At Illuminations, the Legion's current little show of 18th and 19th century English works on paper, Ciwt was reacquainted with a lovely oil she had once written a paper about. Here are both.
John Constable (1776-1837), English
A View of Hampstead
Heath with Harrow in the Distance, ca 1821-22
Oil/Paper Mounted on Canvas, #1988.10.40
From 1819 to 1826, John Constable rented a summer house at Hampstead
where he meticulously observed and recorded cloud formations, weather conditions,
and natural light effects; he believed an accurate rendering of these
constantly shifting elements could transmit the vitality and freshness that was
so important to his vision of the English countryside. (1) What Constable aimed at, above all, was to
capture the freshness and sparkle of nature. Before his time no painters had
dared to paint the full strength of nature's greens, and in the process of
picture-making something of the life and scintillation of nature had always
been lost. It was in his small sketches painted in the open air that he first
achieved this dewy freshness. In them the direct vigor of his disunited touches
conveyed exactly the glitter of light and tremor of atmosphere which earlier
painters had missed. (2)
In this oil sketch of Hampstead Heath
(an ancient park in the north of London,
covering 791 acres*), Constable captures the effects of a
windy late afternoon as a rainstorm moves in on billowing clouds. In the foreground of the painting a diagonal
path begins and splits the canvas. Following
the lower, backward moving half of the diagonal, the eye heads back past a pond,
its white caps rolling up to shore and out further toward a horse and
dismounted rider, then further back to two women ramblers, and sole final
rambler. In the distance lie Harrow ’s hills,
the spire of St. Mary’s, and cirrus clouds that appear to carry rain. The left or top diagonal teems with more
natural activity: Huge billowing clouds rush forward obscuring the setting sun
(and light source of the painting) and the leading tree in a clump of strong
green oaks leans back toward the viewer, apparently permanently windblown. Anyone of any era who has ever contemplated
or a walk on such a day knows the probable temperature on their skin, the feel
of the wind pressing against their bodies, the scurry to shelter as rain arrives.
Constable’s brushwork here is soft,
washy, loose and indistinct. It captures
the quickly changing atmospheric effects and carries the spirit and mood of
tidal movement and a strong maverick wind blowing clouds, trees and ramblers. And it plays with light, underpainting the
clouds with a soft peach, creating creamy froth on the waves, and catching
things here and there with occasional and unexpected dots of pure white. This energizing use of pure white was so
unique to him it was called “Constable snow.” Overall, Constable’s fluid,
energetic, inventive, and free use of oils in his sketches has encouraged some
critics to prize the sketches on paper even over his finished, larger
oils. Constable himself almost never
parted with the sketches, and they passed to his children through his estate.
(3)
Even though he was formally trained
for a few years at the Royal
Academy England and
the ability of anyone in the English
Royal Academy Suffolk
Perhaps ironically for one who did not
go abroad, it was the French who most appreciated his work which was known in France England France
was much more far-reaching particularly to the Barbizon
group of landscape painters whose interest in naturalism and plein-air painting
provided one of the strongest foundations for Impressionism. Along with William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough
and JMW Turner, he was one of the first great English painters of the 18th
and 19th centuries, and arguably one of the greatest landscape
painters in the history of Western European art. (4)
*Hampstead Heath (locally known as "the
Heath") is a large, ancient London
park, covering 320 hectares (791 acres). This grassy public space
sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London,
running from Hampstead
to Highgate,
which rests on a band of London clay. The Heath is rambling and hilly,
embracing ponds, recent and ancient woodlands, a lido, playgrounds, and a
training track, and it adjoins the stately home of Kenwood House and its
grounds. The SE part of the Heath is Parliament Hill, whose view over London is protected by
law. (Wikipedia, “Hampstead Heath”) At the time of this painting, the Heath was
much smaller (ca 313 acres) and source of many springs, including
iron-impregnated medicinal waters which became know as the Wells. It became a desirable place to live when
taking the waters, and the unimproved, rough moorland of the Heath was being encroached upon by
developers. Encroachment continued until the Hampstead
Heath Act of 1871, and, since then new acreage has been added although most of
the additions have been farmland or parkland and lack the moorland character of
the old heath. (Jane Rosoux, www.hampsteadramblers.org.uk)
Footnotes
1. hoocher.com/John_Constable/John_Constable.htm
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