Born inside a yr of one another, it’s laborious to consider two extra emblematic British artists than J.M.W. Turner and John Constable—or of two higher inventive rivals. But there has by no means been a significant exhibition dedicated to each. Spanning 2025 and 2026—the years of their respective 250th anniversaries—Tate Britain’s Turner and Constable will inform the story of their interlinked careers and the way their proximity to one another helped outline our concepts of them.
Turner (1775-1851) and Constable (1776-1837) have been frequently pitted in opposition to one another, they usually felt a eager sense of rivalry. Or a minimum of Constable did. A slower starter than the precocious, market-savvy Turner, Constable as soon as touchily referred to his fellow artist as “he who could be lord of all”.
J.M.W. Turner’s Caligula’s Palace and Bridge (round 1831) Picture courtesy of Tate
Having lastly grow to be a full Royal Academician in 1829 (27 years after Turner), Constable was invited to hold the annual Summer time Exhibition in 1831. He dedicated the fake pas of putting in one in every of his personal work in satisfaction of place, subsequent to a equally giant Turner. The transfer paid off: critics delighted within the comparability, dubbing the 2 artists “hearth and water”, and cementing Constable’s long-sought standing as a titan of panorama portray.
This was the story that impressed the Tate curator Amy Concannon to placed on the present. At its coronary heart is a reconstruction of that well-known 1831 pairing: Turner’s Caligula’s Palace and Bridge (1831) subsequent to Constable’s Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1829-31). By way of related historic reconstructions, in addition to loans of not often seen works from personal collections, this present is the definitive likelihood to witness the battle of the weather.
Within the 1831 Summer time Exhibition hanging, John Constable gave his personal Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows satisfaction of place
Picture © Tate
Chalk and cheese
By origin and temperament, they have been very totally different males. The London-born Turner was inspired from an early age by his father—a barber turned studio assistant—to develop his expertise right into a commercially viable operation. Turner had a style for the grandeur of classical landscapes and the drama of the elegant. His sense of historical past can be considerable in his up to date scenes, reminiscent of The Burning of the Homes of Lords and Commons, 16 October 1834 (1835)—a mortgage from the Cleveland Museum of Artwork, which shall be on present within the UK for the primary time since 1883.
Set up view of J.M.W. Turner’s The Burning of the Homes of Lords and Commons, 1835 in Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals at Tate Britain Picture © Tate Pictures (Yili Liu)
In contrast, Constable was born into an prosperous Suffolk household who would have most well-liked him to observe a extra respectable path. His choice to color Salisbury Cathedral underneath cloudy skies could have recalled the political woes of the Church of England, however basically he selected extra staid subject material than his rival. Nonetheless, Concannon argues: “Constable is the bolder artist sooner, when it comes to his method.” From the off, his canvases bore the traces of vigorous and revolutionary makes an attempt to seize the unruliness of nature. “Once you put that within the Royal Academy, in entrance of the eyes of the critics, in comparison with the sleek finesse of different work—even Turner’s in lots of instances—Constable was termed crude,” Concannon says.
If the 1831 pairing was a problem, Turner answered it on the following Summer time Exhibition in one other contest that audiences can relive at Tate Britain. With a single, publicly executed dab of paint, he launched an anchoring purple tone into the foreground of his seascape Helvoetsluys (1832). The financial system and panache of this gesture made a mockery of the disparate foreground reds of Constable’s close by The Opening of Waterloo Bridge (1832), a portray that had been 13 years within the making. Constable supposedly claimed that with that daub of purple, Turner had “fired a gun”—conveniently forgetting his personal provocation of the earlier yr.
Set up view Turner and Constable: Rivals and Originals at Tate Britain Picture © Tate Pictures (Yili Liu)
Hitting it off
Regardless of their variations, they might take to each other in individual. When Constable was elected a Royal Academician, Turner paid him a go to, and their discussions lasted into the early hours.
The ultimate work within the present shall be unfinished canvases, providing insights into dimensions of each artists’ work that posterity would cherish, regardless of not being meant to be seen by the general public. Tate Britain’s Norham Fortress (1845) shall be coupled with Constable’s full-scale sketch Stoke-by-Nayland (1836), on mortgage from the Artwork Institute of Chicago and supposedly a favorite of Lucian Freud’s.
The exhibition will give attention to the artists’ lives, their work and its reception, leaving questions of legacy to the accompanying publication and a movie that includes up to date artists reminiscent of Frank Bowling and Bridget Riley.
Tate Britain can be providing free entry to London’s black cab drivers as a goodwill gesture. Maybe they have been pondering of affable cabbies telling passengers to not miss the Turner and Constable. It might be value heeding their recommendation.
• Turner and Constable, Tate Britain, London, 27 November-12 April 2026
