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.)