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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 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2007  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/constableOOholmiala 


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 

xi 


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). 


'^ 


-V.  Study  of  the  stem  of  A.\  elm-tree  {Oil  Painting:  at  Soutli  Kensington). 


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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). 


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These  extraordinary  dreams  are  certainly  Piranesi's  most  characteristic  and  impressive  p)erformance. 
'[■^hdr  effect  on  De  Quincey  (who  appears,  however,  only  to  have  known  them  from  Coleridge's 
description),  is  well  known,  and  most  readers  of  the  Confessions  of  an  English  Opium  Eater  ha.ve  felt 
great  curiosity  in  regard  to  them. 

IN   MEMORIAM.     By  Alfred  Lord  Tennyson.     With  134  Large 

Rubricated  Initials  (all  different)  from  designs  by  Blanche  McManus.  It  is  a 
medium  8vo  (9^  x  6  inches),  printed  in  red  and  black  from  remarkably  bold  type, 
and  bound  in  cream  and  gold.  It  is  encased  in  a  box  ready  tor  presentation.  Only 
ICO  copies  were  printed  for  England,  which  are  numbered.      loj.  bd.  net. 

AT    THE    SIGN    OF    THE    UNICORN,     VII     CECIL    COURT,     LONDON,     W.C. 

2 


THE  ARTISTS  LIER^RT. 

Edited  by  LAURENCE   BIN  YON. 

The  Volumes  of  the  Artisfs  Library  are  Foolscap  Quartos  (85X6!  inches).     The  Letterpress 

is  on  antique  laid  paper.     The  Illustrations  are  all  separately  printed.     The  Binding 

is  white  cloth  with  blue  sides.     The  price  is  is.  6d.  net  each  iwlume. 

HOKUSAI.     By  C.  J    Holmes.     With  Twenty  full-page   Plates,  in- 

eluding  Four  Plates  printed  in  Colours.      Second  Edition. 

l^  Met  cure  de  France. — '  Ce  beau  volume  est  n6cessaire  k  tous  les  artistes  et  4  tous  ceux  qui  aiment 
I'art.' 

GIOVANNI    BELLINI.      By   Roger   E.   Fry.     With  Twenty-three 

Full-page  Plates,  including  Three  Photogravures.      Second  Edition. 

Literature.  — '  A  model  of  its  kind.  It  is  beautifully  printed  and  bound,  and  both  letterprrss  and 
illustrations  are  exceptionally  good." 

The  Times. — '  Mr.  Binyon's  series  is  evidently  aiming  at  a  high  ideal  of  scholarship.  .  .  Mr. 
Fry  goes  to  work  in  the  right  way." 

ALTDORFER.     By  T.  Sturge  Moore.     With  Twenty-five  pages  or 

Illustrations,  most  of  them  in  tints. 

The  Saturday  Review  (in  two-column  notice). — '  Mr.  Sturge  Moore  is  the  right  sympathetic 
expounder  of  this  lialf-childish  secluded  nature.  His  own  imagination,  with  its  delight  in  quaint  sur- 
prises of  observation  and  sharp  simplicities  of  expression  fit-,  him  to  handle  an  art  that  is  not  for 
everybody,  and  at  whose  gates he.ivy  trespassers  should  rather  be  warned  hy  notice-boards  than  .'-trollers 
invited  by  guide-posts.' 

GOYA.      By   Will   Roth  en  stein.      With   Twenty    Full-page   Plates, 

including  Three   Photogravures  and  Nine  Tinted  Prints. 

The  AlhevcEum.-  '  Both  on  the  technical  and  nestheticd  side  there  could  be  no  happier  combination 
of  writer  and  subject  than  the  present.  Not  only  has  Mr.  Rothenstein  been  deeply  influenced  by 
Goya's  painting,  but  the  spirit  in  which  thev  approach  life  and  nature  is  similar,  and  their  for  ■  s  of 
activity  are  the  same.  .  .  .  Fortunately  he  exhibits  a  power  of  exposition  often  denied  to  artists  He 
can  make  us  see  and  weigh  the  qualities  which  have  given  Goya  so  grent  an  influence  on  the  develop- 
ment of  mcdetn  art.  Whether  dealing  with  the  general  principle  of  a^i  artist's  appreciation  of  a  master, 
or  more  particularly  with  Goya's  relati<>nship  to  the  romantic  revival  of  the  early  ninceenih  century, 
every  word  should  be  weighed.  .  .  .     The  publishers  have  done  their  work  well.' 

CONSTABLE.      By  C.  J.  Holmes. 

In   Preparation. 

VAN  DYCK.  By  Lionel  Cust.  (In 
Two  Volumes.) 

HUBERT  AND  JOHN  VAN  EYCK. 
By  Frances  C.  Wkale.  Revi.'^ed  by  and  based 
on  the  researches  of  W.  H.  James  Wkale. 


COZENS    and    the     Origins    of    English      PIERO     DI    COSIMO.       By    Roger    E 


Water-colours.     By  LAURENCE  BiNYON. 


LEONARDO  DA  VINCI.     By  Herbert 

P.  Horne. 

RODIN.      By  T.  Sturge  Moore. 
ALFRED  STEVENS.    By  D.  S.  McColl. 


Fry. 


LITTLE    s^g%^AVi!Nigs. 

Particulars  of  this  New  Series  will  be  forwarded  to  applicants.  The  first  four  volumes 
are  Altdorfer,  by  T.  S.  Moore  ;  Blake,  by  Laurence  Binyon  ;  J  F.  Millet,  by  A. 
Hugh  Fisher;  and  Siegfried  (a  sequence  of  original  woodcuts),  by  T.  S.  Moore. 

AT    THE    SIGN    OF    THE    UNICORN,    VII    CECIL    COURT,     LONDON,    W.C. 


POEl-RY. 


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chosen  Christian  seasons  four  pages  are  devoted.  The  first  contains  the  title,  the  second  a  text  of  Holy 
Scripture,  the  third  a  short  p)oem  of  from  four  to  twelve  lines,  and  the  hist  a  little  prayer  of  a  single 
sentence  at  once  allusive  in  its  langfuage,  and  direct  in  its  point  of  appeal.  The  poems — and  here  is  the 
note  of  novelty — are  in  the  main  not  directly  religious,  but  are  little  impressionist  sketches  of  some 
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JOHN  OF  DAMASCUS.     By  Douglas  Ainslie.     Crown  8vo.  half- 

bound,  5^.  net      Second  Edition. 

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rliynies  you  page  on  page  of  the  soundest,  frankest,  and  prettiest  stuff,  never  getting  out  of  breath, 
never  faltering  or  hesitating,  and  never  tumbling  into  the  sloughs  and  quagmires  that  beset  the  long- 
winded.  Choose  where  you  will,  there  is  something  that  takes  you.  .  .  .  Wherever  one  turns,  too, 
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AT    THE    SIGN    OF    THE    UNICORN,    VII    CECIL    COURT,    LONDON,    W.C. 


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AT     THE     SIGN    OF    THE     UNICORN,     VII    CECIL    COURT,    LONDON,    W.C. 

6 


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AT    THE    SIGN    OF     THE    UNICORN,    VII    CECIL    COURT,     LONDON,    W.C. 


MUSIC. 


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THE  DOME  (Old  Series,  1897-98).     The  Publishers  have  succeeded 

in  making  up  a  limited  number  of  complete  sets  of  the  First  Series  of  the  Dome,  which  are  now  for  sale 
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THE  DOME.  An  Illustrated  Magazine  of  Literature,  Music,  Archi- 
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The  Pall  Mall  Gazette. — 'There  is  so  much  that  is  fresh,  so  much  that  is  fine,  in  the  work  of  the  younger  school 
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bound  in  brown  boards,  illustrated,  u.  net,  or  51.  per  annum  post  free. 

The  Outlook. — '  The  Unicom  Press  has  rendered  another  service  to  those  who  follow  the  best  art  of  the  day.' 
Parts  1-4  have  been  bound  up  into  a  handsomely  bound  volume.     A  few  copies  remain,  price  5^.  net. 

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