Rivals & Originals

JMW Turner and John Constable were contemporaries and artistic rivals at Royal Academy exhibitions. Rivals and Originals at Tate Britain offers a chance to see their paintings side by side and trace their diverging approaches to landscape. Initially similar, their work became radically different from each other.

Above: Turner's York House Watergate (1795), Snow Storm: Steam Boat off a Harbour Mouth (1842)

and self-portrait of 1799.

Turner and Constable were both accomplished watercolourists. The youthful Turner’s watercolour paintings were highly detailed topographical views that gave no hint of the atmospheric images of his later years. By the early nineteenth century, Turner had developed a much looser way of painting and turned landscape into a subject in its own right. A lovely example of this is a small oil sketch called The Thames near Windsor. This has much in common with Constable’s Path Towards Stratford St Mary, one of the numerous oil sketches he produced en plein air – painting outdoors  to capture the feeling of his subjects on the spot (as the French Impressionists would do from the 1870s). Constable then developed his paintings in the studio, adding detail and 'finish' according to artistic standards of the time.

Above left: Turner's Thames near Windsor (1805); above right: Constable's Path Towards

Stratford St Mary (1816); centre: Constable by RR Reinagle (1799).

Constable's focus was on depicting a distinctively English kind of landscape through attention to detail. He returned to familiar fields, rivers and country lanes to paint pictures built up from close observation and lots of detail. There’s something very thoughtful and committed about that. Constable goes deep, sticking with what he knows and trusting repetition to reveal something new. Constable’s best paintings are pleasing and invite quiet contemplation: they are beautiful, according to Edmund Burke’s book about the differences between the Sublime and the Beautiful.

Top left: Watermeadows at Salisbury (1820); top right: The White Horse (1819); above left:

Cloud Study (1821); above left: Dedham Lock and Mill (1818) - all by Constable.

Turner, on the other hand, became a master of the Sublime, creating works full of emotional intensity, untamed nature and dissolving forms. Turner went travelling around Europe, seeking dramatic vistas and landscapes to inspire his imagination. His watercolour studies of Venice are light filled and stripped of detail, and he managed to translate this technique into his subsequent oil paintings.

Top left: Staffa, Fingal's Cave (1832); top right: Venice (1840); above left:

Hannibal Crossing the Alps (1812); above right: Petworth House, Sunset (1829) - all by Turner.

In the 1820s and 30s, Constable produced watercolours of the beach at Brighton that are very different from his detailed oil six-footers, and Rainstorm over the Sea and Stonehenge are much closer to Romanticism than Realism.

Top left: Brighton Evening (1828); top right: Brighton Beach (1824); above left:

Rainstorm Over the Sea (1828); above right: Stonehenge (1835) - all by Constable.

Turner's mature works are fully immersed in the Sublime. The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (1835) is pure drama: fire, smoke and reflected light almost swallows the subject entirely. It feels dangerous and thrilling. Constable’s The Opening of Waterloo Bridge (1832) is impressive but his dedication to detail goes too far. The painting feels static and overworked, and has none of the charm of Constable’s smaller works. Turner’s explosive use of light and his confidence with paint make his work so much more compelling.

Top left: The Opening of Waterloo Bridge (1832) by Constable. Top right: The Thames above Waterloo Bridge (1835) by Turner. Above left: The Burning of the Houses of Parliament (1835) by Turner. Above right: Salisbury Cathdral from the Meadows (1831) by Constable.