Turner's Watercolors
The Vaughan Bequest at the National Galleries in Edinburgh
It’s been a good week. The end of January and beginning of February. Working backwards: Today is February 4th and Facebook (and my dad) reminded me that I was fitted for my first pair of pointe shoes 12 years ago today. I should write a poem about it. I finished watching the new Percy Jackson tv show and now I want to reread the books, again. I cooked cheesy beans with kale (not as good as last time though, I think it needed more butter). The sky was clear on Tuesday, blue and sunny, and after our seminar, some of us ate our lunch together on the cliff overlooking the beach and bay. The water was so blue. But the best thing about this last week was that on Monday I saw the Turner watercolors in Edinburgh.
Two years ago, I spent a semester living in London and studying at Queen Mary, University of London. During reading week, I took the train by myself up to Edinburgh for the weekend. I wanted to go and hadn’t found anyone to go with, but I wasn’t going to waste the little time I had left in the semester. So I woke up at 5am, took the bus to Euston Station, and got on a train heading north.
The first thing I did upon arriving in Edinburgh, before checking in at my hostel or getting something to eat, was walk down Princes Street to The National Galleries. I ambled through the rooms slowly, letting myself be drawn to and from the paintings. But I hadn’t researched well enough. As it turned out, The National Galleries in Edinburgh only exhibit their collection of watercolors by J.M.W. Turner in January, when the sunlight is weakest. It was November. I was too early, and would be back in the States by the time the watercolors would next be exhibited. So I made a vow to myself that I would come back to Edinburgh in a January not too far away, and I would see the watercolors.
Two years later, I’ve moved to Scotland for grad school, and live only an hour-ish away from Edinburgh. It’s January. But the month was nearly over before I realized the month is nearly over and I still hadn’t been to Edinburgh, hadn’t been to the Gallery. So this past Monday, on the 29th day of January, I walked myself over to the train station and headed south to the city.
I arrived at the museum at around 11am and quickly found the room where the watercolors were displayed. It was crowded, many bodies in black winter jackets filling up the space. I slowly shuffled along, moving to the next painting as the person next to me moved on. The collection of watercolors and sketches includes scenes of Venice, the Alps, Switzerland, Germany, and the English Coast.
I stayed in that room for over an hour, looking, thinking, writing. I wrote 4 poems in my little notebook, finishing off the last blank pages. I hardly ever write in metric verse or with a traditional rhyme scheme, but for some reason, nearly every poem I wrote that day consisted of quatrains with an ABCB rhyme pattern. Something about Turner and the time in which he painted seemed to require me to write in a way that reflected that time.
The last painting I reached, as I made my way around the room, was Turner’s “Old Dover Harbour, 1795-6.” I stood there in front of the painting, with its constrained color palette of cream, grey, and pale blue, transfixed. Two hundred and twenty nine years ago, a man named Joseph went to Dover and was inspired by the water and the cliffs, by the ships coming in. And two hundred and twenty six years after him, a girl named Claire went to Dover for a day, and was inspired by the water and the cliffs, by the ships coming in (though the ships looked very different from the wooden crafts Turner drew). There’s a poem in there somewhere, a girl in the 21st century with a tattoo of the cliffs of Dover on her arm, staring at a painting of that very place, made centuries before. There’s a poem there, but I haven’t written it yet.
The Turner Watercolors are back in storage, protected from the strengthening sun, but they’ll be back next January 1st. If you happen to be in Scotland then, I highly suggest going to see the exhibit.
Also, you can read my poem “Dover,” published in last year’s edition of The Messenger, here (pg 13).
What I’m Listening to: White Cliffs Of Dover by Florence + The Machine, Prelude To Ecstasy by The Last Dinner Party (album), wallet picture song by Faith Zapata
What I’m Reading: On Art and Life by John Ruskin, Sword Catcher by Cassandra Clare, The Carrying by Ada Limón (reread)