Turner and Constable: Art, Life, Landscape : Members' Book Club

Enlightening online discussion from the National Gallery around Nicola Moorby’s book on Turner and Constable.

Matthew Morgan interviewed the author examining her argument that the two landscape artists were not the rivals they have been made out to be. She argues that there were very different characters who would not have been friends but that the perceived competition between them actually encouraged them to become better artists.

She chose a series of pairs of paintings to compare the two artists and to examine their different approaches.

There was a lively Q&A session at the end covering their relative fame at the time, their approach to the slave trade and why Constable did full scale sketches for his 6ft paintings.

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