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

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘Cross-Canal, near the Arsenal’), crossing out the last three words and noting ‘Façade of a church with a Palladian front ? S. Lio’,1 albeit San Lio, east of the Rialto, is not visible along a canal in this way. Finberg’s title followed that applied when the sheet was exhibited in nineteenth century, and stood until Ian Warrell identified the true subject.2 The view is south-east down the Rio di San Luca from near its entrance on the Grand Canal. Compare the prospect in this direction from the north side of the latter in a watercolour study in the contemporary Grand Canal and Giudecca sketchbook (Tate D32123; Turner Bequest CCCXV 7), centred on the entrance to this narrow side canal, with the Palazzo Grimani on the left and the Palazzo Corner Contarini dei Cavalli on the right. Lightly outlined beyond the Grimani is the pedimented west front of the church of San Luca, above the Ponte del Teatro (since replaced by an iron bridge).

Andrew Wilton had noted that the view was also recorded in a slight pencil sketch in the 1840 Venice and Botzen sketchbook (Tate D31903; Turner Bequest CCCXIII 57a), presenting the correlation as evidence that ‘the series of grey-paper studies of Venetian and other continental subjects were all done on this journey or soon after.’3 Lindsay Stainton concurred on these points, observing that the present work is ‘comparatively highly finished, suggesting that Turner did not paint it on the spot, but developed it from the pencil sketch either in the evening at his hotel or shortly after his return to England’.4 However, the architectural elements in the foreground, rapidly rendered but accurate as far as they go, are far more detailed than the Venice and Botzen drawing, likely indicating that the initial pencil work was done on the spot, if not the colouring.

Michael Bockemühl has noted the ‘highly subtle interplay of light and shade, one in which light, its reflection, and the image thrown back by the water complement each other in a variety of ways – indeed, it is only through this mutual act that they become distinguishable at all’.5 Here, as Inge Herold has observed: ‘Turner frees himself from the distant vistas of water and architecture and plunges into the narrow world of the canals. .... Through the dominance of grey and blue tones, which are offset solely by a little yellow and reddish brown, Turner captures the damp, cool atmosphere which filters through the narrow waterways once the sunlight has gone.’6

In discussing a technically similar 1840 river view of Regensburg (Tate D36151; Turner Bequest CCCLXIV 294), Cecilia Powell remarked that its ‘colouring, style and technique ... have much in common with those of Turner’s grey paper drawings of Venice of a fortnight or so earlier’ (giving the present sheet as an example), with the ‘juxtaposition of different blues, purples and muted reds and the use of vigorous penwork in a variety of inks for foreground details’7 (see also the technical notes below).

Without further elaboration, in 1881 John Ruskin categorised this work among twenty-five Turner Bequest subjects ‘chiefly in Venice. Late time, extravagant, and showing some of the painter’s worst and final faults; but also, some of his peculiar gifts in a supreme degree.’8 In an unpublished catalogue of 1880 he included it as one of a smaller ‘Glorious grey [paper] group’.9

Turner had first explored the canal in 1819, and the Milan to Venice sketchbook includes a sketch from near the church, looking back in this direction and focusing on the rear entrance of the Palazzo Grimani (Tate D14486; Turner Bequest CLXXV 89a). He would return to that view in 1840, with three related studies, also on tinted papers, included in this subsection (Tate D32215–D32216, D40159; CCCXVII 30, 31).

Technical notes:

The surface is animated by scattered white gouache highlights, in combination with ‘using a pen dipped in watercolour for details’, as Ian Warrell has noted:1 ‘Turner’s realisation of sunlight and shadow in this work is exceptional, and is greatly assisted by the tone of the paper. On the left, the faint pencil lines describing San Luca and the Palazzo Grimani are supplemented with white highlights to replicate the dazzle of marble and stucco, while the facing walls recede through a sequence of soft, earthy washes.’2 The sheet is noticeably irregular, with the top and right-hand edges sloping inwards to the top right corner.

This is one of numerous 1840 Venice works Ian Warrell has noted as being on ‘Bally, Ellen and Steart grey paper’ which Turner had also used on his Continental tour of 1833, including Venice, and therefore ‘the dating of some of these sheets in uncertain’ (see in particular Tate D32205–D32210; Turner Bequest CCCXVII 20–25); the following ‘seem to arise from the later visit’:3 Tate D32180–D32181, D32183–D32184, D32200–D32201, D32203–D32204, D32212, D32215, D32217 (Turner Bequest CCCXVII 1, 2, 4, 5, 15, 16, 18, 19, 27–30, 32); see also Venice: San Giorgio Maggiore and the Zitelle from the Giudecca (currently untraced)4 and The Doge’s Palace from the Bacino (private collection),5 and two further ‘half-size sheets’:6 Tate D33883 (Turner Bequest CCCXLI 183), and Shipping with Buildings, ?Venice (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge).7

Verso:

Blank; inscribed in pencil ’30’ above right of centre, ascending vertically; stamped in black with Turner Bequest monogram over ‘CCCXVII – 29’ towards bottom left.