Thomas Gainsborough RA
Romantic Landscape, ca.1783
oil on canvas, 153,7 x 186,7 cm.
Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Limited.
© Royal Academy of Arts, London
John Constable
The leaping horse, 1825
oil on canvas, 142 x 187,3 cm.
Royal Academy of Arts, London
Constable, Gainsborough, Turner; Making of Landscape ‘Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the Making of Landscape’ explores the development of the British School of Landscape Painting through the display of 120 works of art. Royal Academy of Arts, London, 8 December 2012 – 17 February 2013.]]>
Source: Royal Academy of Arts
Since the foundation of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, its Members included artists who werecommitted to landscape painting. The exhibition draws on the Royal Academy’s Collection tounderpin the shift in landscape painting during the 18th and 19th centuries. From Founder MemberThomas Gainsborough and his contemporaries Richard Wilson and Paul Sandby, to JMW Turnerand John Constable, these landscape painters addressed the changing meaning of ‘truth to nature’and the discourses surrounding the Beautiful, the Sublime and the Picturesque.
The changing style is represented by the generalised view of Gainsborough’s works and theemotionally charged and sublime landscapes by JMW Turner to Constable’s romantic scenes infusedwith sentiment. Highlights include Gainsborough’s “Romantic Landscape” (c.1783), and a recentlyacquired drawing that was last seen in public in 1950. Constable’s two great landscapes of the1820s, “The Leaping Horse” (1825) and “Boat Passing a Lock” (1826) will be hung alongside Turner’sbrooding diploma work, “Dolbadern Castle” (1800).
To contextualise the landscape paintings of Constable, Gainsborough and Turner, a number ofpaintings by their 18th- century contemporaries Richard Wilson, Michael Angelo Rooker and PaulSandby will be exhibited with prints made after the 17th- century masters whose work served asmodels: Claude, Poussin, Gaspard Dughet and Salvator Rosa. Letters by Gainsborough, Turner’swatercolour box and Constable’s palette will also be on display, bringing their artistic practice to life.
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