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| Self Portrait |
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| Dedham Vale |
One of my favorite English painters is John Constable who captures spectacular images of English landscape. He was born in Suffolk in 1776 and concentrated on painting the beautiful scenery around Dedham Vale, which is now known as "Constable Country." In a letter to a friend, Constable wrote, "I should paint my own places best." Constable was the second son, but his older brother was mentally handicapped so he was expected to succeed his father who was a successful corn merchant. He did start work in the corn business, but persuaded his father to let him pursue a career in art. He entered the Royal Academy Schools as a probationer.
Constable executed many fine portraits over his career, but he found them dull and only did them to make ends meet. He delighted in scenes of ordinary daily life, which was very unfashionable in an age that craved the more romantic visions of wild landscapes and ruins. He was never successful financially and was sold more paintings in France than in his native England where he only sold 20 paintings. Despite this, he refused to travel internationally to promote his work and wrote, "I would rather be a poor man [in England] than a rich man abroad." He did not become a member of the Royal Academy until he was 52 years old.
Constable executed many fine portraits over his career, but he found them dull and only did them to make ends meet. He delighted in scenes of ordinary daily life, which was very unfashionable in an age that craved the more romantic visions of wild landscapes and ruins. He was never successful financially and was sold more paintings in France than in his native England where he only sold 20 paintings. Despite this, he refused to travel internationally to promote his work and wrote, "I would rather be a poor man [in England] than a rich man abroad." He did not become a member of the Royal Academy until he was 52 years old.
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| Maria Bicknell |
At age 40 Constable married his childhood sweetheart Maria Bicknell at St -Martin-in-the-Fields, London. He and Maria had seven children before Maria died of tuberculosis. Sadly, he never got over her death and continued to dress in black and was "prey to melancholy and anxious thoughts." He brought up his children alone and died in 1837. "The world is wide", Constable wrote, "no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of all the world; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from each other."
