Dear Adland 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
(click on image to enlarge)
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
(1) This image is a courtesy of Art Renewal Center.
(2) Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica Online.
(3) Source: Art Renewal Center.