Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the Making of Landscape – Royal Academy of Arts

On Friday night I paid a visit to the Royal Academy of Arts to see the Constable, Gainsborough, Turner and the Making of Landscape exhibition. I love Turner and this was the main reason for my visit. In the end there wasn’t a great deal of his work on display, or that of the other named artists. A lot of the space was devoted to artists who paved the way or who were inspired by these three giants, so I felt the title of the exhibition was slightly misleading. Still, the paintings and artefacts displayed were well-chosen and the exhibition as a whole was small enough to be enjoyed without fatigue. Highlights for me included Turner’s Dolbadern Castle, while paintings by Gainsborough and Constable, artists I’d never paid much attention to in the past, appeared in a new light for me and I think I’d like to find out more about their work.