TRAGEDY AND GENIUS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20929, 20 January 1930, Page 10

TRAGEDY AND GENIUS.

AN ARTIST OF MERIT. turner’s Gilt to nation. Joseph Mallard William Turner was born in 1773 in Maiden lane, off the Strand. His father, William Turner, was a Devonshire man, a barber by trade, illiterate and close-fisted. He had the inspiration, however, to give his sou as liberal an eduratioii as liis scanty means would afford. For tlie benefit of his heitlth the hoy was sent to an uncle who kept a butcher’s shop in Brentford. After attending an “ academy ” there for some time, he was despatched, at flic age of 13, to a school at Margate. Here lie began his disastrous love affair.

The object of his passion was the sister of one of his schoolfellows. Conscious that his genius would carry him far, he proposed, and was accepted. At 19, engaged to be married, ho set out for a lengthy sketching lour in the north. Finally, the girl wa s persuaded to receive th e addresses of another lover. A marriage was arranged. Turner, returning to London, learned with horror how matters stood, and madly, passionately, besought the girl to break oft her engagement. She refused. °

hen ft few days later her marriage took place Turner, disillusionised and bioken-hearted, turned liis buck for ever on the opposite sex. From that moment he lived for art alone, and what the artist gained by this concentration the man undoubtedly lost. In order to live he engraved; lie painted only for fame. At last recognition came to him. His “ Cartilage ” was exhibited at the .Royal Academv. The critics were so hostile that the" gentleman who had ordered it refused to nav the agreed sum of £IOO. It was the barber’s son, who had never been praised except for saving a halfpenny, who exclaimed shortly aftewards, wlicn he was offered thousands for the same picture, ‘'This is indeed a triumph! 3 ’ In the hackneyed phrase of commercial success he now had the world at his icet. His pictures commanded any price he liked to ask for them. He vcmo\cd with his father, the barber to strnn'r i W I>Cn . " S V" CC " street, \\, v here the windows were ne\cr cleaned and thy broken panes lillcd with rags or patched with paper, and tt , , n £ door " as innocent of paint. He had begun to accumulate money at an astounding rate, but lie never altered the standard of life .he bad learned in Maiden lane.

Ihoi.Kl! Uis In,n I, c had o nlv to ask ivhat ho liked for Ins pictures to receive it, h e . hated to part with a painting. "ith genuine tears in his eyes he would exclami, after one of'these transactions: lost oiio of my children this week.'’ His penurious habits became a In ward. He refused to pay a hilt of 7s (id for sonic niasonnry work in connection with a tablet placed i n St. Panlts, and the hontliend boatman hired to pull him .about the .Thames while lie was sketching once exclaimed indignantly - Ho a great man! Over the lefH ‘ Wbv he takes out a big bottle of gin regular *sxiicl never a\os us to have a nip.’* Hr Gillat, a. wealthy manufacturer, of ■Birmingham, once called at Queen Anne street, and, receiving the usual reply lou can t come in.” got bi s foot in the' doorway and made a forcible rntrv -turner, hearing strange footsteps on the hist landing, rushed out and furiouslv confronted t!i e intruder.

M\hnt do you want here?” “I j,m oomo to purchase some of your pictures ” 1 have none to sell.” “ B„t von won't mind exchanging them for some of mine* ioine seen our Birmingham pictures’ ” -Never heard of ’em.’ 1 “ I will show ,\ou some.- rejoined He G'illat mit'in~ out a roll of Bank of England' notes to lie amount of £3OOO. - Vou're a nun mi, said 'Jhirner, with a grin. “ Timsare. pictures, f o o, that must not be copied.”

By this piece of efVrontrv Mr Gillat secured for his £3OOO pictures proballiv worth _0 times as much nowadays. But this transaction was an exception. When &n- Bobert Peel, as Prime Minister, dccided to buy Jurner’s two great pictures of the rise and fall of Carthage for the .National Gallery tor the sum of £.3000 Turner refused, adding, however, that the nation would most likely have the pictures after all. ' 110

Rut with all his penuriousuess he could he greatly generous. A man who had believed n, in ] lis vollth am , had bought the pictures he painted in that dingy bedroom in Maiden Lane fell on evil days. Hearing that he about to sell th 0 timber on his estate -Turner sent £20,000 anonymously to his steward.

Ho was free also from, any petty feelngs of professional jealousy and c-,Un-to recognise young artists of merit. ° Ho had one remaining weakness—a horror of death, and as his ti me ,i n . w near he sought, in D r Johnson’s phrase, to forget the pain of existence in ..neon’ vivial potations.

Quite suddenly, with merely a chamm Of Imen he left Queen Anne'strcct and took lodgings in a cottage near Chelsea Here only after a long search, was he found by his faithful housekeeper Mil Hanby. He was then dying, Uut .-of-..' , to believe in his approaching dissolution. A doctor lie had known at Manmte—that place hallowed for him bv tho memory or Ins one romance—was s,.„i for, and after a long examination 101 l him (he brutal truth

A few hours hiter. „„ December 111. leal, lin ner died. ih,. .■ ... Only then did the world kmow'foAvhat he had been secretly working. By his as 1, m ';: iU, ' ;,t!led £I ; !0 ' n °° to found an he had refused £oooo during’ his life. ‘