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

Arguably the most famous of all the surviving monuments of classical Rome is the Flavian Amphitheatre, a huge building universally known as the Colosseum, which stands at the eastern end of the Roman Forum between the Palatine and Esquiline Hills. Built 72–80 AD., the immense ruin was as popular with tourists during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as it is today and its crumbling but impressive remains represented a constant source of inspiration for artists. Turner’s 1819 sketches demonstrate that he studied the Colosseum from a variety of viewpoints both inside and outside the celebrated structure.1 He had read John Chetwode Eustace’s book, A Classical Tour Through Italy, which stated that ‘Never did human art present to the eye a fabric so well calculated by its size and form, to surprise and delight’ (see the Italian Guide Book sketchbook, Tate D13943; Turner Bequest CLXXII 7).2 Eustace recommended viewing the building first from the north, and then the south before finally entering its ‘lofty arcades’ to consider the ‘vast mass of ruin ... insulated walls, immense stones suspended in the air, arches covered with weeds and shrubs, vaults opening upon other ruins ... in short, above, below, and around, one vast collection of magnificence and devastation, of grandeur and decay’.3 This sketch depicts a view of the interior looking from the western end towards the higher section of surviving wall on the opposite side. Visible at various intervals around the perimeter of the central arena are some of the fourteen Stations of the Cross, built in 1750 after Pope Benedict XIV consecrated the building to the memory of the early Christians who were martyred there. The choice of viewpoint is similar to that by John ‘Warwick’ Smith, Internal view of the Coliseum from Select Views in Italy, copied by Turner in the Italian Guide Book sketchbook (see Tate D13966; Turner Bequest CLXXII 19, top right). Further sketches of the interior can be found within the Rome: C. Studies sketchbook (D16380 and D16389; Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 51 and 58), and within the Small Roman C. Studies sketchbook (see Tate D16414, D16420, D16451; Turner Bequest CXC 14a, 18, 38).

Unlike other sketches (see D16349; Turner Bequest CLXXXIX 23), which document in detail the architectural and topographical appearance of the Colosseum, the focus of this coloured study is the way in which the interior is transformed by the atmospheric effects of light. Although Eric Shanes has stipulated that the light source is the sun,4 and Barry Venning has argued that Turner has depicted a twilight scene reflecting the theme of Rome’s imperial decline,5 most art historians agree that the artist is engaging with a wider, nineteenth-century vogue for nocturnal contemplation of the famous monument by moonlight.6 One of the earliest advocates for viewing Rome after dark was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832), described its appeal in his Italian Journey, 1786–88, (first published 1816–17):

Other writers also chronicled the powerful spectacle presented by the city at night, for example, the Swiss author, Madame de Staël, who declared in her popular novel Corinne, ou l’Italie (1807), ‘The moon is the star of the ruins’. For the Romantic tourist the Colosseum was found to be particularly evocative. The combination of dark, shadowy remains, ghostly silvery light and the Colosseum’s troubled and bloody history proved irresistibly alluring and affecting. Night-time visits became a standard experience endorsed by travel guides, for example, by Mariana Starke in her book, Travels in Europe, first published in 1820, which advised that ‘If the weather be fine, and the moon in or about its second quarter, Travellers ... should drive to the Colosseo, and contemplate that edifice by moonlight.’8 She recommended that ‘Persons who wish to see the Colosseum by moonlight should provide themselves with lanterns; and likewise apply, at the neighbouring Guard-house, for a Soldier to guide them up the Stairs, and through the Corridors, to the Attic-Storey.’9 Artists too were drawn to the subject, see for example, Richard Wilson (1713–1782), The Colosseum by Moonlight, black chalk on paper, undated (Vatican Library).10 The tradition continued into the late nineteenth century, featuring in novels such as Alexandre Dumas’s, The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), and Henry James’s, Daisy Miller (1878). The Scottish artist, Hugh ‘Grecian’ Williams (1773–1829), whom Turner had met in 1818 during work on Sir Walter Scott’s, Provincial Antiquities of Scotland, fully described the experience in Travels in Italy, Greece and the Ionian Islands, published in 1820:

The tradition was therefore already well established but Turner’s treatment of the subject was probably particularly indebted to Lord Byron (1788–1824), whose poetry tourists were apt to quote during their visit to the Eternal City.12 Byron had first the explored the theme of the Colosseum by moonlight in Manfred (1817):

More recently in 1818, just prior to Turner’s first Italian tour, he had published Canto IV of Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1818), which contained the lines:

With its velvety blue sky, dusky half-glimpsed spaces and eerie white highlights, Turner’s scene perfectly reflects Byron’s verses as well as his own individual interests in the spirit of place and the emotional power of light. Like many drawings within this sketchbook, it has been executed over a washed grey background and Turner has achieved a synthesis of technique and mood, using white gouache to create opaque pale highlights over the sombre mass of the ruins. The Colosseum itself has been blocked in using a liquid red wash, enlivened in places with touches of orange, pink, lemon yellow and brown. Cecilia Powell has described this treatment as suggestive of a place of death. The Stations of the Cross, highlighted in ghostly white, resemble tombstones, and the shadowy arcades and sepulchral vaults suggest catacombs.15 This funereal sensibility finds an echo in a passage by the American landscape painter, Thomas Cole (1801–1848) who wrote in 1832:

Turner revisited the theme of Italy by moonlight in three later vignette illustrations for Rogers’s Italy (see Tate D27676, D27680 and D17682; Turner Bequest CCLXXX 159, 163 and 165) and in his later watercolours of Venice (see for example, Tate D32222 and D32176; Turner Bequest CCCXVIII c 3 and CCCXVI a 39).

Verso:

Blank; inscribed by unknown hands in pencil ‘13’ centre, and ‘[?Mts] 2’ and ’33 | 2 | 66’centre, parallel with right-hand edge, and ‘CLXXXIX. 13’ bottom centre, and stamped in black ‘CLXXXIX 13’ bottom centre.