Victoria and Albert Museum, London. 【Figure 4】John Constable, Hove Beach, with Fishing Boats, c. 1824. Oil on paper laid on canvas, 29.8 x 49.2 cm. What about Turner? Clarke, like Gombrich, sees it as the antithesis of Constable, and the free play of color and light in his paintings shows strong emotion. Much of the sixth chapter, "The Light of the North," is devoted to Turner, but Clark also makes it clear that Turner was heavily criticized while he was alive, and even offended the tastes of many important people. He said: Turner's late works did not make an immediate contribution to the development of art.
No one knew whatsapp database of his sketches until several appeared in the 1906 exhibition. Because the pictures on display were too lively to affect the British art scene at the time; they were too crazy to be effective in France. To make matters worse, he offended French taste with his bizarre subjects and not-so-well-drawn figures. Voltaire's comments on Shakespeare and others might reasonably be used to describe Turner's Slave Ship [Fig. 5]; classical tastes from Sir George Beaumont to Roger Frye People still think he is vulgar and disorderly. … The creative trend at this time was going in the opposite direction, preparing for the dominance of French art, which until recently was recognized as invincible. Photo Credit: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. 【Figure 5】
JMW Turner, Slave Ship, 1840. Oil on canvas, 90.8 x 122.6 cm. Unlike Constable, who was the inspiration for naturalism and impressionism, Turner was a counter-current to this trend. Whether such a positioning of art history is fair and reasonable is still debatable. Such reflection is also the driving force for the continuous expansion and advancement of art history research. Finally, I want to go back to what Gombrich said about Turner and Constable above. What "tradition" did these two landscape painters break? It is a pity that there are no single words in the whole book "The Story of Art".