The Hay Wain | artble.com The Hay Wain The Hay Wain Story / Theme The Hay Wain The Hay Wain John Constable In The Hay Wain John Constable chose to paint a rural landscape which runs into the distance in sun-drenched meadows, offset by the cool waters of the pool in the foreground. The theme of this painting is very much rural life and the beauty of the landscape which the artist loved so much. The Hay Wain is based on a site near Flatford on the river Stour, in Suffolk, England. The hay wain itself is a type of horse-drawn cart which would have been a common piece of agricultural equipment used during the artist's youth. The cottage in the left of the image was rented by a farmer and stands behind Flatford Mill , owned by Constable's father. Across the meadow in the distance on the right, a group of haymakers can be seen working. The farm workers are hard at work but seem contended and are surrounded by beautiful scenery. All of these aspects illustrate Constable's idyllic view of his home county of Suffolk.

Industrial Revolution: However idyllic Constable's view of rural England was throughout his career it's unlikely that there was as much calm and happiness in the countryside during this period. Due to the onset of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century, many rural people found themselves out of jobs as farming work became more industrialized and machines reduced the man power needed to harvest and maintain crops and animals. Large areas of Britain also saw uprisings and riots amongst the rural communities that were affected by the job losses. It may be that Constable did not paint images of these problems because he did not want to draw attention away from the natural landscape itself. In The Hay Wain the workers happily fit in with nature and live in harmony with the area. On the other hand the admission of the true relationship farm workers had with the land could have been because the industrial revolution simply didn't affect Constable; he came from a wealthy family and the revolution only served to make the rich richer. Through family friends and business associates Constable was exposed to what was considered the best art of his day and this led to him developing his own painting style which is illustrated in The Hay Wain.

The Hay Wain Analysis John Constable Composition: Unlike the symmetrical and classical landscapes of Claude Lorrain , widely considered to be the pinnacle of landscape painting even up to Constable's day, The Hay Wain is portrayed as a real scene and therefore symmetry is not as important as realism in the piece. Instead Constable sketched what he saw and ultimately what he knew well, having lived near this farm as a boy. Technique: Complete and perfect beauty- something that could only be created in a mythical or biblical world - was popular during Constable's time. The artist painted nature as it was, and his work was a breath of fresh air in an art world full of over-dramatic and stylized landscapes. Color palette: In keeping with the artist's love of nature, natural tones are predominant in The Hay wain and there is contrast between the pool of water, the tall delicate trees and the strong brick house to the left. The different tones all complement each other and are repeated to add harmony to this piece: the blue of the pool is reflected in the sky and the red of the house is highlighted subtly in the trees and in the harness of the horse.

The trees and grass encircle the whole composition with relief from the yellow meadows disappearing to the right which help to stop the painting from seeming closed in or too claustrophobic. Use of light: The Hay Wain represents a near-perfect English summer day and Constable accomplishes this by using natural light and painting realistically from his sketches of the scene. As a young boy Constable often went out "skying", sketching the clouds and sky to perfect his technique. One of Constable's most innovative techniques was to create light on water by using white paint as a highlight. This technique can be seen in The Hay Wain as the water from the stream in the foreground is disturbed by the wheels of the hay wain itself. Method: Although Constable is famous for being one of the first landscape painters to create canvases purely based on nature, he did not paint The Hay Wain on site. Instead he created several sketches in the summer of 1821 and produced the finished oil version in his London studio in the winter of the same year.

This technique was commonly used by Constable and of course it helped that he knew the landscapes he was painting very well, having spent his childhood in the same area, and he often added details from memory. The Hay Wain Critical Reception Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot Paris Charles X Constable's work was not very well received by his contemporaries in Britain, who believed that the ideal landscape should mirror those of Claude Lorrain. Also, they didn't appreciate Constable's innovative used of the "impasto" technique. The artist's success on continental Europe however established his reputation and allowed him to finally make money from his art. Contemporary reception: England: Constable first exhibited The Hay Wain in 1823 at the Royal Academy in London. The painting was not well received and did not find a buyer during the exhibition but this is typical of Constable's work during the 19th century in a country which did not appreciate his new style of painting or the subjects he chose. France: After the Royal Academy exhibition Constable sent this painting to France, where he was asked to exhibit a number of pieces at the Paris Salon in 1824.

The Hay Wain proved to be a great success and inspired local artists such as Delacroix and Corot. In fact it was such a success that Charles X saw fit to award it the Gold Medal of the exhibition. Constable's work would go on to influence Impressionist artists almost 50 years later in the same city. Modern reception: Today The Hay Wain is considered to be one of Constable's best known and most skilled works. It is currently owned by The National Gallery in London and has featured in a number of exhibitions across the country. The Hay Wain Related Paintings The White Horse John Constable The Hay Wain is one of John Constable's most famous paintings and in it all of the innovative and creative devices which made this artist's work so different from his contemporaries are evident. One of the artist's "six footers", this work was produced on a very large scale which meant that he could add a lot of detail to the piece. The Hay Wain is situated near Flatford in Suffolk, England, a site which is still very much as Constable's portrayed it.

This artwork is another example of Constable illustrating an idealistic English countryside, in which hardworking but happy farm workers go about their everyday business. Constable produced many works depicting the English countryside and this theme inspired a great number of other artists. Furthermore, Constable's innovative technique and his influence on the French Impressionist movement after his death cannot be denied. Constable spent most of his youth in Suffolk, sketching the landscape which would feature in all his canvases as an adult. Although Constable started to display at the Royal Academy by 1806 he did not sell a painting until he was 39 and remained unpopular in his native England until after his death. Luckily for Constable, French patrons found his work much more appealing and he began to sell a lot of work in Paris. Although he was popular outside of his own country Constable never left England and only ever painted landscapes of his beloved Suffolk. The Hay Wain Art Period Theodore Gericault John Constable was born in the second half of the 18th century, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution when poverty was rife within the poorer communities of England.

In the art world, many professionals were rebelling against the pure and realistic lines of the Neoclassical period and started producing paintings and sculpture which took the viewer into a new world, far removed from the realities of everyday life. In this respect Constable was different; he loved painting nature and used it as the focus of his pictures, creating realistic landscapes. His style was to take a natural landscape and paint it just as he saw it without enhancing or changing it. This realism made Constable's work stand out from his contemporaries as well as the techniques he used to create a more life-like feel to his paintings. Constable was a landscape revolutionary and it is thanks to him that the work of Monet and the French Impressionists developed in the way it did. The Hay Wain Bibliography To read more about Constable and his art please choose from the following recommended sources. • Bailey, Anthony. John Constable: A Kingdom of his Own. Vintage; Reprint edition, 2007 • Clarkson, Jonathan. Constable. Phaidon Press Ltd. , 2010 • Cormack, Malcolm. Constable. Oxford: Phaidon, 1986 • Cove, Sarah, et al.

Constable: The Great Landscapes. Tate Publishing, 2006 • Gayford, Martin. Constable In Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter. Penguin, 2010 • Gayford, Martin. Constable Portraits: The Painter and His Circle. National Portrait Gallery Publications, 2009 • Leslie, C. R. Memoirs of the life of John Constable, Esq. , R. A. 2nd ed. Phaidon, 1951 • Parkinson, Ronald. John Constable: the man and his art. V&A Publications, 1998 Want a Printed Poster or Canvas? John Constable | British artist | Britannica.com John Constable John Robert Cozens John Constable, (born June 11, 1776, East Bergholt, Suffolk , England —died March 31, 1837, London ), major figure in English landscape painting in the early 19th century.

He is best known for his paintings of the English countryside, particularly those representing his native valley of the River Stour , an area that came to be known as “Constable country.” Self-portrait by John Constable, detail of a drawing in pencil and watercolour, c. 1804; in … Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London Beginnings The son of a wealthy miller and merchant who owned a substantial house and small farm, Constable was reared in a small Suffolk village. The environs of his childhood and his understanding of its rural economy would later figure prominently in his work. As he would write in 1821, “I should paint my own places best…I associate my ‘careless boyhood’ to all that lies on the banks of the Stour.” Constable was meant to enter his father’s business, but, after meeting the famous connoisseur Sir George Beaumont in 1795, and then a circle of antiquarians and connoisseurs at Edmonton in 1796, he was inspired to pursue art .

In February 1799 he made himself known to the influential academician Joseph Farington, and in March he entered the prestigious Royal Academy schools, with the grudging approval of his father. At the time, art academies stressed history painting as the most appropriate subject matter for their students, but from the beginning Constable showed a particular interest in landscape. In 1802 Constable refused the stability of a post as drawing master at a military academy so that he could instead dedicate himself to landscape painting and to studying nature directly in the English countryside. That same year he exhibited his work at the Royal Academy for the first time. Despite some early explorations in oil, in the first part of this decade he preferred using watercolour and graphic media in his studies of nature. He produced fine studies in these media during a trip to the famously picturesque Lake District in autumn 1806, but his exhibitions of these works in both 1807 and 1808 were unsuccessful in attracting public notice. Early maturity Although based in London during this period, Constable would frequently make extended visits to his native East Bergholt to sketch .

(On one such stay in 1809, he fell in love with Maria Bicknell, who was visiting her grandfather, the rector there.) Constable had been regularly sketching in oil since 1808, and by 1810 he had achieved extraordinary deftness with the medium (he would often be associated with his oil sketches in the future). His art became far more focused about this time: his sketches were either discrete studies, or, befitting academic practice, they were made in preparation for preconceived easel paintings. The most significant large easel painting of the period was Dedham Vale: Morning (1811), which married closely observed naturalistic effect to a scene composed according to the academic criteria established by 17th-century French painter Claude Lorrain . Britannica Stories Big Radio Burst from Tiny Galaxy In September 1811 Constable stayed in Salisbury with an old family friend, the Bishop of Salisbury, and grew close to the bishop’s nephew, John Fisher.

Their correspondence is a hugely informative source on Constable’s art: he explains his aims and aspirations , reacts candidly and sometimes aggressively to contemporary criticism , and reveals himself to be driven, ambitious, and prey to gnawing self-doubt. During this period, Bicknell’s family was pressuring her to end her relationship with the struggling artist, and her courtship with him had to become effectively clandestine . Constable found relief from this distraction by working in East Bergholt and, by 1814, with Boatbuilding and The Stour Valley and Dedham Village, he was painting easel pictures in the open. In his works from this period, such as Flatford Mill (1816), Constable displayed remarkable precision of touch and accuracy in description, comparable to contemporary landscapes by George Robert Lewis and John Linnell. His iconography was traditional and celebrated the continuum and stability of English country life. Constable achieved a bittersweet stability of his own when, upon his father’s death in 1816, he received an inheritance that allowed him the financial independence to marry Maria.

Boatbuilding, oil on canvas by John Constable, 1814; in the Victoria and Albert Museum, … Courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London London Art & Architecture: Fact or Fiction? By 1817 Constable was an established Londoner, and, with the birth of his son John that December, he became a father. With a family to support, professional recognition became essential. In order to achieve this, he began to paint on a large scale, and the 1.9-metre (6.2-foot) Stour scene The White Horse, which he showed at the 1819 Royal Academy exhibit, attracted public attention, generated critical approval, and helped bring about his election to become an Associate of the Royal Academy.

The White Horse, oil on canvas by John Constable, 1818–19; in … Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Widener Collection, 1942.9.9 Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies By 1819 Maria was exhibiting the early stages of tuberculosis , and her failing health led the family to rent a house in the north London suburb of Hampstead, where she could find fresh air. Constable began painting on Hampstead Heath, before turning his focus to the skies. His cloud studies are unique, capturing the momentary qualities of changeable skies and accurately documenting meteorological phenomena with which he was familiar. In contrast to these small sketches were his large, detailed paintings made for exhibition. He based these paintings on oil and pencil sketches, from which he would essay a composition onto a full-scale canvas before painting the final work. Constable laboured over these large works as befitted grand academic painting from the period.

The White Horse initiated a series of large, well-received paintings that he exhibited, including Stratford Mill in 1819–20; The Hay-Wain, one of his best-known works, in 1821; View on the Stour near Dedham in 1822; The Lock in 1824; and The Leaping Horse in 1825. These all featured views of the Stour, but at a remove, as if filtered through memory. By 1824 Constable’s paint surfaces were becoming increasingly fractured, communicating optical effects that evoked the physical experience of nature; these qualities, in addition to his increasingly vibrant, luminous use of colour, have led many, erroneously, to see his work as a precursor to Impressionism . He moved away from recording precise details of a certain locale partly because he was sketching at a variety of places during this period—briefly in Salisbury in 1823, and from 1824 in the fashionable seaside resort of Brighton , where the family repaired for the sake of Maria’s health and where Constable made a last great series of oil sketches.

But his abstracted locales and omission of any agricultural representation can be read another way. An economic depression after the Napoleonic Wars had led to agrarian riots, and yet Constable, a loyal Tory, chose to portray an abstracted, well-ordered English society that was untouched by the industrial and social changes surrounding him. Connect with Britannica Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Throughout the 1820s critics praised his work and Constable sold paintings. He achieved international success in 1824 when The Hay-Wain was shown at the Paris Salon, where he won a gold medal that was awarded by the king. Constable’s output also diversified: Chain Pier, Brighton (1826–27) pictured, among other things, urban modernity. In 1828, Dedham Vale, reprising a scene first painted in his youth, secured him election to become a Royal Academician in 1829, a post that was much belated due in part to his famously difficult personality. This honour was soured, however, by the death of Maria, his great love and the mother of his seven children, in 1828.

Final years Constable’s letters of the 1830s are suffused with an alienation and depression no doubt heightened by the critical attacks to which both he and his great contemporary J.M.W. Turner had been subjected in periodicals since the mid-1820s. Although they were never close and had radically different approaches to landscape painting, Constable and Turner both espoused the grounding in tradition of British painter Sir Joshua Reynolds; such ties to tradition were increasingly seen as obsolete by a new generation of artists and critics that was forming its values in a rapidly developing, industrialized society. Constable nonetheless stayed active. In 1829 he exhibited Hadleigh Castle, a stark image of ruin and desolation, at the Royal Academy. He teamed up with the engraver David Lucas in 1829, producing mezzotints after his works that were published as a suite of prints entitled English Landscape. In his studies of nature during the period, Constable reverted from oil to watercolour and drawing, and he exhibited a fascinating range of work, such as Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1831).

Constable created this painting, which quoted motifs from his renowned Hay-Wain, while agitation for parliamentary reform against the church made conservatives such as himself very anxious. This panic is perhaps embodied in the painting’s dramatic shifts in scale: the wagon appears enormous next to the houses, yet is dwarfed by the looming cathedral, which symbolically stands firm, enveloped in a rainbow, in the face of stormy skies. Salisbury Cathedral from Lower Marsh Close, oil on canvas by John … Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.108 Trending Topics Industrial Revolution In 1836 Constable submitted his last Royal Academy entry, Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Erected in the Grounds of Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire, by the Late Sir George Beaumont. The work was a valediction to Reynolds, the father of British art, whose ties to tradition Constable revered; to George Beaumont, whose early influence inspired him; and to Somerset House, the site of exhibitions by the Royal Academy, England’s bastion of historic art, up until this final 1836 show.

The painting served as an appropriate ode to the evaporating, traditional world in which Constable’s personal and artistic values had been formed. Assessment Constable was a significant painter during a period when landscape was a dominant genre in British art. His oeuvre was unique in that he usually did not elect to paint places popular with the touring public or other artists, but rather concentrated on sites with which he had family connections, or where, for personal reasons, he happened to be. And while other artists made oil sketches, none did so as extensively and intensively as Constable. His landscapes represent a sometimes astonishing capacity to represent natural appearances—particularly, in his later years, the fleeting and dramatic effects of stormy skies—as well as a profound and prolonged meditation on the rural realities of a Britain undergoing a bewildering socioeconomic transformation. Study of Clouds over the Sea, Brighton, oil on canvas by John Constable, … In a private collection Constable achieved a reasonable reputation during his lifetime as a respected and significant landscape painter.

After Constable’s death, Charles Robert Leslie’s Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843), based on Constable’s edited correspondence, extended his reputation, laying out the fictional life of a sincere and dedicated artist struggling against iniquity and incomprehension; it was Leslie’s loyalty to his friend that perhaps caused him to gloss over many of Constable’s less-appealing characteristics. By the early 20th century Constable’s oeuvre was reexamined when scholars’ need to find British antecedents to Impressionism led to an overemphasis on his oil sketches. In the late 20th century a reassessment grounded more in historical factors was attempted, an area of study that remains contentious . While some have tried to relocate Constable’s landscapes within their contemporary context and have suggested that they are complex works of art with, often, a deeply political content, others have preferred to see them as embodying a quintessential “Englishness.” The fact that the argument is ongoing confirms the continuing vitality of these landscapes.

John Constable - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up) (1776-1837).Early in the 19th century, most English painters believed that "a good picture, like a good fiddle, should be brown." John Constable, however, believed that nature should be shown in its own colors. He invented a technique to make this possible. Instead of using flat colors, he painted with thick daubs and flecks of many hues. He is said to have used "a thousand greens" to create the natural beauty of his trees and meadows. To suggest the highlights of sunshine, he used dashes of light-colored pigment known as "Constable’s snow." (See also painting.) Article Contributors John Constable The Hay Wain Painting | Best Paintings For Sale in. from 96.15 to 1,255.78 Descriptions Customer Reviews Tags Beautiful, original hand-painted artwork in your home. The Hay Wain based on the masters' works of John Constable. Our artist needs about 14 - 16days to paint this The Hay Wain painting with oil on canvas, and it takes another 3 -5days to your address.

We deliver John Constable The Hay Wain all over the world; shipping fee is $15.00 for one item, but it is ZERO if order more than one piece at a time. This John Constable The Hay Wain painting is oil on canvas. We offer original oil painting, stretched canvas and large framed art, but do not offer poster, print or giclee for this John Constable The Hay Wain. The Hay Wain by John Constable A Review of ‘John Constable: Oil Sketches From the Victoria and Albert Museum’ - The New York Times The New York Times N.Y. / Region |Radical to Mundane, and to Radical Again Search N.Y. / Region | Arts | New Jersey Radical to Mundane, and to Radical Again A Review of ‘John Constable: Oil Sketches From the Victoria and Albert Museum’ By MARTHA SCHWENDENER Continue reading the main story In the catalog foreword for “ John Constable : Oil Sketches From the Victoria and Albert Museum ,” an unnamed 19th-century commentator is quoted describing the landscape sketches of Constable as “Nature caught in the very act.” In the very act of what?

That is the kind of remark that turns benign-looking clouds, trees and seascapes into ... well, something else. You wonder if you’re missing something. And you probably are. But nothing is lurking amid the trees and cottages and views of sunsets. Instead, it is that subjects and techniques that once seemed daring and off-limits have been assimilated so completely that they have become commonplace. Such is the case with Constable’s sketches. And so, as James Steward, director of the Princeton University Art Museum , said in an interview, the current show is an attempt to “re-radicalize” Constable for 21st-century viewers. Photo The British painter John Constable's 1812 “Landscape With a Double Rainbow.” Credit Victoria and Albert Museum What do we need to learn — or unlearn — about early-19th-century painting to view Constable as radical? The most important thing is that he specialized in landscape. For a student trained in the British Royal Academy at the turn of the 18th century, landscape was lower in the hierarchy of genres than biblical and historical subjects.

Constable was also drawn to local landscapes rather than classic Mediterranean ones, and rather than transforming these into grand mythologies or allegories, he painted them using scientific methods of observation drawn from new fields like meteorology. Books like Thomas Forster’s “Researches About Atmospheric Phaenomena” (1815), a copy of which Constable owned, are on view alongside the sketches. Continue reading the main story Perhaps most important, however, is that Constable painted his sketches outdoors, en plein air. The earliest works in the exhibition, which occupies two rooms and includes 85 paintings, oil sketches, watercolors and drawings, are rather placid and staid, but they are also designated as the “Apprenticeship” years, from 1800 to 1809. During this time, Constable was a student at the Royal Academy and then lived back at his parents’ home in Suffolk.

(His father was a successful merchant who owned flour mills, river barges, a wharf and a ship that transported the flour to London.) He was also under the influence of earlier landscape specialists like Claude Lorrain and Jacob van Ruisdael — but unlike those artists, he made a regular practice of painting outdoors, taking pieces of canvas and tacking them to the inside lid of his paint box. The pinholes in the top of “Dedham Vale: Evening” (1802) , which depicts a sunset over gently rolling hills, are evidence of this. Photo “Hampstead Heath, Branch Hill Pond,” (1828). Credit Victoria and Albert Museum What is striking about the subsequent decade is how Constable used oil sketches to record nuanced effects of light and changes in the weather — an approach that would profoundly influence later artists, like the French Impressionists. Sketches done in Hampstead, at that time still a rural village just outside London, show light piercing the atmosphere or storm clouds gathering.

“Landscape With a Double Rainbow” (1812) , which is dominated by a deep blue sky, depicts a phenomenon not fully understood in the early 19th century, but discussed at some length by the artist in the second edition of his illustrated book “English Landscape Scenery” in 1833. Advertisement Continue reading the main story What also becomes obvious, particularly when you encounter the larger sketches for exhibition paintings, is how “finished” these canvases look to us now. This is very much because of the Impressionists, who were rejected by contemporary critics and audiences because their canvases, composed of quick, broken brush strokes, looked too much like sketches compared with the slick, varnished canvases of their academic peers. Full-scale, six-foot-wide sketches here, including studies for famous works like “The Hay Wain” (1821) and “The Leaping Horse” (1825), are composed of quick brush strokes and dabs of white paint that brighten the paintings; they also have a freshness and immediacy that postmodern viewers appreciate, since it emphasizes the process of the painter and the “performance” of painting more than the finished product.

In Constable’s day, the French were already impressed by his landscapes. The completed version of “The Hay Wain” (1821), which features a horse-drawn cart standing in water in a verdant landscape, didn’t attract much attention when it was shown at the Royal Academy in London in 1821. At the Paris Salon of 1824, however, Constable earned a gold medal when he exhibited it alongside his other paintings. Photo A sketch for “The Hay Wain” (1821); the finished version won a top prize in Paris. Credit Victoria and Albert Museum The catalog describes the reaction of French artists like Théodore Géricault , said to have been “quite stunned by it,” and Eugène Delacroix , who reportedly touched up one of his own paintings after viewing the pure color of “The Hay Wain.” Delacroix later owned one of Constable’s sketchbooks, done in Brighton in 1824. In a conversation in the galleries, Mr.

Steward said he considered putting on the wall a quotation from Sir Kenneth Clark, the British art historian, who declared that the two full-size sketches for “The Hay Wain” and “The Leaping Horse” were “perhaps the greatest pictures ever painted in England.” This, of course, would challenge the beliefs of 19th-century critics like John Ruskin, who championed J. M. W. Turner . But showing Constable as an artist’s artist is more effective than merely showing him as a great one; the fact that we have to be re-educated to see his sketches as radical, when their techniques and processes have been so thoroughly assimilated into mainstream Western art, seems evidence enough that he was accepted, even during his lifetime, by his peers. “John Constable: Oil Sketches From the Victoria and Albert Museum,” Princeton University Art Museum, through June 10. Information: (609) 258-3788 or princetonartmuseum.org. A version of this review appears in print on April 8, 2012, on Page NJ12 of the New York edition with the headline: Radical to Mundane, And to Radical Again.

Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe John Constable (1776–1837) | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art Works of Art (5) Essay The English landscape painter John Constable once wrote, “I should paint my own places best.” This precept guided his career, as Constable developed a unique style combining objective studies of nature with a deeply personal vision of the countryside round his boyhood home. While most landscapists of the day traveled extensively in search of picturesque or sublime scenery, Constable never left England. His name is so closely associated with his native Stour Valley that the area is sometimes referred to as “Constable country.” The son of Golding Constable, a landowning farmer, miller, and corn merchant, Constable grew up along the Stour River in East Bergholt, Suffolk. Although his family hoped that he would join his father’s business, they permitted him to enter the Royal Academy Schools at the age of twenty-two.

Until he completed his studies nearly ten years later, Constable divided his time between East Bergholt, where he would sketch out of doors in the spring and summer, and London, where he exhibited finished oil paintings based on these open-air studies at the Academy. Rejecting the accepted hierarchy of genres, which ranked idealized landscapes that told historical or mythological tales above views observed in nature, Constable sought recognition for humbler scenes of cultivated land and agricultural labor ( The Cornfield ; 1826; The National Gallery, London). The small, precise painting Golding Constable’s Flower Garden (1815; Ipswich Borough Council) seems to record every detail of his father’s domestic garden, as well as the barns and fields beyond. Beginning with the 1819 Academy exhibition, Constable demonstrated his aspirations more boldly by exhibiting large-scale scenes of working farms and waterways painted in his studio, using increasingly broad brushstrokes and thickly applied highlights. The Hay Wain (1821; National Gallery, London), one of these so-called six-footers, was among the three paintings that Constable exhibited at the Paris Salon of 1824, where he was awarded a gold medal.

His strikingly fresh, apparently spontaneous transcription of the landscape, described by the French writer Stendhal as “the mirror of nature,” caused a sensation among French painters. For Eugène Delacroix, in particular, Constable’s rich, shimmering surfaces came as a revelation, and, during his 1825 visit to London, he sought out the reclusive artist. Yet success had come late to Constable, who often struggled to support a large family (his wife Maria bore seven children before she died in 1828). Throughout the 1810s and 1820s, Constable supplemented his income by painting portraits ( 06.1272 ) of local dignitaries. The patronage of Dr. John Fisher, whom Constable first met in 1798 and who later became bishop of Salisbury, remained crucial throughout his career. Between 1811 and 1829, Constable often visited the Reverend Fisher at Salisbury, where he sketched the Gothic cathedral ( 50.145.8 ) from a range of viewpoints under various weather conditions.

These preliminary oil studies served as the basis of several paintings that picture Salisbury Cathedral alternately menaced by storms, framed by puffy cumulous clouds, or surmounted by a rainbow. Intensive studies of clouds and skies enabled Constable to achieve these unique atmospheric effects. In 1821 and 1822, during his intense “skying” period, he produced dozens of watercolor , crayon, and oil studies of the clouds over Hampstead Heath ( 2009.400.26 ). His cloud studies—celebrated today—were not exhibited in his lifetime. Painted rapidly, wet-in-wet, Constable used short strokes and a restricted color palette to train his hand and eye, and to enhance the realism of his later paintings. He labeled almost all of these images with scientific precision, indicating the date, time, wind, and weather conditions under which they were painted. Yet his ultimate goal was to paint the sky—which he deemed landscape’s “chief organ of sentiment”—more expressively.

Indeed, landscapes from the time of his wife’s death (e.g., Hadleigh Castle, 1828–29; Tate, London) feature dark, turbulent skiesthat carry the brunt of the works’ emotional weight. In the later part of his career, Constable made fewer open-air oil sketches. Instead, he increasingly prepared studio sketches inspired by his earlier outdoor drawings. He undertook one major project in his final years—a series of twenty mezzotints after his paintings entitled Various Subjects of Landscape, Characteristic of English Scenery ( 39.68.27 ) to be engraved by a little-known printmaker, David Lucas, under his supervision. The series, known as English Landscape and published from 1830 to 1833, became a manifesto of his views on landscape painting and a summary of his career. The second edition bore the subtitle”Principally Intended to Mark the Phenomena of the Chiar’Oscuro of Nature,” reflecting his belief that chiaroscuro, or the contrast between light and dark, was a principle of nature, and therefore crucial to landscape painting (the medium of mezzotint excels at conveying such tonal gradations).

This emphasis on naturalism distinguishes Constable’s approach from the classical tradition of landscape painting. Today he is often considered, along with J. M. W. Turner , one of England’s greatest landscape painters. Elizabeth E. Barker Department of Drawings and Prints, The Metropolitan Museum of Art October 2004 Citation Barker, Elizabeth E. “John Constable (1776–1837).” In Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–. (October 2004) Further Reading Rosenthal, Michael. Constable: The Painter and His Landscape. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983. Shields, Conal, and Leslie Parris. John Constable, 1776–1837. London: Tate Gallery, 1985. Additional Essays by Elizabeth E.

Barker John Constable drawing that inspired The Hay Wain sells for £42,000 | Daily Mail Online comments A previously unknown sketch by John Constable that is said to be an early inspiration for his famous work The Hay Wain today sold for £42,000 - six times its estimated value The small pencil drawing of a horse and plough was one of seven 'lost' works produced by the 18th century English painter which went under the hammer for a total of £222,000 (with fees added on), far exceeding the original expected sum of around £60,000. The sketches, and an eighth by Constable's son, Lionel, were bought in a London art store in 1952 by the current owner's father for £500. The works had been hung in their house in Norfolk ever since without the family realising who they were by. A previously unknown sketch by John Constable that is said to be an early inspiration for his famous work The Hay Wain today sold for £42,000 - six times its estimated value.

Heavy Horse At Rest Beside A Plough (above) was created by the artist in a pocket-sized pad while on honeymoon in Berkshire in 1816 Significantly, Heavy Horse At Rest was drawn five years before The Hay Wain (above) - his masterpiece of three horses pulling a large cart across a river in Suffolk The drawings were bought in 1952 for £500. Above, Flatford Lock With Flatford Footbridge (14 x 19cm). Est: £8,000-12,000; sold for £24,000 The works had been hung in a house in Norfolk ever since without the family realising who they were by. Windmill With Storm Clouds (7 x 12cm). Est: £4,000-6,000; sold for £12,000 The drawings have since been authenticated by Constable scholars who confirmed they were unknown to them. The 9cm by 11cm work of the horse and plough next to a stream was created by the artist in a pocket-sized pad while on honeymoon in Berkshire in 1816.

RELATED ARTICLES Share this article Share Significantly, it was drawn five years before The Hay Wain - his masterpiece of three horses pulling a large cart across a river in Suffolk. Experts said the drawing may have been a factor when he painted one of the most famous paintings by an English artist. The drawings have since been authenticated by Constable scholars who confirmed they were unknown to them. Above, Cottage With A Figure (7 x 12cm). Est: £4,000-6,000. Sold for £9,000 The anonymous seller had taken the drawings to Cheffins Auctioneers of Cambridge as he was moving house and wanted to see if they had any worth. Above, River Meadows (12 x 23cm). Est: £8,000-12,000. Sold for £38,000 WHAT THE DRAWINGS SOLD FOR (before fees added on) Storm Clouds (8 x 12cm) Est: £6,000-8,000. Sold for £44,000* Heavy Horse At Rest Beside A Plough, 1816 (9 x 11cm).

Est: £6,000-8,000. Sold for £42,000 River Meadows (12 x 23cm). Est: £8,000-12,000. Sold for £38,000 Flatford Lock With Flatford footbridge (14 x 19cm). Est: £8,000-12,000 Sold for £24,000 Study Of Trees (18 x 24cm). Est: £6,000-8,000. Sold for £16,000 Windmill With Storm Clouds (7 x 12cm). Est: £4,000-6,000. Sold for £12,000 Cottage With A Figure (7 x 12cm). Est: £4,000-6,000. Sold for £9,000 Trees By The Edge Of A field (17 x 25cm) Est; £1,000-2,000 Lionel Bicknell Constable.

Sold for £2,000 A total sale price of £187,000. * Total sale, with fees added: £222,000 Another sketch entitled Storm Clouds showing a gloomy Suffolk landscape sold for £44,000 today. And another small work of river meadows in East Bergholt, Suffolk, achieved a price of £38,000. The total price for the seven drawings - plus the other by Lionel - was £187,000, but with all the fees added on, the overall price was £222,000. The anonymous seller had taken the drawings to Cheffins Auctioneers of Cambridge as he was moving house and wanted to see if they had any worth. He was said to be 'very pleased' with the outcome of the sale. Sarah Flynn, paintings expert at Cheffins, said: 'Discovering these drawings in an unknown, private collection was very exciting. 'Most similar Constable drawings are now in museums. 'The personal touch that one of the drawings was sketched on Constable's honeymoon also contributed to their rarity, which made them even more desirable.

'The horse and plough, drawn on his honeymoon, portrays Constable's deep love of the countryside and rural England. 'This perhaps was a factor in his later The Hay Wain, which was drawn at a particularly happy moment in his life as he had fought to marry Maria. Storm Clouds (8 x 12cm). Est: £6,000-8,000. Sold for £44,000. Sarah Flynn, paintings expert at Cheffins, said: 'Discovering these drawings in an unknown, private collection, was very exciting' Above, Study Of Trees (18 x 24cm). Est: £6,000-8,000. Sold for £16,000 'We are delighted with the prices achieved for the works today.' The honeymoon sketch, called Heavy Horse at Rest Beside a Plough is inscribed 'Binfiled Decr. 6th 1816'. An eighth drawing included in today's auction was by the hand of Constable's son Lionel and was produced after his father's death in 1837. It sold for £2,000.

All eight sketches were bought by the vendor’s father from the art dealers the Leggatt Brothers. The brothers handled a large quantity of Constable's sketches in oil, watercolour and pencil in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. BRITAIN'S GREAT ROMANTIC: THE LIFE OF ONE OF BRITAIN'S BEST ARTISTS John Constable died on March 31, 1837 at the age of 60 from heart failure Born in Suffolk in 1776, John Constable is considered one of the foremost British artists. Largely self-taught, he was influenced by Dutch painters - and is best known for his landscape paintings in Dedham Vale, the area in which he grew up. His most famous painting, The Hay Wain, is now exhibited at the National Gallery. Finished in 1821, The Hay Wain was one of six large canvases depicting the area around Flatford Mill in Suffolk. Another in the series, The Lock, became one of the most expensive British paintings ever sold when it fetched £22.4million at auction in 2012 Despite his works now attracting huge fees, Constable was not financially successful in life.

He also struggled to gain recognition from his peers and was not elected into the Royal Academy until the age of 52. He died in March 1837, aged 60, of apparent heart failure, and was buried with his wife. His children John and Charles are also buried in the tomb. John Constable - The complete works Contact Portrait John Constable John Constable (11 June 1776 - 31 March 1837) was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home - now known as "Constable Country"- which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling". His most famous paintings include Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of 1821. Although his paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in British art, he was never financially successful and did not become a member of the establishment until he was elected to the Royal Academy at the age of 52.

He sold more paintings in France than in his native England.

Question: Which English artist painted ‘The Hay Wain’?
Answer: John Constable