John Constable
Whilst recently visiting the beautiful countryside of Dedham/ Flatford, I thought it was essential to look at the work of traditional English painter John Constable. Constables traditional style although not similar to mine, is of huge interest to me. The landscape in which he is known for is the land which I have currently been working from and the works which I intend to have in my degree show. The beautiful land definitely did not lack character or enthusiasm and this is certainly documented in the work of Constable.
Born in East Bergholt, a village on the river Stour in Suffolk, Constable is a perfect contextualisation for my degree project. Being able to visit and work from the scenes that he did, made me able to strongly relate and feel the vibrancy and power of his works.
In his youth constable would regularly embark on sketching trips around the Suffolk countryside, soon which was to become the subject of a large proportion of his work. The Suffolk landscape in his own terms;
“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.”
This quote above is something that I can relate too. The sounds that you hear around you whilst being present in the landscape are inspiring.
From studying the works of constable it is clear that his works hold substantial detail, however, I found some images in the book I was reading that I can see huge similarities to my own works. They are more zoomed in scale works and concentrate on more of the land rather than the mills and machinery around the area. The amounts of detail included is still of a spectacular standard however heading towards more of an abstracted appearance.
The images on the left are what I have really been looking at closely. I think this can be seen when starting to look at and working on my final pieces. He has been influential in many ways even though his time period is not contemporary. I think that it is important to have a range of time periods of landscape painting as it can be used in a timeline sense beginning to look at the changes as we advance in technology. More depth and research on Constable can be found in my notebooks.
I have really enjoyed studying the works of John Constable. I think this is predominantly down to the land I have formed a connection too, as he did. I have seen myself showing similarities to constable in many ways over the past weeks whilst experimenting and although this has been accidental I think that Suffolk countryside has been the reasoning behind this.
