English Painters

JOHN CONSTABLE

(1776 - 1837)

John Constable was one of England 's most influential and talented landscape painters of the 19th century

John Constable is today recognized as the major English landscape painter of the 19th century. But for all that, he was not particularly successful, either critically or financially, during his lifetime.

Born in East Bergholt, Sussex , on 11th June, 1776, he was the second son of the six children of Golding Constable (a miller) and Ann Watts. His family had hoped that young Constable would follow in his father's footsteps, but the art patron Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827) stepped in to persuade them to allow their son to join the Royal Academy Schools in London .

In 1809 he met and fell in love with Maria Bicknell, but was unable to marry her until 1816, because of the hostility of Maria's grandfather. The marriage, which was the prelude to Constable's finest work, was an intensely happy one, and produced seven children, to whom he was completely devoted. Sadly, Maria was never particularly healthy and died in 1828. Constable never fully recovered from the shock.

When his father-in-law died in 1828, Constable inherited ? 20,000 (a tidy sum in those days), which allowed him to devote every waking hour to his work. From then on he was able to fully express his intense love for the countryside and experiment with changing light and the movement of clouds across the sky.

He died at Hampstead on 31st March 1837, leaving behind him a wealth of pictures that captured momentary changes in the weather and monumental images of English scenery. Today many of his finest landscapes, such as The Valley Farm and The Haywain , hang in London 's National Gallery, while others can be viewed in the Tate and the Victoria and Albert Museum . Although the most appropriate memorial to the man and his work is undoubtedly in his native Sussex , in the Stour valley, which is now known as 'Constable Country'.