num_pages: 128
description: No artist has rivalled John Constable (1776-1837) in his powers to express the beauties of the British countryside, especially the scenery of his native East Anglia. He sought above all to make 'pure and unaffected representarions of the scenes', and to this end he made detailed studies of the minutest phenomena of nature. He wrote: 'My limited and abstracted art is to be found under every hedge, and in eveyr lane...'. But this feeling for such qualities had to be reconciled with the traditional - and what were for him the essential - demands of of painting pictures for public exhibition. In this book many of his most famous pictures are reproduced, showing how Constable adjusted the fresh, spontaneous handling of paint in his sketches to mroe formal, academic requirements.John Sunderland's enormously successful survey of the life and work of Constable was first published in 1971. Each full-page colour plate is accompanied by an explanatory text, and over fifty black-and-white illustrations offer comparisons with the paintings. This series acts as an introduction to key artists and movements in art history. Each title contains 48 full-page colour plates, accompanied by extensive notes, and numerous comparative illustrations in colour or black and white, a concise introduction, select bibliography and detailed source information for the images. Monographs on individual artists also feature a brief chronology.
language: English
title: Constable
titlecomplete: Constable (Phaidon Colour Library)
characters: John Constable
genres: Art
ratings_count: 18
publisher: Phaidon Press