Turner v Constable: Tate Britain exhibition invokes long history of artistic rivalries

"He has been here and fired a gun, John Constable said of JMW Turner. A shootout between these two titans would make a good scene for in a film of their lives, but in reality all Turner did at the 1832 Royal Academy exhibition was add a splash of red to a seascape, to distract from the Constable canvas beside it."

"The Renaissance sculptor Benvenuto Cellini literally fired guns, blasting a man to death at close range with an arquebus. But when he contemplated murdering his rival Baccio Bandinelli, whom he claimed was full of badness and whose statue of Hercules looked like a sack of melons, it was with his trusty dagger. Cellini spotted Bandinelli across a quiet piazza, according to his autobiography, and reached for his blade to end their competition for Medici patronage with a single knife blow but spared him."

John Constable accused JMW Turner of having 'fired a gun' after Turner added a splash of red to a seascape at the 1832 Royal Academy exhibition to distract from Constable's canvas beside it. Tate Britain paired works by Turner and Constable, inviting comparisons and revived narratives of rivalry. Benvenuto Cellini literally killed a man with an arquebus and later contemplated murdering his rival Baccio Bandinelli with a dagger, then spared him. The Renaissance contained repeated artist feuds such as Cimabue v Giotto and Michelangelo v Leonardo. Michelangelo publicly humiliated Leonardo, who mocked Michelangelo's David. Artemisia Gentileschi required a weapons licence in Naples because of an art mafia known as the Cabal.

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