Fire and water. Turner and constable at the Royal Academy in 1831

In the Tate Britain after a five-year tour of the British galleries back lyrical "View of Salisbury Cathedral from the meadows" by John constable. Rain-soaked landscape with a rainbow around the Cathedral is interpreted as a symbol of hope for the artist who started to deal with a deep sense of emptiness after the death of his beloved wife three years earlier.

Now this masterpiece for the first time since 1831 exhibited in the same room with a landscape by William Turner "Palace and bridge of Caligula" – "one of the most beautiful and stunning landscapes, conceived or depicted" as he puts it, then critic of the times. More than 180 years ago, the demonstration of these paintings caused between artists scandal, which has raged for several years.

In 1831 constable was in the Commission of the Royal Academy for hanging the responsible for placing of the paintings in the exhibition. Initially, he took Turner one of the best places in the center of the end wall of the Great hall of Somerset house that housed the Academy. But shortly before the opening of the exhibition, he replaced the cloth on the opponent's self – and this act irascible Turner, he had not forgiven, although the reshuffle was in his favor and not in favor of the constable.

Now "View of Salisbury Cathedral from the meadows" and "Palace and bridge of Caligula" at the new frames were reunited at the exhibition "Fire and water". They complement the surveys, which is marked by a poetic imagination of Turner, and the naturalism of constable.