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Dear
Friends,
As my third introductory release in this exhibition of great master works in the world history,
I would like to feature this time the English Romantic painter
John Constable, one of the most important landscape painters of
all times both in oil and watercolor painting.
While it was with
the Flemish school of painting that landscapes became a motive
on its own - and no longer a simple ornament to the portrayal of
an individual or a group of people- it was only with the
British School of Art that people more or less disappeared in
landscape painting. This did not deter painters from portraying
people, although they would be shown now almost exclusively
within the closed spaces of elegant rooms.
Other great
British landscape painters are the Rococo Thomas
Gainsborough (1727-1788)
and the Romantic Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851).
Again, good feedback is welcome.
Thank you,
Luis Miguel Goitizolo
GREAT MASTERS OF
PAINTING
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Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows (1)
by
John Constable
born June 11, 1776, East Bergholt, Suffolk, England
died March 31, 1837, London
Profile
(2)
major figure in
English landscape painting in the early 19th century. He is best
known for his paintings of the English countryside, particularly
those representing his native valley of the River Stour, an area
that came to be known as “Constable country.”
Constable was a
significant painter during a period when landscape was a
dominant genre in British art. His oeuvre was unique in that he
usually did not elect to paint places popular with the touring
public or other artists, but rather concentrated on sites with
which he had family connections, or where, for personal reasons,
he happened to be. And while other artists made oil sketches,
none did so as extensively and intensively as Constable. His
landscapes represent a sometimes astonishing capacity to
represent natural appearances—particularly, in his later years,
the fleeting and dramatic effects of stormy skies—as well as a
profound and prolonged meditation on the rural realities of a
Britain undergoing a bewildering socioeconomic transformation.
Technical data
(3)
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
1831
Oil on canvas
59
3/4 x 74
3/4
inches (151.8 x 189.9 cm)
Private collection
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