Turner Inspired: In the Light of Claude, National Gallery, March 14-June 5, 2012
When the famous British Romanticist artist Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) donated two of his paintings - Dido Building Carthage and Sun Rising through Vapour - to the National Gallery in London, his only condition was for the art works to be exposed alongside two other oeuvres - The Seaport and The Mill - by 17th-century French painter Claude (c.1600- 1682, full name Claude Gellée, also known as Claude Lorrain).
The latest exhibition - on view at the National Gallery from mid March - features a body of watercolours, paintings and sketches known as the Turner Bequest, which the artist donated to his people and country before his death. Here one can also witness Turner's fascination with the works of Claude, who is widely seen as the father of European landscape painting and who inspired numerous followers, mainly from the British Isles. One notable English landscape painter, John Constable, even referred to Claude as the greatest landscape artist ever.
Trafalgar Square
www.nationalgallery.org.uk