Читать книгу The Harbours of England - Ruskin John - Страница 2

Among the many peculiarities which distinguished the late J. M. W. Turner from other landscape painters, not the least notable, in my apprehension, were his earnest desire to arrange his works in connected groups, and his evident intention, with respect to each drawing, that it should be considered as expressing part of a continuous system of thought. The practical result of this feeling was that he commenced many series of drawings,—and, if any accident interfered with the continuation of the work, hastily concluded them,—under titles representing rather the relation which the executed designs bore to the materials accumulated in his own mind, than the position which they could justifiably claim when contemplated by others. The River Scenery was closed without a single drawing of a rapidly running stream; and the prints of his annual tours were assembled, under the title of the Rivers of France, without including a single illustration either of the Rhone or the Garonne.

The title under which the following plates are now presented to the public, is retained merely out of respect to this habit of Turner's. Under that title he commenced the publication, and executed the vignette for its title-page, intending doubtless to make it worthy of taking rank with, if not far above, the consistent and extensive series of the Southern Coast, executed in his earlier years. But procrastination and accident equally interfered with his purpose. The excellent engraver Mr. Lupton, in co-operation with whom the work was undertaken, was unfortunately also a man of genius, and seems to have been just as capricious as Turner himself in the application of his powers to the matter in hand. Had one of the parties in the arrangement been a mere plodding man of business, the work would have proceeded; but between the two men of talent it came very naturally to a stand. They petted each other by reciprocal indulgence of delay; and at Turner's death, the series, so magnificently announced under the title of the Harbors of England, consisted only of twelve plates, all the less worthy of their high-sounding title in that, while they included illustrations of some of the least important of the watering-places, they did not include any illustration whatever of such harbors of England as Liverpool, Shields, Yarmouth, or Bristol. Such as they were, however, I was requested to undertake their illustration. As the offer was made at a moment when much nonsense, in various forms, was being written about Turner and his works; and among the twelve plates there were four8 which I considered among the very finest that had been executed from his marine subjects, I accepted the trust; partly to prevent the really valuable series of engravings from being treated with injustice, and partly because there were several features in them by which I could render more intelligible some remarks I wished to make on Turner's marine painting in general.

These remarks, therefore, I have thrown together, in a connected form; less with a view to the illustration of these particular plates, than of the general system of ship-painting which was characteristic of the great artist. I have afterwards separately noted the points which seemed to me most deserving of attention in the plates themselves.

Of archæological information the reader will find none. The designs themselves are, in most instances, little more than spirited sea-pieces, with such indistinct suggestion of local features in the distance as may justify the name given to the subject; but even when, as in the case of the Dover and Portsmouth, there is something approaching topographical detail, I have not considered it necessary to lead the reader into inquiries which certainly Turner himself never thought of; nor do I suppose it would materially add to the interest of these cloud distances or rolling seas, if I had the time—which I have not—to collect the most complete information respecting the raising of Prospect Rows, and the establishment of circulating libraries.

Denmark Hill.

[1856.]