Turner and Constable
Turner
I visited the large Turner and Constable exhibition at Tate Britain several times, responding to different paintings on different days. A beautifully curated show, it displayed a huge body of work including many from private collections. As contemporaries they were compared against each other from the start, although from this distance it feels like chalk and cheese - Turner’s grand themes, historical and biblical references set in exotic lands, versus Constable’s observations of the everyday, agricultural and domestic tasks taking place in landscapes he knew well.
Constable
Whilst loving them both, I was struck by the different ways the artists approached figures. Turner’s often look clumsy or laboured - sometimes it’s hard to tell his humans from his statues. They’re caricatures playing a role within the overall story.
Constable on the other hand seems be able to capture a particular personality within a few strokes of paint, in the same way he describes a cloud or clod of earth. His close observation of the specific is what convinces us of its truthfulness.
