In this exhibition the strong link between Claude Gellée dit le Lorrain and J. M. W. Turner is emphasized by placing particular paintings by each of them from a variety of galleries and collections alongside one another to illustrate the former’s influence on the latter.

The impact of Claude’s pioneering seventeenth-century French landscape paintings on Turner lasted for the whole of the great English painter’s career. Turner always wanted to pay homage to Claude, to evoke Claude, and indeed to surpass Claude. In particular he was inspired by Claude’s innovative treatment of the effects of light on landscape. In his will, Turner left a large collection of his own paintings to the National Gallery, where this exhibition is held, on the strict condition that they be hung alongside works by Claude. It was both an expression of Turner’s intense admiration for the French artist and a way of ensuring his own ...

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