Below
is just a tiny selection of some of the beautiful paintings by John
Constable.
John
Constable (11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English Romantic
painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape
paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home (now known
as "Constable Country") which he invested with an
intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places
best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821,
"painting is but another word for feeling". His most
famous paintings include Dedham Vale of 1802 and The Hay Wain of
1821. His paintings are now among the most popular and valuable in
British art.
In
his youth, Constable embarked on amateur sketching trips in the
surrounding Suffolk and Essex countryside that was to become the
subject of a large proportion of his art. These scenes, in his own
words, "made me a painter, and I am grateful"; "the
sound of water escaping from mill dams etc., willows, old rotten
planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things."
In
his lifetime Constable was to sell only twenty paintings in England,
but in France he sold more than twenty in just a few years. Despite
this, he refused all invitations to travel internationally to
promote his work, writing to Francis Darby: "I would rather be
a poor man in England than a rich man abroad."
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