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John Constable, Romantic Realist, 1776-
1837 |
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Today Constable is ranked alongside his contemporary Turner(1775- 1851) as one of the greatest English landscape painters and had a strong influence on the Impressionist movement. Constable's innovative approach to "truthful nature", his emphasis on making the landscape come alive, creative expansive use of colour and brushstrokes all brought a fresh appreciation to the art of landscape painting. His career was marked by slow, painstaking progress, both to master his art and to achieve recognition and success; at least in his own country. Part of his slow acceptance can be attributed to the fact that landscape painting was generally considered by the art establishment of the time as inferior to portrait or historical paintings. In 1824 he sold The Haywain and View on the Stour near Dedham to a French dealer who exhibited them at the Paris Salon, which created a flurry of excited activity, the King of France awarding him a gold medal for his Haywain that same year. In 1829 he was finally elected a full member of the Royal Academy. He sold only 20 paintings in his lifetime, leaving the bulk of his work to his daughter Isabel. In 1888 Isabel donated them to the Victoria and Albert Museum, who now have the finest collection of his work.
Born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, Constable had a happy carefree childhood, 4th child and 2nd son to Ann and Golding Constable's 3 sons and 3 daughters. His father was a wealthy corn merchant who owned mills at Dedham and Flatford along the banks of the River Stour. Constable had a deep love for nature and the countryside and all his life painted what he loved and was familiar with. The region around the Stour valley in his native Sussex is known today as 'Constable Country'. In 1819 Constable and his wife moved to Hampstead, which then became the main focus of his later work. More than any other artist before him, Constable strove to reveal "a pure and unaffected representation" of the countryside around him. He was fascinated by the effects of light, wind and rain on the landscape and often painted the same scene more than once. He would frequently pin a canvas to the inside lid of his paint-box and paint directly onto his portable easel, such as his The Stour of 1810. Some of his more famous early works are Dedham Vale: Morning (1811, Elton Hall, Huntingdonshire); Boatbuilding near Flatford Mill (1814-1815, Victoria and Albert Museum, London); The Stour Valley and Dedham Village (1815, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston); Flatford Mill on the River Stour (1817, Tate Gallery, London); 'A Church Porch' (The Church Porch, East Bergholt) (1809), Landscape: Boys Fishing (1813), Wivenhoe Park (1816), and Weymouth Bay (1816). Flatford Mill was his last work of this period which he created "en plein-air".
In 1809 Constable met and fell in love with Maria Bicknell, granddaughter of the rector of East Bergholt. He was 33, still a relatively unknown and struggling artist, who despite a modest allowance from his father could ill-afford to keep a wife and family. She was 21, from a wealthy family all strongly disapproving of their relationship, particularly her grandfather, who threatened her with disinheritance should she marry him. For seven years they remained loyal to each other and were on the verge of eloping when John's father's death in 1816 left him financially secure, and they could at last marry. Even then, none of her family attended the wedding. Their marriage was very happy but sadly short-lived, Maria passing on from tuberculosis in 1828, at the age of 40, and leaving Constable with 7 young children. He adored his children but his wife's death plunged him into depression and a melancholy he never really recovered from. His marriage sparked a new creative energy in Constable, and he began work on his "six-footers', a series of large canvases on river subjects (except for The Haywain), which became some of his most famous and best-loved work. His first in this series, The White Horse was exhibited at the Academy in 1819. This time his work was "too large to remain unnoticed" and he began at last to achieve critical acclaim. Others in this series were Landscape: Noon (The Hay-Wain) (1821), The Lock (A Boat Passing a Lock) (1824), The Leaping Horse (1824-1825), and View on the Stour near Dedham (1822). Other major works from this period were Hampstead Heath (c.1820), Salisbury Cathedral, from the Bishop's Grounds (1823), A Mill at Gillingham in Dorset (Parham's Mill) (1826), The Vale of Dedham (1828), The Valley Farm (1835), Old Sarum (1829 - watercolour), Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831). He died in March, 1837 working on his last picture Arundel Mill and Castle (1837).
The National Gallery of Australia's John Constable exhibition: Impressions of Land, Sea and Sky (3 March – 12 June 2006) shows "Constable’s brilliant depiction of nature, how he animated the landscape, created a sense of air and made nature come alive.... in expanding the range of colours used and in a greater freedom of handling of paint, his art became the benchmark for landscape painters in Europe during the nineteenth century". ArtKnowledgeNews.com The NGA has put together a good online collection of about 100 paintings, drawing and sketches with informative and very interesting notes on individual paintings. Link to NGA exhibition of Constable Tate Britain exhibition: Constable: The Great Landscapes
1 June – 28 August 2006 Lyons Corner House now offers you the opportunity
to own for yourself a superb reproduction of your favourite painting
by Constable. Just tell us which is your favourite work
and the size you would like and we will give you a no-obligation
quote for a top quality reproduction which you can give pride
of place in your own home. |
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