The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1949 WHEN DID TURNER DIE?

Wanganui Chronicle, 5 February 1949, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1949 WHEN DID TURNER DIE?

JUST as the debate as to whether Shakespeare wrote the plays •r attributed to him or whether they were the work of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulani, seems to be capable of everlasting life, so the question as to whether G. TV. M. Turner, perhaps the greater of English painters, died when he was legally proved to be dead, or whether he continued to have a period of unidentified existence seems to be destined to like longevity.

The best proof that can be adduced in support of the assertion that Shakespeare wrote the plays which carry his name is that they were made day-by-day, altered, rearranged during the period of rehearsal, chopped and changed about by workmanlike hands in order to make the author’s script fit in with the stage conditions, the time of the performance, the intervals and what else. This rearrangement could only be carried out by a practical man doing the work on the job and known to his co-workers. It would have been impossible for Bacon to have remained consistently behind the scenes and allowed Shakespeare to manage the “front” of the partnership. The eollaboratioi would surely have broken down at some point with men of such difference in outlook, in ambition, in education and in social strata teaming over a period of years. The fact that in his own time, when London was a comparatively small town and not the metropolis it is today, Shakespeare was accepted as the author of the plays is the best testimony that could be adduced in support of that contention. While that evidence is not disputed and while no challenge to that fact is offered the barrage of attack goes on in a series of minor skirmishes. The case of Turner is somewhat different. He was an ignorant man, that is to say his conventional education was deficient. It was said of Shakespeared that he knew little Latin and less Greek, but it can be said of Turner that he knew no Latin at all and that Greek was an unknown tongue to him. It might never have existed as far as he was concerned. But Turner was a genius and when that is said of a man it implies there is something in his makeup that is not easily to be explained. The idea of a man of genius is that he is inspired by a genii or spirit. There is something given to him that is denied to ordinary mortals. The assertion that genius is the capacity for taking infinite pains does not touch the root of the matter, for it does not explain how a man becomes possessed beyond the ordinary of the capacity to take infinite pains. The less endowed man. by the exercise of infinite pains, finds himself not progressing, but running round in a circle. Genius is the ability to break out of that circular movement and take a leap ahead of other men. Turner certainly achieved this breakout into new fields of accomplishment in the world of art.

Turner’s early life was limited in scope both educationally and socially. He was the son of a barber, believed to have been born in Maiden Lane, London, but claiming Barnstaple as his birthplace. He went to school at Brentford and Margate, but for all that he had little regular education and remained practically ignorant all his life. His mother was said to have an ungovernable temper and was almost insane. In the field of painting, however, he was more fortunate, knowing Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Monro and Girton, from whom he learned water-colour painting. He was early launched on his career as a painter or illustrator and he soon came to be able to s.et up more than one establishment. His love of anonymity may be attributed to some strange make-up in his character, and maybe to the fact that his unlettered ignorance, combined with his growing success as a painter, made it necessary for him to escape from his own public personality. That lie* led a Jekyl and Hyde existence, maintaining a condition of respectability on one side and of depravity on the other has nothing to support it. Tlie popularity of the barmaid and the servant girl for men was not due to depraved tastes but, as none other than Chesterton pointed out, to the comfort of a society in which it was unnecessary to be other than perfectly natural. The/ enjoyment which other men get through association with peasants, fishermen, sailors, longshoremen, is similar in kind; these people are down to earth and no pretense at all about them. It was natural for Turner, who loved the sea and the countryside, to mingle with the common run of men and women; to do so as an eminent painter would have been difficult. His adoption of another name in his old age was not unnatural in such a man. He died, 011 December 19, 1851, in an obscure lodging-house in Chelsea, where he was known as Captain Booth. His house in Queen Anne Street was dirty and ill kept; he never had a meal at home; he never married; kept apart from society; took part in no social life, and was economical to a degree that was miserly. Undoubtedly such a man could have disappeared permanently from his usual haunts. But Turner was not unaware of his own accomplishments as a painter, lie had made a fortune out of his work. He nevertheless kept a collection of his own pictures and bequeathed them to the National Gallery with the stipulation that they should be exhibited in a room bearing his name, and opposite to the paintings of Claude Lorraine so that the comparisons between the two could be drawn. That fact, however, would not weigh conclusively in the scales against his disappearance, but it would go against the grain of such a man to see his testamentary bequest in this regard not carried out as he desired. Had he been alive the impulse must have been strong to make his presence felt. According to the will of a Mr. Frederick Pickles, “Turner lived to be a very old man. His final refuge was in the neighbourhood of Bristol, where he had relations and. had boyhood recollections.” Against this assertion is the fact that it was Turner’s own housekeeper at Queen Anne Street who discovered him in his last hide-out. She found him sinking and he died the following day so there is no real ground for doubting the identity of Captain Booth as he was there known as that of the real Turner. He left a fortune of some £140,000. In his will he wrote: “It is my will and I direct that a charitable institution be founded for the maintenance and support of poor and decayed male artists being born in England and of English parents only and lawful issue. And I direct that a proper and suitable building or residence be provided for that purpose in such a situation as may be deemed eligible and advantageous by my executors and the trustees to the said charitable institution.” A four years’ Chancery suit after Turner’s death resulted in the interesting decision that the foundation of such an institution had not been the painter’s intention. These cosily deliberations provided the lawyers with a handsome harvest. Yet it is to be urged that while the express purpose of his will was being contested and his estate divided among the Devil’s Own, Turner looked calmly on from the neighbourhood of Bristol and allowed to go by default a fight, which he could have stopped by simply reappearing. The assumption is too difficult of acceptance on the foundation of an unsupported ex-

pression of opinion in the will of the late Mr. Pickles.