Turner Collection

John Constable
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
exhibited 1831

Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows, which Constable began painting in 1830, shows the cathedral from the north-west, looking across the River Nadder from a point near a footbridge known as the Long Bridge. A team of three horses pulls a cart across the river from the left; cattle graze in the meadows in the right distance; and the centre foreground is occupied by a black and white sheepdog whose intent gaze is turned inwards towards the cathedral as if to direct the viewer towards the building or the storm that sweeps over it. The spire pierces a sky full of billowing clouds; a dark rain cloud hangs directly above and a streak of lightning flashes over the roof; but a magnificent rainbow arches over all, promising that the storm will pass. While the tall trees in the middle distance on the left are shaken by a squally breeze, the river’s surface is already glassy and smooth, reflecting the varied sky. Fresh raindrops glint and sparkle on the brambles in the foreground. Throughout much of the canvas, the paint is handled with a febrile, sometimes even frenzied excitement, especially in the foreground undergrowth, the trembling trees and the Gothic architecture of the cathedral. Laid on with brush and palette knife, the paint ranges from thick and three-dimensional in the brambles, to thin and almost translucent in the rainbow. The picture was exhibited by Constable at the Royal Academy in 1831 but never found a buyer. The painting remained in the artist’s studio – where he continued to retouch it – until his death in 1837.

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Norham Castle, Sunrise
c.1845

Turner first saw Norham, bordering Scotland on the river Tweed in Northumberland, in 1797. He was at the limits of his trip to northern England, when he also visited Buttermere, seen in the painting of nearly fifty years earlier shown nearby. After that first visit he made watercolours showing the ruin at sunrise, and visits in 1801 and 1831 resulted in further views. Here, finally, is one of a series of unfinished, unexhibited paintings reworking his monochrome Liber Studiorum landscape prints. Pure colours rather than contrasting tones express the blazing light as the historic building and landscape merge.

Gallery label, February 2010

Joseph Mallord William Turner
Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps
exhibited 1812

Hannibal Barca was a Commander of the Carthaginian army in 200-100 BC. He was a celebrated military leader. Although he is referenced in the title of this work, Hannibal himself is not pictured. Rather than focus on an individual leader, this work expresses human’s vulnerability when faced with the power of nature. The attention is on the victims of the conflict, the soldiers struggling in the harsh conditions.

Gallery label, August 2019

Joseph Mallord William Turner
The Shipwreck
exhibited 1805

Shipwrecks and other disasters at sea were a recurrent theme in Romantic painting. They demonstrated the primal force of the elements, a nightmare for all who travelled far from home. Turner retained a lifelong passion for the sea. We don’t know whether this painting was inspired by an actual shipwreck, or the reissue in 1804 of a famous poem on the theme by William Falconer. Turner defines the essence of such an experience through overwhelming impressions of realism and horror. The dark tonality, characteristic of Turner’s early paintings, provides a foil to the white crests and swirls of the waves.

Gallery label, March 2010