John Constable

British, 1776 - 1837

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English painter (1776-1837)

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John Constable, Milford Bridge, c. 1826, etching on wove paper [1st state], Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1987.4.2

Milford Bridge

John Constable · c. 1826 · etching on wove paper [1st state] ·  Accession ID  1987.4.2

John Constable, The Ruins of Netley Abbey, c. 1826, etching on wove paper [1st state], Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund, 1987.4.1

The Ruins of Netley Abbey

John Constable · c. 1826 · etching on wove paper [1st state] ·  Accession ID  1987.4.1

John Constable, Yarmouth Jetty, 1822, oil on canvas, Gift of Ruth Carter Stevenson in Honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, 2016.115.1

Yarmouth Jetty

John Constable · 1822 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2016.115.1

This horizontal painting is filled with gray and white clouds against a blue sky. Wisps of white clouds are interspersed among banks of darker gray clouds against a pale blue sky in the top half of the painting. A tower of gray clouds to the left obscure a deep red circle, which only becomes evident upon careful inspection. Rays of pale shell pink streak down from the clouds along the bottom edge of the painting.
John Constable, Cloud Study: Stormy Sunset, 1821-1822, oil on paper on canvas, Gift of Louise Mellon in honor of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, 1998.20.1

Cloud Study: Stormy Sunset

John Constable · 1821-1822 · oil on paper on canvas ·  Accession ID  1998.20.1

We look across an expanse of a flat, grassy lawn at the towering spire of a stone church outlined against billowing clouds in this horizontal landscape painting. The lawn is dappled with light filtering through a line of trees with thick, green canopies to our left. The trees take up almost the left half of the composition, and they line a dirt path where three people walk. Tiny in scale, the people are painted with strokes of slate blue, red, white, and black. A few animals, perhaps cows, graze on the lawn near more trees on the far side of the green. Beyond the trees, the church sits on the horizon, which comes about a quarter of the way up the composition. Minuscule touches of yellow, black, and red may suggest more people in the deep distance. The pale blue sky is nearly filled with puffy parchment-white and mauve-tinged clouds.
John Constable, Salisbury Cathedral from Lower Marsh Close, 1820, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.108

Salisbury Cathedral from Lower Marsh Close

John Constable · 1820 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1937.1.108

From a grassy riverbank, we look across the placid surface of a river lined along the far bank with trees and farm animals in this horizontal landscape painting. The scene is painted loosely with brushstrokes visible throughout, so some details are difficult to make out. For the surface of the river, russet-brown and steel-gray paint skims lightly across the canvas and leaves some unpainted areas visible, creating the effect of light shimmering on the still water. On our left, a shallow wooden barge is propelled along the stream by two men in red caps with long poles. The boat carries a white horse wearing blinders and a harness. The riverbank beyond is lined with pale, sage-green grass tinged with gold, growing in front of a tangle of darker green trees and bushes. Across the water from us near the middle of the picture, a small rowboat sits in the shallows at the foot of a steep riverbank. Above, a white cottage with a reddish roof and chimney is tucked behind the trees, with a wooden rack full of hay next to it. Nearby, a plow and wheeled cart, highlighted with strokes of white, sit near more mounds of hay. Rocky fields reach into the distance. The vista is blocked to our right by another clump of trees and a rocky outcropping, rising from the stream, to our right of center. The steep, dark roof of a farmhouse is barely visible among the trees. Along the riverside to our right, a small group of cinnamon-brown and cream-white cows stand at water's edge. A rolling pasture stretches behind them to meet blue hills in the distance. Above, in the upper third of the painting, mottled white, pale rose, and gray clouds rolling across a steel-gray sky are reflected in the water below.
John Constable, The White Horse, 1818-1819, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.9

The White Horse

John Constable · 1818-1819 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.9

We look out onto a landscape with low, grassy hills to the left, a lake to the right, and a brick building in the center distance below a sky filled with towering white clouds in this horizontal painting. A wooden fence closer to us crosses the landscape from the lower left corner and disappears where the land slopes down to meet the water at the center of the painting. Several black and white cows graze in the field beyond the fence to our left. Two men in a wooden boat pull in nets on the lake to our right near a pair of swans. The lake crosses the composition in the near distance, disappearing into a culvert farther back. A donkey pulls a small carriage with two people near a bridge that crosses the lake in the distance to our left. The brick manor house is visible through a break in the full, deep green trees that line the horizon, which comes halfway up the composition. The clouds cast noticeable shadows in the brightly sunlit scene.
John Constable, Wivenhoe Park, Essex, 1816, oil on canvas, Widener Collection, 1942.9.10

Wivenhoe Park, Essex

John Constable · 1816 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1942.9.10

John Constable, Epsom Heath, 1806, brown, gray, and green watercolor over graphite on wove paper, Gift of Donald Stone, 2022.40.5

Epsom Heath

John Constable · 1806 · brown, gray, and green watercolor over graphite on wove paper ·  Accession ID  2022.40.5

John Constable, A Great Oak Tree, c. 1801, black chalk with gray wash on laid paper, laid down, Gift of Paul Mellon, 1985.9.1

A Great Oak Tree

John Constable · c. 1801 · black chalk with gray wash on laid paper, laid down ·  Accession ID  1985.9.1

John Constable, A Seascape with Two Sail Boats, watercolor and graphite (in the sailboat at left) on beige laid paper, Joseph F. McCrindle Collection, 2009.70.99

A Seascape with Two Sail Boats

John Constable · · watercolor and graphite (in the sailboat at left) on beige laid paper ·  Accession ID  2009.70.99

Bibliography

1845

  • Leslie, Charles Robert. Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Esq. R.A.. 2d ed., enl. London, 1845.

1962

  • Beckett, R. B., ed. John Constable's Correspondence. 6 vols. London (Historical Manuscripts Commission), 1962; Ipswich (Suffolk Records Society, vols. 6, 8, 10, 11, 12), 1964-1968.

1965

  • Reynolds, Graham. Constable: The Natural Painter. London, 1965.

1970

  • Beckett, R. B., comp. John Constable's Discourses. Ipswich (Suffolk Records Society, vol. 14), 1970.

1973

  • Taylor, Basil. Constable, Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors. London; New York, 1973.

1975

  • Parris, Leslie, Conal Shields, and Ian Fleming-Williams. John Constable: Further Documents and Correspondence. London (Tate Gallery) and Ipswich (Suffolk Records Society, vol. 18), 1975.

1976

  • Fleming-Williams, Ian. Constable, Landscape, Watercolors and Drawings. London [Tate Gallery], 1976.

  • Parris, Leslie, Ian Fleming-Williams, and Conal Shields. Constable: Paintings, Watercolors and Drawings. Exh. cat. Tate Gallery, London, 1976.

1979

  • Hoozee, Robert. L'opera completa di Constable. 1st ed. Milan, 1979.

1983

  • Rosenthal, Michael. Constable: The Painter and His Landscape. New Haven and London, 1983.

1984

  • Parris, Leslie and Ian Fleming-Williams. The Discovery of Constable. London, 1984.

  • Reynolds, Graham. The Later Paintings and Drawings of John Constable. 2 vols. New Haven and London, 1984.

1986

  • Cormack, Malcolm. Constable. Oxford, 1986.

1987

  • Bermingham, Ann. Landscape and Ideology: The English Rustic Tradition, 1740-1860. London, 1987: 87-155.

  • Rosenthal, Michael. Constable. New York, 1987.

1992

  • Hayes, John. British Paintings of the Sixteenth through Nineteenth Centuries. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1992: 27-29.