John Constable is an acclaimed English painter. His paintings inspired many future painters.

His Early Days

John Constable (1776-1837) was born in East Bergholt village in the Babergh District of Suffolk, England, just north of the Essex border. He was the second son of Golding and Ann, wealthy corn merchants. Constable’s elder brother was suffering from seizures and was hence unfit to succeed his father in business. After leaving school in Dedham, Constable joined his father in his business. He was largely self-taught and he developed his skill slowly.

His Sketching Trips Along River Stour

In his early days, Constable travelled the countryside surrounding his home on sketching trips. As he recalled later, his careless boyhood and the time he spent along the banks of the river Stour made him a painter. Constable was a probationer in 1799 and in 1800, he became a student at the Royal Academy schools. He began exhibiting his works from 1802 at the Royal Academy in London and at the Paris Salon. Constable was a huge source of influence for the Barbizon School and the French Romantic movement.

Career as an Artist

Nearly seven years after his association with his father in his corn business, Constable persuaded his father in 1799 to allow him to pursue a career as an artist. After the promise of an allowance from his father, he entered the Royal Academy Schools and became familiar with the works of the Old Masters. After completing his studies, he refused to accept an offer for the position of drawing master in a reputed school. He had already resolved to become a professional landscape painter. Constable started exhibiting at the Royal Academy in the year 1802.

Receding Income and Shift to Portraiture

During his active life, John Constable developed a pattern of spending his summers sketching and painting around East Bergholt and then returning to London during winter. Constable was finding it difficult to find buyers for his paintings nor was he receiving any commissions for his landscapes. With the flow of his income receding, he took to painting portraiture to supplement his income. Later, he found that the process of portraiture was dull compared to that of landscape painting. He also realized that he did not find in portraiture the spiritual pleasure that he was finding in landscape painting.

His Marriage and Visit to Salisbury Church

John Constable had Maria in 1809 when Maria was barely 12 and proposed to her. As Maria’s grandfather considered Constable’s family socially inferior, he forbade the match. Realizing that his meager income came in the way of his marriage, still, they both remained tough until Constable’s father’s death in 1816. Since Constable’s father had provided for each of his children and his elder brother was running the family business for the benefit of the whole family, Constable finally found financial stability in life.

His Success at Exhibitions

Constable visited Bishop John Fisher in Salisbury. Fisher was Rector of Langham Church in Essex which was close to Constable’s village East Bergholt. Besides Fisher becoming one of Constable’s biggest patrons, Salisbury inspired some of Constable’s greatest paintings. Constable sold his first important work ‘The White Horse’ (1819), a large canvas known as a six-footer. The same year he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy. He exhibited his painting ‘The Hay Wain (1821) at the Roal Academy and, along with two other paintings, at the Paris Salon of 1824. Constable received Gold Medal from Charles X for this painting.

Life of Mixed Fortunes

Though Constable was more successful in France than in his native England, he remained a staunch nationalist by not crossing the Channel to promote his work. He stuck to his reported statement that “he would rather be a poor man in England than be a rich man abroad’. Constable’s wife, Maria’s father died in March 1828 and this brought him riches in the form of her large inheritance. However, the happiness was short-lived as Maria, weakened by the birth of her 7th child died from tuberculosis in the month of November 1828.

Constable became very distraught in life ‘after the departure of his Angel‘. In the same year, was elected to the Royal Academy in the following year, 1829. He never recovered from the loss of his wife and the responsibility of bringing up his seven children. In 1831, Constable painted his final six-footer painting ‘Salisbury Cathedral From the Meadows‘ at the suggestion of Bishop Fisher.

‘The Great Salisbury’ Disfigured

John Constables’s wife, Maria’s death in 1828 left him deeply frustrated. He started painting the finest symbol of his artistic career ‘Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows’ a year after his wife’s death, in 1831. The painting depicts a turbulent landscape meaningfully. It equally seriously played out on the six feet tall canvas the painter’s grief, faith along with his artistic ambitions. After giving the final touches to the painting, he named his painting ‘The Great Salisbury’. When this painting was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1831, it received a lot of criticism. The one reason for such criticisms was that ‘someone had spoiled a vigorous and masterly landscape by putting in such clouds as no human being ever saw‘. Experts are of the opinion that this offence could have been committed with the consent of the artist’.

Unnoticed During Lifetime

Constable spent a final few years of life delivering public lectures on landscape painting at the Royal Institution and other well-known painting schools. He died in 1937 in his studio in Bloomsbury. During his lifetime, John Constable’s landscape paintings received mixed reviews. He always felt that he would never leave an impact on the world of art as per his desire. Contrary to Constable’s desire, the vibrancy of his paintings was so powerful that these paintings became the source of inspiration for one of Scotland’s famous painters, William McTaggart after Costable’s death.

His Paintings:

The Hay Wain: The original title of the painting was ‘Noon’. Constable finished the painting in 1821. The 1.3 m x 1.85 m painting depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. Experts feel that the painter has tried to give expression to the growing tension between the landowners and the workers. The distance between the foreground and placement of the characters of the workers in the painting and the reduced image size of the river are symbolic expressions of the painter’s feelings.

John Constable is principally known for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home. Constable created over 100 paintings during his painting career. Financial motive rather than Constable’s love for art was the motive for choosing painting as a career. ‘Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds’, ‘Salisbury Cathedral and Leadenhall from the River Avon’, ‘Stratford Mill’, ‘The Cornfield’, ‘The Hay Wain’, ‘Waymouth Bay: Bowleaze Cove and Jordan Hill’, are some of Constable’s unforgettable paintings.

President Rejected Portrait

John Singer Constable made the portrait of the American President, Theodore Roosevelt but Rosevelt hated his presidential portrait. He persuaded Constable to paint a new one. This was at a time when ‘everyone, who was anyone wanted a Sargent’ at their homes. Not much pleased at his portrait not being accepted as it were, Constable decided to stop painting portraits and focus on what he really wanted to create. His personal ethos aligned best with the realists as he depicted the personality and surroundings of anyone who sat for him. Sargent’s patrons loved him for he was extremely prolific in giving shape to the mood of the sitter, be it a child or a tycoon. He was the darling of his patrons.

His Painting ‘Nonchaloir (Repose)

His next painting ‘Nonchaloir (Repose) was a tremendous success. The ‘charming girl that ever lived’ was how Sargent once called the character whom he depicted in this painting. She was Sargent’s niece, Rose Marie Ormond and she was eighteen when she posed for ‘Conchaloir (Repose) in 1911. Sargent had painted her several times before this painting and her family even travelled with him as she was growing up. ‘Nonchaloir (Repose) was the final painting that Sargent made with Rose Marie Ormond as the model. Ormond was famous in her own right as she dedicated her life to the service of the soldiers blinded by mustard gas during World War I. She worked at a hospital dedicated to the rehabilitation of these soldiers.