RUSKIN AND TURNER’S POETRY
OR A RUSKINIAN VIEW OF TURNER’S POETRY APPENDED ? TO SOME OF HIS PAINTINGS
Turner's poetry and other texts, including the complete titles he gives to his paintings, are often important for understanding fully the meanings of the latter.
Yet they are omitted from many of the display captions to his paintings at the Tate Gallery and on the Tate website, or they are incomplete, as in the case of the National Gallery
Let us begin with two major pictures concerning Carthage, of 1815 and 1817.
Dido building Carthage, exh. 1815, BJ 131, National Gallery, London.
This is the title to be found on the National gallery website
We will restore Turner's full title : Dido building Carthage, or the Rise of the Carthaginian Empire, as to found in the RA catalogue of 1815
This shows we are in the domain on Empire building, not simply city building
We will return to this notion of Empire later on
it will be seen that it is to be taken in a very broad sense, not only extended to the Unite States but to humanity at large in its relation to nature.
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The second Carthage picture is :
BJ ? THE DECLINE OF THE CARTHAGINIAN EMPIRE EMPIRE,
Such is the title given on the Tate website
On the display caption we find : "Turner saw the rise and fall of once-great empires as a historical inevitability, confirmed by the fall of Napoleon, but threatening to overtake the victorious British."
For once the Tate gets things right, but not completely
The complete title, given by Turner in the Royal Academy catalogue for 1817 is :
Rome being determined on the overthrow of her hated rival demanded from her such terms as might either force her into war or ruin her by compliance : the enervated Carthagians, in their anxiety for peace, consented to give up even their arms and their children, exh. 1817
(Did they not fight Rome to the bitter end ? Check this )
The complete title shows that what is at stake for Turner is an inner human failure, not simply historical inevitability.
Here is :
This painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1812 and was accompanied in the catalogue of the exhibit by the following verses by Turner, described for the first time as coming from his 'MS. P(oem?) Fallacies of Hope’.
Hannibal’s crossing the Alps with his army was one of the great strategic military feats of Antiquity. He succeeded in crossing the mountains despite the great obstacles of weather, climate, type of territory and the hostility of local populations.
Turner reminds the viewer of all this in the verse he has put in the Royal Academy catalogue to accompany the painting.
"Craft, treachery and fraud - Salassian force, Hung on the fainting rear ! Then Plunder seized The victor and the captive,- Sagentum's spoil Alike became their prey; »
A resolute Hannibal carries on despite all this:
« still the chief advanced
Look'd on the sun with hope; - low, broad, and wan; While the fierce archer of the downward year Stains Italy's blanched barrier with storms In vain each pass, ensanguin'd deep with dead, Or rocky fragments, wide destruction rolled, Still on Campania's fertile plains -- he thought, »
The poem ends with a warning :
« But the loud breeze sob'd, "Capua's joys beware ! "
This may not be great poetry but it allows us to understand Turner deeper motivations.
The display caption at Tate Britain and its website leave out these verses
The Tate argues that the painting implies a parallel between Hannibal and Napoleon, but that finally it does not celebrate the power of the individual but expresses his vulnerability confronted with the overwhelming power of nature
This is not true
It is clear from Turners' verse that this is not the fundament meaning of the picture. The principal theme of the picture is not the vulnerability of man in front of nature. Hannibal succeeded in crossing the Alps with his army, but failed in carrying out his objective of invading Italy and conquering Rome, the great rival of Carthage, due in part to the excesses committed by his army in Capua.
A good exemple of the Fallacies of Hope
343 The Prince of Orange, William III, Embarked from Holland, and Landed at Torbay, November 4th, 1688, after a Stormy Passage
This picture was exhibited in 1832 with a reference to '-" History of England" ' and the text 'The yacht in which his majesty sailed was after many changes and services, finally wrecked on the Hambourg sands, while employed in the Hull trade'
According to like Lindsay, there is a reference to political events in England at the time : 1832 was a year of radical agitation, insurrection ‘(at Bristol) and successful parliamentary reform
Lindsay sees here a Thomsonian inspiration. Part IV of Liberty ends with a long apostrophe to William as the man who saved England from bigotry and oppression. Thomson stresses the storm as symbolically representing the counter-revolution. Liberty speaks :
« Immortal Nassau came. I hushed the deep
By demons roused, and bade the listed winds,
Still shifting as behoved, with various breath
Waft the deliverer to the longing shore ».
In the context of the struggle for the Reform Bill, Tuner’s picture of William , in the face of the opposition of the elements to bring about the Glorious Revolution can only have one meaning
…..
Lindsay suggest that here is an allegorical intent in the note added : 'Turner reminds of the twist that distorts men's aims and hopes ; the triumphant ship of liberty is wrecked in the end as the mere instrument of trade'.
Lindsay, p. 62
This is the display caption on the Tate website :
« This representation of an historical event contains a number of errors. William's fleet had indeed been beaten back to base in October 1688 but on 1 November sailed in perfect weather, landing on 5 November. Like various earlier Dutch-inspired compositions, this, too, carries a political message connected with Anglo-Dutch relations. Here, Turner criticises again British non-intervention in the Belgian revolt, which was to lead to the termination in 1839 of the United Netherlands. In the Academy catalogue Turner added a curious note about the Prince having sailed his yacht, not a frigate - a confusion with his arrival in a yacht for his wedding to Princess Mary on 4th (!) November 1677. »
The storm is obviously symbolical. Poetic or painterly licence
If the painting was referring to the Anglo Dutch relations and were a criticism against British non intervention there would be no reason for a symbolical storm.
Moreover the Belgian revolt was perfectly legitimate
One can hardly see how Turner could be against it, and wish British intervention.
Turners s note is perfectly clear
This is a frequent theme in Thomson, and classical thought
The question today is whether all environmental problems can be solved by the market, (there is money to be made in green business, green energy etc…) or whether there must be a serious change in mentality and difficult unpopular decisions.
Butlin and Joll also make the parallel between the Glorious Revolution and the passing of the Reform Bill
They make no mention of Anglo-Dutch relations or the Belgian revolution
(Check nevertheless Bachrach’s Turner’s Holland )
This is what Bachrach writes :
although politically Whiggish and therefore
L’examen de l’ensemble de la poésie de Turner révèle une façon de penser qu’on pourrait qualifier de pessimisme classique : les entreprises humaines ont tendance à être déviées ou à échouer à cause d’une tendance humaine à l’ubris ou à l’excès
(Il est à noter que le grand historien du climat, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, utilise le même terme d’ubris dans le 4ème volume de son Histoire Humaine et Comparée du Climat, t. 3, Le Réchauffement de 1860 à nos jours. Il se demande si cette histoire qu’il pratique, à la fois évènementielle et de longue durée, ‘est à même d’affronter l’ubris de la hyper consommation des carburants fossiles, et, consécutive, la némésis du réchauffement mondial’, p. 21)
En rapport avec ce ci revenons pour for a moment to the Snowstorm picture with its poetry from the Fallacies of Hope and its last line « … beware the joys of Capua"
Comm il a été mentionné ce travail a lieu dans le cadre d’un travail plus conséquent relatif à Ruskin et, parmi d’autres choses, sa découvert du changement climatique anthropique, qui a eu lieu vers la fin des années 1860.
Souvenons nous de la dernier ligne du poème (que nous avons examiné ci-dessus) qui accompagnait le tableau de Turner Snowstorm : Hannibal crossing the Alps :
« But the loud breeze sob'd, Capua's joys beware ! (expliquer ?)
Ceci nous donne l’indice d’un dernier tableau que Turner aurait pu entreprendre si il avait vécu plus longtemps ou plus tard, dans l’esprit de Fallacies of Hope
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Turner did not have the same prevention against for steam power that Ruskin had, (see Rain, Steam and Speed, the great Western Railway, BJ 409, mettre un lien ici avec Tate Turner collection), nevertheless in view of his Fallacies of Hope point of view, if Ruskin had had occasion to tell him, when he discovered the first signs of climate change in the late 1860’s, that there were going to be serious problems with the Industrial Revolution, he would not have been surprised
Perhaps he might have even thought of a picture to which he could have appended a poem from the Fallacies of Hope ending with a line warning/mettant en garde contre les Joies de la Revolution Industrielle, (point de vue vers laquelle avait évolué William Morris)
(a picture with an industrial subject, something like The Fighting Téméraire being towed to its last birth to be broken up, with its nasty little tugboat, ) accompanied with a poem ending
with « … beware the joys of the
Industrial Revolution. »
This would expand on the feeling expressed in this picture, where we feel, in the words of the reviewer of the Art union a certain nostalgia for « the venerable victor in a hundred fights tugged to his rest by a paltry steam boat upon which he looks down with powerless contempt, (he) the old bulwark of a nation governed and guided by the mean thing that is to take his place. »
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You might ask is art meant to go into such problems ?
For Ruskin, yes quote MP II
EN RESERVE
This is a frequent theme in Thomson, and classical thought
The question today is whether all environmental problems can be solved by the market, (there is money to be made in green business, green energy etc…) or whether there must be a serious change in mentality and difficult unpopular decisions.
LEAVE THIS OUT FOR THE MOMENT
11
Another interesting picture this resêct is
20/ 378 Ancient Rome : Agrippina landing with the Ashes of Germanicus. The Triumphal Bridge and Palace of the Caesars restored exh 1839, BJ 378
Exhibited with the following lines
"_________The clear stream Aye, -the yellow Tiber glimmers in her beam, Even while the sun is setting"
Butlin and Joel comment : "In his verses Turner is presumably referring to this incident as a stage in the decline of Rome"
It is the object of a lqiy png analyze on the introdickty ideo ti the Tate website with
Here is the literal transcript of the commentary on this picture in the introductory film to the Turner Collection on the Tate website by B Blaney Browne 1-3.45, at http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/turner-collection
Break this up
"(1.51) This painting is called Ancient Rome, Agrippina landing with the ashes of Germanicus which is perhaps rather a daunting title today but the story of Agrippina was very well known to Turners’s generation and it is all about the dedication of a widow whose husband died at Antioch possibly poisoned possibly murdered but she was absolutely devoted to him and she brought his ashes back to Italy not in fact to Rome as Turner shows in the picture but to Brindisi he ‘d been reading the wrong book he’d been reading a? roman history which told the story slightly wrong (2.35) got the place of her arrival slightly wrong but that does really not matter he’s used the picture to reconstruct the architecture of ancient Rome.
2.44 Quite often the stories Turner is telling are quite hard to divine (ricern) because ? the main interest to him is the background or the landscape or in this case the architecture (3.01)
3.07 By the time Turner painted this picture one of his main interest was ? light sunlight mist and it is wonderful to see how this great vision of the ancient city seems to be both emerging and dissolving in the mist (3.26) end of commentary Meet 500 years of British art supported by BP"
Very questionable on many points or la lot of nonsense
That Turner was interest in light and sunlight and list does not mean he was not also interested in the historical process as Lindsay puts it
We believe Turner was in great part a, historical painter, his main terest was in the historical process, as Linsay ha s aptly put it
Some silly comments in Browne introductory film to Turner collection website analyses this picture
Browne introductory film to Turner collection website
Draws spectator into film …(good )
But the rest of this commentary is inept
Replace :
Utterly sily as introdiction to Turner
Of course we feel meaning is important
Sun has you, (hypocrite lecteur) in his aim
Leave this out for the moment it is true that turner’s intention here, in relation to Thomson, is not clear
15/4 BJ 337 Caligula's Palace and Bridge exhibited 1831
What now remains of all the mighty bridge Which made the Lacrine lake another pool Caligula, but mighty fragments left
Goldsmith
342 Child Harold's Pilgrimage - Italy
It might be useful to have in mind also The first two lines of this stanza which are :
'Commonwealth of Kings….(not so far from Thomson)
Add music of ....Berlioz ? J?
REPLACE
We suggest BBB stand for a good hour on his knees in the dark on the staircase leading into the so called Clore Gallery and then stands for a good moment in front of The Angel standing in the Sun , (see below) so that the angel can unleaech some of his anger against this bit of /all this (of) balderdash un nonsense, il he cannot find an answer to these criticisms
This we believe wold be justified bh the following elements
Tout ceci peut ârair sans grand intérêt
Pour comprendre l’intérêt de tout ceci il faut le mettre dans le context di contentieux concernant le legs
Idée d’avertismen al la GB et au moiubde entier
Lijsay on poerey not very good but interesting as indacaion of his ay od thinking
OMIT THIS
BJ 402 THE SUN OF VENICE GOING TO SEA 1843,
'Fair shines the morn, and soft the zephyrs blow Venezia's fisher spreads his painted sail so gay, Nor heeds the demon that in grim repose Expects his evening prey.' Fallacies of Hope M.S.
an exemple of English shop keeping mentality ? in terms of F Nie?
Il ya unje not interssante de Ruskin
much to the admiration of the collectors of the subilline leaves of the FH
REPLACE
Why this abbreviation, or cutting things in half ? to avoid the weighty question?
REJETS
Here you may judge for yourselves
The Hannibal snowstorm picture is particularly important, with its last poetic line : ‘…beware the joys of Capua’
Nous pelsnos qie si
Leave out 425 too beyond sujet Climate problem
Though it may be argued that when Turner donated this picture to the NG with...he wanted to emphasize here the painterly Claudian aspect of the work rather than the historical aspect.
Nevertheless he did not split the original title of the picture
and such is the complete title
From 1811 onwards, Turner often accompanies his pictures with poetry said to come from an MS entities Fallacies of Hope. These are especially important, but they are not the only ones (replace)
most of
it
Followed by the following poetry said to come from a ms poem the Fallacies of Hope
. . . At Hope's delusive smile, The chieftain’s safety and the mother's pride, Were to the insidious conqu’or's grasp resign'd; While o'er the western wave th'ensanguin'd sun In gathering haze a stormy signal spread, And set portentous.
Though this poem is not said by Turner to be from the Fallacies of Hope ms, the conception of these pictures is in the same spirit, it seem to us.
The Tate website, which omitted the greater part of Turner's title, and Turner's poetry from the RA catalogue, nevertheless is correct here for once to some extent. and seems to recognizes and acknowledges that there is a pointed? moral to this picture
This is we find the on the Tate website :
This is all the more to the merit of the Tate that they may explicit what is only implicit in Turner
As Butlin and Joel mention, John Gage had allready stressed this fact in an article in 1974 had pointed out that such comparisons of the rise and fall of empires and their application to the contemporary situation were a commonplace in the 18th and 19th as in Goldsmith's ....and Gibbon's .... (where in each ? )
To be completed
Rappel : ce travail a lieu dans le cadre d’un travail plus conséquent intitulé
From 1812 onwards Turner
The next picture we will comment is :
According to the Tate, the picture is about Snow Storm, however, does not celebrate the power of the individual, but « expresses man’s vulnerability in the face of nature’s overwhelming force. »
According/it is made clear from Turners' verse that this is not the
t is clear from Turners' verse that this is not the fundament meaning of the picture in general or philosophical term
Ce travail
Ce court travail sur la poésie de Tuner en confluence avec sa peinture
a lieu dans le cadre d’un travail en cours plus conséquent intitulé ‘Ruskin, Turner, la découverte du changement climatique par Ruskin, la décroissance et la Corporation de Saint George’
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