John Constable: 1826 Academy Show

"Gillingham Mill, Dorset"
John Constable's Entry in the 1826 Academy Show

"My Dear Fisher, I am now busy at the Academy, and am writing early, as after breakfast I must be there. It is a delightful show. Turner never gave me so much pleasure or so much pain before. Callcott has a fine picture of a picturesque boat driven before the wind on a stormy sea. It is simple, grand, and affecting. He has another large work not so good, rather too quakerish, as Turner is too yellow, but every man who distinguishes himself stands on a precipice.

Sir Thomas Lawrence's portraits of Peel and Canning are very fine. He has a lady playing on a guitar hanging by Turner, and you seem to hear its imperfect sounds over his 'wide watered shore.' 'Canning' is over the fireplace, 'An Entombment,' by Westall, at the bottom of the room, and Etty's 'Judgment of Paris' on the west side centre. The details of this show we shall soon analyze together.

Chantry loves painting, and is always upstairs. He works now and then on my pictures, and yesterday he joined our group, and after exhausting his jokes on my landscape, he took up a dirty palette, threw it at me, and was off."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Gold Medal

 

"The Lock" by John Constable

"My Dear Fisher, I had this morning a letter from Paris, informing me that, on the King's visit to the Louvre, he was pleased to award me a gold medal for the merit of my landscapes. At the same time he made Sir Thomas Lawrence a Knight of the Legion of Honour. I have a pride and satisfaction in mentioning this to you; but I can truly say that your early notice of me, and your friendship for me in my obscurity, was worth more, and is looked back to by me with more heartfelt satisfaction than this, and all the other notice I have met with put together."

And in another to the same recipient: 

"I will send you, in a week or so, your sketches back. In the same box I shall enclose two volumes of Paley's posthumous sermons, which you may read to your family of a Sunday evening. They are fit companions for your sketches, being exactly like them, full of vigour, fresh, original, warm from observation of nature, hasty, unpolished, untouched afterwards."

In the summer of 1825, the Directors of the British Institution, instead of their annual display of works of the Old Masters, collected, as they had proposed, some of the best pictures of living artists, and Constable was enabled, by the kindness of Mr. Fisher and Mr. Tinney, to send to this exhibition 'The White Horse,' and 'Stratford Mill.'" At the same time his eldest son, also named John, had become very ill. Fisher offered another type of kindness to his friend:

"Your letter, with its uncomfortable details, has just reached me. If you can get the consent of the mother, bring your poor boy down here directly... He shall have the best advice the country affords, with sea air, sea bathing, and good food. You must exonerate me from any responsibility if anything happens; and if he does well we will see what can be done for him in the way of education. This will relieve the mind and spirits of your wife, who is not strong, and will give you more leisure for your easel. Whatever you do, Constable, get rid of anxiety. It hurts the stomach more than arsenic."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: An Influence on French Painting

"A Lock on the Stour, Suffolk" by John Constable

"My Dear Fisher, When you wrote my Frenchman was in London, we were settling about work, and he has engaged me to make twelve drawings, to be engraved here and published in Paris, all from this book. I work at these in the evening. 

My Paris affairs go on very well. Though the Director, the Count Forbin, gave my pictures very respectable situations in the Louvre in the first instance, yet, on being exhibited a few weeks, they advanced in reputation, and were removed from their original situations to a post of honour, two prime places in the principal room. 

They are struck with their vivacity and freshness - things unknown to their own pictures. The truth is, they study - and they are very laborious students - pictures only; and, as Northcote says, 'They know as little of nature as a hackney-coach horse does of a pasture.' In fact, it is worse. They make painful studies of individual articles - leaves, rocks, stones, etc. so that they look cut out, without belonging to the whole, and they neglect the look of nature altogether under its various changes. 

I leart yesterday that the proprietor asks twelve thousand francs for them. They would have bought one, 'The Waggon,' for the nation, but he would not part them. He tells me the artists much desire to purchase and deposit them in a place where they can have access to them. Reynolds is going over in June to engrave them, and has sent two assistants to Paris to prepare the plates. 

In all this I am at no expense, and it cannot fail to advance my reputation. It is certain they have made a stir, and set the students in landscape to thinking. Now, you must believe me, there is no other person living but yourself to whom I could write in this manner, and all about myself, but take away a painter's vanity, and he will never touch a pencil again."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Becoming Known in France

"The Opening of Waterloo Bridge" by John Constable

"My Dear Fisher, The Frenchman who was after my last picture of 'The Hay Cart' last year is here again. He would, I believe, have both that and 'The Bridge,' if he could get them at his own price... His object is to make a show of them at Paris, perhaps to my advantage..."

"My Dear Constable, Let your 'Hay Cart' go to Paris, by all means. I would, I think, let it go at less than its price for the sake of the éclat it may give you. The stupid English public, which has no judgment of its own, will begin to think there is something in you if the French make your works national property. You have long lain under a mistake: men do not purchase pictures because they admire them, but because others covet them..."

"Dear Fisher, My Frenchman has sent his agent with the money for the pictures. They are now ready, and look uncommonly well, and I think they cannot fail to melt the stony hearts of the French painters. Think of the lovely valleys and peaceful farmhouses of Suffolk forming part of an exhibition to amuse the gay Parisians..."

My Dear Constable, Your last letter is evidently written in a tone of great exultation, and with reason. Your fame and fortune are both advanced; and for both you are indebted but to Providence and your own exertions... The purchase of your two great landscapes for Paris is surely a stride up three or four steps of the ladder of popularity. English boobies, who dare not trust their own eyes, will discover your merits when they find you admired at Paris. We now must go there for a week..."

To his wife: "Had a letter from Paris. Mr. Arrowsmith informed me of the safe arrival of my pictures, and how much they were admired... Collins called. He says I am a great man at Paris, that it is curious they speak there of only three English artists, namely Wilkie, Lawrence, and Constable. This sounds very grand."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Friendship

"Weymouth Bay: Bowleaze Cove and Jordon Hill"
by John Constable

"Though Sir George Beaumont and John Constable agreed, generally, in their opinions of the Old Masters, yet their tastes differed materially on some points of art. A constant communion with pictures, the tints of which are subdued by time, no doubt tends to unfit the eye for the enjoyment of freshness, and Sir George thought Constable too daring in the modes he adopted to obtain this quality, while Constable saw that Sir George often allowed himself to be deceived by the effects of time, of accident, and by the tricks that are played by dealers to give mellowness to pictures. In these matters, each was disposed to set the other right.

Sir George had placed a small landscape by Gaspar Poussin on his easel, close to a picture he was painting, and said, 'Now, if I can match these tints I am sure to be right.' 'But suppose, Sir George,' replied Constable, 'Gaspar could rise from his grave. Do you think he would know his own picture in its present state? Or if he did, should we not find it difficult to persuade him that somebody had not smeared tar or cart-grease over its surface, and then wiped it imperfectly off?'

At another time, Sir George recommended the colour of an old Cremona fiddle for the prevailing tone of everything, and this Constable answered by laying an old fiddle on the green lawn before the house. But however opposite in these respects their opinions were, and although Constable well knew that Sir George did not appreciate his works - the intelligence, the wit, and the fascinating and amiable manners of the Baronet had gained his heart, and a sincere and lasting friendship subsisted between them."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: An Excursion

"Stratford Mill" by John Constable

"In one of his letters from Cole-Orton, the estate of his friend Sir George Beaumont, to his wife, John Constable says: 

'Sir George rises at seven, walks in the garden before breakfast, and rides out about two, fair or foul. We have had breakfast at half-past eight, but today we began at the winter hour - nine. We do not quit the breakfast tanle directly, but chat a little about the pictures in the room. We then go to the painting room, and Sir George most manfully sets to work, and I by his side. At two the horses are brought to the door. I have had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of Ashby, the mountain stream and rocks at Grace Dieu, and an old convent there... At dinner we do not sit long; Lady Beaumont reads the newspaper to us and then to the drawing room to tea, and after that comes a great treat. I am furnished with some portfolios full of beautiful drawings or prints, and Sir George reads a play in a manner the most delightful. On Saturday evening it was 'As You Like It." Last evening, Sunday, he read a sermon, and a good deal of Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' Some of the landscape descriptions in it are very beautiful. About nine, the servant comes in with a little fruit and a decanter of water, and at eleven we go to bed. You would laugh to see my bedroom. I have dragged so many things into it - books, portfolios, prints, canvases, pictures, etc.'"

An Excerpt from Wordsworth's "The Excursion":

 "Ah! what a sweet Recess, thought I, is here!
Instantly throwing down my limbs at ease
Upon a bed of heath; - full many a spot
Of hidden beauty have I chanced to espy
Among the mountains; never one like this;
So lonesome, and so perfectly secure;
Not melancholy - no, for it is green,
And bright and fertile, furnished in itself
With the few needful things that life requires.

-In rugged arms how softly does it lie,

How tenderly protected! Far and near
We have an image of the pristine earth,

"The planet in its nakedness: were this
Man's only swelling, sole appointed seat,
First, last, and single in the breathing world,
It could not be more quiet: peace is here
Or nowhere; days unruffled by the gale
Of public news or private; years that pass
Forgetfully; uncalled upon to pay
The common penalties of mortal life,
Sickness, or accident, or grief, or pain."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

 

 

John Constable: A Pleasant Prospect

"Landscape with Goatherd and Goats" after Claude
by John Constable

 Cole-Orton Hall, November 2nd, 1823

"My Very Dear Fisher, 

Your letter is delightful, and its coming here serves to help me in the estimation of Sir George and Lady Beaumont. Nothing can be more kind, and in every possible way more obliging, than they both are to me. I am left entirely to do as I like, with full range over the whole house, in which I may saturate myself with art; only on condition of letting them do as they like. 

I have copies one of the small Claudes, a "Breezy Sunrise," a most pathetic [affecting the emotions] picture. Perhaps a sketch would have served my present purpose, but I wished for a more lasting remembrance of it, and a sketch of a picture is only like seeing it in one view. It will not serve to drink at again and again. I have likewise begun the little grove by Claude, a noon-day scene which 'warms and cheers, but which does not inflame or irritate.' Through the depths of the trees are seen a waterfall and a ruined temple, and a solitary shepherd is piping to some goats and sheep...

I draw in the evening, and Lady or Sir George Beaumont reads aloud. Sir George has known intimately many persons of talent of the last half-century, and is full of anecdote. This is a magnificent country, abounding in the picturesque... In the breakfast room hang four Claudes, a Cozens, and a Swaneveldt. The sun glows on them as it sets. In the dark recesses of the gardens, and at the end of one of the walks, is a cenotaph erected to the memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and on it some beautiful lines by Wordsworth."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Perseverance

"Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds"
by John Constable

"John Constable was prevented by illness from finishing either of the large pictures he had on hand in time for the exhibitions of 1823, explaining to his friend Fisher:

'Ever since Christmas my house has been a sad scene of serious illness; all my children [two sons and two daughters] laid up at once. Things are now, thanks to God, looking better, but poor John is still in a fearful state. I am unfortunately taken ill again myself... I have not seen the face of my easel since Christmas, and it is not the least of my troubles that the good Bishop's picture is not fit to be seen... 

Then two weeks later:

'I am weak and much emaciated. They took a great deal of blood from me which I could ill spare... but I will leave my house, and go into my painting room. I have put a large upright landscape in hand, and I hop I shall hold up to get it ready for the Academy, with the Bishop's picture...

And in May:

'My cathedral looks uncommonly well. It is much approved of by the Academy, and, moreover, in Seymour Street... It was the most difficult subject in landscape I ever had on my easel. I have not flinched at the windows, buttresses, &c...  Speaking of me, Fuseli says, 'I like de landscapes of Constable. He is always picturesque, of a fine colour, and de lights always in de right places, but he makes me call for my great coat and umbrella.' This may amuse you, when contemplating this busy but distant scene, however, though I am here in the midst of the world, I am out of it, and am happy, and endeavour to keep myself unspotted. I have a kingdom of my own - my landscape and my children. I have work to do, and my finances must be repaired if possible. I have a face now on my easel, and may have more.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Inspiration

"Flatford Mill on the Stour" by John Constable

John Constable completes his letter to Dr. Fisher, a dear friend:

"'How much I wish I had been with you on your fishing excursion in the New Forest! ...The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things. Shakespeare could make everything poetical. He tells us of poor Tom's haunts among 'sheep cotes and mills.' As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places. They have always been my delight, and I should indeed have been delighted in seeing what you describe, and in your company, 'in the company of a man to whom nature does not spread her volume in vain.' 

Still I should paint my own places best. Painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate 'my careless boyhood' with all that lies on the banks of the Stour. Those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful; that is, I had often thought of pictures of them before I ever touched a pencil, and your picture is the strongest instance of it I can recollect, but I will say no more, for I am a great egotist in whatever relates to painting. Does not the cathedral look beautiful among the golden foliage? Its solitary grey must sparkle in it.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: A Letter About Clouds

"Extensive Landscape with Grey Clouds" by John Constable

Hampstead, October 23rd, 1821

My Dear Fisher,

"I am most anxious to get into my London painting-room, for I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas. I have done a good deal of skying, for I am determined to conquer all difficulties, and that among the rest...  The 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 landscapes of Titian, of Salvator, and of Claude, says: 'Even their skies seem to sympathize with their subjects.' Certainly, if the sky is obtrusive, as mine are, it is bad; but if it is evaded, as mine are not, it is worse. It must and always shall with me make an effectual part of the composition.

It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the keynote, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment. You may conceive, then, what a 'white sheet' would do for me, impressed as I am with these notions, and they cannot be erroneous. The sky is the source of light in nature, and governs everything. Even our common observations on the weather of every day are altogether suggested by it.

The difficulty of skies in painting is very great, both as to composition and execution, because, with all their brilliancy, they ought not to come forward, or, indeed, be hardly thought of any more than extreme distances are, but this does not apply to phenomena or accidental effects of sky, because they always attract particularly. 

I may say all this to you, though you do not want to be told that I know very well what I am about, and that my skies have not been neglected, though they have often failed in execution, no doubt, from an over-anxiety about them which will alone destroy that easy appearance which nature always has in all her movements."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Hampstead Heath

"Hampstead Heath" by John Constable

"John Constable's art was never more perfect than at the period of his life in 1818. I remember being greatly struck by a small picture, a view from Hampstead Heath. I have before noticed that what are commonly called warm colours are not necessary to produce the impression of warmth in landscape, and this picture affords to me the strongest possible proof of the truth of this. The sky is of the blue of an English summer day, with large, but not threatening, clouds of a silvery whiteness. The distance is of a deep blue, and the near trees and grass of the freshest green; for Constable could never consent to parch up the verdure of nature to obtain warmth. These tints are balanced by a very little warm colour on a road and gravel pit in the foreground, a single house in the middle distance, and the scarlet jacket of a labourer. Yet I know no picture in which the mid-day heart of midsummer is so admirably expressed; and were not the eye refreshed by the shade thrown over a great part of the foreground by some young trees that border the road, and the cool blue of water near it, one would wish, in looking at it, for a parasol. 

I am writing of this picture, which appears to have been wholly painted in the open air, after an acquaintance with it of five-and-twenty years. 

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Maria Bicknell

"Maria Bicknell" by John Constable

"Maria Bicknell, a young lady between whom and Constable there existed a mutual attachment, was the daughter of Charles Bicknell, Esq., a Solicitor to the Admiralty, and granddaughter to the Rev. Dr. Rhudde, Rector of Bergholt, where Constable's acquaintance with her had commenced as early as the year 1800. Objections to their union arose on the part of Miss Bicknell's friends, Dr. Rhudde being its chief opposer. He was probably unwilling that she should marry a man below herself in point of fortune, and whom he considered as without a profession. It also became plain that Mr. Bicknell would not long have opposed the marriage, had it not been for fear of excluding his daughter's name from the will of her grandfather, who was very rich. As it was John and Maria were doomed for five years to suffer all the wearing anxieties of hope deferred, of which their own letters form a deeply interesting history.

In one note, Maria wrote John: 'What can we do?... We must be wise and leave off a correspondence that is not calculated to make us think less of each other. We have many painful trials required of us in this life, and we must learn to bear them with resignation. You will still be my friend, and I will be yours...'

It was scarcely to be expected that the injunctions of Miss Bicknell, to write no more to her, should be obeyed by Constable, and a regular interchange of letters soon took place between them - for years. He related to her:

'How much real delight have I had with the study of landscape this summer. Either I am myself improved in the art of seeing nature, which Sir Joshua calls painting, or nature has unveiled her beauties to me less fastidiously. Perhaps there is something of both, so we will divide the compliment. But I am writing this nonsense with a sad heart, when I think what would be my happiness could I have this enjoyment with you. Then indeed would my mind be calm to contemplate the endless beauties of this happy country.'

After five years of faithful correspondence, she had arrived at the age of twenty-nine; a time of life at which, patient as she was, she felt entitled to determine for herself a matter which so entirely affected her own happiness. And so they were married on the 2nd of October, 1816, at St. Martin's Church. Mr. Bicknell did not long withhold his forgiveness from his daughter, and now that he allowed himself opportunities of knowing Constable, he became extremely fond of him. Dr. Rhudde was not so soon reconciled to the marriage, but at his death he left his grand-daughter a legacy, she probably little expected, of 4,000 pounds."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: A Well-Intentioned Offer

"Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds"
by John Constable

"John Constable acknowledged many obligations to the amiable President of the Academy, Benjamin West, in whom every young artist found a friend; but the greatest was one which possibly affected the whole course of his life. In the spring of 1802, Dr. Fisher, Rector of Langham, and afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, had procured for him the situation of a drawing master in a school, but Mr. West strongly dissuaded him from accepting it, telling him that if he did so he must give up all hopes of distinction. Such advice, and from so high an authority, was very agreeable to Constable. The difficulty, however, remained of declining Dr. Fisher's well-intentioned offer without giving him offense, which Mr. West undertook and easily accomplished. To this affair Constable alludes in the following letter:

'My Dear Dunthorne, I hope I have now done with the business that brought me to town with Dr. Fisher. It is sufficient to say that had I accepted the situation offered, it would have been a death blow to all my prospects of perfection in the art I love. For these few weeks past, I believe I have though more seriously of my profession than at any other time of my life; of that which is the surest way to excellence.

I am just returned from a visit to Sir George Beaumont's pictures with a deep conviction of the truth of Sir Joshua Reynolds' observation that 'there is no easy way of becoming a good painter.' For the last two years I have been running after pictures, and seeking the truth at second hand. I have not endeavoured to represent nature with the same elevation of mind with which I set out, but have rather tried to make my performances look like the work of other men... 

I shall return to Bergholt, where I shall endeavour to get a pure and unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may employ me. There is little or nothing in the exhibition worth looking up to. There is room enough for a natural painter. The great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something beyond the truth. Fashion always had, and will have, its day, but truth in all things only will last, and can only have just claims on posterity. I have reaped considerable benefit from exhibiting. It shows me where I am, and in fact tells me what nothing else could.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Learning from Failure

"Dedham Lock and Mill" by John Constable

"In 1802, John Constable's name appeared for the first time in the catalogue of the Exhibition of the Royal Academy as an exhibitor; the picture being merely called 'Landscape.' I think it likely however, he may have sent pictures for exhibition in 1800 or 1801, or in both years, which were rejected.

I have heard him say that under some disappointment, I think it was the rejection at the Academy, of a view of Flatford Mill, he carried the picture to the president of the Academy, Benjamin West, who said, 'Don't be disheartened, young man, we shall hear of you again. You must have loved nature very much before you could have painted this.' 

He then took a piece of chalk, and showed Constable how he might improve the chiaroscuro by some additional touches of light between the stems and branches of the trees saying, 'Always remember, sir, that light and shadow never stand still.' 

Mr. West, at the same time, said to him, 'Whatever object you are painting, keep in mind its prevailing character rather than its accidental appearance (unless in the subject there is some peculiar reason for the latter), and never be content until you have transferred that to canvas. In your skies, for instance, always aim at brightness, although there are states of the atmosphere in which the sky itself is not bright. I do not mean that you are not to paint solemn or lowering skies, but even in the darkest effects there should be brightness. Your darks should look like the darks of silver, not of lead or of slate.'

This advice was not addressed to an inattentive ear."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Back and Forth

Self-portrait in pencil
by John Constable

"In the year 1795 John Constable's father consented to his visiting London, for the purpose of ascertaining what might be his chance of success as a painter. His time was now divided between London and Bergholt, and the following passage from a letter of this time shows what were some of his occupations for the next two years.

'As the evenings are now long, I find great pleasure in reading the books I brought home with me, particularly 'Leonardo da Vinci' and 'Count Algarotti.' I should feel obliged to you if you would enclose Gessner's 'Essay on Landscape.' I devote all my evenings to the study of anatomy.'

'I have lately copied Tempesta's large battle, and painted two small pictures in oil - a Chymist and an Alchymist, for which I am chiefly indebted to our immortal bard. You remember Romeo's account of an apothecary's shop.'

However, his mother also wrote of the parents' plan for their son:

'We are anticipating the satisfaction of seeing John at home in the course of a week or ten days, to which I look forward with the hope that he will attend to business, by which he will please his father and ensure his own respectability and comfort.'

How long Constable was engaged in his father's work I know not, but in the year 1799 he had resumed the pencil, not again to lay it aside, as I find him thus writing:

'London, February 4th, 1799 - I am this morning admitted a student at the Royal Academy; the figure which I drew for admittance was the 'Torso.'...I shall begin painting as soon as I have the loan of a sweet little picture by Jaob Ruysdael to copy... I shall not have much to show you on my return, as I find my time will be more taken up in seeing than in painting. I hope by the time the leaves are on the trees I shall be better qualified to attack them than I was last summer.'

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Artistic Influencers

"Hagar and the Angel" by Claude Lorrain

"Conwy Castle, North Wales" by Thomas Girtin

"John Constable's mother procured for her son an introduction to Sir George Beaumont, who frequently visited his mother, the Dowager Lady Beaumont, then residing at Dedham. It was at her house that the young artist first saw a picture by Claude Lorrain, the 'Hagar' [now entitled 'Hagar and the Angel'], which Sir George often carried with him when he travelled. Constable looked back on the first sight of this exquisite work as an important epoch in his life. 

But the taste of a young artist is always the most affected by contemporary art. Sir George Beaumont also possessed about thirty drawings in watercolours by Thomas Girtin, which he advised Constable to study as examples of great breadth and truth; and their influence on him may be traced more or less through the whole course of his practice.

The first impressions of an artist, whether for good or evil, are never wholly effaced; and, as Constable had till now no opportunity of seeing any pictures that he could rely on as guides to the study of nature, it was fortunate for him that he began with Claude and Girtin."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Observer of Clouds

Cloud Study by John Constable

Working in his father's wind-mill, dependent on the weather, John Constable watched the skies with interest. As an artist he developed his keen observational skills and over the years painted a remarkable and beautiful series of cloud studies. Early on he described what he saw:

"It may perhaps give some idea of those bright and silvery days in the spring, when at noon large garish clouds, surcharged with hail or sleet, sweep with their broad shadows the fields, woods, and hills; and by their depths enhance the value of the vivid greens and yellows so peculiar to the season. 

The 'natural history,' if the expression may be used, of the skies, which are so particularly marked in the hail squalls at this time of the year, is this: the clouds accumulate in very large masses, and from their loftiness seem to move but slowly: immediately upon these large clouds appear numerous opaque patches, which are only small clouds passing rapidly before them, and consisting of isolated portions detached probably from the larger cloud. These floating much nearer the earth may perhaps fall in with a stronger current of wind, which as well as their comparative lightness, causes them to move with greater rapidity; hence they are called by wind-millers and sailors, 'messengers,' and always portend bad weather. 

They float midway in what may be termed the lanes of the clouds; and from being so situated are almost uniformly in shadow, receiving a reflected light only, from the clear blue sky immediately above them. In passing over the bright parts of the large clouds they appear as darks; but in passing the shadowed parts, they assume a grey, a pale, or a lurid hue.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Drawn to Art

Landscape with a windmill at Stoke by John Constable

"Young John Constable's painting room was not under his father's roof. He had formed a close alliance with the only person in the village who had any love for art, or any pretensions to the character of an artist, John Dunthorne, a plumber and glazier, who lived in a little cottage close to the gate of Golding Constable's house. At that time Dunthorne devoted all the leisure his business allowed him to painting landscapes from nature, and Constable became the constant companion of his studies.

Constable's father did not frown on this friendship, although he was unwilling that his son should become a professional artist, and his son's attempts were made either in the open air, in the small house of his friend, or in a hired room in the village. It argued no want of affection or of foresight that he opposed his son's choice of a profession in which future excellence cannot with any certainty be predicted from early attempts, and which, even if attained, is less sure than excellence in many other pursuits of securing a competence. 

He would have educated him for the Church, but finding him disinclined to the necessary duties, he determined to make a miller of him. For about a year Constable was employed in his father's mills, where he performed the duties required of him carefully and well. He was remarkable for muscular strength, and was called in the neighbourhood the 'handsome miller.'

The windmill, in an engraving from one of his sketches entitled 'Spring,' is one of those in which he worked. His acquaintance with the picturesque machinery both of wind and watermills was very useful to him in after life. His young brother said to me, 'When I look at a mill painted by John, I see that it will go round, which is not always the case with those by other artists.'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

John Constable: Pleasantly Situated

"The White Horse," a sketch, by John Constable

"White Horse" by John Constable at the Frick

"'East Bergholt is pleasantly situated in the most cultivated part of Suffolk, on a spot which overlooks the fertile valley of the river Stour. The beauty of the surrounding scenery, it gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadows sprinkled with flocks and herds, its well-cultivated uplands, its woods and rivers, with numerous scattered villages and churches, farms and picturesque cottages, all impart to this particular spot an amenity and elegance hardly anywhere else to be found.' This is John Constable's description of the 'scenes of his boyhood,' which he was fond of saying 'made him a painter.' From among them most of the subjects of his pencil were selected. 

His ancestors were from Yorkshire, where the name is frequent. His great-grandfather, Hugh Constable, carried it into Suffolk, and settled as a farmer as a farmer at Bures. Golding Constable, the artist's father, inherited considerable property from a rich uncle, including the water-mill at Flatford. He afterwards purchased a water-mill at Dedham, and two windmills in the neighbourhood of East Bergholt, where he built the house to which he removed in the year 1774 with his wife Ann Watts.

The children of this marriage were three sons and three daughters. John Constable, the second son, was born on the 11th of June, 1776, and baptized on the same day, not being expected to live. He became, however, a strong and healthy child, and when seven years old, was placed at a boarding school about fifteen miles from Bergholt. He was afterwards removed to a school at Lavenham, and then to the grammar school of the Rev. Dr. Grimwood, at Dedham, where he met with an indulgent master, with who he became a favourite. 

Dr. Grimwood had penetration enough to discover that he was a boy of genius, although he was not remarkable for proficiency in his studies, the only thing he excelled in being penmanship. He was at this time sixteen or seventeen years of age, and had become devotedly fond of painting. During his French lessons a long pause would frequently occur, which his master would be the first to break, saying, 'Go on, I am not asleep. Oh! now I see you are in your painting room!'"

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: Quotes on Landscape Painting

"The Ponds of Ville d'Avray" by Corot

• "You know, a landscape painter’s day is delightful. You get up early, at three o’clock in the morning, before sunrise; you go and sit under a tree; you watch and wait. At first there is nothing much to be seen. Nature looks like a whitish canvas with a few broad outlines faintly sketched in; all is misty, everything quivers in the cool dawn breeze. The sky lights up. The sun has not yet burst through the gauze veil that hides the meadow, the little valley, the hill on the horizon . . . Ah, a first ray of sunshine! (description of the beginning of a landscape-painter’s day, Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857) -"The whole landscape lies behind the transparent gauze of the fog that now rises, drawn upwards by the sun, and as it rises, reveals the silver-spangled river, the fields, the cottages, the further scene. At last one can discern all that one could only guess at before . . . The sun is up! There is a peasant at the end of the field, with his wagon drawn by a yoke of oxen . . . Everything is bursting into life, sparkling in the full light – light, which as yet is still soft and golden. The background, simple in line and harmonious in colour, melts into the infinite expanse of sky, through the bluish, misty atmosphere. The flowers raise their heads the birds flutter hither and thither.. ..The little rounded willows on the bank of the stream look like birds spreading their tails. It’s adorable! And one paints! And paints!"
  
  (description of the beginning of a landscape-painter’s day, Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857) -Corot, as quoted in "Letters of the Great Artists – from Blake to Pollock,” Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963
  
  
• "I have learned from experience that it is useful to begin by drawing one’s picture clearly on a virgin canvas, first having noted the desired effect on a white or gray paper, and then to do the picture section by section, as immediately finished as one can, so that when it has all been covered there is very little to retouch. I have noticed that whatever is finished at one sitting is fresher, better drawn, and profits more from many lucky accidents, while when one retouches this initial harmonious glow is lost. I think that this method is particularly good for foliage, which needs a good deal of freedom."
  
  (description of the beginning of a landscape-painter’s day, Switzerland, Château de Gruyères, 1857) -Corot, as quoted in "Letters of the Great Artists – from Blake to Pollock,” Richard Friedenthal, Thames and Hudson, London, 1963

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: Painting the Effect

"Meadow with Two Large Trees" by Corot

"'Truth,' said Corot, 'is the first thing in art and the second and the third.' But the whole truth cannot be told at once. A selection from the mass of nature's truths is what the artist shows - a few things at a time, and with sufficient emphasis to make them clearly felt. Crowd in too much and you spoil the picture, weaken the impression, conceal your meaning, falsify everything in the attempt to be too true.

What now were the truths that he interpreted at the necessary sacrifice of others which were less important in his eyes? Corot prized effects rather than what the non-artistic world calls solid facts. But effects are as truly facts as are the individual features and details which make them. Indeed, effects are the most essential, as well as interesting of all facts. It is effects that we see first when we are in Nature's presence, that impress us most, and dwell the longest in our minds.

Look at the same scene on a sunny morning or by cloudy sunset light. It is not the same scene. The features are the same, but their effects have changed, and this means a new landscape, a novel picture. The mistake of too many modern painters is that they paint from analysis, not from sight. They paint the things they know are there, not the things they perceive just as they perceive them. This Corot never did. 

He studied analytically and learned all he could about solid facts, but he painted synthetically - omitting many things that he knew about, and even many that he saw at the moment, in order to portray more clearly the general result. And this general result he found in the main lines of the scene before him, in its dominant tone, in the broad relationships of one mass of color to all others, in the aspect of the sky, the character of the atmosphere, and the play of light, and in the palpitating incessant movement of sky and air and leaf.

Look at one of Corot's skies and you will see its shimmering, pulsating quality. Everywhere, over all, behind all, in all, you will see the enveloping air and the light which infiltrates this thing and transfigures that; the air and the light which make all things what they are, which create the landscape by creating its color, its expression, its effect; the air and the light which are the movement, the spirit, the very essence of nature. What we ask the painter is not just how his tree was constructed, but just how it looked as a feature in the beauty and aliveness of the scene. What we want is the general effect and the way it harmonized with the effect of its surroundings.

The generalized structure of Corot's trees, their blurred contours and flying, feathery spray - these are not untruths. They are merely compromises with the stern necessities of paint, devices he employed, not because he was unable to draw trees with precision, but because, had he done this, his foliage would have been too solid and inert for truth. So his trees are alive, and, as he loved to say, the light can reach their inmost leaves, and the little birds can fly among their branches."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Six Portraits: Della Robbia, Correggio, Blake, Corot, George Fuller, Winslow Homer" by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer.)

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: Artistic Principles

"L'Allée Verte" by Corot

"No one can doubt Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's accurate vision and patient labor who has seen his earlier pictures. Certain of his noblest qualities appear in them all - his care for harmony in composition and for dignity and grace of line, his belief that the whole is of more importance than any one part, and his desire to speak from a personal point of view. But there is none of the breadth, freedom, synthesis, which characterize his later works. 

Corot's aim was always to simplify expression, to disengage the thing he wished to say - the main idea and meaning, the picture he had in mind - from the thousand minor pictures and ideas that had been wound up with it in Nature. As he lived and labored his power to do this increased. When he retouched an early canvas he never added anything. Improvement always meant suppression - some broadening, simplifying touch. But the fact is a proof of growing knowledge, not of waning interest in truth. What he wanted to repeat were not Nature's statistics, but their sum total. Not her minutiae, but the result she had wrought with them. Not the elements with which she had built up a landscape, but the landscape itself as his eye had embraced and his soul had felt it.

Can anyone know the things to say without knowing the things to omit, build up broad truths in ignorance of the minor truths which compose them, reproduce an impression without remembering what elements had worked together to create it, and which had been of preponderant, controlling value?

No, the real lesson taught by Corot's pictures and Corot's life is that breadth in painting must repose on accurate knowledge; that freedom must have its basis in fidelity to facts, that feeling must be guided by reason and self-restraint."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Six Portraits: Della Robbia, Correggio, Blake, Corot, George Fuller, Winslow Homer" by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer.)

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: At Nature's Feet

"Forest at Fontainebleau" by Corot

"If ever a man worked hard at his art it was Corot. The number of his preparatory studies was immense, and they were made in his latest as well as his earliest years. 'Conscience' was his watchword, the nickname his scholars gave him, the one recipe he gave them when they asked him how to learn to paint. 

The first things to produce, he said, were 'studies in submission;' later came the time for studies in picture-making. He did not approve of academies and schools, and deemed it enough to study the old masters with the eye, without much attempt at actual copying. He thought the great school of Nature might suffice to form soul and sight and hand; but this school one should never desert and could not frequent too diligently.

It is true, as a friend once said, that what Corot wanted to paint was 'not so much Nature as his love for her.' But to love her meant to peruse her with patient care, to know her well and fully; and to paint his love meant not to alter her charm but to bring into clear relief those elements therein which most appealed to him. 

Individuality in art no man prized more highly; but he defined it as 'the individual expression of a truth,' and said that to develop it one must work 'with an ardor that knows no concessions.' His whole life was given up to work, and his whole work was an effort to see Nature with more and more distinctness, and to render her with more and more fidelity. A gray-haired man, a master among his fellows, a poet before the world, he was to the end a child at the Great Mother's knee; and to the end a conscientious, often a despairing, aspirant when he had a brush in hand."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Six Portraits: Della Robbia, Correggio, Blake, Corot, George Fuller, Winslow Homer" by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer.)

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: At the End

"A Village Street, Dardagny" by Corot

"Dropsy was the final stage of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's disease and he foresaw the fatal end. 'I am almost resigned,' he said to his pupil Français, watching by his bed, 'but it is not easy, and I have been a long time getting to the point. Yet I have no reason to complain of my fate - far otherwise. I have had good health for seventy-eight years, and have been able to do nothing but paint for fifty. My family were honest folk. I have had good friends, and think I never did harm to anyone. My lot in life has been excellent. Far from reproaching fate I can only be grateful. I must go - I know it, but don't want to believe it. In spite of myself there is a little bit of hope left in me.'

The next day he asked for a priest, saying his father had done so, and he wished to die like his father. But his last thought was for his art. His feeble fingers believed they held a brush, and he exclaimed, 'See how beautiful it is! I have never seen such beautiful landscapes.' And then he died.

At his funeral the great church was more than full, and the crowd spread through the streets outside. Fauré sang his requiem to an air Corot had himself selected - the slow movement from Beethoven's seventh symphony. And by the open grave M. de Chennevières, Director of the Beaux Arts, spoke about him in touching words:

'All the youth of Paris loved him, for he loved youth, and his talent was youth eternally new. . . And in his immortal works he praised God in His skies and birds and trees.'

As the last phrase was spoken, we are told, a linnet perched on a branch nearby and burst into a gush of song; and when in 1880 a monument to the beloved great painter who talked so often of 'mes feuilles et mes petits oiseaux [my leaves and my little birds]' was set up by his brethren on the border of the little lake at Ville d'Avray, the sculptor carved upon it the branch and the singing bird."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Six Portraits: Della Robbia, Correggio, Blake, Corot, George Fuller, Winslow Homer" by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer.) 

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: Clouds

"Les Contrebandiers" by Corot

"There seems to have been no serious cloud upon Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's life until the fatal year when France was slaughtered [the Franco-Prussian War, 1870-71]. Then he said he should have gone mad had he not had the refuge of his easel. It was not only wrong but stupid to kill people and destroy the grace of nature and the works of man. 'Compare the savage hate of war with art, which at the bottom means simply love!' he exclaimed. 

Yet with the instinct of a patriot he came back to Paris when the siege seemed certain, and gave with a very generous hand not only to relieve the sick but 'to drive the Prussians out of the woods of Ville d'Avray.' His brush and his summer memories filled part of his time, and the rest was spent among the poor and suffering. During the whole siege he ministered and worked, and some of his loveliest pictures date from these dreary weeks.

When they were shown in 1874 he narrowly missed, for the second time, the grand medal of honor. But a better reward came to him in a letter from a group of artists saying that after all 'the greatest honor is to be called Corot.' And soon after the same impulse found still more emphatic expression. A gold medal was subscribed for by a long list of artists and amateurs and presented to the venerable master. When he read its inscription, 'To Corot, his brethren and admirers,' he could only whisper through deep emotion, 'It makes one very happy to be loved like this' - this was the last day he was seen in public, and even then he was nervous, ill, and feeble."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Six Portraits: Della Robbia, Correggio, Blake, Corot, George Fuller, Winslow Homer" by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer.) 

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: "Papa Corot"

"The Augustan Bridge at Narni" by Corot

"In Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot's younger days he was the liveliest among the lively. Tall of stature and herculean in build, possessed of perfect health, high spirits, and a gentle temper, student balls and studio suppers were his delight, and he was the delight of their frequenters. Yet wherever he was he never failed to disappear for a while at nine o'clock, when 'la belle dame,' as he called his mother, awaited him for a hand at cards. 

In his old age he was 'Papa Corot' to the whole artist world of Paris - no one more respected, more beloved and cherished; no one so ready with a helping hand full of money, a helping tongue full of cheer, and wise advice.

Of book-learning he had little, and his interest in the world outside his art was never very great. He often bought books from the stalls along the quais, but merely for the sake of their shape and color. He had an odd superstition that he ought to read 'Polyeucte' through, and began it perhaps a score of times, but he never got to the end, and we find no record of attempts with other works. Music, however, he loved with passion and rare intelligence, and nature he adored, understood, and explained with singular felicity of speech.

In his walks abroad he wore a long black coat and a high satin stock; in his studio, a blouse, a gay striped cotton nightcap, and invariably a long clay pipe; and with his shock of white hair and smooth-shaven face - where the very wrinkles did but define a smile around the vigorous mouth - we can well believe that he looked less like a poetical painter than the king of Yvetot or a jolly Norman carter. We smile back with pleasure even at his printed portrait, and wish ourselves among the students of Paris as they clustered, charmed, about the clever, wise, benevolent and brave old man."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "Six Portraits: Della Robbia, Correggio, Blake, Corot, George Fuller, Winslow Homer" by Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer.)