THE ARTIST'S LIBRARY
CONSTABLE
By C. J. HOLMES
#'
^^
LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA
SAN DIEGO
THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. SAN DIEGO
LA JOLLA. CALIFORNIA
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in 2007 with funding from
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CONSTABLE BY C. J. HOLMES: NUMBER
FIVE OF THE ARTIST's LIBRARY EDITED
BY LAURENCE BINYON AND PUBLISHED
AT THE SIGN OF THE UNICORN VII
CECIL COURT ST. MARTIN's LANE LONDON
CONSTABLE
BY C J. HOLMES
LONDON MDCCCCI
AT THE SIGN OF THE UNICORN
EDIKBURGH : PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED
PREFACE
Leslie's admirable biography must always remain the great
authority on Constable's personal history, yet no book, however
accurate and sympathetic, which dates from the forties, could
foresee the enormous change which has taken place in landscape
painting since Constable's death. Whatever his responsibility
for the artistic revolution with which his name is associated.
Constable undoubtedly stands at the parting of the ways between
the old masters and the moderns, for he was the first to prove that
a landscape might be a good picture, and also be really like nature.
The aim of his great predecessors had been to make noble
compositions, with just as much resemblance to nature as was
convenient. The aim of his successors has been to get a sincere
likeness to nature, while pictorial quality seems too often to be
regarded as a subordinate matter.
Since the excellence of Leslie's work renders any lengthy
detailed biography unnecessary, the main facts of Constable's life
•are here dealt with in a short introduction, while the chief part
of this little book has been devoted to supplementing Leslie on
the technical side by tracing Constable's connection with his
predecessors, by describing the development of his painting, and
by giving a brief account of the evolution of Modern Landscape
in England and on the Continent.
I have to thank Mr. G. A. Phillips for kindly allowing me to
reproduce the charming picture in his possession, and Mr.
Augustin Rischgitz, whose beautiful photographs, specially made
for this work from a series of Constable's sketches at South
Kensington, form the greater part of the illustrations.
Chelsea, ya««ary 1901.
LIST OF PLATES
Plate I. On Barnes Common.
From the painting in the National Gallery.
„ II. A Bridge on the Stour.
From the water-colour in South Kensington Museum.
„ III. A View in Borrowdale.
From the water-colour in South Kensington Museum.
„ IV. Sunset.
From a painting in the possession of the Author.
„ V. Dawn.
From a painting in the possession of G. A. Phillips, Esq.
„ VI. The Porch of East Bergholt Church.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ VII. Trees and Cottages.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ VIII. A Cart and Horses.
From the sketch in South Kensington Museum.
„ IX. A Cornfield.
From the sketch in the National Gallery.
„ X. Study of the Stem of an Elm Tree.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XI. The West End of Bergholt Church.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XII. On the Stour near Dedham.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XIII. Old Sarum.
From the mezzotint by David Lucas.
„ XIV. Salisbury Cathedral.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XV. Brighton Beach, with Colliers.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum,
vii
Plate XVI. The Leaping Horse (Sketch).
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XVII. Landscape with Cottage.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XVIII. "The Grove," Hampstead.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XIX. The Cornfield.
From the painting in the National Gallery.
„ XX. Study for "The Valley Farm."
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XXI. Study of Tree Stems.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XXII. Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows.
From the mezzotint by David Lucas.
„ XXIII. A Mill near Brighton.
From the painting in South Kensington Museum.
„ XXIV. The Cenotaph.
From the painting in the National Gallery.
Vlll
INTRODUCTION
Constable's father, Golding Constable, came of an old Yorkshire family which
had been settled in Suffolk for two generations. By inheritance, by marriage, and
by purchase he had, in course of time, become the owner of a considerable amount
of property, including Flatford Mill, which stands just above the tidal waters of the
Stour, a water-mill at Dedham, and two windmills at East Bergholt. Near this
village he built for himself the house in which his second son John was born on
nth June 1776. This house was pulled down many years ago, and exists only
on Constable's canvas. An engraving by Lucas, from one of his numerous sketches
of it, forms the frontispiece to his " English Landscape Scenery." Several other
views of the house may be seen in the room devoted to Constable's work at South
Kensington.
Though delicate as an infant, John Constable grew up into a healthy child, and
afterwards became remarkable for good looks and physical strength. He was first
sent to a boarding school not very far from his home at the age of seven ; was
transferred later to an establishment in the pretty, little town of Lavenham, where he
suffered much at the hands of a flogging usher ; and finally went to the Grammar
School at Dedham, where he remained till he was about seventeen years old. Here
his fondness for painting became noticeable, and was treated with indulgence by the
headmaster. Though he acquired a fair knowledge of Latin, he was not a brilliant
scholar, and was remarkable chiefly for his fine penmanship. At home he practised
painting from nature in company with John Dunthorne, a plumber and glazier, an
ingenious and original man, who shared the boy's enthusiasm for art. As in the
case of Crome, who, as a boy, was apprenticed for seven years to a coach, house, and
sign painter, this early acquaintance with men who used paint in the broadest and
simplest manner was doubtless of much use in saving Constable from any pettiness
or timidity in the handling of pigment.
As a practical man Golding Constable could not help seeing that painting was
not a remunerative profession, and, since his son displayed no inclination for taking
orders, it was settled that he should become a miller. With that end in view, the
young man worked for a year in his father's mills. However, while thus engaged
he made the acquaintance of Sir George Beaumont, whose mother lived at Dedham,
and saw for the first time Sir George's favourite Claude — the little " Landscape with
ix
figures," now in the National Gallery (No. 6i) — which impressed him deeply. Sir
George also owned a small collection of drawings by Girtin, which he advised
Constable to study. The young man's passion for art increased with time, though
he was exact in performing his duties as a miller, till Golding Constable consented
to his visiting London with the view of ascertaining his prospects as a professional
painter.
He was furnished with a letter of introduction to Joseph Farington, R.A., whose
name is now only remembered on account of the coloured aquatints after his land-
scape drawings which are common objects in curiosity shops. Though Farington was
not himself a great artist, having most of the mannerisms of his master Wilson and
few of his excellences, he was sufficiently open-minded to be able to recognise the
young man's originality, and informed him that his style of landscape would some
day form a distinct feature in the art. Constable also made the acquaintance of
" Antiquity " Smith, the biographer of the sculptor NoUekens, who gave him much
sound advice. He corresponded freely with Smith during the next few years, chiefly
on matters relating to art; and in 1797, when his prospects of painting seemed
worse than uncertain, we find him writing :
" I must now take your advice and attend to my father's business, as we are
likely soon to lose an old servant (our clerk), who has been with us eighteen years ;
and now I see plainly it will be my lot to walk through life in a path contrary to
that in which my inclination would lead me."
Nevertheless, two years later, before he was twenty-three years old, he had given
up business for ever, and become a student at the Royal Academy. Judging from
his letters to Dunthome, he seems at first to have devoted most of his time to
copying the works of the old masters, with the intention of acquiring a skill in
execution which would enable him to face nature more boldly. In 1800 he writes
that he is working from nature in Helmingham Park, about ten miles north of
Ipswich; and in 1801 he paid a visit to Derbyshire. In i8oi he exhibited for the
first time at the Academy. He had been greatly helped in his work by the advice
and encouragement of the President, Benjamin West, who now did him a still greater
service by preventing him from accepting a drawing-mastership which had been
offered him. A year later Constable went in an East Indiaman from London to
Deal. On the voyage he executed a large number of sketches, which, owing to a
hurried departure, he left on board ship. Ultimately he had the good luck to
recover them, and they gave him material for several of his exhibited works. In
1805 he spent two months in the Lake District, where, if one may judge from his
sketch-books, he seems to have been chiefly impressed by the lower end of Borrow-
dale. During the next few years he made the acquaintance of Stothard, Wilkie, and
Jackson, an acquaintance that ripened into a lifelong friendship ; while his technical
powers were notably improved by a commission from the Earl of Dysart to copy a
number of family pictures, chiefly by Sir Joshua Reynolds. A time of trial, however,
was in store for the artist which prevented this improvement from having much
immediate effect upon his prospects.
In 1800, during one of his visits to Suffolk, Constable had made the acquaintance
of a little girl, the granddaughter of Dr. Rhudde, the rector of Bergholt, and
daughter of Charles Bicknell, Solicitor to the Admiralty. This acquaintance by the
year 181 1 had ripened into a warmer attachment, which met with active opposition
from the lady's relatives. Dr. Rhudde was not on good terms with Golding
Constable, and objected, not altogether without reason, to the limited means and
uncertain prospects of the young painter. Mr. Bicknell does not seem to have
opposed the union so strongly, but he did not wish his daughter to be disinherited
by her grandfather, who was very rich, and so was bound to side with Dr. Rhudde.
The correspondence of the two lovers as given by Leslie should be read in
extenso by all who are interested in Constable's personality, and is of no little
interest as a human document. It is amusing to contrast the two young people.
The artist is ardent, hopes and despairs alternately, turns for a time to portrait-
painting as a means of making money, but is always intent upon bringing matters
to a climax. Maria Bicknell's attachment is of a more sober and practical kind ; her
sentiments are the sentiments of a young lady who has been well brought up, and
takes a quite proper view of filial duty and the discomforts of love in a cottage.
"Indeed, my dear John," she writes on one occasion, "people cannot live now on
four hundred a year — it is a bad subject, and therefore adieu to it," And again,
when Dr. Rhudde found out by accident that Mr. Bicknell was allowing Constable
to pay occasional visits to his house : " The Doctor has just sent such a letter that I
tremble with having heard part of it read. Poor dear papa, to have such a letter
written to him ! He has a great share of feeling, and it has sadly hurt him ... I
am sure your heart is too good not to feel for my father. He would wish to make
us all happy if he could. Pray do not come to town just yet." What a picture
Miss Austen might have drawn of poor Mr. Bicknell's dilemma between his
daughter's happiness and his father-in-law's money !
The Gordian knot was cut in 181 6 by Constable's friend. Archdeacon Fisher,
who brought matters to a crisis. Miss Bicknell's answer to Constable's proposal is
characteristic : " Papa is averse to everything I propose. If you please, you may
write to him ; it will do neither good nor harm. I hope we are not going to do a
very foolish thing . . . Once more and for the last time it is not too late to follow
papa's advice and wait . . . Notwithstanding all I have been writing, whatever
you deem best I do. This enchanting weather gives one spirits." There can be
little doubt as to the tenor of Constable's reply. The two were accordingly
married by the Archdeacon at St. Martin's Church on 2nd October 1816, and
went down after the wedding to stay with him at his vicarage of Osmington, near
Weymouth.
Archdeacon Fisher, the eldest son of Dr. Fisher, Master of the Charterhouse, had
become Constable's greatest friend, though sixteen years his junior. He was
chaplain to his uncle, the Bishop of Salisbury, and spared neither his influence nor his
purse to help the struggling artist. His letters show him to have been gifted with
unusual knowledge, taste, and enthusiasm in matters of art, and also as a man of an
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affectionate nature and sound common sense. He was the first really to appreciate
Constable's art, and to show his appreciation in a practical form ; while it would be
hard to overpraise his tact and tenderness in times of trouble.
During the last two years of his courtship Constable met with trouble enough,
apart from the anxieties arising from the uncertainty of success in his profession.
He lost his mother in the spring of 1815, and his father about a year later. The
death of his mother was an especially heavy blow to his affectionate nature. She
had not only done all she could to bring his courtship to a successful issue, but had
continued to encourage his artistic efforts, when his professional prospects seemed
most desperate. In 181 1, after the British Institution had bought a picture of
Benjamin West's for ^^3000, she writes to her son : " In truth, my dear John, though
in all human probability my head will be laid low long ere it comes to pass, yet, with
my present light, I can perceive no reason why you should not, one day, with diligence
and attention, be the performer of a picture worth ;j^3ooo." Eighty years after her
death this fond wish was more than realised when Constable's Stratford Mill fetched
nearly ;^9ooo at the Huth sale.
The young married couple lived for the next few years at a small house, No. i
Keppel Street, Russell Square, where their two eldest children, John and Maria, were
born. In 18 19 Constable's anxieties were lessened by the receipt of his share
(;^4ooo) of his father's property, while Mrs. Constable inherited a similar amount
from her grandfather Dr. Rhudde. How much his professional reputation had
increased may be judged from the fact that he was elected an Associate of the
Royal Academy towards the end of the year. His art was never more perfect than
at this period, but his pictures did not sell readily ; and though Archdeacon Fisher
bought The White Horse and Stratford Mill, Constable was still unable to regard
his landscape work as a certain source of income — even three years later we find
him writing to his friend for the loan of twenty or thirty pounds. In 1822, however,
he moved into a larger house, 35 Charlotte Street, Fitzroy Square, which had
belonged to Joseph Farington, R.A., whom he had consulted twenty-seven years
earlier as to his chance of success as a painter. The move had become almost a
necessity, as his family had been increased by the birth of a son and a daughter
(Charles and Isabel), and the artist needed more room for his painting. In the
autumn of 1823 he spent more than a month with Sir George Beaumont at Cole-
orton Hall — the longest time he ever spent apart from his wife and children. A
year later, after long negotiations, two of his large pictures, one of them being The
Haywain, now in the National Gallery, were exhibited in the Louvre. Here their
merit and originality were soon recognised ; they were removed to places of honour,
they raised a storm of discussion in the papers, and finally, when Charles x. visited
the Exhibition, they gained the artist a gold medal. In the following year he won a
similar distinction at Lille with his White Horse ; and in November his third son
Alfred was born. Alfred Constable, who inherited something of his father's artistic
taste, was drowned by the upsetting of a boat at Goring, when he had just
completed his twenty-seventh year. In 1827 Constable moved to Well Walk,
xii
Hampstead, and we find him writing to Fisher : " So hateful is moving about to
me that I could gladly exclaim, ' Here let me take my everlasting rest ! ' . . . This
house is to my wife's heart's content, it is situated on an eminence at the back of
the spot in which you saw us, and our little drawing-room commands a view unsur-
passed in Europe — from Westminster Abbey to Gravesend. The Dome of St
Paul's in the air seems to realise Michelangelo's words on seeing the Pantheon,
' I will build such a thing in the sky.'"
Shortly after their move to Hampstead (2nd January 1829) Constable's fourth son
Lionel was born. The painter's anxieties as to the future of his family were re-
moved about the same time by a legacy'of ^20,000 from Mr. Bicknell. Mrs. Con-
stable, however, had been unwell for some time, and her illness now became serious.
Symptoms of consumption developed, and she died towards the end of the year.
Her death was a terrible blow to her husband, who wore mourning for the rest of
his life. Even his election to full membership of the Academy did not revive
his spirits. "It has been delayed," he said, "till I am solitary and cannot impart
it." Thus when calling, in accordance with custom, to pay his respects to the
President, he intimated to Lawrence that his admission was an act of justice rather
than of favour ; and a month or two later he writes to Leslie : " Can you tell me
whether I ought to send it (his Hadleigh Castle) to the Exhibition ? I am griev-
ously nervous about it, as / am still smarting under my election" His resentment
was not wholly unnatural, for he was in his fifty-third year.
The next few years of his life were made busy by the duties inseparable from
the membership of the Selection Committee and as visitor of the Life Class. He
was also much occupied with the engraving of the plates in his " English Landscape "
— an undertaking of which he bore the cost, and which proved a failure from the first.
Towards the end of 1831 Constable was taken seriously ill, and the depression con-
sequent upon his weak health was not lessened by the knowledge that he must
shortly lose his assistant John Dunthorne, the son of his friend at East Bergholt.
Poor young Dunthorne died in November 1832. Two months earlier Constable
lost his constant friend and patron Archdeacon Fisher. In 1833 the painter deli-
vered a lecture in the Assembly Room at Hampstead, with the title " An Outline of
the History of Landscape Painting." In the spring of the following year Constable
suffered once more from an attack of acute rheumatism. In the summer he visited
a namesake and patron, Mr. George Constable, at Arundel, and was greatly charmed
with the castle and the splendid scenery round it. In the autumn he paid a visit
to Lord Egremont at Petworth, with its magnificent collection of pictures. In May
and June 1836 he delivered four lectures on Landscape at the Royal Institution,
and in July he lectured at Hampstead to the Literary and Scientific Institution on
the same subject. During these last years Constable seems to have devoted him-
self to his art more entirely than ever, though the starting of two of his sons in life
also occupied his attention. John, the eldest, did not long survive his father : wish-
ing to take orders, he went to Cambridge, but died of scarlet fever, caught while
studying medicine in a hospital. Charles Constable, the second son, who inherited
xiii
much of his father's artistic talent, went to sea about a year before his father's death,
entered the East India Company's service, and retired at length with the rank of
Commander.
Constable's health had long been far from satisfactory, though, in spite of his
sedentary habits, he retained to the last an unusually youthful appearance, and his
sudden death on the evening of 31st March 1837 could only be traced to a severe
attack of indigestion. Nevertheless, as he himself had observed long before, the
nervousness of his temperament was wont to react strongly upon his physical
nature. He was never really a happy man after the death of his wife, so that when
the attack came it fell upon a constitution that had long been undermined. He was
buried at Hampstead in the vault in the south-east corner of the churchyard, which
contained the remains of his wife, under a tablet bearing the inscription by which
he had commemorated her loss :
Eheu, quam tenui a filo pendet
Quidquid in vita maxime arridet.
Before Constable's pictures were dispersed a subscription was raised by his
friends and admirers, with the result that The Cornfield was purchased and pre-
sented to the National Gallery, where it now hangs.
In a short abstract such as this it is impossible to give a fair impression of the
painter's character, of the simplicity and earnestness of his nature, of the kindness
of his heart, and the sense of humour which together served to gain the affection of
those with whom he came in contact, even more than his enthusiasm for his art, and
the patience, originality, and skill with which he practised it. In Leslie's delight-
ful pages Constable the man is revealed as clearly as Constable the painter, and it
is difficult to say which of the two is the more attractive. Somewhat undue stress
has been laid upon Constable's reputed poverty, and the want of appreciation with
which his painting was received. As a young man Constable certainly may not
have been rich, but he was never reduced to any desperate straits, and later by
various bequests inherited nearly ;^3o,ooo. If his art was too original to command
the ready sale which attends the commercial painter who has learned to paint down
to the level of the public, he was at least admired and respected by a fair number
of his brother-artists, he was a regular exhibitor at the Academy, and his success
•on the Continent was sufficiently spontaneous and remarkable to have satisfied any
ambition. That the impression he left on his contemporaries was not that of the
anxious, dispirited man, whom the letters not infrequently reveal, may be judged
from the number of anecdotes that survive of his general good temper and sense
of humour. Of these only one can be quoted. An artist complained in the hall
of the Royal Academy of the way in which his picture had been hung ; and when
Constable and Leslie went down to pacify him he began to accuse some of the
members of jealousy, adding, " I cannot but feel as I do, for painting is a passion
Tffith me." "Yes," replied Constable, "and a bad passion."
The few quotations of Constable's words included in this brief notice give but
xiv
a faint idea of the natural charm of his style. Had his taste not lain in other
directions, he might, I think, have occupied a distinguished place among the
masters of English prose, and his simple eloquence is never seen to better advan-
tage than when he is describing the subjects of his sketches.
The enormous, and in many respects well deserved, reputation of Ruskin com-
pels a brief note on his attacks upon Constable, which, as he himself admitted,
were called forth by Leslie's affectionate admiration. Such resentment may explain,
but does not excuse, the utter injustice of his remarks upon one whom he regarded
as a possible rival of Turner. He writes, for instance : " Unteachableness seems
to have been a main feature of his character, and there is corresponding want
of veneration for Nature herself. His early education and associations were
also against him ; they induced in him a morbid preference of subjects of a low
order." And again : " Constable perceives in a landscape that the grass is wet, the
meadows flat, and the boughs shady ; that is to say, about as much as, I suppose,
might be apprehended between them by an intelligent fawn and a skylark. Turner
perceives at a glance the whole sum of visible truth open to human intelligence."
The modesty of the last sentence indicates sufficiently the writer's sense of propor-
tion and lack of prejudice. Three lines later he classes Constable with Berghem !
As to Constable's unteachableness, it is impossible to have two opinions when
one knows his work. He was all his life a devout student of the old masters, he
learned to paint by copying and imitating them, and in his lectures on Landscape he
speaks of them always with all possible sympathy, affection, and respect. To accuse
him of want of veneration for Nature is even more absurdly false, and may be
best answered in Constable's own words. In the course of the last of his lectures
on Landscape, delivered the year before his death, he says : *■' The young painter
who, regardless of present popularity, would leave a name behind him, must become
the patient pupil of Nature. . . . The landscape painter must walk in the fields with
a humble mind. No arrogant man was ever permitted to see Nature in all her
beauty. If I may be allowed to use a very solemn quotation, I would say most
emphatically to the student, ' Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy
youth.' "
XV
CONSTABLE AND HIS PREDECESSORS
Nearly three quarters of a century have elapsed since Con-
stable's death. During that period his reputation has increased
enormously, not only because there has been time for his artistic
powers to be fairly appraised, but also because he is generally
recognised as the parent of modern landscape. So far has this
feeling been carried that there is even a tendency to speak as if
Constable's aim was practically the same as that of our con-
temporary painters ; as if his departure from the tradition of the
old masters was final and absolute. Several of the artist's
sayings might be quoted in support of such a theory. Neverthe-
less in the admirable Lectures on Landscape, delivered towards
the close of his life, and therefore, it may be presumed, representing
his mature thoughts on the subject. Constable shows a remarkable
acquaintance with the spirit and technical methods of his fore-
runners, and a no less remarkable reverence for the results they
obtained. The influence of the past, however, is not apparent,
at first sight, in his large pictures, for they are undeniably modern
in outward aspect. Yet, if his achievement is considered in
chronological sequence, a definite connection with older traditions
seems to become more and more visible ; till at last one begins to
feel as if that connection was the real secret of Constable's success.
Before entering upon such an inquiry, it is necessary to understand
quite clearly what the ancient tradition of landscape was.
When the revival of the arts in Europe had progressed so far
that painters were no longer content to set their figures against
a background of gilding or flat colour, the effort to represent
persons in their natural surroundings brought landscape into
existence. In the work of the primitives of Italy and the Low
Countries we are constantly meeting with delicate renderings of
A I
natural fact — a trim town, a green meadow, woods and waters
unstirred by the wind, a distant blue peak, and, almost always, a
space of liquid air beyond. Yet the landscape element is kept
strictly subordinate to the main matter of the picture, both in
tone, colour, and proportion, while the technical treatment is as
simple and precise as that employed for the figures. This held
good right up to the end of the fifteenth century. Then the
conditions are occasionally reversed, and figure-painting with a
landscape background develops into the landscape with figures.
Thus in the work of Titian, who was the first great master to
cultivate both branches of the art side by side, we find landscape
and figures treated alike, without any radical difference in technique.
The method of Titian, which consisted of a first solid painting
(probably tempera) of a broad and simple kind, followed by
elaborate glazes with transparent or semi-transparent pigment,
was admirably adapted for the breadth of mass and richness of
colour at which he aimed. Being a thoroughly professional
painter, he realized exactly the limitations and advantages of a
method which enabled him to reduce his interpretations of natural
effect to the unity of tone which had already become a recognised
condition of pictorial success ; and if his Italian successors and
imitators carried the reduction to the point of dulness, he can
hardly be held responsible for their failure.
Certain foreigners, at any rate, understood him better. The
influence of Velasquez upon landscape has been slight, because
his landscapes are few in number, and their beauty is not of an
obtrusive order. The genius of Rubens was less modest. The
Autumn in our National Gallery will serve to show how he
introduced many of the qualities which he admired in Titian,
into the oil-method characteristic of his own countrymen. The
shadows which hold the composition together are painted thinly
in rich brown upon a luminous ground, and into them while still
moist the lights and half lights are swept with a touch that is free
to audacity, and with a most skilfully varied impasto. The
scheme of colour retains more than a hint of his Flemish origin,
though the hues are dexterously broken and interchanged, and
harmonized at the last by a strong warm glaze. This tradition
was altered but slightly by the suave accomplishment of Van
Dyck, and passed into English art through the gentle genius
of Gainsborough.
With some few variations, the method is the same as that
employed by Rembrandt in early and middle life, the principal
difference being the larger proportion of shadow employed by the
great Dutchman. Rembrandt's countrymen, however, were too
ardently naturalistic to be content with a system which forced nature
to be ever ablaze with autumnal russet, or the glow of a golden
afternoon. The Landscape with Tobias and the Angel at Trafalgar
Square, and Lord Lansdowne's noble Mill, are proof enough that
Rembrandt was not blind to the silver twilight that follows the
sunset ; but Ruysdael was the first to make a regular study of the
most characteristic aspect of northern scenery — steep roofs of
weathered tiles among heavy green trees, and overhead a grey
cloudy sky.
The change in technique that ensued was a necessity rather than
an accident. The method of Rubens was essentially transparent,
and transparency implies warmth. To obtain coolness, the Dutch
painters used pigments that were at least partially opaque. The
method of Rubens compelled the painter to work swiftly ; he
might interpret detail, but could not copy it. The Dutchmen
wished to copy detail, and so had to prepare a solid underpainting
with which any small addition could be blended and harmonized.
The method of Rubens derived much of its glow and luminosity
from a free use of warm glazes. The Dutchmen painted local
colours solidly upon the monochrome sketch, and, as a rule,
did not depend upon strong glazes. In other respects pictorial
practice was unaltered ; so that the difference between the style
of Rubens and Ruysdael is not a radical difference. Both obtain
unity by the use of a general shadow colour which pervades the
whole picture. In Rubens this is warm and transparent, in
Ruysdael it is cooler and semi-opaque. Rubens painted quickly
into his shadows while wet, getting great variety of texture by a
skilful use of strong impasto, and relying upon a rich glaze, when
all was dry, to set the colour right. Ruysdael painted more drily,
more slowly, more smoothly. He was thus able to match his
colours at leisure, to alter them where incorrect, and needed only
a thin general glaze at the last, to bring up the quality of his
painting.
This manner of working is practically identical with that
employed by Claude, but Claude's spirit and subject-matter were
widely different from those of the Dutchmen. The Carracci and
3
Domenichino were content with an empty landscape formula,
based on imperfect understanding of the romantic side of Titian's
genius. Claude inherited this formula, and transformed it into a
pleasing artificial poetry. The secret of his taste was a passionate
admiration of Italy, not only for the purity of her air, the bright-
ness of her sunshine, the shapeliness of her trees and mountains,
the extent of her plains, or the clearness of her sea, but more
than all for the fallen columns, the shattered walls, and the
crumbling arches that recalled her glorious history. Founding
his art upon the dull tradition of the Eclectics, he made the masses
graceful, filled void spaces with appropriate detail, drew trees that
had some resemblance to the trees of nature, painted a sea that
could glitter with waves that actually seemed to splash, and
spread over all a sky that was like a real sky — no convenient
conventional twilight, but veritable day, with a warm sun in full
view.
His sketches are even fresher and more natural than his
paintings, and show how large a store of charming material he
found time to amass. It must always be a matter for regret that
the example of his predecessors, though it could not stifle his love
of nature, was strong enough to fetter it with the formal ideals of
the Grand Style. Hence come the ill-drawn patriarchs, the weak-
knee'd heroes, the brickfaced nymphs, and pinchbeck architecture
that are dragged in to dignify scenes upon which their presence is
the one obvious blot.
Of the landscape of Caspar Poussin and Salvator Rosa it is
unnecessary to speak at length, since their method differs but
slightly from that of Claude. Their touch was heavier than his,
their paint was thicker and less translucent, they often worked on
dark red grounds, they preferred abrupt or rugged forms, sharp
oppositions of light and shadow, with rolling storm-clouds, to his
gentle graceful outlines, delicate gradations of tone, and perfect
serenity of summer air, but in all essentials they may be classed
with him. The spirit of their work was infected, like his, with
the poisonous tradition that landscape was a branch of historical
painting, and the disease thus induced made further progress in
the art impossible.
So lasting were its effects that our first great landscape painter,
Richard Wilson, was unable to shake it off His work, with all
its poetry, its skill, its refinement, is too often marred by the
4
obtrusion of some classical story that turns all to artifice. The
criticism of the Apollo a?id Niobe by Reynolds proves that this
was felt even in Wilson's lifetime, for Sir Joshua contrasts, just
as a modern might do, the practice of introducing heroic figures
into realistic landscapes, with the proper and natural use of rustic
figures by Gainsborough.
Gainsborough was the first to free English landscape from the
incubus of the historical tradition. Nowadays we may not find in
his landscapes that "portrait-like representation of nature" which
Reynolds found there, for the clouds and trees and the life of the
country-side appear to us only through the veil of an exquisite
artistic temperament, which passes over all that might be hard
or ugly or inharmonious. In early life Gainsborough painted
the oak with skill and truth, but in his mature work all except
the figures and animals was generalized and idealized. The
colour is so splendid, the touch so free and delicate, that the
spectator cannot fail to be enchanted, though in his inmost heart
he may know all the time that the deep tones of the sky, the glow
and the swing of the warm foliage, are merely masterpieces of
magnificent convention and like nothing that ever was upon the
face of the earth.
Gainsborough and Wilson were not the only painters of the
eighteenth century who helped to restore the dignity of land-
scape. The pioneers of water-colour drawing made no attempt to
arrive at the full rendering of the hues of nature, which was the
aim of the revolution effected by Turner and Cox ; yet it is
wonderful how much they were able to render with their
apparently scanty means. Water-colour is generally recognised
as the medium by which atmospheric effects are most readily and
easily suggested, and a limited scale of tone and colour only
emphasizes this merit, as one sees in such drawings as those of
J. R. Cozens. In spite of the poverty of his materials and an
obvious lack of sound training, the vast serenity of dawn or of
nightfall is expressed in his work with amazing directness and
simplicity. His pale sketches are free alike from the charming
unreality of Gainsborough and the sham heroics of Wilson,
recalling with continuous iteration those lonely places on which
one chances at twilight, where the utter silence is almost
terrible. I have mentioned Cozens particularly, not only because
he was the most remarkable water-colour painter working in
5
England before Constable's time, but also because Constable
himself speaks of his drawings in a manner that leaves no doubt of
the great influence they had upon him ; indeed, in a moment of
enthusiasm he goes so far as to call Cozens "the greatest genius
that ever touched landscape."
Thus, at the time of Constable's birth, while art on the
Continent had practically ceased to exist, there were three distinct
schools of landscape - painting in England to guide a rising
artist. The classical tradition had been ably sustained by the
refined taste and majestic genius of Wilson ; the princely
realism of Rubens had turned to delicate romance in the hands of
Gainsborough ; while water-colour, though still in its childhood,
was already giving indications of its capacity.
Thirty years later, before Constable had finished his pro-
fessional apprenticeship, all was changed. Turner had given the
classical landscape a new lease of life with The Garden of the
Hesperides, had eclipsed all previous painting of the sea with his
Calais Pier, and was carrying forward the development of water-
colour drawing from the point where his friend Girtin had left it.
James Ward, Cotman, Morland and Barker of Bath had done sound
work on the lines of the landscape and cattle painters of the
Netherlands, but the advance that they made upon their pre-
decessors was small compared with the extraordinary perfection
attained in the same style by John Crome. Indeed, with Crome
and the youthful Turner the landscape method of the old masters
reached a pitch of sustained excellence unknown to Titian or
Claude, perhaps even to Rubens and Rembrandt, at the very
moment when, all the world over, it was to be superseded.
Almost a century has passed since then, yet there is hardly a
sign of any reaction from the change effected in the art of
Europe by the example of Constable.
The ancient tradition of landscape was invariably founded on
chiaroscuro, to which a suggestion of reality was given by the
addition of a moderate amount of local colour. To supply an
interest comparable in some degree to that aroused by figure-
painting, landscapes were either peopled with historical or mytho-
logical figures, or were animated with striking atmospheric effects.
Rembrandt and Claude proved that rustic life could provide
material enough for admirable sketches, but the work of the
lesser Dutchmen showed that average country scenery was by
6
itself an inadequate motive for elaborate oil - painting. Gains-
borough and Crome, it is true, made charming pictures out of very
simple subjects, but they are made charming by art, and not by
sincere imitation of nature.
The case of Turner is somewhat different. Turner all his
life held to the ideals of the riper old masters, that is to say, his
primary object was the making of splendid pictorial compositions.
His naturalism was essentially secondary to that main purpose,
which in middle and late life resolved itself into studies in
harmonized and contrasted colours. Nevertheless, his amazing
memory, observation, and skill compelled him to use natural
forms and sometimes natural colours, as his vehicles of ex-
pression ; though he used them in quite an arbitrary way, and
discarded them without hesitation, when there was a risk of
their interfering with the scale or intensity of his effects.
Constable's attitude was the exact opposite of Turner's. Born
and bred in the midst of fresh English fields and meadows, he
was a sincere and devoted lover of nature before he became a
lover of painting. Unlike many other painters who have been
able to admire the things around them only through some resem-
blance, real or fanciful, to the pictures they have been accustomed
to reverence, Constable saw from the first that the art of Italy
or the Netherlands was not like the Dedham Valley, and that if
he was to paint the elms and streams and sky which he loved, he
could not do so by giving them the colour and appearance of
distant countries which he had never seen. Thus, when he came
to study the old masters, he did so with an unbiassed mind.
Claude and Ruysdael could not teach him anything about Suffolk
scenery that he did not already know, but they could teach him
a great deal about something of which he was entirely ignorant
— a sound way of constructing pictures — and Constable never
forgot the lesson.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CONSTABLE'S ART
Before discussing Constable's pictures in detail, a few words are
necessary as to the collections in which his work is accessible to
students. London is so lucky in this respect that it is hardly
possible to form a complete idea of his achievement in any other
place. The comparative lack of appreciation with which Con-
stable met during the greater part of his career has been less
unfortunate for posterity than it was for the artist himself. At
his death he left his family a large number of pictures and studies
representing every stage of his artistic activity, and many of these,
by the generous bequest of his daughter. Miss Isabel Constable,
passed into our public collections some ten years ago. Several
of his most important pictures had already become the property of
the nation, by the gift or bequest of their former owners, so that,
altogether, quite a large proportion of Constable's work can be seen
and studied in the London galleries. As a matter of practical
convenience, it is to such pictures that reference will usually be
made. Not only do they illustrate the various phases of Con-
stable's art far more completely than private collections, but
they have the advantage of being always accessible, so that any
questions relating to them can be settled on the spot.
Of these public collections, that in South Kensington Museum
is the most complete and interesting, though the paintings and
studies are huddled together without any regard either for
sequence or decorative effect. In addition to Salisbury Cathedral^
The Cottage in a Cornfield, Boat-building, and other important
finished pictures, the Kensington Museum possesses the two
magnificent six-foot sketches for The Leaping Horse and The
Haywain, and several hundred studies in oil, water-colour, and
pencil, many of great beauty and interest. The Diploma Gallery
8
in Burlington House contains A Lock, The Leaping Horse, and
sixteen small studies in oil. The National Gallery owns The
Cornfield, The Haywain, The Valley Farm, The Cenotaph, The
Glebe Farm, and about a dozen smaller works. Several of these
were removed in 1897 to the Tate Gallery. In the Print Room
of the British Museum there are some well-preserved water-
colours, a number of excellent pencil studies, and two specimens
of Constable's feeble attempts at etching. On the whole, even
Turner is hardly so fully or so favourably represented in our
public collections. Except where the contrary is expressly stated,
the sketches mentioned in the following pages are to be found
at South Kensington.
In the following pages I have attempted to trace Constable's pro-
gress by pictures and sketches that are at once representative and
accessible. To attempt more would be beside the aim of the present
series, and far beyond its scope. Viewed broadly, Constable's paint-
ing divides naturally into three periods: 1776-1805, 1806-1826, and
from 1827 to the year of his death, 1837. The divisions, especially
those between the second and third periods, are marked by no
hard-and-fast line, but they are quite clear enough to serve as a
base for practical classification. Constable's methods and style
varied very greatly with circumstances of time and intention, so
that to the inexperienced eye late work will have sometimes
the finish and severity of a student, and vice versa. Nevertheless,
upon longer acquaintance, it is quite possible to date a sketch
with approximate correctness, so steady is the growth of the
artist's technical method and habit of mind.
I776-I805
The work done by Constable before his thirtieth year need
not detain us long. His artistic career began much later than
is usual with professional painters, and, judging from the speci-
mens we have of his early work, it is not surprising that his
aspirations should have met with but little encouragement from
his relatives and friends. The four pen-drawings of cottages at
South Kensington, dated 1796, are hardly the kind of thing one
expects from a young man of twenty who proposes to take up art
seriously. Three years later he became a student at the Academy,
and worked hard at copying such pictures by recognised masters
as he came across — Ruysdael, Annibale Carracci, Richard Wilson,
Sir George Beaumont, Claude, and drawings by Girtin.
Our knowledge of Constable's earliest efforts would be practi-
cally nil, were it not for the collection of his son. Captain Charles
Constable, which was exhibited by Messrs. Leggatt, of Cornhill, in
December 1899. Besides a sketch-book containing quite childish
pencil studies of Flatford Mill and neighbourhood, there were
two or three pictures that must have been painted at the time
of his first meeting with Sir George Beaumont. The earliest of
all was a clumsy oil-painting of East Bergholt Church ; the next
a heavy dull view of Fountains Abbey — probably a copy from some
fifth-rate English picture. The third in date, The Harvest Field,
was more ambitious, being rather a complicated imitation of
Gainsborough — all brown and hot yellow. He made an etching
of this composition, which failed owing to insufficient biting.
In a portfolio there was an elaborately stippled copy in sepia of
a composition by Claude, dated 1795. Of all these works The
Harvest Field alone shows any trace of feeling, skill, or invention,
and except from the historical point of view they are of little
10
interest compared with the sketches at Kensington made during
his Derbyshire tour in 1801, which show what a real advance
Constable had made in the five years. Though still timid and
deficient in contrast, the Derbyshire views are full of air and
space, and have caught something of the loneliness of mountain
scenery that Girtin knew so well. In spite of Benjamin West's
kindly criticism on a rejected picture of Flatford, " Remember,
young man, light and shade never stand still," Constable's work
for some time remained rather heavy, as one can see from the
sketch dated 1802 called Landscape Evening, which shows a
decided leaning towards the tone and colour of Wilson. The up-
right sketch of Dedham Vale bearing the same date is more
successful, and anticipates the fresh natural colour of his mature
style. His drawings in water-colour and pencil are more evenly
skilful — the sketches of Windsor, and Eton from the Castle terrace,
for instance — though they are usually slight, and indicate rather
varied influences. The sketches in imitation of Gainsborousfh
probably belong to this period, while his marine studies of 1803
are evidently influenced by the Dutch sea painters.
In 1804 he painted an altar-piece for the church of Brantham
in Suffolk, where it may still be seen, though it is not worth while
going there to see it. It is little more than a feeble imitation of
West's religious works, and shows that at the age of twenty-eight
Constable was quite unable to paint a figure subject decently.
Yet, if the little picture in the National Gallery, On Barnes
Common, belongs to this period, as its Dutch technique would
suggest, the artist was already showing in what direction his
talent really lay. Constable is still a student, and a student of
the old masters, but he has learned something about traditional
methods of work. He knows how to model a grey cloudy sky
in the manner of Ruysdael, and how to harmonize the cool green
of foliage and grass with sober conventional brown, though a
natural fondness for fresher tints flashes out now and then in
the gay colour of some foreground figure, or where a gleam of
sunlig-ht strikes the white wall and red roof of a cottag-e.
The Barnes Com^mon may serve to mark the close of Con-
stable's period of definite studentship. The beginnings of that
studentship had been unpromising enough. His timid imitations
of Ruysdael's etching, his stippled copies of Claude, his clumsy
experiments in the manner of Wilson and Gainsborough, gave
II
but little indication of genius, or even of exceptional talent. The
visit to Derbyshire and his enthusiasm for Girtin had given him,
at the age of twenty-five, a certain readiness in the use of water-
colours, and some acquaintance with the simpler principles of
landscape composition. During the next five years assiduous
study and imitation of the old masters, more especially of Ruys-
dael, taught him much about the technique of oil-painting as
applied to simple subjects and conventional effects. Thus at
the beginning of his thirtieth year, though Constable could not
be called an original artist, he had a very fair acquaintance
with the tradition and practice of his art, and therefore a sound
base for any experiments he wished to make in the future.
In fits of reaction from these technical labours Constable
returned time after time to the study of the Dedham Valley.
Indeed, in the constant alternation between art and nature his
traininq- bears some outward resemblance to that of Millet.
Nevertheless, a great gulf really separates the two men.
Constable's painting, in youth as in later life, is primarily
inspired by a sincere affection for the actual objects and places
he depicts. He regards them rather as things to be loved in
themselves than as pictorial material to be disposed this way
or that as an artist's taste or knowledge might suggest. Hence
his tendency, in holding the balance between nature and art, is
to an all-round compromise, and not to that abstraction and
emphasis of particular facts which characterizes the best paint-
ing of Millet. Millet, thus, in spite of all his "local colour," is
the property of the whole world. Constable remains the unique
master of English rustic scenery.
12
I 806-1826
The water-colour of A Bridge on the Stour (apparently that above
Flatford Lock) indicates that Constable had assimilated the grand
manner of Girtin as thoroughly as the science of Ruysdael. The
same influence is evident in several fine drawings of Bergholt
Church, which also belong to the summer of 1806, though they
have an air of movement and freshness that already marks a
difference between the older master and the modern. How fast
the gulf widened may be seen from the sketches made during a
tour in the Lake District later in the year. Most of those at
Kensington represent the scenery at the south end of Derwent-
water — Lodore, Watendlath, Castlehead, Grange, the crags and
fells of Borrowdale, with occasional glimpses of Thirlmere, and
the Valley of St. John. In the solemn View at Borrowdale, here
reproduced, it is easy to trace how Constable hankered after the
freshness and glitter of his native water-meadows amid the heavy
grandeur of the Cumberland hills. It was among these mountain
solitudes that the real Constable first revealed himself. His
studies show how great an impression this northern scenery made
upon him, though its character was too stern, too remote from the
gentler charms of his beloved Suffolk, to retain any lasting place
in his affection.
During the next two years he exhibited several of his Cumber-
land drawings, yet he never seems to have completed any con-
siderable picture from them. Most of the oil-sketches made on
this tour are thinly and directly painted in fresh natural colour,
without any reference to Dutch traditions of brown glazes and
conventional arrangements of lines and masses. The largest
work of this kind with which I am acquainted is the Mountain
Scene, in the possession of Mr. Lionel Phillips, which measures
13
about 2 feet by 2 feet 6 inches. It is less successful, as a whole,
than the smaller studies, and indicates that as yet Constable was
unable to blend the bright realism of his sketches with the
harmony of tone and colour that are needed to make a picture.
Possibly this experiment may have shown him his weakness : at
anyrate, during the next few years he went back to the study
of the old masters with renewed earnestness. Even his
method of sketching from nature was altered for a time. The
little painting of Sunset, which dates from the early part of this
reaction from naturalism, is laid in with solid pigment, more
forcibly handled than in the Cumberland studies, and then toned
into deeper harmony by a strong transparent glaze.
Much of his time during the two following years was spent
in copying family portraits for Lord Dysart. Among these pictures
at Hyde Park Corner were several works by Reynolds. The
extraordinary influence that this communion with the older master
had upon Constable may be judged from his altar-piece painted
in 1809 for Nayland Church, where it may still be seen. The
Brantham altar-piece, painted five years before, was ill drawn,
crude in colour, and feebly painted. The Nayland picture, Christ
Blessing the Elements, is freely and broadly treated in a scheme
of deep liquid colour, toned with a rich warm glaze, which from
the size and nature of the cracks must have contained a large
proportion of asphaltum. The general appearance of the work,
in fact, is far more like Lawrence than Constable. The figure is
well posed, and the brushwork is clever, though rather loose in the
head and hands. Judging from a rough scrawl in one of Con-
stable's sketch-books, the size of the picture seems to have been
reduced and its shape altered, when it was restored and set under
glass in the reredos some twenty years ago.
To the same period we may assign the beautiful picture,
At East Bergholt, Suffolk — Dawn, in the possession of Mr. G. A.
Phillips. One might think it only an experiment in the manner
of Gainsborough, were it not that the harmonies in warm brown
and sober green which the older master handled so perfectly, are
replaced by a cooler scheme of colour like that of a dusky aqua-
marine. The brushwork is swift and free, and no attempt is
made to give a literal portrait of the Suffolk hillside with its trim
hedges and scattered elms. All that we are shown is a vision of
morning when the air is still dim with the mist that drifts up
14
slowly from the valleys to melt before the rising sun, which is still
low down on the horizon, so that the trees cast only obscure
shadows over the sloping fields. The impression left by this in-
finite space and solemnity makes one almost wish that Constable
had never painted otherwise.
I have mentioned these pictures at some length, because they
afford a clue to the great improvement in technical skill which was
henceforward characteristic of Constable's work. He continued
to accept commissions for copying and portrait-painting for some
years, from the wish to make an income that would enable him
to claim Miss Bicknell's hand, and at one time seems to have
thought well of his chances of success ; for in 1812 he writes
that his portrait of the Rev. George Bridgman " far excels any
of my former attempts in that way, and is doing me a great deal
of service. My price for a head is fifteen guineas, and I am
tolerably expeditious when I can have fair play at my sitter." At
the close of the year his mother writes to him : " Fortune seems
now to place the ball at your feet, and I trust you will not kick
it from you. You now so greatly excel in portraits that I hope
you will pursue a path the most likely to bring you fame and
wealth, by which you can alone expect to obtain the object of
your fondest wishes." However, the sale of two landscapes in
1 8 14 seems to have decided Constable in clinging to the branch
of his profession that he really liked, and from that time forward
he made but occasional experiments in portrait-painting.
Nevertheless, the time he had spent on it was by no means
ill spent. Portrait - painting is good practice for a landscape
painter, both because it forces him to treat a simple subject with
close attention, and because it is the branch of art which has the
most sound and definite technical traditions. In this latter respect
it was specially useful to Constable, who had hitherto approached
nature with more enthusiasm than science. After 18 10 that
accusation could no longer be levelled against him. His science,
of course, cannot be compared with the science of a Van Dyck or
a Velasquez, but it was at least great enough to enable him to do
readily what he wanted to do. Look, for example, at his two
little pictures of Bergholt Churchyard — one at Kensington, and
the other in the Tate Gallery — and note how the solemnity of the
one, the pathos of the other, and exquisite colour in each, are got
by the most simple straightforward painting. The fine oil-study,
IS
Trees and Cottages (1812) (No. 324), and the Sketch of a Cart and
Horses (18 14), show an increasing love for fresh cool colour and
stronger contrasts of light and dark, though the finished picture
oi Boat-building, exhibited in 181 5, looks like the work of some
English Cuyp, so sound is the technique, so delicate is the scheme
of tone and colour, so serene is the brightness of the sunlit air.
One would hardly imagine that it was painted later than the
brilliant sketch engraved by Lucas under the title of " Spring,"
. but in judging the dates of Constable's work one always finds that
the style of his oil-sketches anticipates that of his finished pictures
by several years.
The small pencil study of Netley Abbey, belonging to the year
18 16, seems to have been used by Constable for one of the few
etchings by him of which proofs still remain. He had experi-
mented with etching in the days of his friendship with " Antiquity "
Smith, but acquired little or no mastery of the medium. One
print in the British Museum, apparently a scene near Salisbury,
is quite respectable amateur's work ; but the Netley Abbey, which
must have been done at a time when his painting was strong and
sound, is an utterly feeble and worthless production. Its defects,
too, are not due to any failures in the biting, but are caused by
ineffective design, and more than indifferent workmanship : nor
is the failure unique. There are a couple of water-colours in
the British Museum, and several drawings at Kensington (all
bequeathed by Miss Constable), which indicate clearly that except
in his oil-painting Constable was never on perfectly safe ground,
and was always liable to turn out work that was utterly unworthy
of a professional artist.
Constable was now in his fortieth year, and in his next decade
produced much of his very finest painting. I regret that I have not
here the space to deal with it in detail. In the year 181 7 he
exhibited the noble Cottage in a Cornfield, and the brilliant sketch
of A Cornfield, now in the National Gallery. He also made the
small studies in sepia (at Kensington) and in oils (at Burlington
House) for The Opening of Waterloo Bridge. I think the sound
and careful Study of the Stent of an Elm Tree belongs to this
period. Though rather more skilful, its technique is remarkably
like that of the Flatford Mill in the National Gallery, which is
dated 181 7. In the following year the exquisite little picture in the
Tate Gallery, The Salt Box, was probably painted — a view looking
16
northwards from Hampstead Heath, where clouds flushed with
warm sunlight sail gently over an expanse of silvery blue. The
first of his large pictures, The White Horse, was exhibited at the
Academy in 1819, and bought by Archdeacon Fisher. Constable's
price was one hundred guineas, exclusive of the frame. In 1894
the picture fetched 6200 guineas. The composition is engraved
by Lucas, but it cannot be regarded as one of his happiest efforts,
though the great reduction in scale may perhaps be in part
responsible for the worried look of the mezzotint. The little
studies in oil of The West End of Bergholt Church, and On the
Stour near Dedhani, will serve as examples of the force and solidity
with which Constable was working at this time.
His originality, if not his merit, now received some formal
recognition, for at the close of the year 1 8 1 9 he was elected to the
Associateship of the Academy. For the Academy of 1820 he con-
tributed the magnificent picture of Stratford Mill, of which Arch-
deacon Fisher again was the purchaser, at the price of one hundred
guineas. At the Huth sale it fetched 8500 guineas. There is a
good mezzotint of it by Lucas, on a large scale. Its companion in
the 1820 Exhibition was the Harwich Lighthouse, now in the
Tate Gallery. The Stratford Mill is so brilliant and powerful a
work that it is hard to realize that the sober and heavy Dedham
Mill at Kensington dates from the same year. The traces of
Dutch technique seem to indicate that this latter picture must have
been started at least four or five years earlier.
Some of Constable's best-known sketches were executed about
this time. The noble mezzotints of Lucas have familiarized us
with the desolate Old Sarum, the tremendous Weymouth Bay
(perhaps identical with his Osmington Shore, exhibited at the
British Gallery in 18 19), and the solemn Willy Lott's Cottage.
This last study illustrates admirably how much Constable could
do with the simplest materials. The cottage itself still stands by
the Stour just below Flatford Mill. It was used by the painter
over and over again not only in small sketches but in large
pictures, such as The Haywain and The Valley Farm. Willy
Lott, after whom it is now named, lies buried in Bergholt church-
yard, where his epitaph, recording that he lived all his eighty-
eight years in the house, calls it Gibeon's Farm. The Haywain,
now in the National Gallery, was exhibited in 1821 under the title
of " Landscape : Noon," but remained unsold.
B 17
The sketches at Kensington and Burlington House show that
Constable, while painting these large pictures in oil, was not
neglecting the study of natural detail. Some of his best pencil-
drawings of trees belong to the year 1820, and in the following
two years he spent much time in painting skies from nature.
These studies cannot claim to be regarded as pictures, but in the
expression of natural colour, motion, and luminosity they can
hardly be surpassed. The water-colour drawing of Old Houses at
Harnham Bridge — Salisbury, made in 1820, shows how powerfully
he could handle that medium, and may be compared, not unprofit-
ably, with the later sketch of the same place in the British
Museum.
Constable's large picture at the Academy in 1822 was a View
on the Stour, now in the possession of Mr. T. H. Miller of Preston.
Constable painted several variations of this composition, one of
which was mezzotinted by Lucas and another engraved in line by
W. R. Smith. It represents the Stour just below Flatford Lock,
and is painted in a more sober key than most of Constable's work
at this time, being in this respect a contrast to the Salisbury
Cathedraly exhibited in the following year, and now at South
Kensington. There for the first time we notice that tendency to
paint glittering sunlight by spots and scumbles of pure bright
pigment which is characteristic of Constable's later manner. He
had for some years practised this method in his sketches, but the
"Salisbury" is the first instance where it is used extensively in a
large finished picture. He seems indeed to have had some
difficulty with this work, finding that the rigid architectural lines
gave the whole a formal effect without the contrast of brilliant
handling and definite chiaroscuro. The fine picture of Trees at
Hampstead Church, which was probably painted about this time,
is handled far more quietly. At this time, too, while visiting Sir
George Beaumont, he made a number of sketches in the grounds
at Coleorton. Among them was a drawing of the monument to
Sir Joshua Reynolds, which thirteen years later developed into
The Cenotaph, now in the National Gallery.
In 1 824 he exhibited A Boat Passing a Lock, possibly the picture
in the Diploma Gallery which, though it bears the date 1820, looks
as if it had been painted some years earlier. The date may have
been added during some subsequent re-touching. In the summer
he went to Brighton, where he made a large number of sketches,
18
some of which were mezzotinted by Lucas. Those that especially
deserve notice are the brilliant Brighton Beach with Colliers^ the
Cirrus C/ouds (No. 784) at Kensington, and the study of a rain-
storm passing over a grey-blue sea in the Diploma Gallery. A
pencil - drawing in the British Museum shows that he visited
Arundel in this year.
Constable's art was now fully matured, and he was obtaining a
fair share of recognition, owing to the sensation made by the
exhibition of The Haywain and other pictures in Paris. In 1825
his White Horse was exhibited at Lille, and obtained a Gold Medal ;
while at the Academy he was represented by one of his most
magnificent works, The Leaping Horse. We are fortunate in
being able to trace its evolution from the rough sepia studies in the
British Museum to the large oil-sketch at Kensington, and thence
on to the finished work in the Diploma Gallery. Owing to its
scale it appeared unwise to reproduce the latter here, but in no
other single picture are Constable's peculiar excellences more
happily combined and balanced. The Leaping Horse shows his
mastery of cool colour, the horse in front and the group of trees
behind are most nobly conceived ; while the handling is as bold
and fresh as the most advanced modern could desire, without the
spottiness that usually deforms all efforts at extreme brilliancy.
About this time he must have made some of the best of his
sketches at Kensington — the Hampstead Heath (No. 122), the
Landscape with Cottage, ''The Grove,'' Hampstead, a fit companion
to the well-known Romantic House in the National Gallery, and
the water-colour Houses with a Church Tower (Dedham ?) (No.
347)-
The year 1806 marks the turning-point of Constable's career.
Up to that time he had been a careful but hardly brilliant imitator
of the old masters. The sketch of Dedham Vale, dated 1802, is
the only work which shows any indication of the path he was
afterwards to follow. When he visited the Lake District he really
threw aside tradition, and sketched in the fresh colouring of nature,
though he failed when he tried to employ the new scheme on a
larger scale. In a sketch unity can easily be obtained by devices
that are impossible in large pictures, where the composition has
to be built up by elaborate machinery. Feeling that he could not
as yet control this machinery. Constable set himself to learn its
secrets by returning to the study of Reynolds and others of the
19
old masters. His experiments in landscape were for a time con-
fined to modest proportions, and he did not begin to paint on a
large scale until he had assured himself of the soundness of his
principles of work. The progress of his thoughts may be traced
from the Dawn (1809) to the sketches oi Bergliolt Church (18 12),
and thence to the B oat- building [i2)i^), The Cottage in a Cornfield
(1817), The Haywain (1821), and The Leaping Horse (1825). By-
comparing these pictures one can see how Constable depended for
the unity of his compositions upon a chiaroscuro sketch in cool
transparent brown, into which his local colour is floated, at first
sparingly, afterwards with ever - increasing vigour and boldness,
till at last in The Leaping Horse we find a picture which, at first
sight, looks quite modern, so entirely has the monochrome founda-
tion been concealed by subsequent solid painting. This single
series of pictures may, in fact, be regarded as an epitome of the
transition from the landscape of the old masters to that of the
moderns. It is also sufficient evidence that the first and greatest
of modern landscape painters did not discard the elementary
principles which guided his predecessors, but only adapted them
to new conditions. That saying of his, " I was always determined
that my pictures should have chiaroscuro if they had nothing
else," was no empty boast. The most advanced modern could
hardly dislike conventional fusty colour more than Constable, yet
Constable did not hesitate to use a brown monochrome as a founda-
tion for his large pictures, because he had found that without it he
was unable to make a picture at all. That he learned to disguise
this foundation is not the least of his contributions to the de-
velopment of painting.
20
I 826- I 837
In 1826 Constable issued an interesting circular relating to the
prices of his pictures. It runs as follows : —
A Scale of Mr. Constable's Prices for Landscape —
Of the size of i ft. 6 in. . . . . . .20 guineas
From I ft. to 2 ft . . . . . . . 40 „
„ 2 ft. to 2 ft. 6 in. . . . . . -50 >,
„ 2 ft. 6 in. to 3 ft. . . . . . .60 „
Half-length size, namely —
4 ft. 2 in. X 3 ft. 4 in. . . . . . . 120 „
In larger sizes the price will be regulated by circumstances depending on
time and subject.
35 Charlotte Street, 1826.
Though these prices may seem low compared with the sums
asked by successful men at the present day, it should be
remembered that the smaller pictures were often little more than
sketches which did not represent any large amount of labour or
elaborate composition. The purchasing power of money, too,
was greater in Constable's time, while the social aspirations (and, in
consequence, the expenses) of an Associate of the Academy were
then far more modest.
His principal work at the Academy of 1826 was the well-known
Cornfield, one of his most powerful and vigorous works, the group
of massive elm trees on the left being especially fine. The study for
the donkey browsing in the hedge may be seen at Kensington. The
Cornfield was again exhibited in the following year at the British
Institution, together with The Glebe Farm, a popular work, but
hardly successful in colour, and more spotty in general appearance
than Constable's work had hitherto been. In the Academy of
1827 his chief picture was the large Marine Parade and Chain Pier,
Brighton. The smaller works present a remarkable contrast.
21
One was The Water Mill, Gillingham, which represents Constable's
art in its soundest phase. It had probably been started some years
before, since the building represented was burned in 1825. The
second picture was a Hampstead Heath, probably the largest of
those at South Kensington. In it the characteristics of Constable's
latter manner are apparent — reckless freedom of brushwork, reckless
use of the palette-knife to get brilliancy, and everywhere spots and
scratches of pure colour. He had for many years employed such
methods in sketching to catch the glitter and freshness which he
admired in nature, and had often used them in parts of large
pictures to get some particular effect, but The Hampstead Heath is
one of the first pictures in which they actually predominate. His
large Academy picture of 1828, an upright view of Dedham Vale,
is interesting because it is identical in design with the Kensington
sketch of 1802, and shows that little or no change had taken place
in the painter's affection for his native Suffolk. It was admirably
mezzotinted by Lucas on a large scale.
In 1829 Constable was made a full member of the Academy,
and his chief picture of that year, the Hadleigh Castle, was the work
that Chantrey is said to have warmed upon Varnishing Day with
a glaze of asphaltum, much to the painter's alarm. The composi-
tion was twice engraved by Lucas, with whom Constable was now
arranging for the series of mezzotints from his sketches, that he
published in six parts under the title of "Various Subjects of
Landscape Characteristic of English Scenery."
The publication was produced and issued at the painter's own
expense. He not only took the greatest care in the selection of
the subjects, but supervised the details of the engraving, and even
went to the expense of engraving plates twice when dissatisfied
with the first result. The outcome was the most magnificent
series of landscape mezzotints ever produced. Even Turner's
Liber Studiorum, with its amazing delicacy, variety, and accom-
plishment, does not move one so profoundly.^ Conditions of space
unfortunately forbid me to treat the plates in detail, but no one
who wishes really to understand Constable should lose an oppor-
tunity of acquiring any of them that he happens to meet with.
The series was from the first an absolute failure, and even now
good proofs cost less than most modern etchings.
^ A more extended notice of the series with several illustrations will be found in
The Dome for May 1900.
22
Stress has already been laid on the sound system of chiaro-
scuro which underlies all Constable's work. It is not therefore odd
that his painting when translated into black and white should
become not only more powerful but also more harmonious in effect.
Constable in writing to Lucas tells him to " beware of his soot-bag."
We ought to be thankful that Lucas used his own discretion in the
matter, for owing to judicious simplication of the shadows, and the
omission of small spots of light, the prints are broad and majestic
in effect, even where the originals suggest mere "great -coat
weather." A more critical age will doubtless do Lucas proper
justice, and give him his true place among the masters of British
Engraving. Constable's share in the credit for the " English Land-
scape Scenery " may be assessed by a simple experiment. Charles
Turner made an excellent little mezzotint of Rembrandt's noble
Mill, now in the possession of Lord Lansdowne. If this print be
compared with The Weymouth Bay or The Old Sarum, it will be
found that all three designs might almost have come from the
same hand.
During the last seven years of his life Constable's painting was
much interrupted by ill-health, depression, and by the anxieties
attending the production of the " English Landscape Scenery."
His style of sketching at the beginning of this period can be best
understood by reference to several of the smaller works at Ken-
sington. The small study for The Valley Farm deserves special
attention for the beauty of its colour, and an air of dignity and
repose unusual with the master during his last years. The Study
of Tree Stems might almost come from the hand of Manet,
so brilliant and natural is the blaze of the sunlight, so frank is
the treatment of the cool shadows. The furious sepia studies
of buildings and trees at Dedham and Bergholt may also be
assigned to this period. The View of Hampstead Heath, which
Constable exhibited at the Academy of 1 830, is probably identical
with the picture in the National Gallery. If it be compared with
the Kensington picture of 1828, the continual increase in the use
of the palette-knife will be apparent.
In 1 83 1 Constable exhibited one of his masterpieces — Salisbury
from the Meadows — so admirably mezzotinted on a large scale by
Lucas that no description is necessary. In the following year
he showed The Opening of Waterloo Bridge, for which the first
sketch had been made more than ten years earlier. No picture
23
seems to have caused Constable so much trouble, or to have been so
often re-worked by him. Though it was an unpopular painting at
the Academy, it is one of his most glowing and brilliant productions.
Leslie says that all its brightness was destroyed by a picture-
dealer, who covered the picture with coats of blacking and varnish
to " tone " it. It would appear that this damage has since been
repaired. Certainly, when the picture was last exhibited at Bur-
lington House the impression it left was one of extraordinary
splendour and power, in spite of the masses of loaded pigment
in the sky. Constable's chief Academy picture of 1833 was
Englefie Id House, Berkshire — Morning. A small water-colour of
the subject, dated 1832, may be seen at Kensington. In the same
room is a larger version of Old Sarum, one of the water-colours
which were all that he could exhibit in 1834 owing to ill-health.
In his single Academy picture of 1835, the famous Valley Farm,
Constable returns for the last time to the haunts of his youth, Willy
Lott's cottage and the Flatford mill-stream by it. Attention has
already been called to the finest of his many sketches of the com-
position. The majestic Cenotaph in the National Gallery, a view
of the monument to Reynolds in the grounds at Coleorton, was
Constable's principal Academy picture of 1836. The sketch for it,
probably made during the painter's visit to Sir George Beaumont
in 1823, is at Kensington. At Kensington, too, may be seen
Constable's other Academy exhibit of 1836, a large water-colour
of Stonehenge, seen under a tremendous effect of storm. In the
same room hangs the brilliant sketch in oils of A Windmill near
Brighton, the upright composition engraved by Lucas for the
" English Landscape." The sketch and the engraving are placed
side by side, so that it is easy to note how the painter, with the
strong colour and loaded pigment characteristic of his last years,
has aimed at an effect of brilliant sunlight and contrast, while the
engraver's feeling for breadth has so softened the abrupt transitions
that the scene has become grand and majestic. Before the open-
ing of the Academy of 1837 Constable was dead, but his friends
thought that his large picture of Arundel Mill ^2.?, sufficiently
finished to be shown in the Exhibition. The engraving of it by
Lucas is not the most successful of his plates, being overcrowded
with detail. The composition would have looked better had it
been reproduced upon a larger scale.
Constable's comparatively early death was not in all respects
24
unfortunate. He was at least spared the pain of seeing his work
steadily deteriorate with advancing years. No deduction can be
made from the sum-total of his achievement by balancing any feeble
productions of old age against the excellence of maturity, as foolish
people are apt to do in the case of men like Titian or Turner, who
-outlived the culmination of their genius. There is evidence, too,
that Constable was not likely to have attained to greater perfection;
indeed, in some respects, his work might have become in time
less evenly excellent.
Some of the pictures exhibited after 1825, the Gillingham
Mill, for instance, have the solidity and soundness of his full
maturity, but in such cases it will be found that the pictures had
been in hand for some time, and the date of exhibition represents
only the date at which the finishing touches were added. The
evidence of Constable's later sketches is more decisive. The studies
made after the painter's fiftieth year are loose hasty memoranda,
done anyhow. A few, it is true, are finished carefully, but they
are the exceptions. As a rule, the passion for brightness, move-
ment, and glitter becomes increasingly predominant, to the ex-
clusion of graver artistic qualities, till at times the result is strik-
ingly modern. The Kensington study of a tree stem surrounded
by blazing sunlight has already been mentioned as an anticipation
of Manet. In certain other sketches Constable went still further,
and by a loose tremulous handling caught the effect of atmo-
spheric vibration, which was rediscovered many years later by
Monet and Pissarro. The logical result of such experiments is
scientific imitation rather than Art, and, though a longer life
migrht have enabled Constable to become even more modern
than he is, it is doubtful whether he would have added to his
fame as an artist.
The actual scope of his achievement is already wide enough.
In early life his aim had been to find out how far the cool fresh
colours of the skies and streams and fields and trees of his beloved
Suffolk could be suggested within the then accepted limits of oil-
painting. In middle age this aim was complicated by the desire
of rendering effects of wind and storm, so that his work became
the channel of deeper and stronger emotions than those aroused
by rusticity in its everyday aspect. Doubtless the discouraging
circumstances in which he developed had something to do with
this preference for the more threatening and gloomy attitudes of
25
nature. After his fiftieth year Constable became a devotee of
light and air. He found, as the moderns have found, that this
devotion was incompatible with the traditional handling of oil-
paint — with smooth shapely brushwork passing by adroit transi-
tions into a harmonious foundation of broken grey or brown, and
afterwards mellowed by a warm glaze. To suggest the shimmer
of wet grass and leaves in sunlight, or the intense brightness of
the summer sky, he had to use paint fresh from the tube, loading
parts of his canvas with spots and masses of pure pigment, so
that no single atom of illumination might be lost. His method,
in fact, was almost identical with that of our modern scientific
painters, except in one important respect.
The essential difference is that Constable retained to the last
his sound foundation in monochrome. Paintings like The Leaping
Horse, The Valley Farm, and The Cenotaph, with all their splash-
ing and spotting and scraping and loading, have thus a certain
unity and dignity, which enables them to hang by the side of the
paintings of the old masters, without looking garish or undecided.
The verylimitations of interest and insight which prevent Constable
from ranking with Michelangelo or Titian or Rembrandt, have at
least allowed him to achieve a success which at present remains
unique. To blame him for not anticipating the feeling for a less
conventional spacing, which has been stimulated during the last
forty years by the discovery of the art of Japan, would be as unfair
as to insist on the fact that his technique is less supremely certain
or his taste less intensely sensitive than that of the greatest artists
of the past. It is only necessary to compare his work with that
of his predecessors or contemporaries, to realize how vast was
the revolution that he initiated, more especially in the matter of
colour, which he treated with a combination of frankness and
temperance as yet unsurpassed. No man has hitherto combined
so much of that beauty of aspect which we all admire in the Art
of the past, with so large a measure of the wind and sunshine
which have become the condition of the painting of our own
day. Had Constable carried realism further, it might have been
difficult to claim so much for him.
26
LANDSCAPE AFTER THE DEATH OF
CONSTABLE
During the first half of the nineteenth century, England and
France were the only two countries of Europe where art was
sufficiently alert to catch the innovations of Constable and experi-
ment with them. Each nation used his discoveries, but with a
difference of result corresponding to the difference between the
two national characters. English landscape has remained local,
and is practically unknown on the Continent. The complex
ramifications of French realism have had an enormous influence
upon the art of the world, and have spread to every country
where oil-painting is practised. It will therefore be best to deal
with France, before surveying the narrower paths of English
landscape since the death of Constable.
When we think of French culture and talent we are apt to
form a false opinion of them, from associating them either with
work done in periods of unusual social or political excitement, with
the neurotic products of over-civilized city life, or with intellects
that are French only by geographical accident. We may thus
lose sight of the essential character of the French genius, and
forget that Racine is perhaps its truest type ; that if it inherits the
excitability of its Roman progenitors, it also inherits (at least in
the Arts) the Roman sense of style, proportion, and logic.
In 1824, when Constable's pictures first appeared in Paris, the
country had not fully recovered from the shock and stress of the
Revolution, and was still bent on endowing Art and Literature
with the freedom which had already been gained in politics. It
was a time of reaction against the stereotyping of the national
characteristics, which had resulted from centuries of absolute
monarchy. The pictures of Constable and of the brilliant shallow
27
Bonington were welcomed, as the writings of Scott and Byron
had been welcomed, not so much for their actual merit, though
this was generally admitted and sometimes exaggerated, but as
indicating the lines on which the desired departure was possible.
In the course of a century and a half the logical side of the
French character had stiffened the stern canons of Poussin till
they had lost all relation either to nature or to art. The revolt
from this academic severity was of necessity violent. Its leaders
met with bitter opposition, while even those who tried to effect
some kind of compromise could not escape scot-free. The life of
Theodore Rousseau, who bore the brunt of the attack, is one long
series of struggles and rebuffs, with but brief intervals of rest and
success. To some extent, undoubtedly, the painter himself was
to blame. An eternal striving for nature and for novelty too
often overstrained a technical accomplishment that was far from
complete, so that he is frequently unworthy of his reputation. He
lacked the stores of experience that Constable had accumulated
by unceasing study of the old masters, and in their place had
little more than the intention of being sincere at all costs.
To catch the broken shifting forms of clouds and trees in
motion. Constable had discarded the shapely brush - strokes
which had characterized all fine painting before his time, and,
towards the end of his life, indulged in pats and dots and scrap-
ings of pigment applied with the palette-knife. Nevertheless, he
retained much of the traditional breadth and simplicity in the
shadows and other quiet portions of his work. Courbet, in the
effort to get away from academic methods, did all he could to
prevent his touch from being shapely. His pictures, in con-
sequence, are sometimes little more than expanses of rough, worried,
clumsy paint. Constable based his work upon a chiaroscuro
sketch in monochrome which united the colours and tones and
masses into a connected whole. Courbet trusted to chance for
unity, and therefore did not always get it. Constable glazed
with great care, delicacy, and skill. Courbet, where he did not
leave his paint raw just as it came from his brush, was content
with a general rubbing of thin colour.
In the work of Corot and Millet the effects of the Revolution
were less marked, for both, like Constable, never forgot the main
points of the traditional technique. In Corot we get the modern
raw pigment, the modern spottiness, the modern shapeless brush-
28
work, but his pictures are built on a monochrome foundation in
the manner of Claude, while the artist's natural taste prevents the
modernity of the colour and handling from being obtrusive.
Millet was the great modern master of chiaroscuro. Unity
therefore came naturally to him, yet, to make certainty still more
certain, his toiling figures and stern landscape are bathed in the
warm atmosphere of the old masters.
Millet, indeed, is a standing refutation of the idea that the
modern attitude towards nature is incompatible with traditional
methods of painting. His peasants are more like real peasants
than those of anyone else, while his landscape suggests the
weather and the time of day with a simple directness that makes
the work of other painters look fantastic or laboured. His brush-
work is often rather clumsy, for he never quite mastered the
heaviness of hand he inherited from generations of peasant
ancestors, but it is clumsy only in comparison with that of the
great painters of the past. In any collection of modern work it
would become by contrast quite shapely and classical.
The effarts of Rousseau and Courbet towards absolute realism
were continued by Manet and Monet. In many respects the
results obtained by Monet may be regarded as final, for his
painting imitates the light and colour of nature as exactly as is
possible with the artistic materials hitherto discovered. Such a
remarkable degree of accuracy could only be obtained by the
sacrifice of all that was usually considered essential to good
painting. Design became a matter of chance, because nature
was not to be altered or adapted. Ordered harmony of colour,
for the same reason, became almost impossible. Fine painting
was discarded because the mixing of pigments on the palette or
even on the canvas involved some loss of luminosity. In order
to make the nearest possible approach to the pitch of natural
sunlight, pure pigment had to be used. To retain this purity
each tone in nature was analyzed into its chromatic components,
and small pats of the primary colours were placed side by side
direct on the canvas, in such proportions that their united effect
would produce the complex tone required.
The method had certain advantages. It allowed strong effects
of light and colour to be rendered with great vigour and accuracy,
while the infinite number of small spots of paint suggested the
natural vibration of the atmosphere. Whether Monet's work can
29
always be called art, is another matter. Monet's aim was scientific
truth, and scientific truth has no inevitable relation to art. The
aim of art, however one defines it, must always be closely con-
nected with beauty, and it is undeniable that Monet's painting,
though always interesting, is not always beautiful. His spotty
raw pigment is a positively unpleasant substance. His colour is
harmonious or inharmonious, his design good or indifferent,
in exact correspondence with the pictorial qualities of the subject
in hand. As his subjects were usually chosen as materials for
scientific experiment, their pictorial qualities are a mere matter of
chance, and sometimes are slight enough.
Monet's ablest successors seem to have realized that this
logical culmination of realism was also its reductio ad absurdum.
The present tendency is in favour of very direct painting in fresh
colour, but some discretion is exercised in the choice of subjects
whose tones and colours are naturally harmonious. The paintings
of Harpignies might serve as examples of such a compromise, while
Cazin, by whom the method is combined with a vein of pensive
poetry, has achieved results that, in their way, are charming. Of
the landscape of Puvis de Chavannes this is hardly the place to
speak. Had Constable never lived, Puvis de Chavannes might
have worked in a more conventional key, but it is unlikely that
the amazing originality of his genius would have failed to evolve
the nobly spaced design, the frank use of silhouette, and the
tranquil silver atmosphere that give him a place apart from the
other artists of the nineteenth century. Some of his best qualities
are found also in the work of his countryman. Professor Legros,
where the ever-present memory of Rembrandt and Poussin makes
them appear almost familiar.
Among the other Continental schools of landscape, that of
Holland takes the first place. The Dutch have for centuries
been a race of painters, so that in their hands the modern fashion
in realism has not been carried to any absurd extremity, however
apparent the French influence in their work may be. Their
colour, if often too cold or too raw to be quite pleasant, is never
violent or uncouth. Nevertheless, their dexterous compromise
between art and nature has not the scientific interest of Monet's
experiments, the real grandeur and force underlying the struggles
of Rousseau, or the profound insight of Millet. Matthys Maris,
it is true, is something of a visionary, whose dreams often recall
30
the poetry of Corot ; but he is a solitary exception. The other
Dutchmen paint absolutely in the spirit of their forefathers, turn-
ing out pictures of everyday life, soundly worked in the prevalent
manner, of convenient size, and with no special emphasis or inten-
tion, for that might repel the average purchaser. Their output
might, in fact, be open to the accusation of pot-boiling, were it not
usually free from the cheap sentiment which the term generally
connotes.
The garish vigour of Boecklin in Germany, and of Segantini
in Italian Switzerland, has at least the merit of definite personality.
This is more than can be said for the average work of their
countrymen, who seem to be attracted only by what is showy
and superficial in art and nature. Meunier, best known as a
sculptor, has painted the forges and blast-furnaces of the Belgian
Black Country with a sympathy and power that often remind
one of Millet ; though a certain outward uncouthness, which in
Millet was a natural defect, appears with Meunier to have become
a mannerism. Thaulow, the observer of Norwegian snows and
floods, is a more attractive but less serious artist. His handling
is skilfully varied, while his subjects are chosen with great taste
in the matter of colour and arrangement, and are treated with an
intimate affection that makes his painting popular as well as per-
sonal. In this respect Thaulow's work may be regarded as a sort
of half-way house between Continental landscape and that of the
British school.
On the Continent, under the leadership of the scientific spirit
of France, painters have uniformly viewed Constable as the
pioneer of new possibilities in the way of realistic interpretation
of natural light and air. In England, even before Constable's
death, the artistic world had become accustomed to a moderate
degree of realism, owing to the example of the water-colour
painters, and was content to go no further. The country was
resting complacently after the strain of the Napoleonic wars, and
insisted that its art should be something comfortable, something
incapable of rousing any strong emotion. Even Turner's fame
could not protect him from the jeers of the cultured classes when
he grappled with problems of storm or blazing sunlight. It is
hardly wonderful, then, that the lesser men should have settled
down deliberately to turn out frankly popular pictures, which are
still the small change of dealers and auctioneers.
31
The general attitude of these men may be summed up in the
verdict of a French critic upon Millais — -pour amuser le gentry.
In Constable they saw only a painter of pretty rusticity ; trim
cottages, green fields, brown cows, blue skies, and soft pink
clouds. They stippled their work all over, to give it the smooth-
ness which a dunce mistakes for finish. They brightened the
colours, so that their stuff might "tell" on a crowded Academy
wall. They took care to eliminate everything which might con-
flict with the air of simpering prosperous respectability, which the
patriotic Briton expected from the agricultural classes. Did our
yokels always wear such brilliantly white linen, such scarlet caps
and coats ? Did English milkmaids always brave the elements
in the piquant dishabille of convention ? Was the sky always
a bright chalky blue ? Were the clouds always scattered and
woolly .'* Was there always a dot of vermilion somewhere in the
foreground, when those innumerable "landscapes with figures"
were manufactured by the popular pets of the forties and fifties
and sixties and seventies ?
That these amiable pot-boiling tradesmen should have ap-
preciated the grand restraint of Titian, the vigour of Rubens, or
the intensity of Rembrandt would have been too much to expect,
but there is no excuse for their neglect of the noble elements in
the genius of their own countryman, Constable. Had they ever
looked carefully at nature, and possessed any but the meanest
ambitions, they could hardly have failed to sympathize with the
sailing clouds of The Cornfield and The Valley Farm, the glisten-
ing meadows of The Leaping Horse, the storm and rainbow of the
large Salisbury Cathedral, the tremendous desolation of The Old
Sarum, or the hush that falls with the twilight of The Cenotaph.
For those who are really interested in art there is no gradation
in the things that are not art, so that to discuss the descent of
certain successful moderns from Creswick or Shayer or Lee or
Witherington would be entirely futile.
To such an extent has British landscape been vitiated by this
taint of commerce, that it is hard to name more than a few painters
and a few pictures which are free from it. Cox and De Wint,
in spite of considerable natural gifts, practically succumbed to the
necessity of doing small drawings that would sell readily. W^hat
Cox might have done under happier circumstances may be guessed
from the magnificent drawing at Kensington of a storm sweeping
32
over a moor ; while a very large study of a waterfall, also in water-
colour, exhibited at the Guildhall some years ago, showed a feel-
ing for space and a sympathy with the grandeur of a great
cataract that recall the noble conceptions of Hokusai. De Wint
was a less gifted man, but his two landscapes in oil at South
Kensington make one regret that he did not use that medium
more frequently. The view over a wooded country, with a river
winding among the trees far away, is especially notable for the
perfection of its cool silvery colour.
The clever theatrical sketching of Miiller was more directly
indebted to Constable, but, like the laborious accumulations of
John Linnell, it deserves no lengthy notice. Frederick Walker
and George Mason are more definite links between the old art and
the new. In their work there is a real attempt at definite design :
though their conception of the world is merely pretty, their colour
has too often an unpleasant tendency towards pinkness, and they
always paint to catch the public eye. They certainly may claim
to have inherited something of Constable's affection for English
country life, and we should perhaps be more inclined to pardon
their cheap graces and their sentimentality, were they not imitated
and diluted by our feebler contemporaries. With them Cecil
Lawson must be classed. His early death is often supposed
to have been a heavy loss to English art, but his extant
work is hardly strong enough to warrant the supposition. It is
well intentioned, safe in colour, and fairly accomplished, but such
qualities do not go very far towards the making of a really
great painter.
The landscape work of Ford, Madox Brown, and the other
artists associated with the Preraphaelite fraternity, in spite of
occasional similarity in outward aspect, has no real connection
with the work of Constable. The Preraphaelite realism was a
realism of fact. The realism of Constable was a realism of effect.
The difference can easily be understood if we think for a moment
of three of our modern marine painters, Brett, Hook, and Henry
Moore. Brett might serve as an example of a worker on prin-
ciples akin to those of the Preraphaelites, while Hook and Henry
Moore would represent the point of view of Constable. Of the
last two painters Hook seems to have best understood Constable's
true excellence. His composition is sound and sometimes original,
his handling is skilful, and his colour harmonious, except in the
c 33
figures. Henry Moore had a tendency to mistake violence for
strength. He dispensed with conventional composition, and never
quite found a substitute for it. He used in his large pictures the
raw colour and shapeless handling that were an unavoidable
necessity when he sketched his shifting skies and foaming waves
from nature. His paintings thus lack the design, the harmony, and
the pleasant pigment which one finds in Hook ; but the sea of
Henry Moore is undoubtedly more like the real thing than any-
thing else ever done. With Hook the direct influence of Con-
stable comes to an end. Landscapes, it is true, are still turned
out by the hundred, which at the first glance might seem to be
reminiscences of Constable, for the subjects are rustic as were his,
and are treated in a straightforward realistic manner. The real-
ism, however, is marked by a certain incoherence of design and
colour, which prevents such work from being artistic, and the
rusticity has become mechanical from lack of that intimacy and
affection which made Constable the first true painter of the
country.
The best work done in England of recent years has been done
by the painters who have inherited the tradition of Constable
indirectly through the science of Monet or the poetry of Corot.
Such work may not be great art, but it is frequently good art, for
its primary impulse has been the creation of something beautiful.
If the search for dignity, simplicity, and repose may sometimes
seem to have been carried too far, so that one finds oneself wishing
for a wider outlook, for more deliberately planned brushwork, or
a more vehement emotional impulse, it is well to remember that
dignity, simplicity, and repose are not only enough in themselves
to make good art, but that they have always been uncommon
qualities in painting, and never more so than at present.
The landscape work of some members of the Glasgow school
might perhaps suggest a more direct descent from Constable on
account of the roughness of their handling, the freshness of their
colour, their recognition of the sky as a compositional quantity,
and the air of breezy vigour which pervades them. Their
naturalism, however, differs radically from that of Constable in
the method of its adaptation to pictorial purposes, in that it is
governed by the principles of ordered selection that characterize
the art of the Far East. The true culmination of these ideals is
found in the exquisite landscapes of Mr. Whistler, where there is
34
but little that can be attributed to the influence of Constable,
whether direct or indirect. Indeed, in some respects it represents
the diametrically opposite point of view. Constable's work is
really done in the manner of Rembrandt ; that is to say, it is
unified by a chiaroscuro scheme into which the local colour is
worked. Mr. Whistler's painting is really done in the manner of
Harunobu ; that is to say, it is unified by the rhythmic iteration of
certain selected notes of colour. If, then, we compare Constable
with the most perfect development of contemporary landscape,
it will be seen that he is not only the first of the moderns, but
perhaps was also the last of our old masters.
35
//'. SLW'SET (fiii Painting : in the possession o/ the Author).
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XVII. LAyosCAPE lyiTir Cottage {Oil Sketch : at South Kcnsingtoti).
XVIII. " The GrOVF." HA^rPSTEAD (jOil Fainting: at South Kensington).
A'/.V. TlIF. COR\FIEI.n {Oil Painting: in ilie National Gallery).
X.V. StldY for " The Valley Farm" (O// Sketch: at South Ki-nsinston).
XXI. A SriDV OF Tree Stems {Oil Sketch: at South Kfnsia^ton).
XXI 11. A Mill .\UAR Brighton (jDU Paint ins: at South Kensington).
EDINBURGH: PRIXTEIJ BV MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED
XXIV. The CEXOTAPH (JDil Painting: in the National Gallery).
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IN MEMORIAM. By Alfred Lord Tennyson. With 134 Large
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2
THE ARTISTS LIER^RT.
Edited by LAURENCE BIN YON.
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In Preparation.
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