Born in John Constable lived the first 23 years of his life in East Bergholt. His family were well off. He left to study at the Royal Academy Schools in Whilst at the schools Constable spent the winters in London, and travelled to Suffolk in the summers.
In fact, he never lost his strong Suffolk accent. He owned flour mills at Flatford and Dedham and a windmill at East Bergholt. He also ran a string of lighters commercial barges along the River Stour running between Sudbury and Mistley Wharf and two sea-going Thames barges running between Mistley Wharf and London.
John Constable painted many canal scenes in the early s. His family were probably not gentry although they were pillars of village life in East Bergholt. They did all the things these families did: gave to the deserving poor at Christmas, played bridge with friends and attended church on Sunday. Their omission as real people is not accidental but integral to a view of society and the desire to protect the privileges of the few.
In Constable met and fell in love with the granddaughter of the rector of East Bergholt. Constable 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 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 short-lived. Maria died from tuberculosis in , at the age of 40, 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. In his early days as a painter he had used family connections to paint portraits of the local Suffolk gentry.
Yet his interest was in landscapes of the part of the world he knew and loved. 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 Hay Wain , 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 This time his work was "too large to remain unnoticed" and he began at last to achieve critical acclaim.
Other major works from this period were Hampstead Heath c. He had to go to the world of another great landscape painter Claude in France for success. In he sold the Hay Wain 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 Hay Wain that same year. In he was finally elected a full member of the Royal Academy. He sold only 20 paintings in his lifetime.
In Isabel donated them to the Victoria and Albert Museum. His paintings are also in the National Gallery and Tate Britain. The Hay Wain, by John Constable, The Story.
Picture Highlights. A dog by the bank is barking at the hay cart, adding to the atmosphere of this idyllic rural scene On the right of the stream the flat meadows stretch out, golden green in colour, with groups of trees casting cool shadows on the grass, and backed by a distant belt of woodland of rich blues and greens. England in the s. The Bigger Picture. That is the power of illusion. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience. Necessary Necessary.
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It does not store any personal data. Search for: Search Button. Constable, the son of a prosperous miller, was born in at East Bergholt, Suffolk, and it was in this area of the Stour Valley on the Suffolk - Essex border that he spent most of his life. He began his professional career as a student at the Royal Academy Schools and spent his early years absorbing the influence of Gainsborough's landscape drawings, Claude's classical compositions and Rubens's stormy skies and rainbows, as well as the landscapes of the 17th century Dutch painters, above all, Jacob Ruisdael.
Following the fashion for painting mountainous, Romantic scenery, he spent some time in Derbyshire and the Lake District , but it was only on his return to the quieter, less spectacular countryside of his native Suffolk that he developed his personal style.
From there is an uninterrupted series of drawings and oil sketches painted in the open air and depicting his native countryside in what was an unusually fresh and direct manner. After his marriage to Maria Bicknell in he moved to London, but continued to spend his summers painting from nature at East Bergholt.
He was still virtually unknown, and in order to achieve a measure of public recognition, as well as to convey his feeling for the Suffolk Countryside, he decided to submit a series of large paintings to the annual exhibition at the Royal Academy. Originally exhibited under the title 'Landscape: Noon', the finished painting was referred to by Constable's friend Archdeacon Fisher as 'The Haywain' as early as February , and this soon became its popular name. A rustic scene of great calm, it shows a harvest wagon crossing a shallow stream near Flatford Mill; on the left is Willy Lott's cottage, which belonged to Constable's father and in the sight of which he himself had grown up.
It is fortunate that several preliminary studies for this composition have survived, for they enable us to obtain an insight into the artist's method of work. To begin with, there are the sketches from nature made in his early years, upon which Constable drew throughout his career. For example, there is a small oil sketch of Willy Lott's cottage in the Museum which has been dated about As was his practice with oil sketches of this period, he blocked in the main features in broad masses of strong, bright colours, giving the work a rough texture and a surprisingly modern appearance.
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