National Gallery of Australia | Audio Tour | Constable

Introduction

Hampstead was popular with artists and writers in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century, who sought the refuge of the countryside within close reach of London.

This is one of a number of views from Hampstead, with London and the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral visible in the distance, painted after Constable moved with his family to live at Well Walk, Hampstead in 1827. He probably based this work on a smaller outdoor study of the subject (private collection)that he painted soon after his arrival at the Well Walk house.The animated sky in this work complements the uncultivated landscape of the Heath. The energy of the sky and expansive view of the Heath also convey the power of nature.

Constable reported to Fisher that the view from the drawing room window of the house in Well Walk was:

unequalled in Europe – from Westminster Abbey to Gravesend. The dome of St Paul’s in the air, realizes Michael Angelo’s idea on seeing that of the Pantheon – ‘I will build such a thing in the sky’ (Beckett VI, p. 231).

This was Constable’s last major painting of the Stour Valley, his definitive treatment of a favourite subject, which summed up his personal affection for the place and his lifelong devotion to the example of Claude Lorrain.

A relaxing holiday in Suffolk in the autumn of 1827 with his two eldest children had refreshed his associations with the area and may have motivated him to begin painting this work. On 11 June 1828 he wrote to John Fisher that he had ‘Painted a large upright landscape (perhaps my best)’ (Beckett IV, p. 236).

Constable depicted the Dedham Vale framed by trees, looking eastwards from Gun Hill, down along the course of the River Stour towards the sea, with the tower of Dedham Church and the village in the middle distance, and Harwich beyond. For this composition he returned to his early painting, Dedham Vale 1802 (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), intensifying the detail of the 1802 study by including the bridge across the river with the Talbooth on the right bank. He added the old stump sprouting new growth in the left foreground as a compositional invention to direct attention to the distant landscape, and as a symbol of regeneration.

Constable’s inclusion of the figure of a gypsy mother nursing her child beside a fire has been criticised as a concession to the taste for the Picturesque. Charles Rhyne, however, noted that according to an ordnance survey map a well was located in this area, and that this would have made it a natural camping site for gypsies (C. Rhyne, ‘Constable’s first two six-foot landscapes’, Studies in the History of Art, vol. 24, Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1990, p. 129). Reynolds also noted that gypsies were frequently to be seen in East Anglia and that the inclusion of this detail does not infringe Constable’s rule that only actual or probable figures should appear in his landscape paintings. By including the gypsy mother and child in this painting Constable enlivened the image, with the gypsy’s red cloak providing a contrast to the green of the vegetation. Moreover, Suffolk had been affected by the agricultural depression and social unrest during the 1820s, and the gypsy may reflect the instability of rural life at this time, and Constable’s sympathy with the cause of ordinary people.

In his use of a vertical format and in his composition Constable hinted at Claude’s Landscape with Hagar and the Angel 1646, a work he had admired since he first made a copy of it at Sir George Beaumont’s London house around 1800 (Beckett II, p. 24). He saw the way this scene fitted a Claudian pattern and used Claude’s method of suggesting depth through overlapping scenery. In thus paying homage to Claude, Constable also indicated that his own work was worthy of comparison with Claude’s. Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams have suggested that Beaumont’s gift of Landscape with Hagar and the Angel to the newly opened National Gallery, London, in 1826, and Beaumont’s death in 1827, may have inspired Constable to paint this work as a personal tribute to him and to their shared love of Claude Lorrain (Tate 1976, p. 152).

Constable looked at landscape through the art of the past to create his own unique vision. He painted the natural detail of the location in a quite original fashion, using paint brush, palette knife and his fingers to give variety to the application of paint. He used translucent colour to give luminosity to the shadows. He created a sense of the feel of the place – the white-topped clouds suggesting summer sunshine, the flickering leaves indicating wind in the trees, and the light glistening on the ground hinting at rain that has just past. As Timothy Wilcox has observed, ‘the work that had begun in deference to Claude now appears designed to rival him, or even to surpass him’ (Liverpool and Edinburgh 2000, p. 108).

The painting was well received at the Royal Academy when Constable exhibited it there in 1828 (as ‘Landscape’). The reviewer for the The Sun provided a narrative reading, observing that ‘A shower has just passed over’, and suggesting that ‘The gleaming water in the distance is inimitable’ (The Sun, 5 May 1828, cit. Ivy 1991, p. 127). Constable subsequently exhibited the painting at the British Institution in 1834 (as ‘The Stour Valley’) when one critic commented:

We must consider this picture as one of the best which we remember to have seen from Mr. Constable’s pencil. It is a work of great power both of colour and light and shade, and is executed with considerable freedom and dexterity of execution (The Morning Post, 10 March 1834, cit. Ivy 1991, pp.186–87).

More recently Michael Rosenthal has described this work as ‘one of Constable’s greatest paintings’ (Rosenthal 1983, p. 188).

Throughout his life Constable was devoted to the work of Claude Lorrain (1604/5–1682) – from around 1800, when he first admired the paintings by Claude in Sir George Beaumont’s collection (Beckett II, p. 24), to June 1836, a year before his death, when he praised ‘the inimitable Claude’ in a lecture he presented to the Royal Institution. He described him as ‘the most perfect landscape painter the world ever saw’, and declared that in Claude’s landscape ‘all is lovely – all amiable – all is amenity and repose; the calm sunshine of the heart’ (Beckett, Discourses, pp. 52–53).

In Landscape with goatherd and goats, after Claude Constable painted a faithful copy of one of Claude’s paintings in Beaumont’s collection. He made the copy slightly larger than the original, but conveyed the spirit of Claude’s original – following it closely in composition and colouring. However Constable adopted a personal approach, as Ursula Hoff has noted, when using impasto to paint the waterfall and in his use of tonal contrast and his texture of paint (U. Hoff, ‘A Constable landscape after Claude’, Art Gallery of New South Wales Quarterly, July 1962, p. 112).

Constable’s early admiration for the Claude painting was noted in Joseph Farington’s diary, where he recorded that, in around 1800, after studying the painting at Beaumont’s London house, Constable had spoken of his enthusiasm for the work, which he referred to at different times as ‘the little wood scene’ and ‘the little Grove’: ‘[he] prefers the little wood scene of Claude to all others’ (Farington, Diary IV, p. 1527).

On 19 October 1823 Constable expressed his intention to make this copy during his stay at Beaumont’s country house, Coleorton, in Leicestershire, writing to John Fisher: ‘If I can find time to copy the little Grove, by Claude Lorraine (evidently a study from nature), it will much help me’ (Beckett VI, p. 139). On 2 November he had begun the painting and wrote again to Fisher:

I have likewise begun the little Grove by Claude – a noon day scene – which ‘warms and cheers but which does not inflame or irritate’ … [It] diffuses a life & breezy freshness into the recess of trees which make it enchanting (ibid., pp. 142–43).

On 5 November he mentioned the painting again when he wrote to his wife Maria:

I have a little Claude in hand, a grove scene of great beauty and I wish to make a nice copy from it to be usefull to me as long as I live. It contains almost all that I wish to do in landscape’ (Beckett II, p. 295)

And on 26 November he wrote: ‘My … little copy of Claude is only done this morning & it is beautifull & all wet so that I could hardly bring it with me’ (ibid., p. 305).

Constable regarded his copies of Claude’s work as ‘great delights’ that brought him closer to Claude. He saw them as lasting remembrances from which he could ‘drink at again & again’ (Beckett VI, pp. 71 and 142).

Sir George Beaumont gave Claude’s original painting, Landscape with a goatherd and goats c.1636, to the National Gallery, London, in 1826.

In the mezzotint, Spring, Constable and Lucas aimed to capture the dry quality of the paint of Constable’s oil sketch of this subject: Spring: East Bergholt Common c.1821 or 1829 . Constable wanted his print to ‘give some idea of one of those bright and animated days of the early year, when all nature bears so exhilarating an aspect’ (Beckett, Discourses, p. 14), and in the list of contents for English Landscape it was called Spring. East Bergholt Common, Hail Squalls. – Noon.

In his text for the plate Constable referred to the range of colour of spring foliage and the importance of clouds in forecasting weather. He noted that:

the clouds accumulate in very large and dense masses, and from their loftiness seem to move but slowly; immediately upon these large clouds appear numerous opaque patches, which, however, are only small clouds passing rapidly before them … These floating much nearer the earth, may perhaps fall in with a much stronger current of wind, which as well as their comparative lightness, causes them to move with greater rapidity (ibid., pp. 14–15).

Lucas had probably begun work on this plate by September 1829 (Beckett IV, p. 322). He made many changes to the plate, making at least eight progress proof variations during the process, before producing the published state.

This is the same state as the previous work, however it has been printed with less ink and the image is therefore lighter. It may have been a later printing after the ink on the plate had been reduced.

In this progress proof there are only a few stones in the foreground; the ploughman’s legs, the wheels of the plough, the horses and the mill sails are black; the low hills behind the plough are dark, and the contrasts in the sky are very sharp. All these details changed in subsequent proofs.

Constable touched this proof with Chinese ink to show Lucas that he wanted additional rooks in the sky and foreground, more stones and re-grounding in the foreground and lower windows on the mill.

In this progress proof the rooks are larger and clearer than in previous proofs. The ploughman’s legs have been clearly defined and there is a new shadow in the foreground. The trees have greater definition.

Heysen owned a progress proof of Spring (Shirley 7 h) and remarked: ‘I am particularly impressed with “Spring” … – of course I love them all – for each has its own particular merits ... Spring – I have always thought a particularly lovely & happy thing’ (Heysen 1947).

In the mezzotint, Spring, Constable and Lucas aimed to capture the dry quality of the paint of Constable’s oil sketch of this subject: Spring: East Bergholt Common c.1821 or 1829 (cat. 31). Constable wanted his print to ‘give some idea of one of those bright and animated days of the early year, when all nature bears so exhilarating an aspect’ (Beckett, Discourses, p. 14), and in the list of contents for English Landscape it was called Spring. East Bergholt Common, Hail Squalls. – Noon.

In his text for the plate Constable referred to the range of colour of spring foliage and the importance of clouds in forecasting weather. He noted that:

the clouds accumulate in very large and dense masses, and from their loftiness seem to move but slowly; immediately upon these large clouds appear numerous opaque patches, which, however, are only small clouds passing rapidly before them … These floating much nearer the earth, may perhaps fall in with a much stronger current of wind, which as well as their comparative lightness, causes them to move with greater rapidity (ibid., pp. 14–15).

Lucas had probably begun work on this plate by September 1829 (Beckett IV, p. 322). He made many changes to the plate, making at least eight progress proof variations during the process, before producing the published state.

This is one of the earliest of a number of Constable’s 1821 cloud studies in which he included a margin of land or treetops along the bottom of the image. Here he depicted the sunlight catching the tops of the small cumulus clouds, using long, sweeping brushstrokes in the upper right to express the movement of the clouds in the wind. There is good agreement between Constable’s inscription and the weather records for the London area on that day, which suggest it was a fine day with some cloud, warm temperatures and high humidity. The streets of small cumulus clouds are typical of a light westerly wind (Thornes 1999, pp. 224–25).

On 17 October 1820 Constable painted his first known dated oil sketch at Hampstead in which he recorded weather effects, Sketch at Hampstead, stormy sunset (Victoria and Albert Museum, London).He continued his systematic study of changing skies over the following two years. On 23 October 1821 he wrote to John Fisher:

I have done a good deal of skying– I am determined to conquer all difficulties and that most arduous one among the rest, & now talking of skies – …That Landscape painter who does not make his skies a very material part of his composition – neglects to avail himself of one of his greatest aids.Sir Joshua Reynolds, speaking of the ‘Landscape’ of Titian& Salvator & Claude– says ‘Even their skies seem to sympathise with the Subject’ …It will be difficult to name a class of Landscape,in which the sky is not the‘key note’ – the standard of ‘Scale’, and the chief ‘Organ of sentiment’… The sky is the ‘source of light’ in nature – and governs every thing. Even our common observations on the weather of every day, are suggested by them but it does not occur to us (Beckett VI, pp. 76–77).

Constable considered that: ‘Nature is never seen, in this climate at least, to greater perfection than at about nine o’clock in the mornings of July and August, when the sun has gained sufficient strength to give splendour to the landscape, :still gemmed with the morning dew”’, without its oppressive heat; and it is still more delightful if vegetation has been refreshed with a shower during the night’ (Beckett, Discourses, p. 17).Although he painted this sketch a little later in the day – between 10 and 11 am, and in early September – Constable has captured the freshness of the morning sky.

As with this work, Constable painted many of his cloud studies in about an hour. His reference here to ‘rain in the night following’ indicates that the inscription was added a day or so after ‘Sepr 11’, and that in making these cloud studies he was not only interested in weather conditions at the time of painting, but also the weather before and after that time. He was interested in changing conditions, in fluctuating moments, shifting effects of light and shade – and how these impacted on a landscape.