Broken into twelve sections, this comprehensive exhibition traces the parallel careers of two of England’s most important landscape artists with insight and illumination. Emerging from very different backgrounds and approaching their subjects in markedly different ways, J. M. W. Turner and John Constable each occupy a singular place in the British imagination. The exhibition follows the development of their careers, presents outstanding examples of their work, and considers their lasting influence on contemporary artists. While Constable was born into relative privilege and remained deeply rooted in the Stour Valley, Turner was the son of a barber and wig-maker whose restless curiosity led him to travel widely. Both artists were recognised early by the Royal Academy and enjoyed considerable success during their lifetimes. Constable’s devotion to working outdoors is emphasised and set against Turner’s famously chaotic studio practice. Visitors can sense Constable’s pleasure in local fields and skies and compare it with Turner’s evocative impressions of the Alps and Italy. Their celebrated rivalry comes into focus in sections seven, “Sizing Up: The Exhibition,” and eight, “Fire and Water,” the latter title taken from a review that described their art as “Turner’s fire and Constable’s rain” in The Englishman’s Magazine of 1831. Yet, what became the standard critical contrast between the two had already been articulated in The London Magazine of 1829: “Mr. Constable’s works present no stronger contrast … than they do with Mr. Turner’s … The first is all truth, the last all poetry: the one is silver, the other gold.” It is in the striking concluding rooms that the deepest differences in their responses to experience become most apparent. Constable offers finely observed expressions of time passing, with sky and cloud rendered in meticulous detail, while in Turner’s paintings the human presence is diminished and set in proportion by skies suffused with light that suggests infinity. The former finds meaning in a close attention to nature and the fleeting moment, the latter seeks to transcend the temporal through a more spiritual vision. This impressive, must-see exhibition leaves not only a powerful impression of two artists whose contrasting visions continue to shape how landscape is seen and imagined but of two fundamentally different ways of approaching and apprehending existence.
Rated: ★★★★★
Reviewed by J.C.
Image: JMW Turner The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, October 16, 1834 1835 © Cleveland Museum of Art
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