Page 52 - Studio International - June 1966

Turner's life : a new perspective

by Jack Lindsay

Throughout his life of seventy-six years Turner was secre- position was respected. Yet Sarah and the girls have been
tive, and it would have been hard enough, even in the flung out of every work on Turner, apart from a trivial
1850's, to dig up the facts he had buried. But Thornbury, production by B. Falk.
his biographer, was the laziest of careless journalists and As an example of the way that a little detective work can
did not even attempt a coherent account of his academic still unravel something of the position, I may cite
career. Finberg gave us that account in 1939, but the Turner's residence in Norton Street, where a co-tenant
Life remained unwritten. Now, much of Turner's per- was Roch Jaubert. The latter can be shown to have been
sonal life is irretrievably lost, but it is still possible to make a close friend of the Danbys' ; for he lent Sarah his name
sense of it and to trace a few of the hidden trails. as publisher for Danby's Posthumous Glees in 1798. It thus
One important matter was his affair with Sarah Danby, becomes certain that Turner took the house in Norton
begun about 1798 and carried on till at least some time Street to be near Sarah, who was just round the corner in
after 1809. Almost all writers have confused Sarah with Upper John Street (Fitzroy Square). For his strong sexu-
her niece Hannah, who was known in her old age as a ality we have not only the drawings of copulations, not
repulsive hag; and they have felt what Hamerton all of which by any means were destroyed by Ruskin, or
frankly stated—that one can accept liaisons with some his pleasantly bawdy ballad, Be still my dear Molly, but
elegance like Byron's, but cannot stick one's gentlemanly also, more importantly, the rich sexual symbolism of his
nose into Turner's squalid affairs. Sarah however was landscapes, not least the way in which he likes to define a
the widow of a leading glee-composer, organist for the downward thrust against a simultaneously ascending
Spanish Embassy, and there is no reason to think her uplift.
anything but charming, cultivated, and elegant enough Such matters as the affair with Sarah must, however,
for Hamerton's acquaintance. She kept up her place in be seen against what was clearly the most important
the musical world, for one of her daughters by Danby emotional event in Turner's life, the schizophrenia and
married Nixon, a composer-organist of some standing. madness of his mother: a shattering experience which his
She bore Turner two girls, who figure in his will. One of insensitive biographers write off in a line or two. Coming
them, Evelina, as well as her husband, Joseph Dupuis, to its head in his twenties, when he was fast rising as an
who had a good career in the consular service, made the artist and was starting off with Sarah, that madness had
explicit claim that she was Turner's daughter; and the a lasting effect on him. It did much to beget his fear of a
way she was treated in the Chancery case shows how her settled relationship with women and to strengthen his