Exhibitions on screen are a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it democratises art by making it available to a wider audience. This is especially the case for folk who cannot afford the expense of a trip to London to see an exhibition. On the other it financialises art by charging a fee to see the screening. I applaud the democratisation, but am appalled by the financialisation. The latest offer from Exhibition on Screen (previous documentaries were on Vermeer and Caravaggio) is Turner & Constable: Rivals & Originals, to coincide with the exhibition at Tate Britain. The documentary is a melange of English Heritage, Classic FM, and the Open University. A layered film of background music, voice-over from Robert Lindsay, contemporary shots of London, Suffolk, and Brighton, expert explanations from art critics, and selected highlights from the Exhibition, it is cleverly constructed to whet the appetite and drive viewers to buy tickets. As I say, for people who can’t get to London, that’s fair enough. If that’s the mission, then I have to say the documentary does what it sets out to do.
My problems with this entire project are several. First, exhibitions are in and of themselves problematic. Our attention span is not built to take in so many deeply textured objects in two or three hours, the average time spent in an exhibition. After an hour, most of us are flagging and just want to get out. Second, art can only be appreciated one work at a time. Surveys have shown that most viewers stop at the painting, glance at the caption, and then move on. In other words, you have seen it but never looked at it. Looking is hard work. It requires concentration and laser-like focus.
I’m reminded of Van Gogh remarking that, give him a crust of bread, and he could happily spend the whole day looking at Rembrandt’s Night Watch. The screening falls into the too much to see trap. It surveys the life and work of two artists in 90 minutes. Necessarily, it provides a whistle-stop tour d’horizon. The experience left me feeling frustrated. There just isn’t time to get to know any of the works. This brevity problem is compounded by the mistaken assumption that viewers need to be buttered up with soppy background music. The idea being that we must not let them get bored, so let’s provide both visual and aural stimulation. The sensory overload is dizzying, disastrous, and discombobulating.
Moreover, poetry read over footage of the countryside does not do anything for me. And I don’t want to spend time watching curators walking around the gallery, approaching a painting from the other end of the room. Waldemar Januszczak, the arts critic of The Sunday Times, treated the exhibition as a sporting competition between the artists and scored it 3 -0 to Turner. This is what happens when curators try to sex up their exhibitions. Art is not a football competition with three points for a win and league tables with a cup at the end of the season. It is a precious space where we try to reflect on and interpret the human condition. Setting Turner and Constable up as prize fighters as they have done does no one any favours. The exhibition tries to do too much and ends up as a shallow rather than a deep dive.
My advice would be to buy a book with superb colour plates of “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by Constable and “Rain, Steam and Speed” by Turner. Cut them out and Blu-Tac them to the wall at home, and spend five minutes every day looking at them. Only in this careful, patient and forensic manner can one truly get close to Turner and Constable.
Review by John O’Brien
Celebrating the 250th anniversary of their births, this unmissable new documentary explores Turner and Constable’s intertwined lives and legacies alongside the groundbreaking Tate exhibition.
Two of Britain’s greatest painters, J.M.W. Turner and John Constable were also the greatest of rivals. Born within a year of each other, both used landscape painting to reflect the changing world around them. Now, these two greats are reuniting. Tate Britain is bringing these two greats together for a groundbreaking exhibition, in London from November 2025 to April 2026, and Exhibition on Screen once again has exclusive and privileged access to bring their extraordinary art and remarkable stories to the big screen in March so that you can enjoy both film and exhibition together. Discover unexpected sides to both artists with intimate views of sketchbooks and personal items and insights from leading experts.
TURNER & CONSTABLE
In cinemas from 10 March 2026
