Six Foot Inspiration - Research Paper Example

Six-foot Inspiration: John Constable, Master Landscaper The year 1819 was a very important one for John Constable, and for art in general. It was the year he painted the first of his massive six by four foot paintings. The sheer size of the canvas, and the masterful way he filled it with an intriguing landscape, was to ensure him success and attention from then on. Here, an attempt will be made to show how that single painting influenced landscape painting in Europe. The White Horse is impressive not only because of its size, although looking at it on a wall in an exhibition gallery must carry quite an impact. (It is currently in the Frick Collection, in New York). Its composition demands the viewer to approach, and examine all the details. Just one glance is not enough. There is landscape, but there is also narrative, captured on the left where a white horse is to be seen, standing on a heavy river barge (Cove et al 2006). The vessel is punted along with some effort by two men, while a third prepares for arrival. They are obviously transporting the horse to its new home, or are bringing it back from a farrier’s attention. Alternatively, it is a barge horse being moved from one bridle path to another for a change in direction. These alternatives give the picture its curiosity: it demands its story to be told: a skill that Constable (1776–1837) was still feeling his way around. To place a story inside a very large landscape was not the fashion any more. None of his contemporaries dared to make such big canvases. It was first in a series of six canvases of this size, all based around the River Stour. Constable felt he had to produce paintings whose dimensions attracted the attention of patrons, but especially from the Academy. He wanted to reflect a more classical style at a time when artists in Europe were becoming innovative. This decision marked a turning point in Constable’s career (Cove et al 2006). The White Horse was an original breakthrough in the artist’s working methods. He began as usual by sketching outside on site, choosing a particular angle he was fond of, and which is seen again in other landscapes: a bend in a river that might present an obstacle to a boat, but to a painter presents a great opportunity to capture a moment. This is also seen in The Hay Wain. After his initial oil sketches of a much smaller size, he came to his studio to work on the large canvas, creating a full-scale, 6 x 4-foot oil sketch to test and rework composition, colors, and light. Then he would prepare his large canvas, and work from his sketches. Painstaking work brought its reward, because until then, the Academy had not been very interested in what he painted. The White Horse showed them his amazing skill on a large scale: they were so impressed they made him an associate member immediately (Brits at their Best 2009). They saw the imagery of a very fine landscape, but they also recognized Constable’s ability to inject narrative interest and a genuine feeling for the English countryside and its little daily dramas. Simple, yet containing the importance of daily life, the struggles that Constable depicted were the life-blood of England. The bargees working hard in this painting, and farmers, fishermen and harvesters in others: the basic tasks rich people took for granted were pictured as warm and noble, against a background all English people loved and identified with (Gray & Gage 2006). A closer look at the painting gives an indication of Constable’s ability to capture a sensation of movement. Rather than place the action of the bargees punting their vessel in the centre, the artist makes the viewers’ eyes move to the left, then again to the right, to see a small herd of cows wading in the river to graze from a tree. Once these ‘live’ objects are studied, the observer has leisure to look at the middle distance and the farm houses, a jetty covered with a thatched roof, and a moored boat. All peaceful signs of how use is made of this neck of the woods (Cove et al 2006). The sky occupies over a third of the area. Any student studying Constable would know his hard work in the study of painting the heavens, which he called ‘skying’. He nearly always added notes on the back of sketches of the weather conditions, direction of light, and time of day, when he was painting, because he believed that the sky was ‘the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment’ in a landscape painting (Parkinson 2003). He was aware of the studies by scientist Luke Howard, which were carried out in his time. Howard named all the clouds and was an expert on atmospheric phenomena. Constable studied his writings, in an effort to be more scientific about the way he painted the sky (Brits at their Best 2009). His restraint and expertise make him resist the amateurish temptation to reflect the sky mirror-wise in the water. This gives a sensationally realistic aspect. Before an observer understands what it is that makes Constable so convincing, they wonder why. When they discover this restraint and attention to how the eye really works, it becomes a new source of fascination, and they look for it in each of his paintings (Gray & Gage 2006). Iconic and enduring, scenes of honest hard work by country people was pleasing to Constable, who is best known for his landscapes of Dedham Vale, the area where he lived. The plough, the barge, the harvesting ladder: ‘the sound of water escaping from mill dams ... willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.’ (Parkinson 2003). Such things were easily understood, and represented the English countryside in a romantic way to the English themselves, but most of all to the French. For many years, Constable was more popular in France than in his home country. Because his style (especially his brushwork and palette) were a bit unconventional, the way he painted was liked by patrons across the Channel. It was the time when impressionism had not yet been started, but French artists were more adventurous than the British. Being a member of the Academy made Constable accessible to foreigners who visited London. They looked at his enormous paintings and were captivated by his daring dimensions and colors, and by the way his unusual brushwork (he used to break his strokes and vary his brush sizes dramatically) injected light into his paintings. This kind of attention brought him a certain amount of fame in his time. French observers would examine the way he depicted the weather, and jokingly said you needed an umbrella to look at his works (Parkinson 2003). His paintings influenced such artists as Gericault and Delacroix, who experimented with large canvases as well. Later, impressionists Monet and Pissarro studied his treatment of the sky and landscapes in general (Brits at their Best 2009). It is not an exaggeration to say that when one looks at a French landscape painting, the influence of Constable is visible. His impasto brushwork found favor with a number of later artists, but during his life, sales and patronage dropped off, especially when Constable’s wife Mary died and he lost interest in his work. The paintings that he made after her death show a distinct melancholy when compared to the romantic vigor of his early country scenes such as The White Horse. A good example is the ruins of Hadleigh Castle, which he painted in 1829 (Brits at their Best ibid), a morose picture of a solitary shepherd and his dog near a forbidding ruin. John Constable’s iconographic paintings have been studied by historians and geographers, who compare them to the identifiable locations. Many of the buildings, ruins, bridges and other landmarks he depicted still exist. It is interesting to note how his faithfulness to reality, coupled with skill and a very good eye for composition and angle, serve as a kind of visual history book for lovers of the English countryside and the art of landscape painting. * Word count: 1401 (on 5 pages) including citations in parentheses and title, not including sources cited list and picture caption. This is the equivalent of 4 full pages, making up for space taken by illustration. Sources Cited Brits at their Best (2009) Love and Knowledge: John Constable Accessed February 22, 2010 Cove, Sarah; Lyles, Anne and Gage, John (2006) Constable: The Great Landscapes Tate Gallery Gray, Anne and Gage, John (2006) Constable: Impressions of Land, Sea and Sky National Gallery of Australia Parkinson, Ronald (2003), John Constable: The Man and His Art, London: Victoria and Albert Museum Publications Read More