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

The Turner scholar C.F. Bell annotated Finberg’s 1909 Inventory entry (‘The Salute, from S. Giorgio Maggiore’), crossing out the latter church in favour of ‘the Canale della Grazia’.1 John Ruskin had called it ‘Riva dei Schiavoni, from the Traghetto per Chioggia’2 or ‘The Riva, from the Canal of Chioggia’.3 The view is indeed from the Canale della Grazia, south of the eastern tip of the Isola della Giudecca, framed by the dome of the Zitelle silhouetted at the far left and the Isola di San Giorgio Maggiore with its monastery and church complex on the right. The prospect is slightly west of north across the Bacino to the campanile of San Marco (St Mark’s) at the centre, with the domes of Santa Maria della Salute in sunlight across the Canale della Giudecca; the effect suggests early morning, ‘suffused by the bluish tints of dawn’, as Nicola Moorby has put it.4

Assuming the masses of the somewhat schematic left-hand foreground are accurately represented, the view to the churches there is now obscured by boatsheds and other waterfront buildings. Compare various views in the contemporary Venice and Botzen sketchbook (Tate D31846, D31868–D31869; Turner Bequest CCCXIII 29, 40, 40a). Ian Warrell has noted that Turner ‘exaggerated the width of the canal’ to allow for the iconic skyline,5 and Robert Upstone suggested that Turner ‘compacted the composition for pictorial effect, indicating that he might have considered using it for a finished design.’6 Finberg recognised the similarity of the viewpoint in the watercolour Storm at Sunset (Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge),7 from the so-called ‘Storm’ sketchbook (see the Introduction to the 1840 Grand Canal and Giudecca sketchbook; Tate; Turner Bequest CCCXV).8 The effects of light and weather there are rather more dramatic, ‘with a felucca chased by the wind’;9 a similar vessel, likely a bragozzo fishing boat typical of the region, is shown in silhouette, moored on the left here.10

In 1857, Ruskin appreciatively described the subject and handling:

Warrell has noted that Ruskin’s ‘exposed beach’ was ‘presumably the point at which the main current of the Canale della Giudecca meets the smaller canal.’12 Timothy Wilcox linked the subject to Turner’s oil painting of a fishing subject, The Sun of Venice going to Sea, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1843 (Tate N00535),13 suggesting that such works show ‘his innate sympathy for the resident working population’.14 Warrell has proposed that more complex activities may be shown or implied here on the fugitive intertidal zone of the sandbank, with Turner’s ‘group of fishermen or traders, surrounded by barrels and other packages’, noting that San Giorgio was ‘the only part of the city designated a free-trade port when he had first visited it in 1819’, and smuggling had occurred in relation to this arrangement; Turner had not been averse to showing such activities in his English coastal subjects15 (see examples in the ‘Marine Views c.1817–24’ section of the present catalogue).

Lindsay Stainton observed that this sheet ‘may well be among those which were worked up at a later date’, as the ‘chief concern here is the relationship of colors, and he contrasts areas with cool and warm tones – turquoise and honey-gold – subordinating all detail to this end’.16 Compare the colour and handling of another scene off San Giorgio, Tate D32155 (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 18). Wilcox developed Stainton’s theme:

Leo Costello has described how the structures ‘register the effect of changing light in tones that contrast warm and cool colors, moving from the blue at left through yellow to an orange at right that is shot with brown and green’, using ‘receding or advancing qualities of colors to place the buildings in space’:

As well as producing many original watercolour views of Venice, the widely travelled watercolourist Hercules Brabazon Brabazon (1821–1906) was in the habit of making sympathetic if often rather loose transcriptions from earlier artists he admired. He copied several examples from Turner’s 1840 visit in the Bequest, including this one;19 see also under Tate D32126, D32154, D32207, D32209, D32216 (Turner Bequest CCCXV 10, CCCXVI 17, CCCXVII 22, 24, 31).

Technical notes:

Much of the detail introduced over the atmospheric washes discussed in the main entry were ‘added using a pen dipped in watercolour’.1 The strokes for distant masts are blue and green in the left distance, and red on the right, according with the local background colour and lighting. Horizontals of a particularly strong blue at the centre left emphasise the contrast of the shadows at that point.

This is one of numerous 1840 Venice works Ian Warrell has noted as on sheets of ‘white paper produced [under the name] Charles Ansell,2 each measuring around 24 x 30 cm, several watermarked with the date “1828”’:3 Tate D32138–D32139, D32141–D32143, D32145–D32147, D32154–D32163, D32167–D32168, D32170–D32177, D35980, D36190 (Turner Bequest CCCXVI 1, 2, 4–6, 8–10, 17–26, 30, 31, 33–40, CCCLXIV 137, 332). Warrell has also observed that The Doge’s Palace and Piazzetta, Venice (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin)4 and Venice: The New Moon (currently untraced)5 ‘may belong to this group’.6

Verso:

Blank, with a splash of grey colour towards the top left; inscribed by Turner in pencil ‘5 V’ towards bottom left; inscribed in pencil ‘53’ top right, ‘7’ top centre, and ‘N.G. 54’ bottom centre; stamped in black ‘CCCXVI – 19’ over Turner Bequest monogram bottom centre.