John Constable - English Landscape Painter

Enlarge Image I love John Constable's paintings. His technical proficiency aside, it's the emotive quality in his work that really grabs me - you look at a Constable painting and you know the artist's heart was in it. There is a beautiful tranquility about the landscapes - they convey an idea of gentle times and lovely days, of one those beautiful poetic moments that alight upon you on a peaceful walk and stay with you in difficult times. An Everything's Alright with the World Kind of Feeling. Constable lived at exactly the same time as Wordsworth and the two of them have a strikingly similar sensibility and love for nature.

John Constable was born in 1776 in East Bergholt, a small village in Suffolk. He was the son of a wealthy mill and land owner, Golding Constable, and his wife Ann. There were six children in all. Constable had an idyllic childhood and was eventually expected to take over his father's business.

Art Studies:

From quite an early age, Constable showed a distinct penchant for art and was to be always found drawing or sketching. He was encouraged in this by the local school-teacher, the local plumber, and by his indulgent parents. It was nice after all for John to have a hobby and be so good at it too. What they hadn't bargained for was his turning the hobby into a career choice. This happened after Constable met the eccentric Sir George Beaumont, an amateur painter, who owned and lugged around everywhere a painting by Claude Lorrain 'Hagar and the Angel'. Constable was so impressed by this painting, he decided he wanted nothing more than to be able to paint professionally his entire life.

Golding Constable was aghast by this decision. If not a respectable businessman, he wanted his son to become at least a respectable clergyman. Becoming an artist didn't even figure on the respectable barometer as far as he was concerned. He insisted on Constable joining him at work on the family water and windmills. But he was a fond father too and wanted his son to be happy. So, after a year, he came around and agreed to allow Constable to study art in London. Constable's younger brother, Abram, was groomed to take over the family business and acquitted himself creditably.

Constable, provided with a comfortable allowance by his father, went to London in 1799 and enrolled at the Royal Academy. It was here that he first met that other great English Painter, Turner, who was also a fellow student at the RA. They were to have a long rivalry in which Turner would always remain several steps ahead.

Although Constable did excellently in his art studies, he missed his close-knit family, the peaceful family home, and the lovely Suffolk countryside. In big, bustling London, he felt no doubt like a caged bird. And one that moreover didn't receive much appreciation or encouragement for his penchant for landscape painting either. At the time, if you wanted to make a name for yourself as an artist, you painted portraits and historical/mythological adventures. Constable had no interest in making these kinds of pictures - and a stubbornly honest streak, combined with a strong self-belief, that kept him doing only what he liked, regardless of public acknowledgment. This is one of the hallmarks of genius, but at the time it kept him from being admitted as a member of the Royal Academy and kept him financially dependent on his father's allowance.

Marriage:

In 1809, when he was 33, Constable fell in love with 21 year old Maria Bricknell, whom he had known since childhood. Theirs was to be one of those classic love stories that are filled with villains and hurdles and end in tragedy. The villains here, who kept the couple from marrying for seven years, were the Bricknell Family, with Maria's rich, haughty grandfather at the helm. Maria was a heiress and Constable a penniless artist who was showing no prospects of even making a penny; of course, it was an unthinkable match.

Finally, after much drama, the couple got married on 2 October 1816. It was a happy union and they had seven children. Unfortunately, Maria, always rather frail, had contracted tuberculosis, a fatal disease in those times, and, after only 12 years of marriage, she died on 23 November 1828.

Career:

When Maria died, Constable had just began to taste success with his spectacular, large-sized canvases. The idea behind creating such huge works was to make them stand-out prominently from amongst the many that were exhibited at the annual Royal Academy Exhibition. These landscapes of the Suffolk countryside were painted in his studio, using as references the many color and pencil sketches and drawings that he had made on-the-spot. His color sketches, rapidly executed, have a distinctly impressionistic quality and today seem more alive and interesting than the finished works.

At the time though, it were the finished works that caused a stir. Constable was the first painter to thrown out the classical browns and paint in an entirely realistic manner. His fresh, atmospheric paintings with their magnificent skies really impressed all viewers. In France especially, where 'The Hay Wain' was included in a 1824 exhibition of English Paintings and was given the gold medal by the French King, the French artists were so overcome with admiration for his bright colors that one of them, a fellow called Delacroix, took his own painting 'Massacre at Chios' down and went home and retouched it completely.

The English were comparatively slow to admire the genius in their midst. It wasn't until February 1829 that Constable finally received membership of the Royal Academy, and then it was a rather close call.

Constable died on 31 March 1837, leaving behind a wonderful body of work and a reputation that would only grow with passing years.

Famous Paintings:

'The Hay Wain', 1821, National Gallery

'Salisbury Cathedral', 1823, Victoria and Albert Museum

'Chain Pier, Brighton', 1827, Tate Gallery