Article
John Constable, artist
Although John Constable's reputation in the nineteenth century was based in large part on the finished landscapes he submitted to summer exhibitions at the Royal Academy in London, his posthumous reputation has been greatly influenced by his open-air oil sketches, much admired by artists in the twentieth century. These vibrant nature studies, often painted in one sitting, were primarily created to gather source material for his finished studio pictures. Constable never intended his oil sketches for public exhibition and they were known only to his friends and relatives during his lifetime.
In accepted English painting practice in the nineteenth century, there were three basic degrees of finish used to describe an artwork: finished painting, study, and sketch. In academic terms, a "finished" painting would be created entirely in the studio, with the details and design of the composition harmoniously balanced to perfection. The terms "study" and "sketch" were often used interchangeably by artists, yet Frederick Fairholt's Dictionary of Terms in Art (1854) describes a sketch as "the first embodiment of an artist's idea . . . a copy from nature only sufficiently finished for an artist to secure the materials for a picture." A study was considered to be a sketch that had been later worked up, or finished in the studio.
Between 1808 and 1829, Constable regularly depended on his supply of oil sketches painted on location to provide source material for his finished studio pictures. Working on scraps of previously used canvas or sheets of specially prepared paper pinned inside the lid of his open paint box, Constable would sketch a chosen subject with his paint box resting upon his knees. Tack holes are still visible in the corners of many of Constable's oil sketches and are the telltale signs for scholars that a particular work had been painted, at least in part, on location.
The small study Branch Hill Pond, Hampstead, inscribed on the stretcher End of Octr. 1819, is Constable's earliest-dated oil from that location, painted the first year that the artist and his family rented a house in the village of Hampstead during the summer months. The work possibly was begun as a sketch painted from nature, and the lively impasto in the foreground and the brooding sky of the oil study were most certainly added later in the artist's studio. This view of Branch Hill Pond, looking west toward Harrow, became one of Constable's standard Hampstead compositions. He would repeat it with slight variations in at least four finished exhibition paintings, including the canvas he submitted to the Royal Academy in 1828, now at the V&A.
Unquestionably, the centerpieces of the Constable collection at the V&A are the full-scale oil studies for The Hay Wain (1821) and The Leaping Horse (1825), two of the artist's most important finished exhibition paintings depicting life along the Stour River. Constable painted these enormous studies in the studio to translate his small-scale oil sketches to a large-scale format, preserving the spontaneous brushwork he had developed while sketching in the field. Constable filled his study for The Leaping Horse with carefully observed local detail. In an oft-quoted letter to his friend Archdeacon Fisher, Constable wrote, "Old rotten Banks, slimy posts & brickwork. I love such things."
In accepted English painting practice in the nineteenth century, there were three basic degrees of finish used to describe an artwork: finished painting, study, and sketch. In academic terms, a "finished" painting would be created entirely in the studio, with the details and design of the composition harmoniously balanced to perfection. The terms "study" and "sketch" were often used interchangeably by artists, yet Frederick Fairholt's Dictionary of Terms in Art (1854) describes a sketch as "the first embodiment of an artist's idea . . . a copy from nature only sufficiently finished for an artist to secure the materials for a picture." A study was considered to be a sketch that had been later worked up, or finished in the studio.
Between 1808 and 1829, Constable regularly depended on his supply of oil sketches painted on location to provide source material for his finished studio pictures. Working on scraps of previously used canvas or sheets of specially prepared paper pinned inside the lid of his open paint box, Constable would sketch a chosen subject with his paint box resting upon his knees. Tack holes are still visible in the corners of many of Constable's oil sketches and are the telltale signs for scholars that a particular work had been painted, at least in part, on location.
The small study Branch Hill Pond, Hampstead, inscribed on the stretcher End of Octr. 1819, is Constable's earliest-dated oil from that location, painted the first year that the artist and his family rented a house in the village of Hampstead during the summer months. The work possibly was begun as a sketch painted from nature, and the lively impasto in the foreground and the brooding sky of the oil study were most certainly added later in the artist's studio. This view of Branch Hill Pond, looking west toward Harrow, became one of Constable's standard Hampstead compositions. He would repeat it with slight variations in at least four finished exhibition paintings, including the canvas he submitted to the Royal Academy in 1828, now at the V&A.
Unquestionably, the centerpieces of the Constable collection at the V&A are the full-scale oil studies for The Hay Wain (1821) and The Leaping Horse (1825), two of the artist's most important finished exhibition paintings depicting life along the Stour River. Constable painted these enormous studies in the studio to translate his small-scale oil sketches to a large-scale format, preserving the spontaneous brushwork he had developed while sketching in the field. Constable filled his study for The Leaping Horse with carefully observed local detail. In an oft-quoted letter to his friend Archdeacon Fisher, Constable wrote, "Old rotten Banks, slimy posts & brickwork. I love such things."
