Turner's Influence in the 19th Century
A collection of articles, formal and informal, about how Turner influenced other artists. We hope many will follow, but here is the first:
The Codd Piece:
From the Bridport Museum's website: "Alfred Percy Codd was born in Beaminster in November 1857 and spent his early childhood living in the vicarage newly built for his father, Reverend Alfred Codd MA. Following three years at Marlborough College where he won the School Prize in 1874 he joined the army in 1875 . He passed out of the Royal Military Academy in 1877 with the highest marks of the year. He resigned from the army in 1889 with the rank of captain after only 11 years service in the Royal Engineers and spent the rest of his life travelling, studying art, drawing and painting.
His sketchbook signed ‘By a Wanderer’ put on display during the Turner exhibition shows him to be at the very least a competent artist, capable of producing very pleasing pictures. Turner in Bridport describes how this retired professional military engineer later became almost obsessed by Turner, striving to understand and reproduce the artist‘s technique, use of colour and materials by making copies of Turner‘s originals as accurately as he was able. Between 1897 and 1899, Codd spent 35 weeks in London’s National Gallery where he copied 56 of Turner’s pictures, including The Fighting Temeraire – voted Britain’s greatest painting in a 2005 BBC poll.
Codd gave his copies to Bridport on condition it created a museum (on which see the link). His book, published in 1931, was reviewed briefly in The Burlington Magazine in Sep. 1932. The book is an interesting account of one person's discovery of Turner. He regretted the move of the watercolours to the Tate, where incidentally they were flooded in 1928.
Would anyone like to submit an account of how he or she became a fan of Turner? Please add it to Have Your Say