J.M.W. Turner: Sketchbooks, Drawings and Watercolours

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Interior of building (? St. Mark’s)’): ‘Mosaics in St Mark’s’.1 He also marked a copy of Finberg’s 1930 book In Venice with Turner to the same effect.2 The page’s title was amended by Ian Warrell to ‘The Atrium of the Basilica di San Marco, with the Mosaic Figure of St Mark’ in 2003, in connection with his concurrent Turner and Venice exhibition at Tate Britain.3 The drawing was made with the page turned horizontally.

Turner had ‘neglected’ the inside of the church on his 1819 visit, as Warrell has observed, making it ‘the focus of a small sequence of sketches’ on this occasion (see also folios 52 verso–54 recto, and 92 recto and verso; D32028–D32031, D32099–D32100);4 folio 54 verso (D32032) shows details of the west front, as does folio 45 recto (D32013) in a wider setting. For this sketchbook’s somewhat convoluted general sequence, see its Introduction.

Warrell has noted that some ‘attempt to transcribe the rich surface decoration of mosaics and precious stones, but the cursory nature of many ... suggests either that he did not truly engage’ with the unfamiliar Byzantine features of the building, ‘or that he was deterred ... by his habitual dislike of being observed sketching.’5 This page, together with folios 52 verso and 53 recto (D32028–D32029), effectively form a single view of ‘the atrium, located immediately after passing through the central door, where the large mosaic figure of St Mark is supposedly based on a design by Titian’,6 an important Venetian artist for Turner; see under folio 34 verso (D31992).

The view here is eastwards from the atrium or narthex into the Arch of Paradise, looking upwards to the semi-dome vault featuring St Mark with outstretched arms against a gold (‘G’) background. Below is a sequence of arched niches which contain mosaic figures of the Virgin Mary flanked by eight Apostles, albeit left blank here. Around it, the intersecting arches and spandrels with inlaid figures are rather vaguely articulated, likely both on account of haste and low light.

There is a brief extension downwards from the bottom left onto folio 52 recto opposite (D32027), where there are two unrelated subjects; at least one was likely there already, as Turner apparently found himself obliged to continue with the lower part of this study on the next verso instead (D32028). Notwithstanding this obstacle, the upper and lower halves of the view align quite well, suggesting that he may have temporarily rolled the other page back to bring its fore-edge along the gutter here, so that he could at least begin the lower part with direct reference to the upper. He then extended the view to the left of the lower half, northwards along the atrium, on folio 53 recto (D32029).

As Warrell has convincingly suggested that this ‘seems to be the space that Turner attempted to recall’7 in a watercolour on brown paper associated, along with others of the dim but glittering interior spaces of the church, with his 1840 visit (Tate D32241; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII 22).