17/11/2025
The friendly rivalry between painters William Turner and John Constable is one of the most significant chapters in British art history. These two men had different world views and artistic temperaments, which came face to face within English Romanticism: Turner, the alchemist of sky and light, versus Constable, the poet of earth and clouds. These two painters constantly kept an eye on each other's work and had different approaches to the sublime and the natural. Constable was a man of the countryside and a "gentleman farmer", attached to the dark and changeable English sky. In contrast, Turner, a "painter of fire" and of the romantic, sometimes rebellious Lux, tended to omit details in order to capture the luminous essence of the world. This pseudo-rivalry between Lux and Nox, between spiritual light and everyday triviality, continues to shape our perception of 19th-century British art, as demonstrated by the recent exhibition at Tate Britain. The exhibition demonstrates the dialogue and clash between the works of these two masters, and how they sometimes merge in the same spirit of modernity. Their opposing worlds continue to touch and remind us that beauty can arise from absolute contrast and respect for rivals.
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'Turner and Constable, a duel at the heart of Romanticism' by Christophe Dosogne
'Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals in London from 27-11 till 12-04
📷1: J.M.W. Turner, fragment of 'The Burning of the House of Lords and the House of Commons', 16 October 1834, 1835, oil on canvas, 92 x 123,2 cm. Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art.
📷2: J.M.W. Turner, 'Self-Portrait', ca. 1799, oil on canvas, 74,3 x 58,4 cm. London, The Tate Britain. © Tate.
📷3: John Constable, fragment of 'Hampstead Heath with a Rainbow', 1836, oil on canvas, 50,8 x 76,2 cm. London, The Tate Britain.
📷4: Ramsay Richard Reinagle, 'Portrait of John Constable', ca. 1799, oil on canvas, 76,2 x 63,8 cm.
London, The National Portrait Gallery.
