Tuesday, November 22, 2016

John Constable sky studies

John Constable
Weymouth Bay
1816
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum

John Constable
London from Hampstead Heath in a storm
1831
watercolor
British Museum

John Constable (1776-1837) was moderately successful as a landscape painter in early 19th century England. After the passage of two centuries he is now established as one of those most fortunate of artists, better loved by posterity than ever they were by their living fellows. Such individuals are the great winners in the enterprise of making art that is important to humans, yet they themselves can never know it. Like Blake and Palmer and Turner, Constable has been posthumously raised to the skies. Which is exactly where he always felt most at home. "His ultimate goal," as curators at the British Museum write, "was to paint the sky  which he deemed landscape's 'chief organ of sentiment'  more expressively."   

John Constable
Study of clouds, Hampstead Heath
1830
watercolor
British Museum

John Constable
Pond and cottages, storm approaching
1821
watercolor
British Museum

John Constable
Study of clouds, Salisbury
1829
oil on paper
Victoria & Albert Museum

John Constable
The Vale of Dedham
1805
watercolor
British Museum

John Constable
London from Hampstead Heath
c. 1820
watercolor
British Museum

John Constable
London from Hampstead Heath
1830
watercolor
British Museum

John Constable
Theale, Berkshire
1832
watercolor
British Museum

John Constable
Water meadows
1820s
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum

John Constable
Trees at Hampstead
1821
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum

John Constable
Hampstead Heath
1828
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum