Abbot, about a hundred years after the
Roman legions had finally withdrawn from
Britain, when Rome, under the genius of
Justinian, was regaining some of her lost
prestige ; and that during the Abbot's life-
time the second conquest of Britain was
being carried on.
The past is like a nimbus, by which the
present stands out in bold relief; it may
THE MARTYR'S BAY — IONA
BY GEORGE HOUSTON, A.R.S.A., R.S.W
IOQ
lona
A GREY DAY IONA
BY GEORGE HOUSTON, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
not therefore be altogether ignored. When
lona first comes into historic view the
Saxons begin to establish themselves over
the length and breadth of the land.
It may at once be said that lona is one ot
the most delightful retreats on earth for the
artist; there among simple, unsophisticated
folk, away from the allurements of modern-
ism, surrounded by a
delightful old - world -
ness, and the enchant-
ing charms of Nature,
he can throw himself
into his work in a
way that will betoken
success. The three-
quarter - mile sound,
and the Isle of Mull
are no great inter-
positions between
lona and the main-
land, yet to be there
is like a sojourn in a
far-off land, where the
ghosts of the remote
centuries people the
Caves, the Cathedral,
the Nunnery, and the
Abbot's house. The
seclusion is rare, the
subjects ever varied,
no
with such exhilarating
air that sustained effort
becomes a mere matter
of course. The sun will
tan the visage, but
there comes not the
lassitude associated
with summer heat —
the painter can sketch
up to the utmost limit
point.
George Houston
knows the island as
well as the native ; he
has sketched there for
eight seasons, and finds
its possibilities inex-
haustible; he hails it
as the most delightful
locality in the world,
on a fine day — aye,
and on other days, too,
when the grey mist comes along, shutting
off the outer world, creating the atmo-
sphere that gives a perennially verdant
greenness, makes the highlander super-
stitious, and provides the artist with
studies in low tones ; then the island is no
less delightful.
Amongst the distinctive features are the
A CROFT — IONA
BY GEORGE HOUSTON, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
. R.S.W.
, lew the
I
i
tl re comes not the
la: itude associated
• ummer heat —
r can sk
up , the utmost limit
I ous ton
the islam:
the native ; he
i here for
us, and finds
iities ii
he hails it
tful
i 'rid,
on - aye,
and on otl too,
when the grey mist comes alo g, shi.
off the' outer world, creating the atmo-
sphere that gives a perennia 'y verdant
greenness, makes the highlan. er .s
stitious, and provides
studies in low tones ; then th
less delightful.
Amongst the distinctive featun.
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lona
" THE WHITE SANDS OF IONA "
BY GEORGE HOUSTON, A.R.S.A., R.S.W.
clearness of the water around the island
and the constant changing colour of the
sea. The one is caused by the white,
sandy bottom ; the other partly by the
reflection of moving seaweed, that gives a
variation on deep purple and blue, and by
the red granite rocks that form little creeks
and inlets all along the shore. At times
the water is a luminous green, shading to a
deep blue or purple away in the distance.
Toward the north of the island there lies
a fine sand, almost as white as snow, which
on windy days is blown hither and thither.
The origin of the white sand is curiously
interesting ; it is formed by the pulverizing
of myriads of shells of a species of l.md
snail, subsisting on the clover tracts that
skirt the shore. The effect of this, with
the deep blue of the sea, the fresh green
on the land, the pink in the granite rocks,
is such as would have charmed the acute
sense of pure colour in Arthur Melville.
Trees are practically unknown ; lona is
no place for afforestation, for the soil is not
deep enough to support growing timber ;
but the turf is delightful, short, grassy,
sandy turf, bejewelled with daisies, red and
white. Walking over Nature's carpet, with
charming pattern, up the slopes of the highest
hill, Dun-i, and gazing over the gentle un-
dulations northward to the hills of Mull
and away beyond to the far-off region of
Skye, with the sea between, studded with
islands of curious form and diverse size,
the prospect is one of indescribable charm
and beauty.
Nowhere are there greater or more fre-
quent changes of atmospheric effect than in
lona ; the geographical situation accounts
for this, and these changes explain the attrac-
tiveness of the island to the artist. The
islanders have become so accustomed to the
camp-stool and white umbrella that they
pay no more attention to the artist than to
c/i
pj
<§
57
J§
«
w
o
o
w
lona
peregrine or other birds of passage that
in season visit the island. There are two
comfortable hotels, with ample accom-
modation for sojourners, the hundred
tourists that daily visit the old place
during the summer months are landed but
or an hour and a half, and leave the island
as quiet as a Scottish Sabbath. For the
artist who combines sport with sketching
there is good fishing in the Sound. Fish with
unpronounceable names, but finely palatable
to the Lowlander and " Sassenach," are
to be caught in plenty, as the highland
erryman, who has navigated the Ionian
sound in lug-sail craft for over thirty years,
will testify. It is a summer sketching
ground where the artist may roam about at
will, "trespass " being a word unknown.
Old Norman architecture, Celtic crosses,
crofters' cots and cottages, broad sea,
enclosed bay, hill and dale and distant
mountain, grey sky and blue sky, and other
charms of Nature are all to be found in
prodigal plenty on lona's isle.
The absence of trees and shrubs deprives
the island of autumn interest to the
artist, and the hastening storms of winter
soften the regret he feels, when packing
up his sketches and making again for the
centres of civilisation, he leaves lona to the
native.
lona has special attractions for George
Houston ; there he seems to get firm grip
of the Scottish atmosphere, and its illusive
reality is finely caught in all his Ionian
sketches. There is no straining, no im-
proving Nature, but a sense of realism only
to be found in outdoor painting.
Columba found in the island a safe
asylum for the propagation of the new
religion ; many Scottish artists discover on
it the rarest aasthetic loveliness, and make
its charms known over a world- wide area.
J. TAYLOR.
i 16
THE WEST COAST OF IRELAND.
THK WEST COAST OF IRELAND.
I>I.S< Kll',1.1) AM) II.I.l'SI K.\ 1 I-l) MY \V. H. UAKTLETT.
Till', portions of the Galway, M.ivn
and Donegal coasts whirh I can
claim to be fairly \vrll acquainted
with may !><• .said to possess many
< li.ir.n t--ristir-. in common. As regards
climate and temperature the only dim-r--no-
would arise uln-re, from local causes, one
li.ul .1 innn- sheltered position against the
Atlantic storms. My experience of the
climate, spreading over a number of years,
in. iv hi- put down as follows. From the
latter end of May until early in July, a fine
dry strrtrh may be looked for. The latter
half of July is generally unsettled. The
• •arly part of August
is often good, but
towards the end it is
uncertain. Septem-
ber can be one of the
best months of the
year — the Donegal
summer, as they say
in that part. Any-
one wishing to make
fairly sure of warm
dry weather should
go early in June.
Nine times out of ten
the weather may be
counted on behaving
itself. At the same
time it must not be
forgotten that fine
dry weather, delight-
ful as it is from a
pleasure point of
view, does not afford
that scope for the
artist that unsettled
weather gives.
I have frequently
seen a stretch of the
Connemara coast
with its outlying
island bathed in
glorious sunshine,
the warm yellows of
the rocks mingling
with the deep golden "WAITING FOR THE
tones of the seaweed fringes, with a sea
varying tn.m a deep ultramarine to a rich
emerald, and here and there purple streaks
telling of hidden rocks. The whole scene
recalls an aspect of Southern Italy rather
than an effect of summer sunshine in the
wild west. But beautiful as it undoubtedly
i-.. 1 feel there is a more penetrating and
subtle charm in the silvery-grey harmonies
born of the south-west wind. I always
think that I have never seen anywhere
such beautiful skies as in the West of
Ireland. The conditions are so favourable;
dry east winds and misty warm weather,
ISLAND BOAT'
BY W. H. BARTLETT
IIQ
The West Const of Ireland
such as prevail there
for long stretches
at a time, are
very few and far
between in a warm
climate. A moist at-
mosphere sweeping
in from the Atlantic
gives every chance
for the formation of
lovely cloud effects.
My first acquaint-
ance with the Galway
coast came through
an invitation from
an American artist
friend then living
just outside Galway.
There is a certain
interest in the old
town and neighbour-
hood, but, from an artist's point of view,
it is mainly centred in the picturesque
peasantry who come in from the outskirts
to the markets. The only place where I
ever saw the traditional Irishmen, in their
cutaway coats, knee-breeches and tall hats,
was at Oughterard, close to Galway ; they
were all old men, long since dead, no doubt.
My next journey took me into the
heart of Connemara, to the village of
THE SEAL DIVER BV W. H. BARTLETT
(By permission of the Corporation of Leeds.}
'AN ISLAND FERRY
120
Roundstone, then a drive ot 50 miles in a
long car, but now easy of approach by the
railway as far as Ballynahinch, and from
there a four-mile car drive. Roundstone
is charmingly situated at the mouth of the
Ballynahinch river, and with a fine back-
ground of the Twelve Pins, the Connemara
range of mountains. Its main attraction to
me was the " beaches," two fine silver- white
sand strands of exquisite beauty. My
first view gave me
such delight that the
impression left on my
mind is to-day as fresh
as then. The day was,
no doubt, a favourable
one, with a luminous
opalescent grey sky,
a light south-westerly
breeze, and the grey-
blue mountains as
a background. Into
the little bay rippled
a sea of the tenderest
translucent green,
flowing over a silver-
white sand strand,
with a middle distance
of grey - green bent,
making up a harmony
of tones of exceeding
BY \V. H. BARTLETT beauty.
The West Const of
" OFF TO DUNLOK "
BV W. H. BARTI.ETT
'AUGUST HKRKINT.
HV W. H. BARTLETT
121
The West Coast of Ireland
Accommodation in Roundstone, in the
\vay of lodgings of a comfortable kind, can
be easily obtained, but it would be wise to
make arrangements beforehand. Journey-
ing by way of Clifden, " the Connemara
capital," and Letterfrack, another interesting
spot is Renvyle. Here I made my head-
quarters for several seasons and found
ample material for painting. It is a very
interesting situation. On the coast, the
dominating feature is the beautiful
mountain of Mylrea, which forms the head
of the famed Killary Bay. Close to the
sea is a lake, and near by an interesting
and uncommon addition of woodland
scenery. The hotel at Renvyle is now
well known. It is the old family residence
of the Blake family, and the house and
domain are, in their way, quite unique.
Altogether a paintable corner of Galway,
Leenane, which is passed on the road to
Westport, is beautifully situated, but too
shut in to appeal to me as a painter.
From Westport by the railway a trip to
Achill is well worth making. Halfway
between Westport and the sound is
Mallaranny. I passed a night there under
very primitive conditions, but a good hotel
has since been built, and I am inclined
to think that some interesting bits might
be found. Dugort, where the Achill hotel
accommodation is found, is at the north
end of the island, a drive of nine miles
from Achill Sound. There we have nature
on a bigger scale, but not so paintable,
perhaps, as Connemara. Dugort and the
district were once the field of a great
attempt at planting a Protestant com-
munity in the heart of a Catholic one.
The result must be put down as a dismal
failure.
From Dugort the interesting sights are
reached by car, the intervening distances
being too great to be covered any other
way. Among the excursions a visit to the
seal caves should be included. It is
" THE TURF BOAT "
122
BY W. H. BARTLtTT
-
a
7 5
£ _
^ -
' =
55
The West Coast of Ireland
singular sensation —
the exploring of one
of these caves. An
artist would be inter-
ested in the curious
effects of reflected
lights thrown from
the water, and the
striking contrasts
which arise from the
low angle of light
entering the cave.
To explore the
Donegal coast one has
a choice of three lines
of railway, two of the
three starting from
Strabane, Co. Tyrone,
and the third from
Londonderry. A new
branch line connecting
the Burtonport line —
via Letterkenny — with
Strabane, was to have been opened a year
ago, and I think by this time it must be in
working order. I have travelled by all three
different routes, but I cannot claim to have
any special knowledge of the two first. On
the southern branch, running round the
Bay of Donegal, Mount Charles appeared
a charming spot.
BACK FROM THE FAIR
BY W. H. BARTLETT
"EMBARKING FOR ARANMORE "
124
Beyond Killybegs, the terminus, I jour-
neyed to Carrick and Teelin, where I
worked, but I do not recommend it as
possessing any special attraction. The cliffs
of Slieve League, considered from a scenic
point of view, are magnificent, but they do
not corne within the scope of this article.
The mid-Donegal line, with its terminus
at Glenties, gives one
interesting bits of the
Donegal Highlands.
> Eight miles from
Glenties is Ardara,
which seemed to pre-
sent sketching pos-
sibilities on the two
occasions I have
passed through it.
The third, or north
Donegal line, ter-
minating at Burton-
port, I know well,
for it is the branch I
use when going to
my bungalow on
Rutland Island.
Shortly after leaving
Letterkenny the train
nears the coast, and
BY w. H. BARTLETT Tory Island comes
o
ui
a
ui
(9
Z
u
The West Coast of Irclniui
"AN APRIL HARVEST"
into view. Then follow Falcarrach and
Dunfanaghy, both worth visiting, and shortly
after Gweedore, with its great feature the sin-
gular Mount Errigal,
while another run of
an hour brings one to
liurtonport. Although
I have made this dis-
trict my painting
ground for many
years, it is not easy
to say precisely what
constitutes its chief
attraction. The port
itself is of no particu-
lar interest, but it is
the sea and the life
connected with the
islands which form
its greatest charm.
But to reach its dif-
ferent points means
boating, and boating
requires fine weather, •« A ROSSES POST BOAT "
BY W. H. BARTLETT
so to get a good idea of the Rosses coast
one should fix upon a time when the
chances of fine weather are greatest, viz.,
BY w. H. BARTLETT
The IJ7est Coast of Ireland
from the middle of June to mid-July; then
visits to O\vey Island, Aranmore and
Innishkeragh are quite feasible, and one
is able to realise what a wonderful coast-
line it is.
From a painter's point of view the Conne-
mara folk carry off the palm for pictur-
esqueness, but many difficulties stand in
the way of getting them as models. Of
course a personal acquaintance will go a
long way, but I have often known that to be
useless. Some districts seem more enlight-
ened in the matter of pictorial art ; photo-
graphy and the illustrated papers, which
find their way out west, have done some-
thing in this respect.
The types of Galway and Mayo are more
Celtic than that of Donegal, where a Scotch
strain is found. The typical Connemara
" colleen " has an interesting oval-shaped
face, nut-brown and very abundant hair,
eyes of a blue-grey well set in the head,
with heavy lashes, making the eyes appear
darker than they are, often a good nose,
and rather a large mouth. The shawl plays
an important part in the women's dress,
and lends both beauty to the face and
fine lines to the figure. The typical male
peasant of Galway is a dark-haired man,
though red is not uncommon, with a full
nut-brown beard. He is of medium height
and strongly built ; he also has the same
grey-blue eyes with heavy lashes, which,
indeed, is a common heritage. His clothes
consist usually of home-spun flannel, but the
cheap shoddy ready-made clothing is, I re-
gret to say, being increasingly sold in fairs.
In conclusion, a trip to the west coast
offers, to those still ignorant of the charms
of Irish travel, a new experience. The
well- known courtesy of the people to the
stranger, with the wild, natural beauty of
the country, make up a combination of
attractions well worth trying — and doubly
so if it is in the visitor's power to place
on canvas or paper some records of this
fascinating part of the Emerald Isle.
W. H. BARTLETT.
" STORM-BOUND IN THE ROSSES '
128
BY W. H. BARTLETT
NEW YORK.
NKW YORK.
DESCRIBED .\.\h n.i.i'si K.\ 1 1 i> BY II.SI.I-H I-KXNH.I
1AM not tired ot Kurope, I have just
retunie.l fniiii Venire, \\h-Te, snatch-
ing .1 tew hours each day I'nuii .irt
politics, picture haiivfiny .md tin-
social scramble of the Intfrnatinn.il l-.xhi-
— and it is my country ; so great and so
wonderful that, artistically, it will not
be discovered for centuries, and never
worked out. It has been the lashion to
, until lately, that tln-n- was no sub-
hition, I had time to prove, to mys.-lt j<-ct, no inspiration, no art atmosphere in
.in\ u.i\ , l>y .1 l--w drawings, that there are America; when it is full, overflowing,
as in. inv subje, ts .is ever, almost — for some irresistible — so great that one can only
.uv iniprovfil away — that the grey days are touch the fringe of it — N- u York.
.i-> l).-autitul as th.-y us.-d to be, and that the New York, as the incoming foreigner, full
sunset still turns San Giorgio to gold, still of prejudice and doubt, and tin- returning
wraps tin- Saluti- iii a purple mist of mystery. American, crammed with guide-book .u^l
•ling hack, 1'a'lua.j 1 revise, Verona, the catalogue culture, see it or might see it,
Lago <li < i.inla, i'.'-r- J
-.inio, the Siinplon, —
.ill callt-il me; then
.urn Picanly ;
Dover and now Lon-
don ; .mil London as
I see it from my
windows from Chelsea
to the Tower with all
the river, from 1 lamp-
stead to the Palace
with all the hills, is
endless in effect, in
inspiration. But save
London it is all done
— not by me — but by
someone, it is all an
old, old game — it is
all labelled, ticketed,
arranged, catalogued.
Yes, you can do it
again, but it has all
been done ; you can
carry on the tradition,
that is all. You can-
not invent new sub-
ji-cts in Kuropr, you
can only do old things
in a new and, if pos-
sible — this is not
always possible — a
better way.
But there is a new
sk'-ti-hing ground, a
new city, a new
country, a new world
MU YORK FROM BKOOKMN \NSh\ FKRRY
BY JOSEPH PKNNEI.I.
New York
'r^isit
WILLIAMSBURG BRIDGE
rises a vision, a mirage of the lower bay,
the colour by day more shimmering than
Venice, by night more mag-
ical than London. In the
morning the mountains of
buildings hide themselves, to
reveal themselves in the rosy
steam clouds that chase each
other across their heights in
the evening— they are mighty
cliffs glittering with golden
stars in the magic and mys-
tery of the night. As the
steamer moves up the bay on
one side the Great Goddess
greets you, a composition in
colour and in form, with the
city beyond, finer than any
in any world that ever existed,
finer than Claude ever imag-
ined or Turner ever dreamed.
Why did not Whistler see
it r Piling up higher and
higher right before you is
the city ; and what does it
suddenly remind you of r San
Ginugnano of the Beautiful
Towers away off in Tuscany,
only here are not eleven, but
eleven times eleven, not low
mean brick piles, but noble
palaces crowned with gold,
132
BY JOSEPH PENNELL
marvellous vistas
untouched, all to
with green, with rose ;
and over them the
waving fluttering
plume of steam, the
emblem of New York.
To the right, fiimy,
delicate and lace- like
by day, are the great
bridges ; by night, a
pattern of stars that
Hiroshige never knew.
You land, and are
swallowed in streets
that are Florence glori-
fied — to emerge in
squares that are more
noble than those of
Seville. Golden statues
are about you, trium-
phal arches make
splendid frames for
and it is all new and all
be done — and save for
METROPOLITAN BUILDING FROM BROADWAY AND UNION SQUARE
BY JOSEPH PENNELL
Mil. SKY LINK OF \1-.\V YORK—
LOOKING son ii i- ROM mi-; 40TH
slORY OF THK METROPOLITAN-
BUILDING. BY JOSEPH PEXXI I.I.
New York
the work of a few of us, and we are
Americans, all undone. Cooper, Hassam,
Milatz and White are about all who have
touched it. The Unbelievable City — the
city that has been built since I grew up-
the city beautiful, built by men I know-
built for people I know. The city that
inspires me — that I love.
And can one sketch in it r Yes. For
everyone is so busy minding his own or
some one else's affairs that the crowd never
bothers you, not in the busiest places, and
if there is not room to stand, there are
holidays when the whole place down town
is deader than the tomb. And there is the
short twilight, the
golden glow, and the
deep, still night, and
you are all alone.
But there are
always two quiet
sketching grounds in
busiest New York :
the top of a sky scra-
per, and I have drawn
the Alpine sky-line
of lower New York
from the 4oth story
of the Metropolitan
Building (page 135),
and the canons and
crevasses of the lower
city from the 28th
story of the Singer
Building, and the
mists of morning and
the lights of night,
and the storms of
fall, from the 2oth
story of the Belmont
(on this page).
The other points of
view are from the
ferry boat, the steam-
boat and the " Rub-
ber-neck Boat,'* the
first and the last being
the best. The ferry
boats run in all direc-
tions ; they and the
old ferry-houses are
wonderful. By day
the boats are huge
134
red or white hulks, by night strange golden
mysteries that float upon the waters. They
take you everywhere, and show you every-
thing. They run all day and all night,
and, if you deserve it or "have a pull,"
you may pass days and weeks on them,
and with the pilot alone.
Of the other boats, one will take you to
Governor's Island (page 136), from where the
City masses itself so wonderfully that, as
Castaigne said, " It is not real, it's all a
dream, we will wake up and find it all
a desert island." But it is real — yet all
unreal — a dream city, yet a stone and steel
reality. Another goes to Beddoes Island,
42ND STREET WITH "TIMES" BUILDING FROM 2OTH S'l DRY OF THE
BELMONT. BY JOSEPH PENNELL
BLACKWELLS IMAM) BRIDGE FROM
THE 20TH SloKY UF THE BELMOXT
BY JOSEPH PEXXELL
-
NEW YORK FROM GOVERNOR'S
ISLAND, BY JOSEPH PENNELL
LOOKING SOUTH FROM THE
BELMONT. BY JOSEPH PENNELL
New York
where stands the Bartholdi Statue, beauti-
ful in its weathered patina — more impres-
sive, if you can see it, than the colossus of
Rhodes — the Gateway to the New World.
Another runs to Staten Island, and if you
sit at the stern and look back, just for a
second, Broadway yawns a gulf of black
shadow from the top to the bottom of the
Singer Building — and there is no precipice,
no canon so awful in the world. And
then, as the boat steams ever on, the city
shrouds itself in rosy air, more beautiful,
more delicate, more lovely than Venice,
and then the smoke of the Standard Oil
works falls across the bay, blacker than
night, and blots it out.
Another boat plies to South Brooklyn,
with its maze of ship-
ping— but all the bay
is full of that, full
of everything that
moves upon the water
and is alwavs mov-
ing, shifting, shim-
mering, gliding,
rushing, changing.
And, last of all, the
''Rubber-neck Boat"
— that is what we call
it — it is not so well-
known as the " Sight-
seeing Boat." In
some ways, to get
ideas, to get subjects,
to get points of view,
it is the best ; for it
takes you all round
the city, gives you
endless suggestions
of the big buildings
after it leaves 2jrd
Street, carries you
under the great
bridges (never so im-
mense as from the
water) by the old
East River rookeries
and the North River
palisades and palaces,
all new these, yet,
with their piled-up
masses, a mediaeval
walled city finer than
138
anything in the Old World. Then the boat
carries you through the Harlem River with
its endless life, its low black bridges, out
into the Spuyten Duyvel Creek under the
High Bridge, by the Hall of Fame, a
Claude on its hill top, by Fort George, a
riot of mad colour, balloons, switchbacks,
but not half so mad as Coney Island, and
then brings you back, if you are lucky, just
as the great white Buildings begin to lose
themselves in the blue night.
I have been six months drawing this
" New New York," — some of my impres-
sions are recorded in the illustrations
which accompany these notes.
It is endless — and it is my country.
JOSEPH PENNELL.
THE " CLIFFS ON THE EAST RIVER
BY JOSEPH PENNELL
.
'
r the
the Hall
Claud' hill top, by
olour, balloo
i mad as Coney and
>u back, if you a: just
Buildii,
lilue night.
I have been six mon.
w York," — some »f my ini
i;orded in the illn
any these n<_
5 — and it is my couni
JO; LL.
and is ;i
their ;
walled cii
NEW YORK FROM CORTLAND STREET FERRY. BY JOSEPH PENNELL.
TRINITY CHURCH SPIRE (NEARLY
300 FEET HIGH) l-'RO.M THE RIVI-.R
BY JOSEPH PENNELL
THE ATMOSPHERE OF MOROCCO.
THK A 1MOSPHKRK OF MOROCCO.
EXPLANATORY \<>ll-.r. HV K. It. ( r\XI\<,II \\II-. (.KAIIAM.
II I QS1 KAI ED I'.V l"ll.\ I. AVI KV. R.S.A.
TO me it always seems that the.
rhief note o' I aniriiT is its whit«--
ness. Whiti- houses, s.nuls like
snow, and, above all, a da//ling
white atmosphere. Tin- mountains stand
out clear, as if cut out of cardboard. When
they an- near the si-a. they are nevi-r
mirrored upside down in it, as they are, for
•nple, in the lakes of Scotland or of
•erland.
iMstame is hard to jud^e. tin- very < -Ii-ar-
m-vs ,,t the atmosphere making it difficult
to see, or, at least, to s.-i/.- <>n anything, by
whi'-h to . stimate. \Vli«-n the rain falls and
slirouds the mountains in a pall of white, it
yivi-s no air of mystery as in the North.
I !)'• mystery of the South is in the rarity of
the air, which the eye seeks to penetrate in
vain ; it is s() clear, it mocks the sight.
It, though, there is no mystery, as we
II-TI- in the North judge mystery, seeking to
lift a veil which, for aught that we know,
conceals behind it nothing, in Tangier there
is ,i o-rtain air of Iving set before a pro-
blem, which is too simple to be sol\>-d
The sun shines whitely, not through a ha/.-
of violet as in Italy, and app«- irs weary
with having shone on the same people,
houses, camels and white rags for th-- ;
thousand years. There, everything is old,
.ind yet far younger in the sense that it is pro-
bably more like a younger world than that
we know, for, looking back, tlio-e who have
inward eyes can see things not unlike the
things that were first seen by man in the
fair garden by the Tigris into which the
serpent crept. Of course, I do not%speak of
the loud, chattering, kaleidoscopic town, in
which all day the shifting crowd of Arabs,
B'-rbers, tourists, Turks, dwellers in Meso-
potamia, and Jews all shout and sweat and
slave, while through them ranges a water-
seller with his goatskin sack, brass cup, and
tinkling bell, or a "dellal," who shouts the
price of carpets, horses, or of German clocks,
in the perpetual auction in the square.
AI.CA/AAK
IIV JOHN I.AVKRV, K..s. \.
'45
The Atmosphere of Morocco.
THE SPANISH COAST
All that is interesting enough, but in a
sense more interesting to write about than
paint. The charm of Tangier and the East
in general — that is, as seen by one who has
to strive to compass the impossible and
convey colour with the pen — is in the atmo-
sphere. In this re-
spect, and perhaps in
this respect alone, the
painter and the writer
meet on common
ground. Just as there
is a glory of the sun,
another of the moon,
and perhaps one, for
all I know, of the
electric light, so are
there atmospheres
which, in themselves,
induce an attitude of
mind. Now, that of
Tangier, as I see it,
has a certain sadness,
in spite of all its
brightness and its
clarity. It may be this
sadness (if it exists
and isnotcarried there
by him who sees it)
induces, as it were
sobriety, even in those who paint most
delicately. I speak, ot course, about the
palette of the mind, on which perforce
the painter has to set his colours first,
before he sets the visible and outward
palette, which after all is the reflection of
BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A.
A MOONLIGHT NIGHT '
BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A.
146
"MOONLIGHT OX THK HOUSE-TOPS"
BY JOHN LAYER Y, R.S.A.
The Atmosphere of ^Morocco
his mind. Paint light, paint dark, nothing
that anyone can do can quite divorce
him from the environment in which he
lives. It has been said Velasquez dipped
his brush in light, not paint; but even so,
bright, brilliant, andenduringas hiscolour
was, even he could not escape a certain
sternness of conception in his art. Nor can
the man who paints in Africa escape a cer-
tain something, even though he has been
born in the well-ordered, misty North . . .
something that joins him, as it were, in
sympathy to a long-drawn-out Arab song,
"ZACHARA AND HADESHIA BYJOHN LAYER Y, R.S.A.
sung to the guzla, not as in other lands at
evening under the trees,butin the full light
of the day, watching the sun's reflection
on the sands. No one can put himself out-
side his art ; what he can do, is not to set
himself against the will of the great hyp-
notising influence that seeks to make him
sleep, so that his eyesmay open and behold
that which it wills that he should see.
Something there is, in all North Africa,
stern, fierce, and yet compelling, so com-
pelling that almost any Spanish girl born
in the " Plazas Fuertes," besides the obli-
gatory Maria, Nieves, Dolores, or Am-
paro, is baptized Africa.
Behind Tangier, behind each dazzling
white coast town, Larache, Arzila, Rabat,
148
AIDA ILHRALME
BY JOHN LAVERY, RS.A.
Yaffi and Mazagan, there lies a country
unchanged and changeless, hard, bathed
in the sun (the enemy of man), in which
all life, nature, thought, the Arabs, and
their especial animal, the camel, which
Allah gave them for their chief posses-
sion, the rocks and thorny bushes, are
stern and pitiless.
FATIMA FARGHE" BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A.
i
z
a
UJ
I
The sltmosfthere of Morocco
THE MARKET PLACE, TETUAN
BY JOHN LAVERV, R.S.A.
THE MARKET PLACE, TETUAN
BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A.
The Atmosphere of Morocco
In the black goats' hair tents life passes
hidden, shut up, suppressed. All day the
man is out upon his horse, herding his
cattle, women sit in the tent, spinning or
weaving, and at evening walk to the well,
an earthen jar hung in an esparto sling
behind their backs, a blue veil on their
heads, and with the corner of a thin blue
veil caught fast between their teeth. Cattle
stand patiently about waiting for water,
and all goes on in silence, for the fierce sun
makes speech almost as precious as a drop
of water, and not to be poured out in vain.
This Africa, fierce, bloody, stern, a foe to
all the plastic arts, for he who paints a
picture must be prepared (if Allah calls
on him) to breathe a soul into it, must
influence all those who come within that
spell.
I think I see an air of sadness in all the
pictures, of which I think that I am writing,
born of the influence of the old, wild life,
which still goes on, only the gallop of a
horse outside Tangier.
Most northerns paint the south too
brightly, but in the various scenes of Fez,
of Tangier, and the camps upon the road,
I think I see this sadness, which perhaps,
after all, is the creation only of my brain.
Oh, what a ringo-rango, you will say,
that is if anyone should chance to read this
note upon the pictures of a man whose
<~±
STREET IN ARZILA. BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A.
vision is far clearer
bably, if but the
might fall out on
"ON THE HOUSE-TOP — MORNING"
152
BY JOHN LAVERY, R.S.A.
than my own, and pro-
truth were known, as
that unlucky day on
which the secrets ot
all hearts are opened,
agrees with nothing
I have written, and
perhaps thinks he
is concerned with
nothing but the tech-
nique of his art.
That is the reason
I have put a note of
interrogation to the
heading of this brief
note, so that my theory
may stand for any-
thing it may be worth,
and for my proof of
it I take the pictures
about which I thought
that I should write.
R. B. CUNNINGHAMS
GRAHAM.
CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX.
CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX.
DESCRIBED BY JAMKS WILLIAMS.
ILLUSTRATED BY W. H. CHARLTON, RUTH COBB AND
FLORENCE LEWIS.
SI I I'A 1 I-.I) in a district lull </t ap ii.i-.-
logical and antiquarian interest,
once famous for Roman civilisation,
Caudebec itself has a variety of
attractions. Nestling down by the river
under sloping banks, like many other old
towns, it was once walled around, though
at present hardly a vestige of this remains.
In wandering through the quaint streets,
with tlifir overhanging houses, one can
easily imagine oneself back again in the
lift- and circumstance of
the Middle Ages, so
well does the place
lend itself to romance,
especially in the even-
ing light — indeed, the
features are so numer-
ous that a more delight-
ful sketching ground
could hardly be met
with.
The town itself is no
doubt of early origin,
and, although not by
any means large, it has
a certain mystery, irre-
gularity and charm en-
tirely its own. None of
the streets are straight.
There is a Market
Square, dominated by
the Church of Notre
Dame — lofty, imposing,
ornate and distinctly
picturesque, with a
well - buttressed tower
and graceful spire.
The western portals
are filled with carved
and canopied niches.
The very stone, were
it not of an excellent
and suitable texture,
might well groan under NOIRE DAME AND
its wealth of carving
and architectural detail. The ample but-
tresses round the great church, together
with the somewhat redundant ornaments at
parts, all offer themselves for the artist's
consideration. The general colour and
tone of the building are varied and beau-
tiful If the day should be wet there is a
lovely interior, and although the church is
late in style (corresponding with our Per-
pendicular period), yet the general treat-
ment inside is dignified and simple, and
GRANDE RUE, CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX
BY W. H. CHARLTON
"55
Caudebec- en-Caux
A PROCESSION
BY FLORENCE LEWIS
you feel repaid for your trouble. A new
feeling is at once awakened, and, leaving
behind the first impressions — so depressing
to the enthusiastic student — you are more
than satisfied with the wealth of subjects.
As you leisurely walk through the place the
old-world character and mediaeval associa-
tions fill the mind, until after a short time
you are only too anxious to settle down in
some quiet spot and to begin work.
It is almost invidious to attempt to men-
tion even the chief features. But in the
rue de la Boucherie there is the fine stone
house of the Knights Templar — a relic of
earlier work — in very good preservation,
with its great projecting gargoyles and its
arched windows filled with bold tracery ;
the imposing timber houses with deep over-
hanging eaves on either side of the narrow
street as well as along the stream flowing
through to the Seine. And in the rue de
la Cordonnerie are also many old and pic-
turesque houses. Some of these are seen
in the drawings by Mr. W. H. Charlton
well suited for either pencil or brush. The
abundance and richness of the old glass are
exceptionally notable, and, with the sur-
roundings, present many charming possi-
bilities. Altogether, both inside and out-
side, the church has unusual attractions.
The streets of the original town (and
there is very little modern building) are
full of subjects wherever one turns. In
showery weather the place is not wanting
in friendly shelter, where one may work on
in comfort. On market days the little
square is filled with covered booths and all
manner of interesting folk. Women with
their snow-white caps, men in blue blouses,
and all the usual paraphernalia of the market
in a country town is there. You meet the
Priest, the Sister of Mercy, the processions
of funeral or festival, with clergy and
choristers, cross - bearers and banners,
making up scenes full of pathos from what-
ever point of view they may be considered.
The approach from the station (a short
distance from the heart of the town) is at
first sight anything but promising ; it is
only when you turn away from this modern
part and penetrate into the old town that
156
RUE DE LA CORDONNERIE, CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX
BY FLORENCE LEWIS
THE MARKET-PLACE, CAUDEBEC-
EN-CAUX. BY W. H. CHARLTON
n
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00 ^
0°
P P
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RUE DE LA CORDONNERIE, CAUDEBEC-
EN-CAUX. BY W. H. CHARLTON
THE SEINE NEAR CAUDEBEC-EN-
CAUX. BY W. H. CHARLTON
NEAR CAUDEBEC-EN-CAUX
BY W. H. CHARLTON
Caudebec-en-Caux
"THE TILED HOUSE," CAUDEBEOEN-CAUX
BY RUTH COBB
PLACE D'ARMES, CAUDEBEC-EN CAUX
BY RUIH COBB
and Miss Florence Lewis, reproduced
here.
The country round on every side abounds
in objects of interest and points of view.
The delightful prospect of the town from
the higher ground as you leave the place,
the winding river — a busy highway between
Havre and Paris — the well-wooded country,
together with the whole surroundings, far
and near, give such an impression as few
places can offer.
Caudebec-en-Caux is easily approached
by way of Newhaven, Dieppe and Rouen,
it is about halfway between the latter town
and Havre. The two principal hotels are
on the quay facing the river, in a convenient
position, and the charges in each case are
moderate. JAS. WJLLIAMS.
162
AVIGNON AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.
AVIGNON AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.
DESCK1HKI) AND ILLUSTRATED I'.Y H. HUGHES-STANTON.
AMONG the many beautiful places
I have visited in France,
Avignon and its surrounding
neighbourhood is, I think, one of
the most paintable and picturesque. It is
in Provence and is the capital of the depart-
ment of Vaucluse. It is situated on the
li-lt bank of the Rhone, from which rises a
rocky eminence surmounted by a great
pile of magnificent buildings — the former
Palace of the Popes, the Cathedral and,
higher still, the Promenade du Rocher des
Doms which terminates abruptly three
hundred feet above the Rhone. It is from
this spot that a wonderful panorama of the
Rhone Valley can be obtained. Mount
Ventoux stands a majestic feature on the
sky-line, and a view is also obtained of
the Cevennes and the Alpines.
It is just here at Avignon that the
Rhone is intersected by a large long
island, richly wooded with poplars and
various other trees, where the painter may
find many beautiful close subjects. Corot,
Harpignies and many modern French
painters have found on this island material
for well-known works. On the right hand
side you can look across one portion of
the river on to the ancient and picturesque
town of Villeneuve, and on the left on to
the commanding and impressive city of
Avignon.
There is good material for architectural
subjects in Avignon, its ancient 14th-
century walls being almost intact, and
many of the machicolated towers and
battlements still remain, also the Pont
d' Avignon, the old ruined bridge with its
\II\V OF THE RHONE FROM AVIGNON
BV H. HUGHES-STANTON
•63
Avignon and its Neighbourhood
AVIGNON FROM THE ISLAND
chapel to St. Nicholas. Again, for subject
and figure work there abound the fine old
houses, the market scenes in the town and
villages round, and the picturesque peasants
in their quaint attire.
Crossing the Rhone by either of the two
bridges you come to
Villeneuve, the old
town which forms such
a prominent feature of
the landscape in the
views of the Rhone
from Avignon, it is
a most classic and im-
posing town standing
on fine broken ground
and rock, with its Tour
of Phillipe le Bel, its
grand Fort St. Andre,
and its ruins of the
Chartreuse du Val de
Benediction (i4th cen-
tury), amongst which
are beautiful fountains,
courtyards and clois-
ters. The peasants
make their homes in
some of these ruins,
using others also as
stables and barns.
This side of the Rhone
.66
is well cultivated and
fertile, with, in parts,
the ground broken and
quarried, and from the
ancient Fort St. Andre
beautiful views of
Avignon and the
whole valley can be
obtained.
Looking south over
Provence one sees the
Alpines and the once
powerful and great
township of Les Baux,
which is situated on
a pinnacle of these
mountains towards
Aries. The country
along this valley is
thickly wooded, and
very rich and deep in
colouring, the land
being fertile and well watered by moun-
tainous streams and inlets from the great
river. It abounds in subjects ; there are
numerous villages with their ruined castles
or churches, always on some rocky spur,
to give a finer character and romance to
BY H. HUGHES-STANTON
NEAR AVIGNON
BY H. HUGHES-STANTON
ancient Fort St. An
beautiful views ot
Avignon and the
whole valley can be
obtained.
Looking south over
Provence one sees the
Alpines and the once
powerful and great
township of Les Bav.x,
which is situated on
a pinnacle of these
mountains towards
Aries. The country
along this valley is
thickly wooded, and
very rich and deep in
colouring, the land
, for subject being fertile and well watered by moun-
the fine old tainous streams and inlets from the great
ie town and river. It abounds in subjects ; there are
;ue peasants numerous villages with th istles
or churches, always on some rocky spur,
Cither of the two to give a finer character ami e to
H. HUGHES-STANTON
amongst
are beautiful K
court
'
• others also a>
•s and i
of the >'
166
BY H. HUGHES-STA
I
:
;
O
UJ
I
a n if its Neighhourhood
FORT ST. ANDR£, VILI.ENKUVK
BY H. HUGHES-STANTON
LES BAUX
BY H. HUGHES-STASTON
169
Avignon and its Neighbourhood
AVIGNON
the landscape features
of the scene.
St. Remy is pic-
turesque, but by far
the most ideal spot
for the painter or
draughtsman is Les
Baux. Here we have
an almosttragic place,
the weird aspect of a
valley of rock caves
piled high one on the
other and often most
peculiar in form, many
standing like great
sentinels. Commanding this valley is a
rock-hewn city now inhabited by less
than a hundred people, but in its day a
great and most powerful citadel, which
was finally destroyed by Louis XIII. It
has been thought by French writers that
this valley suggested to Dante the archi-
tecture of the Inferno, and well it might be
so. It was in this huge castle, cut from
the natural rock of the mountains, that
the famous Court of Love held its sway,
for its Counts were lords of many towns,
one of them being at one time Titular
Emperor of Constantinople. The fortress,
churches and mansions in ruins of this
mediaeval township, offer fine subjects to
the painter, and the town being as it is
situated on the crest of the mountains,
commands fine views and overlooks the
great plains and what is known as Le desert
BY H. HUGHES-STANTON
which stretches away to the sea. The ruins
of Mont-Major and the classic city of Aries,
which one can see from here, form fine
features on the great plain through which
the Rhone now runs, breaking itself up into
many arms, winding in and out until it
finally casts itself into the sea. Some
twenty-three miles away we see Marseilles,
that great city looking as nothing in com-
parison with the immensity of the scene.
In this city of rocks, Les Baux, one can
feel real romance and see nature in her
sublime and most impressive mood. To
the poet and the painter it is truly moving ;
but those who go to stay at the little hotel
must be ready to put up with very sim-
ple fare, content if they can but obtain the
intense spirit and grandeur of this truly
remarkable and beautiful place.
H. HUGHES-STANTON.
- •&
LES BAUX
BY H. HUGHES-STANTON
170
55
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Avignon and its Neighbourhood
AVIGNON FROM VILLENEUVE
BY H. HUGHES-STANTON
TOUR PHILLIPE LE BEL, FROM ISLAND, AVIGNON
172
BY H. HUGHES-STANTON
BORMES-LES-MIMOSAS.
BORMES-LES-MIMOSAS— A WINTKR
SKETCHING GROUND.
DLSCRII',1 .1) AMI ILLUSTRATED BY WALTER DONNi .
TI I K south of France suggests winter
sunshiw ;md warmth, conditions
which are important at any time
uht-n choosing a sketching ground,
and particularly so when one wishes to work
out-of-doors during the winter months.
I5<irmes-les-Mimosas is for these and other
reasons an ideal winter place for the painter.
The fact that mimosa abounds is sufficient
to suggest a southern latitude, but the
tropical luxuriance quite surpasses one's
imagination. Situated on the littoral, 12
miles east of Hyeres, about 800 feet
above the sea, approached by a winding
road, the town bears distinct traces of
Moorish occupation. It is renowned as
one of the warmest and most sheltered
spots — the proprietor of the hotel (perhaps
naturally) claims that it is many degrees
\varm.-r at Mormes than at any other place
on the coast. One need not rely on such
claims or on tables of temperatures, etc., it
is sufficient to see for oneself the appearance
of summer in mid-winter, when the roses,
violets, and orange-blossom are in bloom ;
cacti, date palms, and a variety of exotic
flowers are to be seen in the open country
during December, January and February.
The town, built on the side of the
Montagnes des Maures, has a step-like
appearance, with its masses of grey-red
tiled roofs ; these, together with a glimpse
of a church or the sides and fronts of
houses (indicating a street or an open
1IDRMK>-
BY WALTER DONNE
175
Bonnes-les-Mimosas
NEAR THE OLD SALT MARSHES
place), and here and there patches ot vine,
make a very interesting study. On every
hand one sees signs of the principal
industry, the manufacture of corks. Above
the town employment is found by stripping
the bark of cork trees (Chenes heges), art
evergreen oak, from which the bark is
taken every twelve or thirteen years,
leaving the trunks of the trees a bright
red. This is a curious sight, producing a
not inharmonious scheme of colouring,
the bright red gradu-
ally disappearing and
becoming grey as the
bark re-forms.
The houses are typi-
cal of the south of
France or Italy, built
frequently on arches, ,
connected by arches
to the houses on the
opposite side of the
street, forming at in-
tervals tunnels ; these,
with so many exam-
ples of fine wrought-
iron work, distinctly
show Moorish influ-
ence. The houses are
tall, often dirty, with
nearly flat roofs, pic-
turesque green shut-
ters and verandahs.
176
There are several
primitive churches of
the nth and I2th
centuries, and the re-
mains of a large castle
(Chateau des Seig-
neurs du Foz), dating
from the i2th century,
dominate the town.
It is claimed by
many painters, and I
think with reason, that
in this part of the
Riviera and on to-
wards Marseilles the
sun's rays are of ex-
traordinary brilliance,
and that the wonder-
fully luminous reflect-
ed lights are unknown
in any other part of France, and are not
nearly so pronounced even in Southern
Italy. One expects great brilliance ot
sunlight in the summer in such a latitude,
but the remarkable reflected lights in the
winter are truly astonishing.
For subject matter there is enough,
apparently, for all tastes — the tops of the
mountains, with their fringe of snow, the
lower heights, richly covered with forests,
and, lower again, thousands upon thousands
BY WALTER DONNE
" BRINGING HOME THE GOATS :
BY WALTER DONNE
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H H
Bormes-les-Mimosas
"THE GOSSIP CORNER"
of goats. Keeping goats appears to be
nearly every man's business, and the
painter need only be up at sunrise to find
a wealth of subjects, as the goats, with
their picturesque herdsmen, emerge from
curious small doorways in the town, wending
their way, often in single file, through the
narrow streets up and up to spend the days
on the hills, and returning again at sundown.
About 600 feet above the town is a chapel,
the hermitage of Notre
Dame de Constance,
from which there is a
magnificent view ; to
the east are seen the
mountains, the Medi-
terranean, Corsica and
Italy; to the west, Les
I les d'Or, Toulon, and,
on a clear day, a
glimpse of Marseilles.
The path to this chapel
is by an almost inter-
minable number of
steps, with occasional
stone seats and shrines
dedicated to the Vir-
gin. One should not
omit to mention the
many sweet - scented
herbs to be found on
the higher levels.
In the plain^-below
178
a totally different class
of subject presents it-
self. The land, which
was formerly covered
by the sea, is most
fertile, and is studded
with grape-vines, the
town and the hills
forming a fine back-
ground. Here, also,
are rapid - flowing
water-courses, bring-
ing down the ice-cold
water from the moun-
tains. In addition to
the cork trees there
are the olives, with
their beautiful grey-
green foliage, and
groups of eucalyptus
trees, easily distinguished by the strong
scent, by the heavy, dark, spear-shaped
leaves and very pale trunks, the bark ot
which is continually peeling off. There
is no dearth of foreground material, but
the large cacti and the barbary figs, or
semelles du pape, frequently appear out of
scale.
One word as to the country surrounding
Bormes, which includes La Londe, within
BY WALTER DONNE
A QUAINT DOORWAY
BY WALTER DONNE
If. The land,
by the
fertile, and is stud;
with grape-vines, the
town and the hills
forming a fine back-
ground.
are rapid - flowing
water-courses, bring-
ing down th-
iter from the moun-
tains. In addition to
the cork trees there
are the olives, with
their beautiful grey-
green foliage, and
groups of eucalyptus
-ily distinguished by the strong
it, by the heavy, dark, spear-shaped
es and very pale trunks, the bark of
:h is continually peeling off. There
irth of foreground material, but
large cacti and the barbary figs, or
•.lies du pape, frequently appear out of
ne word as to the cov. rounding
mes, which includes ! 'e, within
ui
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Bormcs-les-Miinosas
LOOKING NORTH FROM DORMES-LES-MIMOSAS
BY WALTER DONNE
GASSIN — WITH DISTANT VIEW OF THE ALPES MARITIME*
HY WALTER DONNK
ill
Bormes-les-Mimosas
six miles, where large quantities of roses,
violets, daffodils, and narcissi are grown
for the London market ; Salins d'Hyeres
where salt is obtained by the evapora-
tion of sea water ; Bormettes, with its lead
mines ; and Le Lavandou (so called from
the enormous areas of wild lavender found
there), a small fishing village immediately
below Bormes, where, in addition to the
usual subjects at the water's edge, there
are red rocks, and the ever- changing
colour of the Mediterranean, from the
opalescent greys looking towards the sun,
to the deep blue turquoise of the sea
when the sun is behind the spectator. Le
Dattier, famous for its fine date palms, is
within a few miles, and a little further on,
Gassin, a Moorish village on the top of a
promontory, gives a fine view over the bay
of St. Tropez to Fr6jus and St. Raphael.
Near Gassin are to be found two other
Moorish towns, Cogolin and Grimaud, both
situated on prominences, and at the latter
place the remains of a fine castle, formerly
the residence of the Grimaldi family.
All these places are easily reached by a
narrow-gauge railway skirting the coast,
running from Hyeres to St. Raphael — a
part of the country seldom seen by tra-
vellers to Mentone, Monte Carlo and
Italy.
While in the neighbourhood one should
not omit to visit Les Isles d'Or, within a short
sea journey. These islands are sparsely
populated, but afford subjects for wild land-
scapes and rugged coast effects. In the
winter it is much colder on the islands than
on the mainland, while in the summer
there is a freshness contrasting pleasantly
with the almost stifling heat at and near
Bormes.
To sum up the points of attraction which
Bormes-les-Mimosas offers, there are the
fine, warm climate, complete shelter from
the mistral, the really remarkable luminous
quality of the light, the variety of subjects,
and a sympathetic people.
WALTER DONNE.
LA CHAPELLE SAINT FRAN9OIS
182
BY WALTER DONNE
THE PYRENEES.
THE PYRENEES,
DESCRIBED AND II. I. I'M R.\ I I I > IiY < ,( »KI>< >\ !I»MI.
Ti i' LSI \\ h<> ,ii-.- fbrtonata novgb
to journey southwards towards
Bayonne on a cl'-.ir ami sunny day
obtain their tirst view of the
Pyrenees as a snow-clad range of such
majestic unreality that such an original
impression is deeper and more lasting than
any others at a closer range. Not far south
of the old town of Tartas, where the road
ascends to a fair height, there suddenly
appears on the south western horizon a
vision of snowy peaks, so pale and ethereal
in the delicacy of their silvery blue
shadows that one is at first inclined to
regard them as clouds. Further south they
become less elusive and often, when framed
by pines with a slope of golden gorse near
at hand, they form the most beautiful of
pictures.
Wherever one wan-
ders all the way from
Bayonne to Carcas-
sonne,that most roman-
tic of ancient towns, the
Pyrenees form a vast
barrier of gleaming
white peaks completely
cutting off the wanderer
from going southwards
until the snow has
melted in the passes.
There is, however, a
wonderful road from
the Spanish frontier
village of Behobie that
is clear of snow as early
as the month of March.
It winds up the valley
of the Bidasoa and
reaches the lofty pass
of Velate, descending
by an easy gradient to
Pamplona, the capital
of Navarre. For car-
riages, bicycles or mo-
tors the road is quite
good, leaving one free
to choose one's means
of progression. The
villages are strung together closely at one
part of the journey and nearly all of them
are full of detail and colour. Great ov r
hanging gables shade curious balconies,
often painted green, and the ends of beams
are richly carved. Most of the houses have
a coat of arms with supporters in carved
stone let into the front wall to proclaim the
antiquity and dignity of the owner's
lineage. Bullocks draw the most primitive
of carts with solid wooden wheels and the
clean shaven men have almost invariably
that natural charm and dignity one always
associates with Spaniards without dreaming
of obtaining so complete a realisation.
Picturesque stone bridges, half grown
over with ivy, cross the mountain streams
at most of the villages, and the steep slopes
of the valleys are generally clothed with a
ON THE WALLS OF PAMPLONA, NAVARRE
BY GORDON HOME
185
The Pyrenees
dense growth of box trees. The contrast
of this dark green with a cottage whose
walls are gleaming white, with the red
stone only showing in the invariable
coigning at the angles and round the win-
dows and doors, is wonderful.
The interiors are always whitewashed
and very bare indeed, the few chairs and
chests or tables standing out conspicuously
against the cool unadorned background.
Groups of peasants in brightly coloured
shirts digging in a row with the oddest
two-pronged forks, which are driven into
the ground simultaneously, are frequently
to be seen. Sometimes as many as half a
dozen men and women of different ages will
be seen digging with very great speed, turn-
ing over the soil almost as rapidly as a
plough would make a furrow.
Pamplona, where there is a good hotel,
is a city of bells scarcely to be equalled
anywhere. They are all cracked, and they
are all rung every quarter of an hour day
and night ! A huge double set of walls
FORTIFIED BRIDGE AT ORTHEZ, BASSES
PYRENEES. BY GORDON HOME
1 86
ON THE RAMPARTS OF THE OLD CITY OF
CARCASSONNE. BY GORDON HOME
surrounds the city, and bastions project
beyond them, so that from outside, with
its church towers rising1 above the ram-
parts, and blue-grey mountains beyond,
Pamplona is exceedingly picturesque,
making up for its lack of antiquity within.
On the way to the coast at San Sebas-
tian the villages are not quite so pic-
turesque as those between Behobie and
Almandos and the Pass of Velate, but the
mountainous scenery is exceedingly fine, in
one place the road having to pass through
the great defile illustrated in these pages.
Heather, gorse, beech, oak, poplar and
running streams tone down the gaunt
sterility of the gorges, and here and there
the most picturesque groupings appear.
Between steep slopes wooded or flaming
with gorse with a brawling torrent at the
bottom, will stand out a rugged mountain
ridge partially covered with pale blue or
dazzling white snow.
Tolosa, with its narrow, shady streets, its
wide eaves and its very ornate church, is
A GORGE IN THE PYRKXEES ON THE ROAD
TO PAMPLONA. BY GORDON HOME
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THE CLOISTERS AT ST. LIZIER
BY GORDON HOME
The Pyrenees
full of contrasts and quaintness, but
Fuenterrabia, on the frontier, has much more
to offer. The little town stands on a raised
site at the mouth of the Bidassoa and is
surrounded by picturesque walls. It is full
of old houses and has a seventeenth-century
gateway, an early castle, and paintable
subjects on every side.
For magnificent waves, the shore in the
neighbourhood of Biarritz and St. Jean de
Luz is remarkable, and the coast scenery
generally, with its softly tinted amethyst,
mauve and pearly-grey mountain back-
grounds is exceptionally lovely. The bay
on the western side of Biarritz is full of
exquisite colour, and generally offers a fore-
ground of magnificent waves.
On the northern side of the Pyrenees a
most profitable journey can be made, ter-
minating either at Carcassonne or Nimes.
One can either keep to the main road and
rail, or penetrate into the innumerable
valleys leading towards the jagged horizon
of peaks. In the Spring the distant woods
have a tendency towards beautiful purple
tones, often contrasted with some delicate
green near at hand, or fruit trees in
blossom, standing out in beautiful relief.
At Orthez there is a mediaeval fortified
bridge across the deep and rocky river Pau,
and the district is remarkable for its tidy
villages and the almost English aspect of
its pastures and parks. The umbrella pine
becomes less and less rare as one goes
eastwards, and the curved browny-red
tiles are exchanged for thatch and slate.
Pau has a fine old castle and magnificent
views of the mountains. East of Tarbes
there are high, heathery wastes, with here
and there belts of gorse, often contrasted
with the mountainous background. Close
to St. Girons is the ancient and eminently
picturesque little decayed town of St.
Lizier, perched on a steep hill over the
NARVATE, SPAIN
190
BY GORDON HOME
I
:, :ir at hanii,
; out in beau
•i is a iv
s the deep and rocky riv
trict is remarkable for its :
and the almost .English aspect,
iind parks. The umbrella \-'
s and less rare as one goes
and the curved browny-red
Banged for thatch and slate.
. a fine old castle and magnificent
f the mountains. East of Tarbes
-e high, heathery wastes, with here
and there belts of gorse, often contrasted
• mountainous background. Close
.irons is the ancient and eminently
.que little decayed town of -St.
perched on a steep hill over the
/ \
BY GORDON HOME
u>
I
i
K
8
X
3
UI
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UI
Z
o
c
ui
ID
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ui
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rushing river Sal.it. It is not \
clean, hut its partially Roman tou.-rs,
it^ (|u.iint streets with timber-framed
houses, and its Romanesque church and
beautiful cloisters are all very paintable.
Foix, with its Chateau on a great rock set
in magnificent scenery, is a place that
should not be missed, and Mirepoix, to
the north-east, with its wonderful arcaded
M I u are, might be passed by if one were
to rely upon guide-books. Between
Mirepoix and Carcassonne is the spec-
tacularly situated village of Fanjeaux,
which stands out over a great sweep of
rolling country. It is picturesque at all
times, but when its windmills and towers
are backed by a crimson sunset, it is
seen at its best.
Montreal, the next village — it is almost
a town — is another place where an artist
can linger, but his proximity to Carcas-
sonne will, perhaps, incline him to press
on to that most fantastic of mediaeval
survivals, where, if restoration has been
rather wholesale, there is still such an
abundance of rich antiquity that one is
almost overwhelmed by its complete-
ness. Many of the walls and towers
of the old city are Roman below, then
Visigoth, and above these i ith or 1 2th cen-
tury, and for any one seeking for material
SHOEING A BULLOCK
BY CORDON HOME
for a mediaeval subject or background,
Carcassonne is a Mecca for which the jour-
ney is well repaid. GORDON HOME.
«93
VENICE.
VENICE.
DESCRIBED AND ILLUSTRATED BY WILFRID BALL, I-
It AX hanlly claim to have discovered
Venice as a painting ground, consider-
ing that so far back as the i5th
century Gentile Bellini depicted St.
Mark's I 'lace as a background in one of
his panels. Carpaccio, in the next century,
gave us the Rialto bridge, which, by the
way, was a wooden structure, not the grand
stone bridge that now stands, and was
painted, probably many times, by Canaletto
in the ijth century. In the igth century
Turner did some of his finest work in
Venice, and his example has since been
followed by many masters from many lands
who have taken this city of the sea as their
theme.
Venice has changed but little during the
last two centuries— far less than most large
cities ; naturally certain improvements
have been made in the dwellings of the
poor, but the splendid old palaces still
remain, and are probably quite as, if not more,
picturesque than at the time they were
built. On the other hand, the motor-boats
that rush about the canals do not help to
take one's mind back to the days of the
Doges, nor do the huge grey battleships
that lie off the Public Gardens, ousting
the truly picturesque fishing craft that used
to be grouped there.
The Grand Canal, with its vine-clad
traghettos and many gondolas, is very
fine ; but to my mind the smaller canals,
with their narrow winding ways, are much
more fascinating, overhung as they are
with fretted stone balconies, from which
are draped rich-coloured carpeting. Then
there are the multi-tinted shutters, and, in
the poorer quarters, gay-coloured clothing
hanging out to catch the sunlight; at
every turn of these canals comes a most
charming little bridge, either of stone,
stone and red brick, or stone and plaster —
all of them weather-worn and a joy to the
eye. The large old doorways that give on
to the canals, with their mysterious depths
of gloom are delightful, so too is the colour
of the deep green slimy wall uncovered at
low tide ; add to all this the elusive beauty
of the reflections, brilliant when the sunlit
VENICE FROM THE GIUDECCA
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E.
»97
Venice
.
wall is mirrored in the
can al , and a lovely grey-
green in the shadows.
Amongst the many
charms of Venice are
its lagoons, stretching
for miles away south-
wards to Chioggia, and
northwards to Torcello.
To form an idea of the
waterways easily, it
is good to take the
steamer to Chioggia,
which threads its course
— marked out by an
apparently never-end-
ing line of large
wooden posts, some-
times in groups, and
often picturesque. Here are met a motley
straggling line of trading and fishing craft,
with their delightfully coloured sails all
ablaze with every shade of yellow and red,
with a scanty use of blue. Most of these
sails have seen plenty of weather, and the
effect of slightly blurred colour is quite
ON THE LAGOONS
PALESTR1NA
198
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E.
charming. The devices on the sails, too,
are very quaint and varied ; they include
such designs as a star, a horse rampant, a
crescent moon, a balloon, a crowing cock,
&c. These are usually painted in red on
a yellow ground, but not infrequently in
black ; they are often quite grotesque, from
the very prehistoric
style of draughtsman-
ship employed.
On a still morning
the reflections of the
sails in the water are
a joy in themselves.
Soon after leaving
Venice the campanile
and village of Mala-
mocco come into
sight — just a delight-
fully grey mass
against a pearly sky.
Later on, Palestrina,
another village on
the lagoon, is passed,
with its congeries oi
old houses whose
broken plaster, with
remnants of yellow
or pink distemper
still adhering where
the red brickwork has
not yet forced its
way through ; green
shutters of every
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E.
^""T>
i ii V^»
•I
PIAZZETTA DI SAN MARCO
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E.
Venice
MURANO AND CAMPO SANTO
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E.
shade — some bright, others in the last
stage of decrepitude — where the sun and
wind have done their work right well and
left a splendid opportunity for a painter to
make the most of a good subject.
Vines are grown on rough pergolas
between the houses ; boat-building goes
on wherever there is an available space,
whilst the usual campanile dominates the
" villaggio." On, past crabbers at work in
the water by the mud-banks, and more craft
of all sizes, from the sandolo to the large
two-masted Istrian wood boats, with their
massive prows and red eyes, to Chioggia,
in itself a most delightfully picturesque
town of fishers.
The canal in the centre of Chioggia
bears a strong family resemblance to its
fellows in Venice, but is better in a way, as
it is full, or nearly so, of fishing boats,
some with rich purple-brown nets dangling
from their masts, others sheltered from the
sun with awnings made of faded sails.
The fish market by the side of the canal
makes an excellent subject for the brush,
and, as most of the houses are built on
arched arcades, :the shadow caused by them
is very acceptable.
A very good water-shrine is to be seen
between Chioggia and Sottomarina, on the
mainland. These water - shrines have
diminished in number considerably during
the last twenty years, and but very few
now remain. Formerly every traghetto in
200
Venice had its shrine, with its little lamps
always burning. The first money taken in
A SHRINE
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E.
o
5
-
M
s
*
Venice
SAN GIORGIO
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E.
CRAB POTS
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E.
the day by the gondolier was put aside to
pay for oil for these lamps. I hear that all
this is now changed.
To visit Torcello a gondola with two
rowers should be taken from the Funda-
menta Nuovo, past smoky Murano with its
glass-works, and so to Burano, famed for
its lace workers. At the adjacent island of
THE GIUDECCA
2O4
Mazzorbo there still remains, apparently
alone in its glory, a simple, dignified but
disintegrating campanile with so strong a
list that it can hardly last much longer.
Another mile up a narrow canal is Torcello,
which is an island of market gardens, with
nothing but a few picturesque houses and
the magnificent Cathedral of Santa Maria,
with its campanile.
I have endeavoured
to make myself better
known by this brief
paper on Venice, and
can only hope that I
may not incur the ob-
loquy of the old Vene-
tian saw, which runs
thus : — " Those that
know you little long to
know you more ; those
that know you well
despise you."
BY WILFRID BALL, R.E. WlLFRID BALL.
CAPRI.
CAPRI.
I)KS( RIHKI) IJY KATIIAKIM FJEDD1
ILLUSTRATED BY A. ROMII.I.Y I I-.DDI.N, K.I', A.
FOR many weeks we looked across
t<> Capri from the Sorrento hills.
For many weeks we delayed our
going, afraid to break the spell that
seemed to hover over the island. No re-
ality w«; Ml could fulfil the promise of that
elusive land which lay as if enchanted, now
gleaming like an amethyst set in sunset
gold, now lost in the haze of early morning.
It was one of the islands of our fairy tales,
we said, which would fade like a mirage
before our bold approach.
Perhaps it was to humour this whim that
we took a " barca " at
the little harbour ot
Sorrento one evening
instead of crossing by
the morning steamboat.
And certainly it was
the very way to pre-
serve an illusion of un-
reality. Across the bay
Naples was only a
shimmering line ot
light below the slope
of Mount Vesuvius ;
behind us the moon
laid a golden pathway
back to the shore;
before us stretched the
calm sea and Capri
loomed on our horizon.
Our men bent to
their sweeps, their
bodies swaying evenly,
and there was no sound
but the dip of the oars
and the drip of water
from their blades. We
crossed the sea in
silence and in silence
passed into the real
shadow of the real
island, into the shadow,
too, of past times,
under the lee of the
great cliff which falls
sheer from the Tim- CAPRI
berio, where peasants have danced
centuries above the ruins of the Caesars'
palaces. A chill was there that seemed not
all of the night and the sea. We slipped
again into the moonlight, rounded the
sentinel rocks, the Faraglioni, skirted the
island's western shore and beached our
boat at the Piccola Marina. There a hand-
ful of fishermen's huts slept in darkness,
but the moonlight falling across the low
ridge in the middle of the island struck the
cliff of Monte Solaro on our left and
gleamed upon the walls of houses at its
BY A. ROM ILLY FEDDEN, R.B.A.
207
Capri
NIGHT — CAPRI
BY A. ROMILLY FEDDEN, R.B.A.
foot, leaving the rocky steeps ot Castig-
lione on our right in deep shadow.
We climbed the white road from the
Marina to the top of the ridge which joins
the heights of Monte Solaro and Anacapri
at the north with that of Timberio at the
south — there we paused. Below us a white
house, guarded by a stone pine, shone in the
moonlight against the smooth sea, and
Vesuvius rose beyond, purple through a
luminous mist.
Such was the way of our coming, yet the
morning did not lessen the wonder of that
first impression and time only confirmed it.
For since the days when the Emperor
Augustus built his marble palace above the
great sea-road where his Roman galleys
passed homeward laden with Egyptian
grain, down to our own time, Capri has
given the seeker after beauty a satisfaction
so perfect that it cannot be laid only to the
brightness of its sun and the blueness ot
its water, but rather to that intangible,
208
indefinable, but truly
recognisable charm
which we call " spirit
of place," and which
the artist has named
" atmosphere." Capri
first beguiles, then
casts its spell upon
you. You are happy
if you can yield to that
spell and dream out
your life on the island
as many and many
another has done, and
happier if you can
sense the spirit of the
place, become subject
to its inspiration, work
with your might, and
come away.
Painters have done
both. Many well-
known names linger
in the artistic tradi-
tions of the island, and
a host of lesser men
have at one time or
another worked there.
Yet, though this is so,
while youth remains to
last word will not be
interpret her, the
spoken on Capri.
Nowhere out of the Orient can there be
such wonderful effects. Such blazing sun-
sets on orange-tawny cliffs reflected in the
sea ; such water, turquoise-blue, peacock-
blue, ultramarine, the blue of the Virgin's
robe in Murillo's Prado pictures ; such
vivid living light, and such intense shadow.
PI very season goffers its especial feast ot
colour. In the spring the little wood under
San Michele flaunts armies of lavender
crocus down the path beneath the chest-
nut trees ; the cliffs at Anacapri are fringed
with fragrant narcissi ; hillsides are ablow
with vivid anemones, and these are the
prelude to a burst of blossom — of peach,
almond and cherry — which envelops the
island in a mist of white and rose colour.
Then come the roses which last all sum-
mer, sheets of scarlet poppies, fields of pink
and crimson clover and of yellow colza.
Autumn gives you hillsides in the fulness
I HH CERTOSA, CAPRI.
BY A. ROM ILLY FEDDEN, R.B.A.
Capri
CAPRI
BY A. ROMILLY FEDDEN, R.B.A
of the vintage. The island runs with the
juice of the grape. Flat baskets piled high
with white and purple bunches are borne
through the vineyards on the heads of
women, until in October, the vines robbed
of their fruit turn to crimson and gold. That
is to many the most beautiful time of the
year in Capri.
But beyond all this splendour of colour
which dazzles one at first, Capri holds
many phases of beauty less known. The
beauty of the fading day, of after-sunset
skies seen through quiet olive trees, of
early evening along the wet sands of the
Marina, of moonlight on cliff and houses.
At night, indeed, the island gains a sim-
plicity and breadth of feeling which it
lacks by day. The moonlight here holds
an especially luminous quality of negative
colour, more entrancing in its subtlety than
the positive effects of the sunshine. The
silent cloisters and deserted courts of the
old Carthusian monastery acquire an in-
terest then which is wanting in daylight ;
so also do the narrow steep streets whose
white walls sing out beyond the mystery
of dark arched doorways. Under the
moon, here as elsewhere, disquieting ob-
trusive detail is lost, and the whole becomes
big and harmonious.
The festas in Capri offer subjects of wide
range to the painter, from the impressive
procession on Good Friday night of black
robed and cowled figures carrying candles
and swinging lanterns, to the bright feast
210
of San Costanzo in
May, when the silver
image of the patron
saint is carried in pro-
cession from the church
in the piazza down the
white winding road to
the beach at the Grande
Marina. Between
orange groves and gar-
den walls overflowing
with roses you catch
glimpses of the long
waving line of girls in
white with floating blue
veils, of the gorgeous
vestments of bishops,
priests and acolytes,
and then of the relieving black of follow-
ing women.
. But it is not only in festa that the Capri
peasants interest the painter. Theirs is a
A STREET IN CAPRI
BY A. ROMILLY FEDDEN, R.B.A.
PROCESSION OF SAN COSTANZO.
BY A. ROMILLY FEDDEN, R.B.A.
Capri
"THROUGH THE OLIVE TREES — CAPRI
type which possesses much distinction, and
which is quite unlike the debased type of
the mainland. The women are tall, have
fine eyes and hair, carry themselves with a
certain nobleness, and bear in their well-
set heads and regular features more than a
trace of the Greek blood which has come
down to them from the ancient settlers on
the island. At Anacapri both people and
buildings show the influence of the later
Moorish occupation. To hear them tread-
ing down the mud roof of a new house on
a warm summer night, their feet keeping
time to a weird reiterated cadence remi-
niscent of the East, is to believe oneselt
in Tunis.
In their everyday employments, at every
turn of road or pathway, the peasants fall
into poses of unconscious grace. You find
not only the Academic type and subject —
the woman with the water jug at the
fountain, the girl bearing on her head a
212
BY A. ROMILLY FEDDEN, R.B.A.
burden, the beggar of picturesque tatters,
the handsome grizzled head under a
scarlet beret which floods the haunts of
tourists in Southern Italy, or the togged-
out dancers of the Tarantella — you find
these, if you want them, but you find
unhackneyed types as well — men and
women in field, in vineyard, in olive and
orange grove, on the bare slopes of Monte
Solaro, and fishermen and children at the
Marina among the black or gaily-painted
boats along that interesting street of low-
browed houses with flat roofs and deep
arched doorways which fronts the sea, and
from whose narrow iron balconies the
women rain showers of flower petals upon
the processions that pass along the water-
side to an altar at the end of the beach.
It is true that when the tourist comes
the painter goes, and that there are many
tourists in these days in Capri. But the
tourist season is short, and the painter can
THE CUFF* Or
e«*
and r
trace
i to tin .
occup-
ing down th». •
a warm summ
time to a weii
nt of the
founts:
BY A. Ri EN, R. li.A.
the beggar of picturesque tatters,
utne grizzled head under a
sea: ret which floods the haunts of
Southern Italy, or the togged-
out s of the Tarantella — you find
the ou want them, but you find
unh d types as well — men and
women -.1 field, in vineyard, in olive and
orange . >n the bare slopes of Monte
Solaro, i.slirtrmen and children at the
;. the black or gaily-painted
that interesting street of low-
wed with flat roofs and deep
iich fronts the sea, and
•\v iron balconies the
-»*>rs of flower petals upon
pass along the water-
nd of the beach.
:he tourist comes
there are many
in Capri. But the
and the painter can
THE CUFFS OF CAPRI. »v A. ROMILLY FEOOEN, R.B.A
Capri
work all the year round for a part of the
day in the open. Kvi-n in January, it is
possible to eat the mid-day meal in the
sun, out-of-doors. Hcsid.-s, tln-nr an- yjoo.l
studios to he obtained tor winti-r work, both
at Capri and at Anacapri, and good models
too. Lodgings and small villas may be
had t<> suit all purses, and living, in a
country \vlirrr wine and fruit, flowers, fish
and vegetables are cheap, need not be
uninteresting if it has to be economical.
The food of the country, too, for those who
prefer to keep house with native servants
or try native restaurants, will provide some
new and appetizing dishes ; what can be
better than gnochi & la Mil.ni.iis.-, a frittura
of artichokes, or a risotto eaten on the
terrace, helped by a bottle of Capri u
A pleasanter place for life and work than
Capri can hardly be found, liut, like every
person or place of great individuality, it
has the defects of its good qualities. It is
a lotus land, where many have gone for a
day and have remained for a lifetime, lulled
finally to sleep beneath the pointed cypress
trees upon the hill. Wtvn you go, it is
safer to take your return ticket.
KATHARINE FEDDEK.
EVENING- CAPRI
BY A. ROMILLV FKDDKN, R.B.A.
THE WACHAU.
II I.TSTKA I KD BY
I1AKIXISCH, LUIGI
THE WACHAU.
DKSCKIMI-.il HV A. S. LEVI I US,
GUSTAV ItAMIlERGER, OSWALD GRII.I., ALOIS
KASIMIR, RICHARD Ll'X. ANH»\ XuVAK, KMIL
STRECKER, MAX SUPPANTSCHITSCH AND EDUARD /I ISCHE.
TO the artist in search of secluded
nooks and places hidden from the
great world, where the step of the
ordinary tourist or globe-trotter is
practically unknown, the Wachau offers
rare opportunities as a sketching ground.
It lies between Linz and Vienna, and is
the general name given to the district of
the Danube immediately between the two
ancient cities of Krems and Melk. At one
of these two places you must take ship, for
at present the Wachau is undefiled by rail-
way, though its invasion is threatened in the
near future. Or the journey may be made
by steamer from Passau, the route being
one of singular beauty — " Charmingly diver-
si ti.-d with woods, rocks, mountains covered
with vines, fields of corn, and ruins of
castles," wrote Lady Mary Wortley Mon-
tagu to her sister in 1717.
Hut these beauties are not revealed at
once, for the Danube can boast of no broad
sweep such as her sister the Rhine possesses
between Bingen and Bonn. But in its
place are lovely languorous windings and
bondings, unveiling scenes of indescribable
loveliness which linger in the memory,
recalling poetic visions of a bygone age, for
modern civilisation has till now refrained
from laying her heavy hand on the ancient
DtiRNSTElN, WITH DISTANT VIEW OF THE CASTLE
BY ANTON NOVAK
219
The Wachau
culture. Low down on the water's edge old
towns arise, these in their turn interspersed
with villages, Gothic churches whose warlike
corner towers and old walls remind one of
a time when the Houses of God were also
strongholds against the enemy, for the
Wachau was in former times the centre of
attack. Behind and around the churches,
at once to protect and be protected, are the
old " Biirgen," once the homes of the
patricians who laid down their lives in
defence of their country, now inhabited by
peasants, but whose wonderful old court-
yards and ancient buildings still tell a tale
of past glory. Avar, Hun, Swede and
French have at times besieged the shores,
only to be repulsed
with terrible loss. The
Wachau, too, played
a part in the Thirty
Years' War, for here
was the seat of Protes-
tantism in Austria.
Behind the "Biirgen"
rise the ruins of the
old castles — Aggstein,
Kuenringe and Diirn-
stein. In the latter, tra-
dition says, Richard I.
languished for three
months ; " no fetters
were laid upon him,
but knights with
drawn swords watched
him night and day."
And here came Blon-
del to ease his master's
heart and finally set
him at liberty.
Between these
castles, and over-top-
ping the mountains,
are the monasteries ot
Melk and Gottweih,
towers of strength
watching o'er the
valley. From these
points of vantage may
be seen smiling val-
leys, orchards filled
with peach, apple,
plum, pear and apri-
cot, fields of shimmer-
ing corn, hills covered with vines arranged
in terraces, and around them and between
them always the Danube winding its way,
its colour varying with the season, now
grey, now grey-green, and later of a
brilliant emerald hue, but never blue.
The colouring of the Wachau will
make a deep impression on the artist ;
there is something of poetic sadness in it,
the soft brown reds of the roofs or the greys
of the old walls, the harmonious tones,
telling of centuries of life in this lovely
corner of the earth which the hand of pro-
fanation has left untouched. He will find
inspiration in bits of old frescoes, in the
traces of the Roman occupation — for here
r
I:
I
OLD STREET IN DURNSTEIN
BY EMIL STRECKER
220
:
>,
S
The Wachaii
THE DANUBE AT THE WACHAU
BY RICHARD LUX
was a Roman colony under Marcus Aurelius,
in the variety of architecture offered to him
— the earlier and later gothic periods, the
renaissance, and the barock, of which
two of the finest existing specimens are to
be found in the monastery of Melk and the
church at Diirnstein, both built by the
same architect, one Jacob Prandauer, of
St. Polten. His interest will be aroused,
too, by the variety of chimneys, for no two
are alike, and each little town and village
has its own peculiar, ever-varying form,
all being in harmony and enhancing the
beauties of the landscape; or by the graceful
roofs of the houses, with their overhanging
eaves, guiltless of water-spouts or gutters.
The queer paddle-boats which will take
him across the river will attract his atten-
tion, for they, too, are of ancient form ; or
the white post-steamers making their way
gracefully along the Danube will perhaps
recall him to the present. This, however,
THE DANUBE AT DURNSTEIN
BY OSWALD GRILI,
222
VIEW FROM THE HILLS BEHIND DURNSTEIN
BY OSWALD GRILL.
KREMS ON THE] DANUBE.
BY GUSTAV BAMBERGER
The Wachau
AGGSTEIN ON THE DANUBE
will be quickly forgotten
again in watching the rafts,
bound for Vienna, laden with
wood brought from the Wald-
viertel, or salt from Gmunden
by way of the Traun, a tribu-
tary of the Danube. He will
find amusement and even
delight by spending a night
on a fishing boat lit up with
faggots to attract the Salmo
hucho, a kind of trout caught
in the Danube. In autumn
he will gaze pensively on the
primitive boats laden with
fruit, innocent of all packing,
to be taken to the capital and
sold on the banks of the river.
Each season offers oppor-
tunities to the painter. The
Vienna artists prefer spring
and autumn, when the colour-
ing is of an exquisite delicacy,
such as appeals perhaps more
to the etcher and painter in
water - colours and tempera
than the one who prefers oils
as his medium ; while the
sketcher will always be able
224
BY LUIGI KASIMIR
to discover material
such as he can find
nowhere else. In
winter the tempera-
ture is mild, there is
very little snow, for
though the mountains
be covered there is
practically none in the
valleys, even though
the Danube be frozen
and the traveller com-
pelled to go from
village to village
either on foot or by
carriage ; but the dis-
tances are short.
The best places to
stay in for any length
of time are Diirnstein
or Spitz ; the accom-
modation is good,
rooms costing about
two shillings a day,
OLD STREET IN DURNSTEIN
BY LUIGI KASIMIR
u
(flr ftrmission aftkt Gtstllschaft fir
A'unst)
Ml I.K ABBEY
BY ALOIS HAElMst II
The Wachan
OLD GRAVE CROSSES
BY EDUARD ZETSCHE
BY MAX SUPPANTSCHITSCH
or even less, and the food is excellent in
quality and moderate in price. The coffee
is an elixir, the wine nectar, and the water
ambrosia.
The artists gather at Thierry's Gasthaus
zum Lowenherz. This was formerly a
OLD KREMS
226
nunnery, built nearly a thousand years ago ;
to reach it you ascend the same stone steps,
hewn in the rocks, which the nuns climbed ;
you will dine in their refectory ; everything
savours of past centuries, except the bed-
rooms, which are large and comfortably fur-
nished. At Spitz you
can stay at Heitzen-
berger's. Weissen-
kirchen is the loveliest
of all the places in
the Wachau, and the
modest will be satis-
fied with Saloman's
inn.
If nothing has been
said about the legends
attached to the Wac-
hau and of the many
other attractions
offered, it is simply
because here is not
the place to speak of
them, but they exist,
needless to say, in
abundance. Both
sides of the river
offer splendid oppor-
BY GUSTAV BAMBERGER tunities to the artist.
-
—
/
D
-
-
I
a
r,
—
Ul
The Wachau
There is no need to mention the names of
villages which he may visit. When he has
exhausted what he thinks suitable for his
purpose he will go farther afield, to Melk
or Krems — an old fortified town ; all ways
are open to him, for from either town he is
but two hours from Vienna. He may visit
Maria-Zell or Maria-Taferl — two places of
pilgrimages of great interest frequented
by the Austrians — Pochlarn, Purgstall or
Scheibbs — where there is some ancient
architecture — wonderful old "Biirgen", or,
still further west, Salzburg and the Salzkam-
mergut ; or, by means of the Tauern Tunnel,
opened a few weeks ago, he can get to the
Southern Provinces of Austria, all of which
are interesting. Then he can extend his
tour to Italy, without any trouble, for Melk
leads to everywhere.
But if he simply stays in the Wachau
he will be amply rewarded — one single
visit, even for a protracted time, will not
exhaust its beauties or its interest, for,
return as often as he may, he will always
find new fascinations in this little, unknown
corner of the earth. A. S. LEVETUS.
OLD COURTYARD IN WEISSENKIRCHEN
HY EDUARD ZETSCHE
228
HOLLAND.
HOLLAND.
Dl Si KII'.I I) A\I) IJ.I.rSI KA I I.I) I1Y lll.KHi.Rl MAKMIAI.I., R.\V s
II is only within the last twenty-five
.PS tli.it Holland has be<-n seriously
tak.-n up by p.iinti-rs. The all-per-
vading spirit of trimm-ss. the low
horizons ami the absence of vaporous
mystery, \v<-rc lomn-rly looked upon as
prejudicial to romantic aspiration. Ruskin
complained that he felt imprisoned amidst
scenery so " resolutely level " — a landscape
so wanting in rich hues of purple and violet
and ultramarine. Furthermore, there are
no fine gothic cathedrals to detain the way-
farer. According to Fergusson, the prosaic
Dutchman built his churches for utilitarian
purposes, and without any desire to create
an effect. And yet Holland in the autumn
is a land of rich mellow tones ; the green
trees bordering the canals change to russet
brown and hold in harmonious balance the
.v sails <,t the barges and the lustrous
dark red bnrkwurk of the houses. The
brightness of spring does not become t.
country so well as the softer autumn skies ;
moreover, there are fewer tourists during
the later months of the year.
Over all the towns and villages of
Holland, Dordrecht reigns supreme in its
"calm dignity among the waters." From
Groningen to Zeeland, there is no such
varied scenery to be found in any one
place as in this town, beyond whose walls
the great Rhine meets the sea at last.
Here are wide harbours, alive with craft
of every kind ; cool, tree-shaded avenues
fringe the smooth canals, and the calm
water mirrors the tall houses, built of red
brick, deep-toned and admirably laid. Out-
side the town stretch the open waters of the
THE INNER HARBOUR, DORDRECHT
BY HERBERT MARSHALL, K.W.S.
Holland
POTATO MARKET AT DORDRECHT
BY HERBERT MARSHALL, R.W.S.
Maas, the Waal, and
the Merwede, with
their ever-moving
crowd of sailing
vessels, of every build
and every colour.
Beyond these points,
the chief charm of
Dordrecht lies in the
absence of " lions."
There is nothing in
parti cular to be
"done," and the artist
may therefore conse-
crate every hour of
the day to his work.
Amsterdam, which
is said just to miss
being the most pictur-
esque city in Europe,
ranks high in the favour of artists, both master's house, a picturesque tower with
for its own sake, and because it is in a conical roof, and the beautiful Montal-
close touch with such places as Haarlem, baan's Tower in the Oude Schaus. Near
Hoorn, Alkmaar, Enkhuisen and Volendam, at hand stands the old Weigh House,
any of which may be easily visited for a with its attendant market-place, and
day's sketching. Good central quarters beyond is a small haven surrounded by
are to be found at the Hotel Victoria, many coloured houses, reflected in the
which is conveniently near to the rail- water like fluttering ribands and over
way station and the steamboat piers. It whose roofs rises the tower of the Oude
is also close to some of the finest of the Kerk. These are a few examples of the
old water-fronted houses, many of which picturesque staple of Amsterdam,
date from the sixteenth century. East- Forty minutes' run by train brings the
wards along the quay are the Harbour- traveller to Haarlem, famous for its Franz
Hals. Here the chief
glories lie in the
Cathedral and market-
place ; but in addition
to these a sufficient
number of " subjects"
will be found amongst
the canals. There is
one especially good
view from the Terrein
de Phcenix, on the
banks of the Spaarne,
near the railway sta-
tion; and another
south of the town on
the broad quay of the
Turf Market, where
fine trees and rich-
coloured barges, a
busy market crowd,
THE WATER TOWER AT HOORN
232
BY HERBERT MARSHALL, R.W.S.
f
---.
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-- -
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H a
\
Holland
ENKHUISEN
BY HERBERT MARSHALL, R.W.S.
and the Cathedral shadowing the whole,
make an effective picture.
To the north of Amsterdam lie the
famous " Dead Cities " of the Zuyder Zee.
They exist more in name than in reality,
but to this name attaches a certain romance,
lending to the cities an atmosphere of
sentiment, which, in these days of hard
prose, it would be neither kind nor desir-
able to dispel. Hoorn is the most important
of these towns, and should certainly be
visited. It possesses a Weigh House, in
the market place, built of stone, with a
high-pitched roof of green slate and pictur-
esque dormer windows. A very beautiful
old Water Tower protects the harbour, and
under its shadow lie a few fishing boats ;
while on the quay sailors move sleepily
about in wide trousers and heavy boots,
waiting for the sluggish tide to carry them
out to their nightly toil.
Enkhuisen is another dead city which
has undergone resurrection. From this
port the boats run across the Zuyder Zee to
Stavoren and Friesland. The harbour is
234
guarded, as at Hoorn, by a tower, called
here the Dromedaris Tower, and there is
also a small inner harbour, used chiefly for
ship-building and repairing. From the
tower a line of old cottages runs seawards,
with varied roofs of purple and orange red.
The fishing life is very brisk and busy
when the fleet is in port. Groups of fisher-
folk await the incoming boats at the foot
of the wooden lighthouse, and spread their
nets on the sides of the high dyke which
forms the sea-wall.
An early start should be made from
Amsterdam to see the celebrated Friday
cheese-market, at Alkmaar. The real
excitement does not begin until about
10.30 a.m., but for many hours before, the
market-carts rattle in with their loads of
red and orange cheeses, which are then
laid out in squares on the ground, and
covered with white or green cloths. They
are tossed one by one out of the carts to
a man standing in the market, who catches
them and spreads them on beds of straw ;
and the dexterous certainty with which the
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Holland
.
ALKMAAR
BY HERBERT MARSHALL, R.W.S.
The main street runs along
a high dyke, on one side of
which the brightly painted
cottages of the fishermen
nestle for protection against
the storms of the Zuyder
Zee. On the other side of
the protecting dyke lies the
harbour, which is at times
so closely packed that a
circuit might almost be
made by stepping from ship
to ship. Volendam is essen-
tially a town for figure
painters ; and there is none
of the picturesque posing
and consciousness of admir-
ation which prevails so
strongly in the neighbour-
ing island of Marken.
There still remain many
places of great artistic merit
which can only be enumer-
ated in a short article. In
the neighbourhood of
Amsterdam there are Schev-
eningen, Zaandam and
Gouda ; to the north-east,
Harlingen, Sneek,Deventer,
Zwolle and Kampen; in
mid-Holland, Arnhem and
Nymwegen, and to the south,
M iddleburg, Goes and Veere.
HERBERT MARSHALL.
greasy slippery things
are thrown and caught,
might afford a useful
object lesson to many
cricketers.
A steam tram runs
from Amsterdam to
Volendam, the " para-
dise of quaint costumes
and gay prettinesses,"
and here all wants,
both artistic and ma-
terial, are satisfied by
the kind and enter-
prising host of the
Hotel Spaander, who
lays himself out for
the cult of the painter.
238
VOLENDAM
BY HERBERT MARSHALL, R.W.S.
STOCKHOLM.
STOCKHOLM.
hi si -|< | III- |) AND Il.l.TSl KAI I D I'.V COUN1
W I I Hoi' | .,iiy doubt, Sto.-kholm
is i>tif "1 tin- most h.-.iutiuil .iml
pi< tun-M|U'- towns in tin- \vnrlil.
l-roin its i-xi-.-jitiniial situation,
surround'-il by w.Ui-r, having l-.ik.- M. il.tr
on one side and the sea, with its tine
.in hiprlago, on the other, the town offers
in.uiv i h.ir.K tcristics calculated to appeal
to artists. The numerous ports and quays
THE JACOB CHURCH BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
present to the marine painter subj.
which are dear to him, sailing ships or
steamboats loading or unloading their
cargoes in a hazy and smoky atmo-
sphere. The landscapist will find close
to the town, in the fine old parks—
whether in winter, when the dazzling
whiteness of the snow holds sway, or in
summer during the long romantic even-
ings—a rich treasure from which to
draw at will many and varied inspira-
tions. Th<- -iii- life of the town
will find a- :olm plt-asing lnn-s
-IP -!ul public gardens, most in-
trir.itf • liw'ht — especially th<
twilight — and the varied types of the gay
crowd of a great town.
Hut Stockholm has an intimate side
enveloped in an historic atmosphere, and
stamped with that sympathetic dignity
which ages past and gone gives to old
houses and old towns. It is the old
quarters which especially attract th«-
artist to Stockholm— quarters, of which a
great number, and these the most inter-
esting, are on the point of disappearing.
These localities, with their narrow wind-
ing streets and alleys, hide an inexhaust-
ible treasure of subj'
The south side of the town, in Swedish
Sodermalm, was built on the summit ol
steep rocks, at the foot of which flow
the waters of the port. There the little
streets climb over the hills or wind in
the valleys, and communication with the
quays is established by means of wooden
!. slKH I
LOUIS SPARRE
Stockholm
AN OLD STREET
BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
ladders rising perpendicularly and
set in the granite. From this lofty
side of the town one may enjoy
one of the most beautiful views in
the world. At the present time
all this picturesque quarter is
being dismantled by the pickaxe
of the house-breaker, and dyna-
mite is undermining the rock.
Wide monotonous modern avenues
are engulfing the by-ways ; little
wooden maisonnettes painted
green, yellow or red, with their
roofs broken by the gay colours
of the old tiles, are falling in one
by one, while modern houses are
rising in their place, huge, high,
hideous, and all in different and
doubtful styles. Here and there,
however, there remain, forgotten
in the midst of the rising tide of
all this architecture, so devoid of
romance, a few groups of old
garrets, with their medley of colour
and worm-eaten staircases, insinu-
ating themselves, as if ashamed,
242
among the wooden maisonnettes, to-
wards the heights whence the whole
town is spread out to the view, dis-
playing in the sun an enchanting
picture with its broken lines, its houses
old and new along the numerous
quays. Here and there in the haze
rise the graceful silhouettes of church
spires, and the great square mass,
severe and dignified, of the royal
castle, attracts the eye by its beau-
tiful proportions and its dignified
reserve of style.
The best preserved quarter of Old
Stockholm is that part called " the
city between the bridges." This is
the kernel around which has gradu-
ally grown the capital of Sweden.
This old quarter is built on an
island, washed on one side by the
waters of Lake Malar and on the
other by the sea. Situated on this
island is the royal castle, and close to
the castle is the principal church of the
town, the Great Church. On this little
island is a labyrinth of narrow streets
"ON THE VERGE OF RUIN"
BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
Stockholm
OLD I;TH CENTURY LOU-HOUSE
BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
with high houses whose age is reckoned in
centuries. Some of the intersecting alleys,
which often begin under an overhanging
arch of the unbroken facade of a principal
street, are extremely narrow and recall in
many points Toledo and other old Spanish
towns. Some of the houses have fine gable-
**•
OLD COTTAGJ -JiflH HILLS
BY (< IS SPARRC
ends, with a very graceful slope on the
street. Old doors are often seen with
frames of carved stone which are real
masterpieces and invite the passer-by to
explore the interior of the house, in which
he often thus discovers very curious stair-
cases, arches of picturesque effect, and
BROAD LANE
BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
PART OF THE CASTLE AND TOWER or THE
GREAT CHURCH BY COUNT LOUIS'SPARRK
243
Stockholm
l6TH CENTURY HOUSES BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
rooms with decorative mural paintings
of the greatest interest.
A stroll through these quarters at dusk
fills a winter evening with dreams of
the past. A heavy sky overhangs the
narrow cutting formed by the yellowish
walls of the high and ancient houses,
with little windows and dormers reflect-
ing in the higher storeys the cold grey
of the winter light. On the lower floors
are seen here and there in the purple
shadows of the little alleys a faint red
glow proceeding from the humble light
of some small low-ceilinged house.
Far below stands the ancient gate,
surmounted by the shield of an old
noble family, flanked by two lions with
scornful, aristocratic faces. In the dis-
tance flickers the poor light of a street
lamp.
All this quarter has remained almost
intact. The artist who is charmed by
the picturesque with a history has only
to fix his easel at the first corner he
comes to. Subjects abound everywhere.
It is nevertheless astonishing that so few
artists should depict this romantic por-
tion of the town ; and they must hasten,
244
SK^W
OLD BRICK BUILDING BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
DOORWAY OF AN OLD HOUSE
BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
THE CASTLE HILL, STOCKHOLM
BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
Stockholm
for the wind of destruction already howls
around these venerable roofs. Plans for
modernization exist — which only await the
decision of a well-intentioned municipal
council— to demolish this highly interest-
ing open-air museum, and to submit it to
the same fate which has already befallen
some of the fascinating quarters of the
ancient capital of Sweden.
Louis SPARRE.
THE OLD GREEN HOUSE
BY COUNT LOUIS SPARRE
246
BOARDSHIP AS A SKETCHING GROUND.
BOARDSHIP AS A SKKTCHING (.ROl'Nl).
ILLUSTRATED I'.v <ii-.< »M-ki.v
T' > tin- artist the deck of a lin«-r
usually sui^rsts but few possi-
bilities, unless he be a marine
painter, in which case it offers
him opportunities to devote himself to the
study of the everchantfing ocean. He may
observe it in storm or in calm, under grey
THE PROMENADE DECK ON R.M.S. "EMPRESS OF JAPAN
nothing in common, yet they are con-
demned to spend some days, weeks, or
even months in each other's company, with
practically no possibility of escape. The
prospects seem sufficiently alarming, yet to
the student of human character and its little
idiosyncrasies, they offer many possibili-
>, and ample scope
for indulging his
talent as a humorous
artist.
We have already said
that nowhere has one
such excellent oppor-
tunities of observing
the peculiarities of
one's fellow-creatures
as on a long voyage,
for it is remarkable
how, after a day or
two " out," the various
characteristics of the
passengers begin to
reveal themselves, and
then the artist can
select his "specimens."
First there is the
elderly spinster as seen
in the sketch on this
page. She is usually
a much-travelled per-
son, but you will find
that though she has
skies or blue skies, and he will find interest
in all its varying aspects. To the artist
who also studies his fellows, life on board-
ship presents much good material for his
pencil, especially if he be gifted with a
sense of humour ; indeed, it would be diffi-
cult to imagine a gathering of people
which would prove more fruitful in good
subjects for the humorous draughtsman.
The particular conditions which pertain
to life on a liner are peculiar. Here one
finds a motley collection of human beings,
who have usually never met before, thrown
together in the closest social intimacy,
often for a long period. Except that they
are fellow passengers they may have
visited many coun-
tries she possesses
but a limited know-
ledge of any. She
always travels under
the wing of Cook's,
or some other well-
known tourist's or-
ganisation, and
spends most of her
time reading guide-
books. She has a
curious habit of vol-
unteering obvious
remarks, such as
"We are getting
Boardship as a Sketching Ground
nearer our des-
tination,"or "It
will be wet if it
rains."
Perhaps the
most common
type is the one
depicted in the
accompanying
sketch, "The
' THE STORYTELLER
Storyteller." Usually he
has, or professes to have
travelled extensively, and
possesses a rare stock of
anecdotes, and if some of
his tales require the pro-
verbial grain of salt,
they are always welcome
pour passer le temps. He
spends most of his time
in the smoking saloon, and one of his
peculiarities is that he is usually the last
to turn in for the night, indeed he never
retires until the last of his audience has
departed. At the end of a voyage one
leaves him with some regret, and on
reflection one cannot help feeling that, but
for him, the long journey would have
seemed still longer.
There are often times during a sea
voyage, especially in its early stages, when
some of us prefer to be alone — solitude and
not sympathy is what we chiefly desire —
but it is not always easy to make the
cheerful passenger realise this. The feel-
ings of the suffering traveller in the sketch
" The Comforter " are not difficult to read,
but the beaming countenance of his com-
panion forbids protest. Similarly inoppor-
tune on such occasions are the attentions
250
SONGS OF ARABY
of the steward who insists on bringing you
tempting (?) beverages (page 251).
The entertainment and sports are re-
sponsible for many amusing incidents in
the life on boardship. Types such as we
see in the pale and persistent songster
depicted in one of the sketches, and the
enthusiastic player of deck-quoits in another
one invariably finds. Though these well-
meaning people are always ignorant of the
fact, they never fail to
add to the humorous en-
joyment of the voyage.
Such strenuous field-
games as hockey are
hardly suited to the re-
stricted space usually
available on board, with
the result that those who
indulge in them must be
prepared for some hard
knocks. It is curious to
see quite elderly folk
take part in these games,
who would not dream of
doing so under any other
conditions. They are
generally compelled to
retire to their cabin and
remain there for some
days to recover from their
exertions.
"CANDY — 4.45 P.M."
f* (is a Sketching Ground
"THE COMFORTER"
Rough weather will often add to the fun
of the games. One recalls Mark Twain's
graphic description of " horse-billiards " in
his Innocents Abroad, He says : " Horse-
billiards is a fine game. It affords good,
active exercise, hilarity and
consuming excitement. It is
a mixture of hop-scotch and
shuffle - board played with a
crutch. A large hop-scotch
diagram is marked out on
the deck with chalk, and each
compartment numbered. You
stand off three or four steps,
with some broad wooden disks
before you on the deck, and
these you send forward with a
vigorous thrust of a long
crutch. If a disk stops on a
chalk line it does not count
anything. If it stops in divi-
sion No. 7 it counts 7 ; in 5 it
counts 5 ; and so on. The
game is 100, and four can play
at a time. The game would
be very simple played on a
stationary floor, but with us,
to play it well required science.
We had to allow for the reel-
ing of the ship to the right
or the left. Very often one "CHICKEN
made calculations for a reel to the
right and the ship did not go that
v. The consequence was that
that disk missed the whole hop-
scotch plan a yard or two, and
then there was humiliation on one
side and laughter on the other."
But apart from the games
very difficult to obtain the neces-
sary exercise to counteract the
effects of the continuous feeding
which is such a feature of the daily
routine on boardship. Skipping
in the early morning, though ex-
cellent in its way, does not com-
mend itself to those of a more
restful temperament, besides being
objectionable to one's immediate
neighbours. The only exercise
which can be followed with reason-
able convenience is the daily "con-
stitutional" round and round the
deck, and it is remarkable how contagious
this particular form of exercise is. Two
people will start walking round the deck at
a good pace, such as we see in the sketch
on the next page. Immediately two more
BROTH ? '
Boardship as a Sketching Ground
'THE CONSTITUTIONAL
weirdest clothes they can obtain,
such as no power on earth would
induce them to don elsewhere.
Some deem it an opportunity for
reviving their oldest garments,
wlrle some will go to the other
extreme and bedeck themselves in
their finest array. One man dis-
plays a pretty fancy in waistcoats,
another in boots, while a third shows
a penchant for curious hats. All
are amusing, and provide excellent
material for the humorous sketcher.
Sometimes the officers and crew
will produce a few good subjects,
and if lascars are employed, many
follow their example, and then others,
until you find a regular column of pas-
sengers pursuing one another as if com-
peting for a wager.
Many means are resorted to for whiling
away the tedious hours of a long voyage.
Some passengers energetically write
journals ; others, like the couple in the
sketch on page 250, sit steadily chewing
candy, this being believed by some,
whether rightly or not it is impossible
to say, to be a sure preventive of mal-de-
mer. Some merely sit or lie still and
apparently think, about what no man
can say. These are to be found day
after day in the same spot looking as if
they had never moved from it.
Not the least amusing feature of life
on boardship is the variety and origi-
nality of the costumes one sees. With
some people it appears to be an axiom
that, when going on a long voyage, they
should include in their wardrobe the
' DECK-QUOITS
" DECK-HOCKEY "
252
picturesque figures and
groups will be found.
Enough has been said
to show that the artist
need not despair of finding
plenty of humorous sub-
jects when travelling by
sea, and if he takes advan-
tage of his opportunities
he will soon fill his sketch-
book. G. H.
0
ut.
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