The Guardian view on Turner and Constable: radical in different ways | Editorial

"JMW Turner appears on 20 notes and gives his name to Britain's most avant garde contemporary art prize. John Constable's work adorns countless mugs and jigsaws. Both are emblematic English artists, but in the popular imagination, Turner is perceived as daring and dazzling, Constable as nice but a little bit dull. In a Radio 4 poll to find the nation's favourite painting, Turner's The Fighting Temeraire which even features in the James Bond film Skyfall won. Constable's The Hay Wain came second."

"Born only a year later, Constable was always playing catch-up: Turner became a member of the Royal Academy at 27, while Constable had to wait until he was 52. To mark the 250th anniversary of their births, Tate Britain is putting on the first major exhibition to display the two titans head to head. Shakespeare and Marlowe, Mozart and Salieri, Van Gogh and Gauguin creative rivalries are the stuff of biopics."

"The enthralling new Tate show is billed as a battle of rivals, but it also tells another story. Constable's paintings might not have the exciting steam trains, boats and burning Houses of Parliament of Turner's, but they were radical too. Painting mill workers and bargemen was groundbreaking at a time when grandiose classical themes favoured by Turner were de rigueur."

Turner appears on banknotes and lends his name to a major avant-garde prize, while Constable's images populate mugs and jigsaws. Turner is widely seen as daring and dazzling; Constable is viewed as pleasant yet modest. Turner's The Fighting Temeraire topped a Radio 4 poll, with Constable's The Hay Wain second. Turner joined the Royal Academy at 27; Constable became a member at 52. Tate Britain marks the artists' 250th anniversaries with a first major head-to-head exhibition that reframes their rivalry. Critics labeled them Fire and Water and film has dramatized the contest. Constable painted mill workers and bargemen when grandiose classical themes prevailed, echoing Romantic calls to depict common life; Constable wrote that his art "is to be found under every hedge, and in every lane."

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