Constable\u2019s Hay Wain \u2013 which one student described as \u2018a marmite painting\u2019, continues to produce excellent responses on the Art \u2013 A World History course. For those of you who still think of it as a \u2018chocolate box\u2019 image I offer another recent response .<\/p>\n
The following are two sections from a very full description of the painting and the context in which it was produced. The student, Keith Phillips confessed
\n\u201cI have never been over impressed with Constable, probably due to the overuse of his imagery, most notably of the Hay Wain. Having completed this assignment I have changed my mind!\u201d<\/p>\n
4. How was it produced? What materials\/techniques were used?<\/strong><\/p>\n The Hay Wain\u00a0is a painting by\u00a0John Constable, finished in 1821, using oils on canvas, this large painting, 130\u00a0cm \u00d7\u00a0185\u00a0cm, depicts a rural scene on the\u00a0River Stour\u00a0between the English counties of\u00a0Suffolk\u00a0and\u00a0Essex. It hangs in the\u00a0National Gallery. When the painting was originally exhibited, it was titled \u2018Landscape: Noon\u2019, the finished painting was referred to by Constable’s friend Archdeacon Fisher as \u2018The Haywain\u2019 as early as February 182, and this became its popular name.<\/p>\n Unlike many of his contemporaries\u00a0Constable painted from nature rather than thinking up a composition in his minds eye prior to beginning a piece. He was excited by the prospect of ever changing nature and the way that no view ever looked the same from one day to the next. He would often complete primary sketches prior to starting a large canvas, Constable would draw on the inspiration nature gave him and try to capture a moment in time, testing his composition first in oil and pencil sketches. Such sketches would be produced in a grid formation so that they could be accurately scaled up when the artist started to work on larger canvases at a later date. A number of the preliminary studies for this composition have survived enabling us to gain an insight into Constable\u2019s method of work. To begin with, there are the sketches from nature made in his early years, upon which he drew throughout his career. There is a small oil sketch of Willy Lott\u2019s cottage in the Victoria and Albert Museum which has been dated about 1810-15. Constable\u2019s practice was to use oil sketches, he blocked in the main features in broad masses of strong, bright colours, giving the work a rough texture and a surprisingly modern appearance, even as a young boy Constable would spend hours sketching, notable where his sketches of clouds, in what he referred to as his\u00a0\u2018skying\u2019\u00a0sessions. This development and skill is evident in his later works as the artist perfectly recreates cloud formations and sunlight.\u00a0Years later, he made use of such early sketches when he was devising the composition of \u2018The Hay Wain\u2019. Constable now faced the problem of converting these small, broadly executed oil sketches into a carefully composed much larger canvas. It was at this point that he produced the large sketch, a full scale treatment of the subject but with the details only roughly indicated, the background merely blocked in and the predominant tone provided by the light brown canvas on which it is painted. The finished picture in the National Gallery differs hardly at all in composition from this large sketch, only a figure on horseback in the foreground has disappeared.<\/p>\n Until Constable became popular many landscape artist used what is known as \u2018coffee colours\u2019 to create their works, especially the great Dutch masters whose works were considered to be the epitome of good landscape painting. However Constable’s challenging and often stubborn nature led him to rebel against this convention, using natural tones and vibrant greens to match the colours he saw in the countryside. He even argued that the browns of classical landscapes were in fact down to the varnish used on those canvases and it may have been the intention of the masters to use vivid colours originally. He created new techniques to give the realistic appearance of flowing water and wind blowing through trees, by layering reds with the greens of his trees, he was able to create depth in a way which had never been done before, not only this, but the reds added a vibrancy to the trees, something that was missing from classical landscapes. Constable used white highlights to illuminate water moving against people and agricultural equipment. This gave the impression of sunlight reflecting in the image, enhancing the realism of many of Constable’s paintings. Constable had a somewhat advanced style compared to many of his contemporaries. His use of broad and naturalistic brushstroke was frowned upon by The Royal Academy and did not earn him many patrons in England, this Impasto technique however, went on to be fully developed by The Impressionists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.<\/p>\n 5. Why was this painting better received in France than in England?<\/strong><\/p>\n Although\u00a0The Hay Wain\u00a0is revered today as one of the greatest British paintings, when it was originally exhibited at the\u00a0Royal Academy\u00a0in 1821 (under the title\u00a0Landscape: Noon), it failed to find a buyer. Constable’s work was not very well received by his contemporaries in Britain, who believed that the\u00a0ideal landscape\u00a0should mirror those of Claude Lorrain. Also, they didn’t appreciate Constable’s innovative used of the\u00a0\u2018impasto\u2019\u00a0technique.<\/p>\n After the Royal Academy exhibition Constable sent this painting along with others to France, where he was asked to exhibit a number of pieces at the Paris Salon in 1824, it was considerably better received in France where it caused a sensation. In that exhibition,\u00a0The Hay Wain\u00a0was singled out for a gold medal awarded by\u00a0Charles X of France, a cast of which is incorporated into the picture’s frame. The works by Constable in the exhibition inspired a new generation of French painters, including\u00a0Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix and Camille\u00a0Corot. Eug\u00e8ne Delacroix\u00a0was apparently so struck by Constable\u2019s use of broken colour and flickering light that he repainted the background of his dramatic masterpiece\u00a0Scenes from the Massacres of Chios\u00a01824. When Delacroix visited London in 1825 it is probable that he paid a visit to Constable\u2019s studio, as his journal includes an accurate account of Constable\u2019s technique. Constable\u2019s approach also inspired artists to work directly from everyday life and use nature as the main subject of their painting, rather than simply as a backdrop for dramatic classical or historic scenes. They began to venture out of Paris and into the countryside to work directly from the landscape. A main destination was the Forest of Fontainbleu, an easy train-ride from Paris. One of the villages on the edge of the forest, Barbizon, became a popular place for artists to stay during their sketching trips. These artists, including Theodore Rousseau and Camille Corot, later became known as the Barbizon School. The Barbizon painters also responded to Constable\u2019s handling of paint. The broad strokes and loose marks in Constable\u2019s paintings seemed to record the vigorous movements of the artist\u2019s hand, unlike academic conventions which tended to suppress those kinds of traces. Another artist associated with the School, Jean-Francois Millet, added a human dimension to this new approach to landscape painting. In paintings such as\u00a0The Gleaners 1857, farm workers are shown harvesting or labouring within the landscape. There is no drama or narrative, simply the documenting of everyday life. This type of work belongs to a movement known as \u2018realism\u2019<\/p>\n Constable\u2019s success on continental Europe established his reputation and allowed him to finally make money from his art.<\/p>\n I attach a couple of images taken recently at an exhibition in The National Gallery of Scotland, where some of Constable\u2019s oil sketches were shown alongside his finished painting of Salisbury Cathedral from the meadows \u2013 another of his \u2018six footers\u2019.<\/p>\n Keith Phillips Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831<\/i><\/span><\/p>\n
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