Week 9 :Turner and Venetian Painting

Miss Provis and the Secrets of the Venetian Masters.

 James Gillray,  Titianus Redivivus; or the Seven Wise Men Consulting the New Venetian Oracle, - a Scene in the Academic Grove, 1797, etching and watercolour, British Museum, London.

J. M. W. Turner, Self-Portrait, 1799, Tate Britain, oil on canvas, 743 x 584 mm. LINK

Workshop of Titian, Venus and Adonis, about 1554, NG, London, oil on canvas, 177.9 x 188. 9 cms. LINK

Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, NG, London, 152-23, oil on canvas, 176.5 x 191 cm. LINK

It might be thought that debates about the true character of Venetian paintings, of “Venetian colour” are a product of the modern age, but they can be traced back to the late 18^th century when Turner was just setting off on his career. In 1790, a young woman called Anne Provis declared confidently that she possessed the “Venetian secret”, supposedly kept in a transcript from a lost manual that had revealed the techniques and methods of the earlier painters. For ten guineas, Miss Provis and her father were prepared to share the “secrets” of the Venetian masters, and such was their success in garnering interest that Provis became something of a celebrity to the extent that Gillray satirised her mercilessly. His etching of 1797 shows the credible academicians and connoisseurs beneath a caricature of Miss Provis applying her technique to a “masterpiece.” Significantly, Turner is not among their number; he disdained to participate in such a stunt; his name appears on a portfolio of sceptics attacked by a monkey.[1] Despite his rightful distrust of Miss Provis’s “Secret”, Turner was deeply fascinated by the techniques of the Venetians; and he did later experiment with “clear, deep glazes of colour” to the detriment of his later canvases.[2] In the early phase of his career, in a pre-National Gallery age, Turner had to seek Venetian old masters in the collections of aristocrats such as the Duke of Bridgwater whose impressive collection was shown in 1798. Most importantly, the Duke’s holdings included an impressive group of Venetian masters presided over by Titian. Another important source would have been the holdings of Angerstein who owned many pictures such as Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne, which would eventually go to the National Gallery. 

   

Turner’s Dialogue with Titian

Johann Carl Loth (after lost Titian), The Death of St Peter Martyr, 1691, Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 500 x 306 cm.  

 J.M.W. Turner, Composition study for Venus mourning the Dead Adonis, c. 1802-3, Tate Britain, pencil and chalk on blue paper, from the “Calais Pier” sketchbook. LINK

J.M.W. Turner, Holy Family, Tate Britain, 1803, oil on canvas, 102.2 x 141.6 cm. LINK

Titian, The Holy Family with a Shepherd, c. 1510, NG, London, oil on canvas, 99.1 x 139.1 cm. LINK

Thanks to a lull in the fighting between France and England in 1802 during the Peace of Amiens, Turner took advantage to visit Paris and the Louvre; the result was his “Louvre sketch book” containing many sketches and ricordi after Titian and other Venetian painters.[3]  At the top of Turner’s “wish list” was Titian’s spectacular Death of St Peter Martyr which sadly was to later perish in a fire at the church of San Giovanni e Paolo in 1867. Between 1530 and 1867, the Titian masterpiece only left Venice once when it became one of Napoleon’s trophies of war.[4] Turner’s Louvre sketch book is full of notes on this picture, some of which he used for a lecture he delivered at the Royal Academy several years later. In that lecture Turner said the following: The highest honour that landscape has as yet, she received from the hands of Titian…the triumph even of Landscape may be safely said to exist in his divine picture of St Peter Martyr.”[5] During his nine days at the Louvre, Turner assiduously copied pictures by Titian and Giorgione, mainly in watercolour, though it is interesting to note that Turner didn’t make a copy of the St Peter Martyr because it had been altered by recent restoration at the Louvre. He also copied Giorgione’s Fête Champetre which was then believed to be by Titian. Back in London, Turner slowly assimilated the lessons learned from studying other masters like Veronese (see below), the 17^th century artist P. F. Mola, and of course Titian. These provided the governing models for Turner’s large vertical canvas depicting a subject beloved of the Venetians: Venus and Adonis. Turner’s “Calais Pier” sketchbook shows a composition study of Venus and Adonis, probably influenced by a painting of the same subject in Angerstein’s collection; and in his oil version he applied “the strong vertical weight of Titian’s trees to his own figure groupings.”[6] Another essay at a pastiche of Titian is the little Holy Family which was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1803. Based on an early Titian in the NG, then doing the rounds of the showrooms, this pastiche was received negatively by the press and worse drew the criticism of fellow artists like Fuseli who damned Turner for his lack of finish in the picture. Highly sensitive, Turner refrained from painting in Titian’s manner until the 1820s a decade when Titian became more popular thanks to the publication of Sir Abraham Hume’s Notices of the Life and Works of Titian (1829).

Turner and Veronese.

J.M. W. Turner, Copies of Venetian paintings (Palma, Tintoretto and Veronese), with notes by James Hakewill, 1819, Tate Britain, pen and ink on paper. LINK

 Paolo Veronese, The Family of Darius before Alexander, NG, London, 1565-67, oil on canvas, 236. 2 x 474. 9 cm. LINK

 Paolo Veronese, Votive Portrait of Doge Sebastiano Venier, 1581-82, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, Oil on canvas, 285 x 565 cm.

J. M.W. Turner, Copies of Paintings by Veronese in the Sala del Collegio of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1819, Tate Britain, pen and ink on paper. LINK

Unsurprisingly, Turner’s researches at the Louvre also involved Veronese, but for some reason he did not get to see the artist’s Finding of Moses in 1802. Admired chiefly for his colour, Turner drew on Veronese for amplification of his ideas on history painting. Turner stressed the role of architecture within history painting, drawing on such illustrious masterpieces as Veronese’s gigantic Marriage at Cana, which cannot have escaped his notice at the Louvre. He also mentioned the lesser-known Mercury, Herse and Aglauros in the Orleans collection, and now in the Fitzwilliam, Cambridge. As Worrall says, it is clear that though Turner respected Veronese as a colourist, he went beyond such common conventions and attempted to “elucidate the part played by light and shade in intensifying the formal relationships between colours.” Turner would exploit these ideas in his own version of the Mercury, now in a private collection. Such attention to chiaroscuro, colour and form would re-emerge in the writings of Delacroix who shared the same sophisticated views about Veronese as Turner.[7] Though now owned by the NG, Veronese’s showpiece Family of Darius was in the Palazzo Pisani in Venice in Turner’s time. Unfortunately, Turner does not seem to have made the best use of this magnificent canvas, or to have “observed particularly” as he was told to do. Turner did, however, visit the Ducal palace where he enjoyed Veronese’s series of allegories on the ceiling of the Sala del Collegio. Some of these are recorded in his sketchbooks.

Turner and Canaletto.

Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, The Return of the Bucentoro to the Molo on Ascension Day, c. 1733-34, Royal Collection, oil on canvas, 76.8 x 125.4 cm.

Thomas Girtin, (after Canaletto), The Rialto Bridge, c. 1796-8, British Museum, London, pen and ink. 

William Marlow, Capriccio: St Paul’s Cathedral and the Grand Canal, c. 1795-97, Tate Britain, oil on canvas, 129.5 x 104.1 cm. LINK

J.M.W. Turner, Bridge of Sighs, Ducal Palace, and Custom House, Venice: Canaletti Painting, exh. R.A. 1833, Tate Britain, oil on mahogany, 51.1 x 81.6 cm. LINK

Turner’s first exposure to Canaletto’s art almost certainly would have been via Dr Munro, a physician specialising in mental illness who owned a collection of Old Master drawings. Turner and his associate Thomas Girtin used to make drawings in his Academy, which contained drawings by Rembrandt, Claude, Wilson, Canaletto, Morland, Gainsborough, Sandy and other water colourists.[8] Even if Turner had not attended Dr Munro’s academy, he would not have been as unaware of Canaletto since the former had trained as a topographer and the latter took that cartographical approach towards representing Venice. Munro collected drawings but direct knowledge of Canaletto’s paintings would require access to royal or aristocratic collections. Turner would probably have known the twenty four Canalettos in the Duke of Bedford’s collection, who was a cousin of Turner’s patron the Earl of Essex. Entry to the Duke of Bedford’s holdings might have been facilitated by Girtin whose watercolours pleased the Duke.[9] Another conduit to Canaletto would have been the set of thirty eight engravings made by Antonio Visentini, whose emphasis on the Grand Canal was of interest to Canaletto. Turner would eventually dispense with the clarity of Canaletto’s views returning to technique and materials rather than perspective and delineation. Turner was to award Canaletto the ultimate accolade by painting his predecessor in the act of representing Venice: Bridge of Sighs, Ducal Palace, and Custom House, Venice: Canaletti Painting in 1833.

Turner, Venice and the 19^th Century Romantic Tradition.

J.M.W. Turner, Venice: The Ducal Palace, for Samuel Roger’s ‘Italy’ , c. 1826-27, Tate Britain, watercolour, 24 x 30.6 cm. LINK

J.M.W. Turner, Juliet and her Nurse, exh. R.A. 1836, Sra Amalia Lacroze de Fortebat, Argentina, 1836, oil on canvas, 92 x 123 cm.

J.M. W. Turner, Venice from the Porch of the Madonna della Salute, c. 1835, Metropolitan Museum of Art, oil on canvas, 91.4 x 122.2 cm.

J.M. W. Turner, Venice: the Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore, exh. R.A. 1834, NGA, Washington, oil on canvas, 91.5 x 122 cm.

Turner may have taken to Byron because he identified with the poet’s persona of isolation, aesthetic contemplation and the romantic ideal in general. On a more pragmatic level, Turner illustrated volumes of poetry during the 1820s and 1830s like the highly successful new edition of Samuel Roger’s Italy (1830). Though a meeting between Turner and Byron in these literary circles is probably apocryphal, the artist’s watercolours for this project suggest that Turner was viewing Byron and Roger’s views of Italy through the lens of his own visit to the city in 1819. Actual words in Rogers Italy may have inspired Turner’s painting of a Shakespearean scene set against a Venetian backdrop- Juliet and her Nurse. Thoroughly lambasted in an anonymous article in Blackwood’s Magazine in 1836, the painting was stoutly defended by none other than John Ruskin in a reply to the magazine in the same year.[10] Like Turner, Ruskin shared a love of Byron, Shakespeare and the romantic literary tradition. As Ruskin noted, “Byron was to be his master in verse, as Turner in colour.” More on Ruskin in the final installment. 

Slides

1.      James Gillray,  Titianus Redivivus; or the Seven Wise Men Consulting the New Venetian Oracle, - a Scene in the Academic Grove, 1797, etching and watercolour, British Museum, London,
2.      Turner, Self-Portrait, 1799, Tate Britain, oil on canvas, 743 x 584 mm.
3.      Workshop of Titian, Venus and Adonis, about 1554, NG, London, oil on canvas, 177.9 x 188. 9 cms.
4.      Johann Carl Loth (after lost Titian), The Death of St Peter Martyr, 1691, Basilica dei Santi Giovanni e Paolo, Venice, 500 x 306 cm.  
5.      Martin Rota (after Titian), The Death of St Peter Martyr, engraving, Correr Museum, Venice,
6.      J.M. W. Turner, Interior of Santi Giovanni e Paolo, with Titian’s St Peter Martyr altarpiece, 1833, Tate Britain, from the “Venice” sketchbook, pencil, 10.9 x 20.3 mm each.
7.      J.M.W. Turner, Venus and Adonis, c. 1803-5, Private Collection, oil on canvas, 59 x 47 cm.  
8.      J.M.W. Turner, Composition study for Venus mourning the Dead Adonis, c. 1802-3, Tate Britain, pencil and chalk on blue paper, from the “Calais Pier” sketchbook.
9.      J.M.W. Turner, Holy Family, Tate Britain, 1803, oil on canvas, 102.2 x 141.6 cm.
10.  Titian, The Holy Family with a Shepherd, c. 1510, NG, London, oil on canvas, 99.1 x 139.1 cm.
11.  Titian, Bacchus and Ariadne, NG, London, 152-23, oil on canvas, 176.5 x 191 cm.
12.  J.M.W. Turner, Copies of Paintings in Venice by Tintoretto and Titian, 1819, Tate Britain, pen and ink on paper.
13.  J.M.W. Turner, Bacchus and Ariadne, exh R.A., 1840, with original frame, Tate Britain, London, oil on canvas, 78.7 x 78.7 cm.
14.  Paolo Veronese, The Family of Darius before Alexander, NG, London, 1565-67, oil on canvas, 236. 2 x 474. 9 cm.
15.  Paolo Veronese. Hermes, Herse and Aglauros, c. 1580, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, oil on canvas, 232.4 x 173 cm.
16.  J. M.W. Turner, Copies of Paintings by Veronese in the Sala del Collegio of the Palazzo Ducale, Venice, 1819, Tate Britain, pen and ink on paper.
17.  Paolo Veronese, Votive Portrait of Doge Sebastiano Venier, 1581-82, Palazzo Ducale, Venice, Oil on canvas, 285 x 565 cm.
18.  Giovanni Antonio Canal, known as Canaletto, The Return of the Bucentoro to the Molo on Ascension Day, c. 1733-34, Royal Collection, oil on canvas, 76.8 x 125.4 cm.
19.  William Marlow, Capriccio: St Paul’s Cathedral and the Grand Canal, c. 1795-97, Tate Britain, oil on canvas, 129.5 x 104.1 cm.
20.  Antonio Visentini (after Canaletto), The Return of the Bucentoro to the Molo on Ascension Day, c. 1742, from Prospectus Magni Canalis Venetiarum.
21.  Thomas Girtin, (after Canaletto), The Rialto Bridge, c. 1796-8, British Museum, London, pen and ink.  
22.  J.M.W. Turner, San Giorgio Maggiore-Early Morning, 1819, Tate Britain, from the “Como and Venice” sketchbook, watercolour on paper, 223 x 287 mm.
23.  J.M.W. Turner, The Punta della Dogana, with the Zitelle in the Distance, 1819, Tate Britain, watercolour, 22.3 x 28.5 mm, from the “Como and Venice” sketchbook.
24.  J.M.W. Turner, The Dogana, San Giorgio, Citella, from the Steps of the Hotel Europa, exh R.A., 1842, Tate Britain, oil on canvas, 61.6 x 92.7 cm.
25.  J.M.W. Turner, Venice: Looking East towards San Pietro di Castello- Early Morning, 1819, Tate Britain, watercolour, 22.3 x 28.7, from the “Como and Venice” sketchbook.
26.  J.M.W. Turner, Venice: The Campanile of San Marco and the Doge’s Palace, 1819, Tate Britain, from the “Como and Venice” sketchbook, graphite and watercolour, 225 x 289 mm.
27.  J.M.W. Turner, Venice: The Ducal Palace, for Samuel Roger’s ‘Italy’ , c. 1826-27, watercolour, 24 x 30.6 cm.
28.  Samuel Prout, The Rialto Bridge, Venice from the North, poss exh at OWCS, 1827, Private Collection, watercolour, 74 x 114 cm.
29.  J.M.W. Turner, Juliet and her Nurse, exh. R.A. 1836, Sra Amalia Lacroze de Fortebat, Argentina, 1836, oil on canvas, 92 x 123 cm.
30.  Richard Parkes Bonington, Venice: Ducal Palace with a Religious Procession, exh Paris, 1828, Tate Britain, oil on canvas, 114.3 x 162.6 cm.
31.  Richard Parkes Bonington, The Grand Canal, Venice, 1826, Tate Britain, graphite and gouache on paper, 206 x 289 mm.
32.  Clarkson Stanfield, Venice from the Dogana, exh R.A. 1833, Bowood House, oil on canvas, 130 x 165.4 cm.
33.  J.M.W. Turner, Bridge of Sighs, Ducal Palace, and Custom House, Venice: Canaletti Painting, exh. R.A. 1833, Tate Britain, oil on mahogany, 51.1 x 81.6 cm.[11]
34.  Detail: Canaletto Painting en plein air.
35.  J.M. W. Turner, Venice: the Dogana and San Giorgio Maggiore, exh. R.A. 1834, NGA, Washington, oil on canvas, 91.5 x 122 cm.
36.  J.M. W. Turner, Venice from the Porch of the Madonna della Salute, c. 1835, Metropolitan Museum of Art, oil on canvas, 91.4 x 122.2 cm.

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[1] See Ian Worral, “Turner and Venetian Painting” in exh cat, Turner and Venice, Tate Britain, 2003-4, 51.

[2] Ibid.

[3] According to Jack Lindsay  (Turner, 100 f) he made thee coloured drawings of the CC, was fascinated by the colour of Titian’s Entombment

[4] Turner and the Masters, exh cat., Tate Britain, 2009-10, 138.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Worral, 2003-4, 57. The Angerstein Venus and Adonis (NG 34) is catalogued as a workshop piece.

[7] See for example, Delacroix, Journal, 29^th Sep, 1850.  

[8] Lindsay, Turner, 40.

[9] Worrall, Tate Britain, 2004-5, 43.

[10] The author was the Rev. John Eagles. See David Blayney Brown, The Art of J.M.W. Turner, (Eagle, 2001), 80.

[11] Turner and the Masters, no. 67.