ENGLISH SCHOOL: CONSTABLE
“And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard-bough
In England—now.”
And now we come to the two greatest landscape painters of the modern
English school, Constable (1776–1837) and Turner. At first endless
difficulties beset Constable. He loved the springtime, the time of
blossoms, of sunny showers and sudden bursts of sunshine. The
rain-twinkling leaves, the rain-soddened grass, the wind singing, the
great clouds rolling before it—these are what Constable paints. But the
artists of his time did not believe in the glorious awakening of the
season as a theme fit for painters. The freshness of spring had no place
in art, and it was in vain for Constable to persevere painting picture
after picture. They remained unsold, proclaiming his enthusiastic
delight in the caprice of nature, in the passionate breath of the North
wind, in the early greenness of the day. He walked out in the dewy
mornings, “And at every step I take,” he wrote in one of his letters, “I
am reminded of the words of Christ, ‘I am the Resurrection and the
Life.’”
Still his pictures remained uncared for. He had nearly reached his
fiftieth year when, in 1824, he exhibited in Paris, and, for the first
time, tasted appreciation. The new school of landscape painting chose
him for its leader, chose him because he was totally opposed to
classicism, because he cared only to express what he felt.
The French recognised in Constable the leader of a revolution in the art
of landscape painting. He was the herald of what we now call
impressionism. It is his delight that we feel in every stroke of his
brush. Life, movement, emotion appealed to him. He was the very reverse
of Wilson, of Poussin, even of Claude Lorraine. He imitated no master
before him. His thought alone swayed him. Look at “The Cornfield” (130).
The great cornfield in the middle distance bathed in light, the elm
trees on either side of the road dividing the fields, the distant
steeple of the church, the wonderful sky full of great masses of pearly
clouds; it is a summer day such as Constable felt it. We cannot remain
cold before it, for in our soul rise memories of similar days. This is
the difference between the classic picture and one of impression. The
artist, in the latter, gives himself. We feel with him the scene he
presents. In the classic picture there is something always remote in its
serenity, something that belongs to tradition, and in a tradition apart
from our daily life.
He was born at East Bergholt, in Sussex, in 1776, and, as Gainsborough
did, he spent his youth in his native county. He was the son of a
miller, and his father wished him to take up his own profession. But the
lad longed to be a painter. He came to London and entered the Royal
Academy in 1810, and he was greatly encouraged by Sir George Beaumont.
He married in 1816, and he came to live in Hampstead in 1820. This
beautiful neighbourhood was at once the inspiration and the study of his
art.
“The Valley Farm” (327) is a delightful picture of a red-roofed
farmhouse, a farm in which its owner, Willie Lott, spent his life of
eighty years, being absent during that time but four days and nights.
Here is one of Constable’s wind-swept skies; the water is full of
shadows of broken reflections; it fills the foreground and stretches
away, while great trees form a cluster on the bank. (1814) is a sketch
of Salisbury Cathedral, one of Constable’s most famous pictures. A
rainbow spans the sky, showing the church shining there like a vision;
the river flows past osier beds, and is forded by a waggon and a team of
three horses.
I must not dwell longer on Constable. His works hold me by the charm of
his impetuous and religious spirit. You will often find his pictures in
private galleries here and also in Paris; they are always different, and
yet they always resemble each other. The masterful representation of
nature, the dewiness of the grass, the joyous clash of wet leaves, the
glint of the summer sunlight are in all of them.
He died at Hampstead, where he had lived so many years, April 1837.