Multiple Genius

By

Turner Museum curator Isis Graham

As a starter: J.M.W.Turner was a "triple" genius:

     1.   An artistic genius, one of the dozen or so greatest ever

     2.   A marketing genius - he sold his own works at premium prices - Turner, the self-made man, the richest artist of his age.

     3.   A production genius - he reduced the time needed to create master-prints by more than 90% and maintain the highest   

           standards of quality

Not many artists were triple geniuses in such widely differing fields. Only Rubens and Picasso come readily to my mind.

Print production was almost forced upon Turner. When still in his 20s, the prices of his oil paintings soared beyond the means

of most art collectors including professional artists, many his most ardent admirers. To satisfy the growing demand from the

public, Turner turned to print production, a democratic solution in the age of the American revolution.. Turner tackled the

challenge with characteristic caution spiced with innovative zeal.

To produce a master-print can take anywhere from three to six months - with traditional methods. Turner also created more

than 800 master-prints in addition to the same number of oils and over 20,000 water-colors and sketches. He compressed

centuries, nay, a millennium of labor into his life-span of 76 years.

How did he do it? Turner hit upon a superb solution. As a starter, he created a print-design, like an architect creates a design,

a plan for a building - usually a water-color. That took very little time - he was a fast worker and was known to have tossed off

as many as six water-colors in a single day. For the tedious and even dirty drudgery of translating the design onto the surface

of a steel or copper plate Turner trained nearly one hundred craftsmen. To kick-start the print-making process, Turner on

occasion began the process of translating his own design by sketching/etching an outline directly onto the surface of .the

plate, usually made of copper or steel. That took even less time than a water-color. Now the drudgery of the detail-work began.

That was handed over to the assistants, much like an architect turns over the execution of his design to others. Most artists

before Turner's time left it at that. Not Turner. He supervised the drudgery with merciless severity, with continuous corrections.

Turnover among his assistants became a problem. Turner had no patience for second-raters and the good ones tended to

resent his constant corrections. The bottom line: he cut down drastically his personal involvement in the printmaking process

from (say) three months to just a few days without compromise in quality. That is genius.

Turner warmed up to the job with experience. He made a virtue out of necessity. He made the daunting task of constant

corrections a vital part of his creative process: (a) it gave him an opportunity to improve the image of the design; and (b) it of

course ensured a tight control over his craftsman known as engravers, and thus control over the all important quality of his

prints.

Finally virtue became profitable: Turner charged his publisher dearly for these corrections, euphemistically called "touches". By

and by, the sheets - called touched proofs, proofs - on which Turner made his corrections in pencil, often embellished with a

little drawing and succinct or detailed written instructions, became some of the most thought-after collector items. But that is

another subject.

Thanks to all the corrections Turner made, the result, that is the quality, of the published prints, was predictable: magnificence!

Regardless of the variety and number of assistants employed, they appeared to be...well...Turners, worthy of the great master,

J.M.W. Turner. His prints became instant "best-sellers". To give us an idea how well Turner succeeded one only has to read

contemporary accounts. More than one connoisseur preferred his prints over his oils - the oils surface tended to crack and the

canvas to deteriorate - and over his water-colors which were considered fragile and subject to catastrophic fading. His prints,

on the other hand, were impressed upon high quality longest-lasting paper. They also took very little space, they were paper-

thin - no small consideration in the turbulent centuries that followed.

Then Turner screwed it all up, so to speak - with his impeccable honesty! A trait rarer than rubies in the art business. How

many us for example know who were (say) Picasso's assistants in his print-making ventures - practically no-one, as they were

given zero credit on the prints the public sees. Not so Turner. He gave full credit to his assistants - equivalent in importance of

a by-line in a newspaper - that is on the face of his prints. On the left side, immediately below the southern border of his prints,

J.M.W.Turner was credited with the design, and on the right side, perhaps even more prominently ( it was on the right), the

name of the craftsman appeared, proceeded by the words: engraved by.

Unintentionally, Turner's honesty produced incredible confusion over the centuries. The public gained the impression that

somehow his assistants participated in the creative process although their role was not much different from the part played by

(say) the master stone-cutter or highly skilled carpenter in the building of a church or museum. As a result we now have the

following spectacle: while the architect continues to get credit as the creative genius behind a memorable building, the

authorship of Turner's prints is attributed to his assistants! The result was easily predictable: a sickening deflation in the value

of Turner's beautiful masterpieces on paper. But there is a silver-lining! This severe under-valuation creates interesting

opportunities for the discriminating collector.

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