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.)