CONSTABLE, JOHN, was born at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, in 1776. Hie father, Golding Constable, was a miller, and John, the second son, was originally intended for the church; but as he showed an aversion or disinclination to study, his father gave up this design and endeavoured to make is miller of him, in which business Coustubl was actually engaged for about a year. His time was however chiefly spent in contemplating and studying the charauteriatics of natural scenery : lie displayed much originality of observation In his attempts at portraying its beauties, and his mind became gradually engrossed in sketching and the study of landscape. Hie taste for art had early displayed itself : when at school at Dedham he was In the habit of neglecting his lessons for his penciL The result was hie adoption of landscape-painting es n profession, and in this he was inetroeted by IL It. It:dingle, R.A., and he received much encouragement from Sir George Beaumont. In 1795 he visited London, but returned to his native place; io 1799 he again visited London with a view to try his fortune, and in 1800 he was admitted as a student into the Royal Academy. For many years he was a steady exhibitor in the Royal Academy, but his works attracted little attention, owing probably to the unpretending nature and esteem sim plicity of his style. /le professed to despise, and probsbly did despise all styles and conventionalities; he used to say," There Is room enough for a natural painter; the great vice of the day is brarura—au attempt to do something beyond the truth." Hu was right ; and in no great number of years his merits were acknowledged by the public, In 1820 Constable took a house at H impstesd, where he chiefly resided; he had also a house in Charlotte street, Fitaroysquare, where he kept a gallery of his works, for, though admired, many of his paintings remained on his hands. At length in 1829 he received the tardy professional acknowledgment of hie merits by his election as a Royal Academician : he was then in his fifty-third year. He was takeu ill on the night of the 30th of March 1837, and died in less than au hone afterwards.
Constable has painted many excellent pictures, and all his works improve in colour by age; the 'Cure-Field ' in the National Gallery is one of his beat works, and the Valley Farm' in the Vernon 0 llery is a very good (wimple of his style. Ilia style is fresh, original, and
peculiar, and his scenes are generally extremely simple. Ills attention was in fact inure engrossed by certain minutiae and transient effsta in nature than by a love fur the picturesque or beautiful of scenery. He carried this attention to minutia` so far as to repeat in many of his pictures the representation of the effect of the morning dew, an effect, however pleasing, extremely transient; nod but one, and not the most beautiful, of the ever.earying effects of nature. This effect of dew, of wilich he was so feud, is a distinctive chenicterietie of his works, and has caused them to be etyla I mouldy by some critics, who in the earlier part of his career exercised their funetiuns with little charity towards the painter ; but if the ' connoisseurs' of art showed little sympathy for the painter's intense love of nature, he in return was not slow to express his contempt for their commooplam conven tionalities. Constable appe ire indeed to have been very early Influenced by his own views of things, for wheu a young man, boiug asked by Sir George Beaumont what style he proposed to adopt, be answered, "None but God Almighty's style, Sir George." Coostablee character both as a man and an artist is well described in the following account of him by his friend and fellow-academician, Mr. Uwins, in a paper read at the Phrenological Society iu 1843 :— " He seined to think that he came into the world to convince maukind that nature is beauttful. Instead of seeking for the materials of poetics landscape in foreign countries amidst temples and classic groves, or in our own amongst castles, lakes, and mountains—he taught that the simple cottage, the village green, the church, the meadow covered with cattle, the canal with its barges, its locks and weedy Lemke, contained all the materials and called up all the associations necessary for picture.
Ile doted upon his native fields. I love,' said ho, ' every stile, and stump, and lane in the village: as long as I am able to hold it brush I shall never cease to paint them.' " (Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Esq., RA., compared chiefly of his by C. It. Leslie, El., ILA., 4to, London, 1842.)