Emerson observes extravagant paintings

Here is the brief entry in Emerson's journals for this day in 1848:

June 26.        

[Breakfasted] at Mr. Stanfield's, who showed me some of Turner's pictures and his own. Each of Turner's cost one hundred guineas.

I went with Edwin Field and Mr. Stanfield and his son to the house of Mr. Windus, Tottenham, to see his collection of Turner's pictures and drawings of which altogether he may have a hundred. This gallery was that in which Ruskin had studied. It is quite necessary to see all these pictures to appreciate the genius of Turner through his extravagances.

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Mr. Stanfield's: See yesterday's post for information about this painter. This is one of his pastoral paintings, less common and quieter than the ones depicting drama at sea.

{Bords de la Meuse et pont de Dinant, par Clarkson Stanfield; source: Université de Liège}

wikimedia has an excellent gallery of Turner paintings. This extravagant one is one of his most abstractly atmospheric:

{Sunrise with Sea Monsters by J. M. W. Turner (1845); source: wikimedia}

{Shipping on the Thames, Duke shaw Wharf, Limehouse, attributed to
Edwin Wilkins Field, an English law reformer and painter; source: artnet.de }

{The Library at Tottenham belonging to Benjamin Godfrey Windus, a watercolour by John Scarlett Davis; source: britishmuseum.org}

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Some sources:

Journals Of Ralph Waldo Emerson 1820-1872, with Annotations, edited by Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes; Vol. VII, 1845-1848 (London, Constable & Co.; Boston And New York Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913)

Journals Of Ralph Waldo Emerson 1820-1872, with Annotations, edited by Edward Waldo Emerson and Waldo Emerson Forbes; Vol. VII, 1845-1848, (New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1912)