11 June: John Constable

On this date in 1776 John Constable was born. he was a landscape painter whose works include The Hay Wain.

1. He was born in East Bergholt, a village in Suffolk on the River Stour. Many of his paintings depict this area and have become known as “Constable Country”.
2. His father was a wealthy corn miller, who would have liked his son to follow him into the family business. Constable did that, for a time, but art was his hobby and eventually decided he wanted to be an artist. His father wasn’t keen, but supported him all the same.
3. His wife’s name was Maria Bicknell. He met her during a visit to his home town when he was 32. It was 1816 before he could marry her because her parents disapproved, however, when his parents died his inheritance allowed him to marry Maria without their consent. She suffered from tuberculosis, which meant they lived in Hampstead Heath (an area he would often paint) and they’d often visit Brighton, which was said to be better for Maria’s health. She died in 1828 and Constable was so devastated he swore he’d never paint again. He didn’t keep to that, though. Perhaps he turned to art to help him with his grief, or more likely, realised he had to keep working because she’d left him with seven children.
4. While he may be known as one of Britain’s most important painters, he only sold 20 paintings in Britain in his lifetime. At that time, his work was much more popular in France. He refused to travel abroad, however, saying that he would rather be a poor man in England than a rich man abroad.
5. His most famous painting is The Hay Wain which was painted in 1821 and depicts Horses pulling a wain, a type of cart, along the river Stour. The building on the left of the painting belonged to a farmer called Willy Lott, a neighbour of the Constable family. It’s said Lott only ever spent four nights away from the cottage in his whole life.
6. He liked to paint from nature rather than from imagination. He wrote, “The world is wide, 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."
7. He also preferred to paint the landscapes he was familiar with rather than popular tourist locations.
8. He was particularly fascinated by clouds and rainbows. His painting of Stonehenge with a double Rainbow is said to be one of the greatest watercolour paintings of all time.
9. He wasn’t admitted to the Royal Academy until he was 52 – possibly because he was highly critical of other artists of the time.
10. He died from heart failure at the age of 60 in 1837 and was buried in Hampstead with his wife.

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