By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
By Kind Permission of a Private Collection
Turner 's The sun of Venice going to sea, R.A. 1843, Turner Bequest, Tate Britain ( Wilton P402). Accompanied by these lines in the Royal Academy catalogue, from Turner 's own poem, The Fallacies of Hope:
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
Ruskin is supposed to have been ejected from the Royal Academy exhibition in 1843 for making pencil copies of this picture, a practice strictly forbidden.
Its rather melancholy evocation of Venice appealed greatly to Ruskin. He was never quite satisfied even with Turner 's depictions of the city, however, and considered that 'the ducal palace, as usual, is much too white, but with beautiful gradations in its relief against the morning mist.' 'The marvellous brilliancy of the arrangement of colour in this picture,' he continued, 'renders it, to my mind, one of Turner's leading works in oil' ( Notes on the Turner Gallery at Marlborough House (1857); Works, 13.164). He confided to his diary (29 April 1844): 'Yesterday, when I called with my father on Turner, he was kinder than I ever remember. He shook hands most cordially with my father, wanted us to have a glass of wine, asked us to go upstairs into the gallery. When there, I went immediately in search of the "Sol di Venezia," saying it was my favourite. "I thought," said Turner, "it was 'St. Benedetto.'"' ( Works, 3.251n).
Ruskin confirmed having seen such a name on the stern of a Venetian boat ( Works, 13.163), and in a letter of 14 September 1845 to his father from Venice, reported being 'a little taken aback when yesterday, at six in the morning, with the early sunlight just flushing its folds, out came a fishing boat with its painted sail full to the wind, the most gorgeous orange and red, in everything, form, colour & feeling, the very counterpart of the Sol di Venezia - it is impossible that any model could be more rigidly exact than the painting, even to the height of the sail above the deck' ( Shapiro, Ruskin in Italy: Letters to his Parents, p.202).
J.M.W. Turner 1775-1851
The Sun of Venice, going to sea 1843
Oil on canvas, 61.5x92cm
Exhibitions: RA 1843 (129); Manchester 1887 (619); Wildensteins 1972 (55, repr.); RA 1974-5 (534, repr.); Leningrad & Moscow 1975-6 (67, repr.); Venice 1983-4 (7, repr. In colour)
Collection: Tate Gallery, London