CONSTABLE, JOHN ( 1776-1837 ). An Eng lish landscape painter, the founder of modern landscape art. Ile was born on June 11, 1776, in East Bergholt, Suffolk, the son of a wealthy miller. His father intended him for the clergy, and afterwards tried him as a miller, but the youth's taste was all for art. He received his first instruction from a local amateur named Dunthorne, with whom lie painted the scenes about his native home, always in the open air. In 1705 he went to London in order to study painting, but was recalled soon afterwards. In 1799 lie returned to London and entered the Academy School, where he received instruction from Farrington and Reinagle. He was greatly impressed with the works of Ruysdael in the National Gallery. At first be attempted por traits and historical subjects, according to the custom of the day, but in 1803, weary of study ing pictures and of acquiring truth second-band, he returned to East Bergholt. From this time he painted landscapes from nature only, passing at least the summer months entirely in the coun try near his home.
His work, however, was too revolutionary and original to become popular in his native land, although he found a few devoted friends who believed in him and bought his pictures. Among these were Sir George Beaumont. the Maecenas of his boyhood. Bishop Fisher. of Salisbury, and his nephew. Archdeacon Fisher. Constable's most intimate friend, and. above a11, Niss Maria Bicknell, whom he afterwards married. He did not sell a single picture to a stranger until 1814, but was compelled to support himself by paint ing portraits and copies of paintings. But never discouraged. he worked on in his quiet way, knowing well that the future was his. At length he found recognition in France. In 1823 three of his pictures were exhibited at the Salon, where they excited the greatest admiration, and were accorded the place of honor in the exhibition. The King of France sent Constable a gold medal, and the same honor was accorded to hiin in the following year at Lille. At last, in 1829, came the tardy honor of membership in the Royal Academy, but accompanied by an ungracious re mark on the part. of the president, and too late to afford satisfaction to the painter. • Constable was a simple and noble character, who bore bravely diseonragement and adversity, and never wavered in his ideal of art. His other great passion in life was his love for his wife, Miss Maria Bicknell, to whom, after many diffi culties, he was secretly wedded in 1816. With a family of seven children, he was sometimes hard pressed for money, until he was at length re lieved by his own inheritance and the ample inheritance of his wife. In 1827 he removed
to his favorite Hampstead, where many of his best pictures were painted. He was greatly be reaved by the death of his wife in 1828, and died unexpectedly on March 30, 1837.
Constable was a great innovator in landscape painting, and he may be justly termed the father of the modern school. The old Dutch masters gained their effects by giving the forms of ob jects, placing more weight upon drawing than upon color, in which they achieved harmony by a uniform brown tone. Constable saw that land scape is rather a problem of light and air, and that its effect depends upon the light and shadow in which the objects are seen. He was the first to paint the subtle gradings of the atmosphere, and to show not only the objects themselves, but how he saw them. He laid on his colors fresh and fair, as they are in nature, applying to oil paintings the results of water-colors. His pictures are always harmonious in tone. He always gives the effect of a landscape, suppress ing unimportant details—a tendency which in creases with his later years. He frequently uses the palette knife, sometimes execnting the entire picture by this means, as in the case of "Water loo Bridge." In consequence of these teachings an able group of landscape painters arose in Eng land in the forties and fifties, the most important of whom was David Cox (q.v.). But his greatest successors were the French painters of the Bar bizon School, through whom his work has been transmitted to the landscape of the present day.
The National Gallery in London contains three of his finest works. the "Cornfield" (1826) : "Valley Farm" (1835) ; and "Hay Wain." In South Kensington Museum are eight of his works, among which are "Deadham Mill" (1820) ; "Hampstead Heath" (1823) ; and "Water Meadows Near Salisbury." The Louvre has three good examples: "The Cottage," "Weymouth Bay" (1827), and the "Glebe Farm." Twenty of his chief works were published in 1833 in a series of fine and sympathetic etchings by his friend David Lucas, with an introduction by Constable himself.
Consult: Mutter. History of Modern Painting (London, 1896), vol. ii.; Leslie, C. R., Memoirs of Constable (London, 1845), containing Lucas's plates; Chesneau. La peinture anglaise (Paris, 1882) ; Brock-Arnold, Gainsborough and Con stable (London, 1881) : Wedmore, Studies in English Art (London, 1876-80).