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| "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.)
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