Turner and Constable at Tate Britain

I understand that I should upload pictures to make more people read this, but none of the photos that I took do justice to the paintings, so here are some inadequate words instead!

I love Turner's work. One of the blurbs next to a painting said that he painted the pollution that was visible all the time in London, which is why his paintings are so hazy and swirly. I have often thought you can almost feel the atmosphere in his work; he makes weather conditions into dramatic feelings rather than Constable's rather poncy little puffy clouds. I'd never seen Turner's religious paintings before. There was a bit too much melodrama in them, and he was a bit silly: he painted lots of imaginary Italian scenes before actually going there. Or maybe that's poignant; possibly he couldn't afford to travel!

What was lovely was the little sketch books that both of them painted in. That's where their respective skills were really evident. Overlapping two pages sometimes, the passion for capturing reality was vibrant and infectious. I wanted to get a little sketchbook and paint in it there and then.

Like many exhibitions at both London Tates, there was too much here. A bit of focus and editing would have made the exhibition altogether better. There were some gorgeous Constables here, and some intriguing juxtapositions (a painting of a canal with a horse, then another, larger one done several years later of the same place with the same horse, only now populated with men working alongside the water). Both artists are excellent at painting water, Constable still pools and millponds, Turner brilliant at crashing, terrifying seas. But one became tired of Constable's works very quickly: the paintings looked almost paint-by-numbers and they quite possibly were, rushing through commissions. Some of Turner's paintings were not his best, and one of the religious ones had the most silly twee little white rabbit that I've ever seen in a so-called serious painting. 

But I'm quite definitely a Turnerite. It's the industrial ones that I like, all that drama. He's almost like a precursor of the Futurists with his dynamism and ability to turn ugly industrial seascapes into parodies of religious epiphanies. Very clever. I'm going to go back again and soak up some magic from the large canvases that both of them had the luxury of creating. I might like Constable better too, second time around, and see beyond what seems to be superficial sentimentality. He was definitely a record-keeper and he sure could paint a cornfield!

It seems churlish to criticise two such wonderful painters, but it's more that I'm processing what I felt. Now it's time for me to do some drawing.