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Does every creative genius need a bitter rival? | Aeon Essays

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Michelangelo and Raphael; Leibniz and Newton; Constable and Turner. Does every creative genius need a bitter rival?

On 25 May 1832, John Constable was busy adding the final touches to his masterpiece, The Opening of Waterloo Bridge. One of England’s greatest 19th-century landscape artists, he had been working on the painting for more than 10 years and was finally set to reveal it to the world the next day, at the opening of the Royal Academy of Arts’ 64th annual exhibition. Next to his piece hung Helvoetsluys by J M W Turner, an artistic genius in his own right. Watching Constable’s last-minute efforts, Turner decided to add an extra brushstroke of his own: a red buoy floating on the water. That single…

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