0:00:04 > 0:00:07'In August 1824, the Salon des Beaux-Arts,
0:00:07 > 0:00:11'the most important exhibition in the French artistic calendar,
0:00:11 > 0:00:13'opened at the Louvre in Paris.
0:00:13 > 0:00:18'That year, one painting in particular was causing a sensation.
0:00:18 > 0:00:20'A critic described it as simply water,
0:00:20 > 0:00:24'air and sky, and felt there were few masterpieces,
0:00:24 > 0:00:28'ancient or modern, that could stand in opposition to it.
0:00:28 > 0:00:32'The French writer Stendhal called it the mirror of nature.
0:00:32 > 0:00:36'Both its subject matter and the way it was painted were in stark
0:00:36 > 0:00:40'contrast to the highly polished scenes of classical subjects
0:00:40 > 0:00:44'that were still admired in the aftermath of the Napoleonic era.
0:00:47 > 0:00:51'The picture was Landscape: Noon by John Constable.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54'Better known to us today as 'The Hay Wain'.
0:00:56 > 0:00:59'For many people it is the supreme depiction of the English
0:00:59 > 0:01:00'rural landscape.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03'So why did it appeal so profoundly to the French?'
0:01:03 > 0:01:06Upon seeing the painting, the young romantic artist
0:01:06 > 0:01:10Eugene Delacroix supposedly feverishly retouched sections
0:01:10 > 0:01:14of this picture in the hours before the salon opened because he was
0:01:14 > 0:01:17so energised and so excited by the techniques that he'd seen.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23Delacroix acknowledged his debt to what he called the "vigorous
0:01:23 > 0:01:26"and unexpected landscapes" of this remarkable English painter.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30He described the first Constable sketch he saw as an amazing
0:01:30 > 0:01:31and incredible thing.
0:01:31 > 0:01:34The French were utterly beguiled by The Hay Wain.
0:01:34 > 0:01:36So much so that it won a gold medal
0:01:36 > 0:01:39and was generally considered a revolutionary picture.
0:01:39 > 0:01:41And of course,
0:01:41 > 0:01:44the French - well, they knew a thing or two about revolutions.
0:01:45 > 0:01:48Unfortunately, the admiration was not mutual.
0:01:48 > 0:01:52John Constable, the harassable and curmudgeonly painter
0:01:52 > 0:01:54of the sweetest visions of rural England
0:01:54 > 0:01:57had rebelled against his father,
0:01:57 > 0:02:01his tutors, the art establishment and the traditional understanding
0:02:01 > 0:02:05of art history that regarded his landscapes with derision.
0:02:05 > 0:02:10He rejected the praise of the French critics just as emphatically.
0:02:21 > 0:02:24Constable went out of his way to frustrate his French admirers.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27He said that he hoped he'd never have to go to
0:02:27 > 0:02:29Paris as long as he lived, even when he was invited to
0:02:29 > 0:02:32receive his medal from the King of France, Charles X.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35And his attitude seems all the more contrary
0:02:35 > 0:02:39when you consider that back across the Channel, in his own country,
0:02:39 > 0:02:42he struggled as an artist both critically and financially.
0:02:42 > 0:02:44And no-one much cared for his work.
0:02:53 > 0:02:55Now, I should confess something.
0:02:55 > 0:02:59For me it's much easier to understand the English attitude
0:02:59 > 0:03:01rather than the French one.
0:03:01 > 0:03:04I find it really difficult to think of John Constable
0:03:04 > 0:03:06as a revolutionary painter.
0:03:06 > 0:03:10He's somehow so safe and comfortable and cosy and nostalgic
0:03:10 > 0:03:11and so English.
0:03:11 > 0:03:13I'm so familiar with this picture that
0:03:13 > 0:03:16I just can't really get excited about it.
0:03:16 > 0:03:19It seems to say, "No sex, please, we're British".
0:03:19 > 0:03:22But maybe I'm guilty of artistic snobbery -
0:03:22 > 0:03:26after all it isn't Constable's fault that he's so popular
0:03:26 > 0:03:28with people who sell tea towels and jigsaws.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33Constable was a revolutionary figure
0:03:33 > 0:03:36but he thought of himself really as a truth teller.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40As a painter who painted the rural world of England as it really was.
0:03:44 > 0:03:47Nineteenth century landscape painting is
0:03:47 > 0:03:50a place for revolution and Constable certainly was
0:03:50 > 0:03:53a cornerstone of the landscape revolution.
0:03:53 > 0:03:55We've fallen in love with Constable
0:03:55 > 0:03:59because he presents something of an ideal of what it is to be English.
0:03:59 > 0:04:03Something that we think that we know, but he was saying
0:04:03 > 0:04:06something at the time that was new and breaking new ground.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11It was only really in the time of the Impressionists that
0:04:11 > 0:04:15Constable was acknowledged as one of the founders of modern art.
0:04:17 > 0:04:19I'm not convinced.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22I think of Constable as someone quite conservative,
0:04:22 > 0:04:24both in his life and in his art.
0:04:24 > 0:04:28There's no question that he's embedded deep in the English psyche,
0:04:28 > 0:04:31but is he also a revolutionary painter?
0:04:47 > 0:04:51"East Bergholt is pleasantly situated in the most
0:04:51 > 0:04:54"cultivated part of Suffolk, on a spot
0:04:54 > 0:04:57"which overlooks the valley of the River Stour.
0:04:57 > 0:05:01"The beauty of the surrounding scenery,
0:05:01 > 0:05:05"its gentle declivities, its luxuriant meadow flats
0:05:05 > 0:05:10"sprinkled with flocks and herds, its woods and rivers with numerous
0:05:10 > 0:05:16"scattered villages and churches, farms and picturesque cottages,
0:05:16 > 0:05:21"all impart to this particular spot an amenity, an elegance,
0:05:21 > 0:05:24"hardly anywhere else to be found."
0:05:25 > 0:05:30That's Constable's own description of the scenes of his boyhood,
0:05:30 > 0:05:33which he was fond of saying made him a painter.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38This is the classic biography of Constable and it's
0:05:38 > 0:05:42written by his friend, Charles Robert Leslie, who was a painter.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46And, its strength is that it draws very heavily upon Constable's
0:05:46 > 0:05:47own correspondence.
0:05:47 > 0:05:50You get a really intimate sense of Constable the man,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53but, at the same time, because it was written by a friend,
0:05:53 > 0:05:55it goes quite easily on Constable.
0:05:55 > 0:05:58Still, for all of that, it's not a bad place to begin.
0:06:07 > 0:06:10Constable said painting was but another word for feeling,
0:06:10 > 0:06:13and it's absolutely clear that he adored this landscape.
0:06:13 > 0:06:17It would remain the most significant source of his subject matter
0:06:17 > 0:06:21throughout his life, whether he was here to paint it or not.
0:06:25 > 0:06:27He understood this landscape.
0:06:27 > 0:06:28One of his brothers said that,
0:06:28 > 0:06:32"I know when John paints a windmill the sails will go around."
0:06:32 > 0:06:35So he felt that because he knew the landscape and what was
0:06:35 > 0:06:39going on intimately well, he could paint it with a special authority.
0:06:39 > 0:06:43The fact that this part of the world is known as "Constable country"
0:06:43 > 0:06:48is something that Constable himself encouraged during his own lifetime.
0:06:48 > 0:06:50He once wrote proudly to a friend that
0:06:50 > 0:06:52when travelling home to Suffolk by coach,
0:06:52 > 0:06:57he remarked upon the general beauty of the scene to a fellow passenger.
0:06:57 > 0:07:00"Yes, sir, this is Constable's country" the gentleman said.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03At which point Constable immediately added,
0:07:03 > 0:07:06"I then told him who I was, lest he should spoil it."
0:07:06 > 0:07:09But, in one sense, this was already Constable country
0:07:09 > 0:07:11when he walked it as a young boy,
0:07:11 > 0:07:15because his father owned great swathes of the surrounding farmland.
0:07:23 > 0:07:28Flatford Mill, which Golding Constable unexpectedly inherited,
0:07:28 > 0:07:29was the basis of his fortune.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32But he'd expanded his business rapidly,
0:07:32 > 0:07:36acquiring another mill at Dedham and a couple of windmills too.
0:07:38 > 0:07:42He ran a fleet of barges supplying flour to markets in London.
0:07:42 > 0:07:45As a consequence, he was able to build himself a very large
0:07:45 > 0:07:49residence in the middle of the village of East Bergholt,
0:07:49 > 0:07:52where two years later, in 1776, John Constable was born.
0:07:55 > 0:07:58The house is gone now, but we know what it looked like
0:07:58 > 0:08:00because John painted and drew it so often.
0:08:02 > 0:08:06The society into which he was born was changing turbulently -
0:08:06 > 0:08:08revolution was in the air.
0:08:10 > 0:08:12He was born in the year of the American Revolution,
0:08:12 > 0:08:16and the Industrial Revolution was powering a period of rapid
0:08:16 > 0:08:19urban expansion, causing frequent unrest in the countryside
0:08:19 > 0:08:22where the traditional way of life seemed under threat.
0:08:24 > 0:08:28When he was 13 in 1789, the French Revolution took place,
0:08:28 > 0:08:32and by the time of his 17th birthday we were at war with France.
0:08:34 > 0:08:37The background static of revolution was also reflected
0:08:37 > 0:08:39in the painting of the period.
0:08:39 > 0:08:42Heroic depictions of historical scenes and powerful images
0:08:42 > 0:08:45of new industrial processes were all the rage.
0:08:48 > 0:08:53But none of this seemed to interest the young John Constable.
0:08:53 > 0:08:57What he loved, he said, were willows, old rotten planks,
0:08:57 > 0:08:59slimy posts and brickwork.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02"I should paint my own places best," he wrote,
0:09:02 > 0:09:07and for the first part of his career, he painted little else.
0:09:07 > 0:09:10But if the places of his boyhood made him a painter,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13it seems they also made him a Tory.
0:09:15 > 0:09:18Constable's father was a very successful entrepreneur -
0:09:18 > 0:09:21locally they would have been regarded as gentlemen.
0:09:21 > 0:09:25He was very much a member of the ruling class of the rural world.
0:09:25 > 0:09:29By our standards, he would certainly have been a traditional Tory.
0:09:29 > 0:09:34But though Constable shared his father's political views, he was no
0:09:34 > 0:09:38entrepreneur, and wasn't interested in learning the family trade.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41Instead, for no easily discernible reason,
0:09:41 > 0:09:45he decided that he wanted to become a painter.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48Paradoxically, in order to achieve his goal,
0:09:48 > 0:09:52he faced the prospect of leaving the very source of his inspiration
0:09:52 > 0:09:54to go and study in London.
0:09:54 > 0:09:58The trigger for that change was an introduction into the home
0:09:58 > 0:10:02of a local baronet called Sir George Beaumont and there, for the
0:10:02 > 0:10:05first time, Constable encountered some serious works of art.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12And this was one of them, Hagar And The Angel by the French
0:10:12 > 0:10:16landscape painter, Claude Lorrain, now hanging in the National Gallery.
0:10:16 > 0:10:21Sir George had a very impressive collection of old master paintings,
0:10:21 > 0:10:23but this picture here was his favourite.
0:10:23 > 0:10:26So much so that he had a special case constructed
0:10:26 > 0:10:30so that he could transport it in his coat wherever he went.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34It was the first great old master that Constable saw one-to-one
0:10:34 > 0:10:38and was actually able to handle, and it was a painting that was
0:10:38 > 0:10:42a fixed point of reference for him throughout his working life.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46Landscape was not regarded as a serious subject
0:10:46 > 0:10:50for a painter at the time - it had to be smuggled into a painting
0:10:50 > 0:10:52like this, almost in disguise.
0:10:52 > 0:10:56The addition in the lower foreground of figures from classical
0:10:56 > 0:11:01mythology or a scene from the Bible gave the picture moral purpose.
0:11:01 > 0:11:04But even when he painted this, in 1646,
0:11:04 > 0:11:06Claude recognised the imposture.
0:11:06 > 0:11:10"I paint the landscape," he said, "the figures are gratis".
0:11:13 > 0:11:16After meeting Sir George and seeing his art,
0:11:16 > 0:11:18Constable's mind was made up.
0:11:18 > 0:11:21In 1799, 23-years-old and burning with ambition,
0:11:21 > 0:11:22he left Suffolk.
0:11:23 > 0:11:26This rural stretch of the Stour Valley, which he
0:11:26 > 0:11:30was to make famous and which would ultimately bear his name,
0:11:30 > 0:11:33was never again his permanent home.
0:11:41 > 0:11:43On the fourth of March, he wrote in a letter,
0:11:43 > 0:11:47"I am this morning admitted as student at The Royal Academy."
0:11:47 > 0:11:50There was no more prestigious place for an artist to study,
0:11:50 > 0:11:53but as the embodiment of the British art establishment,
0:11:53 > 0:11:57the Royal Academy of Arts could also open doors for painters
0:11:57 > 0:11:59who conformed to its standards.
0:12:03 > 0:12:08As a 23-year-old when he enrolled, Constable was a very mature student,
0:12:08 > 0:12:13and it's here that he crosses paths for the first time with his nemesis.
0:12:13 > 0:12:17His almost exact contemporary, Joseph Mallord William Turner.
0:12:17 > 0:12:20Turner, the son of a London barber from Covent Garden,
0:12:20 > 0:12:24had joined the academy at the age of 14, and in the same year
0:12:24 > 0:12:29that Constable arrived as a student was already an associate member.
0:12:32 > 0:12:36But Constable's late enrolment at the Academy wasn't
0:12:36 > 0:12:38the greatest obstacle to his career.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47The Royal Academy had been set up 30 years earlier to raise
0:12:47 > 0:12:51the bar of British art under the leadership of Sir Joshua Reynolds,
0:12:51 > 0:12:54whose discourses were the foundation of his teachings.
0:12:54 > 0:12:58And though Constable, when he turned up, he did all of the right things -
0:12:58 > 0:13:01he was drawing classical statuary, he was copying old masters -
0:13:01 > 0:13:04the rules laid down here proved to be his undoing
0:13:04 > 0:13:07in the short term of his immediate career prospects.
0:13:07 > 0:13:08But I think, in a sense,
0:13:08 > 0:13:11they were also the making of him as an artist rebel.
0:13:16 > 0:13:20At this time, paintings were ordered according to their subject matter.
0:13:20 > 0:13:23At the top of the hierarchy were historical subjects,
0:13:23 > 0:13:27which demanded vision and imagination from the painter.
0:13:27 > 0:13:30Then came portraiture, which required a high standard
0:13:30 > 0:13:34of skill and insight to reveal the true likeness of the sitter.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38Beneath these disciplines came what were known as genre paintings,
0:13:38 > 0:13:40showing scenes of everyday life,
0:13:40 > 0:13:44and descending right down to the very bottom of the pile came
0:13:44 > 0:13:47pictures in which there was no human involvement -
0:13:47 > 0:13:49still life and landscape.
0:13:52 > 0:13:55But from the very start, Constable didn't seem inclined to
0:13:55 > 0:13:56play along with these rules.
0:13:56 > 0:13:59Of course, Constable wasn't the first painter of landscapes
0:13:59 > 0:14:02to feel quite resentful about this state of affairs, but
0:14:02 > 0:14:06if there's one thing I can see about him that's clearly revolutionary,
0:14:06 > 0:14:10it's that he managed to break free from this artistic straitjacket.
0:14:10 > 0:14:11The thing is, to get to that point,
0:14:11 > 0:14:14he was setting off on a very rocky road indeed.
0:14:18 > 0:14:22The year he left the Royal Academy there are estimated to have
0:14:22 > 0:14:26been 2,500 professional painters working in London.
0:14:26 > 0:14:29He'd chosen to work in the very lowest genre of art, and to add
0:14:29 > 0:14:34to his challenge he refused to adapt his style to suit prevailing tastes.
0:14:37 > 0:14:40The landscapes of old master painters that were cherished
0:14:40 > 0:14:43at the time were usually discoloured by varnish that
0:14:43 > 0:14:45had gone brown with age.
0:14:45 > 0:14:48Discolour was much admired by connoisseurs, the sheer
0:14:48 > 0:14:53naturalistic clarity of Constable's paintings seemed shockingly garish.
0:14:55 > 0:14:58There's an amusing anecdote in Leslie and it gives us
0:14:58 > 0:15:02an insight into the relationship between Sir George and Constable
0:15:02 > 0:15:06because Sir George liked to pontificate about art to Constable,
0:15:06 > 0:15:09and there was one occasion where he recommended that the prevailing
0:15:09 > 0:15:13tone of everything should be the colour of an old Cremona fiddle.
0:15:15 > 0:15:18Constable is having none of it - he fetches a fiddle
0:15:18 > 0:15:22and places it on Sir George's lawn to demonstrate
0:15:22 > 0:15:26conclusively that the grass was not the same colour as the fiddle.
0:15:31 > 0:15:34The concept of honesty in his paintings
0:15:34 > 0:15:37became something of an obsession for Constable.
0:15:37 > 0:15:40At a time when everyone else, even Turner,
0:15:40 > 0:15:43was doing what they felt the Academy demanded,
0:15:43 > 0:15:47his vibrant colour palette represented a rebellious stance.
0:15:50 > 0:15:54In 1802, as Constable left the Academy, Turner was elevated
0:15:54 > 0:15:57to full membership and became a Royal Academician,
0:15:57 > 0:16:01something that must have seemed almost unattainable to Constable.
0:16:04 > 0:16:07Disillusioned by the work shown at the Summer Exhibition,
0:16:07 > 0:16:11he tried to formulate a plan to put his own ideas into practice,
0:16:11 > 0:16:15and in a passionate letter to an old friend in East Bergholt,
0:16:15 > 0:16:17he set out the Constablist Manifesto.
0:16:17 > 0:16:19He knows what he has to do now.
0:16:19 > 0:16:21He spent three years at the Royal Academy, he's had
0:16:21 > 0:16:25a look around the Royal Academy show and he's analysed what he thinks
0:16:25 > 0:16:29is wrong with the London art world, which is what he calls mannerism.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31It's running after pictures,
0:16:31 > 0:16:35it's making paintings that look like paintings that already exist.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37And the correction for that, he says,
0:16:37 > 0:16:41as for everything else that's wrong with painting, is to go back
0:16:41 > 0:16:44to nature, and that's what he intends to do now.
0:16:54 > 0:16:58Painters had often made preparatory sketches outdoors to help them
0:16:58 > 0:17:01complete their finished works later in the studio.
0:17:02 > 0:17:05But these were usually done in media like pencil, pen or watercolour,
0:17:05 > 0:17:08which were easy to transport and clean up afterwards.
0:17:10 > 0:17:15Painting outdoor sketches in oil was another matter.
0:17:15 > 0:17:18It had enjoyed sporadic popularity in the years before Constable,
0:17:18 > 0:17:22but he not only took on the technical challenges but also became
0:17:22 > 0:17:26supremely accomplished at overcoming the difficulties it presented.
0:17:27 > 0:17:31Well, you've picked quite a good vista, you've got, what are these?
0:17:31 > 0:17:33These are two beautiful willow trees.
0:17:33 > 0:17:37Yeah. Constable would have loved to have painted these actually.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40I think the way that they're turning slightly inside out,
0:17:40 > 0:17:42so, you've got the opaque flat white
0:17:42 > 0:17:45and then you've got the rich interior wood.
0:17:47 > 0:17:50Julian has been a fan of Constable's oil sketches since he first saw them
0:17:50 > 0:17:54as a student, and has been following the practice himself ever since.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59I think the value in Constable's sketches is that he's
0:17:59 > 0:18:02sort of channelling the adversity, as it were.
0:18:02 > 0:18:05It's like a kind of high wire act in a way,
0:18:05 > 0:18:09if it goes wrong you sink into mud, literally, you know,
0:18:09 > 0:18:14the painting just disappears into a horrible sort of a daub.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16But if you get it right, and he often did get it right,
0:18:16 > 0:18:18the paintings have a vitality
0:18:18 > 0:18:21and a freshness which is the quality that has basically travelled
0:18:21 > 0:18:25through time since they were done and that we enjoy now.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28Oil painting is quite technical and it's messy.
0:18:28 > 0:18:30The big challenge is honing the kit right down
0:18:30 > 0:18:33so that it's actually portable.
0:18:33 > 0:18:35I mean, you've got your Everyday Value chopped tomatoes can.
0:18:35 > 0:18:37I don't think John Constable had one of those,
0:18:37 > 0:18:40but would he have had a box like this?
0:18:40 > 0:18:43He certainly would've painted on the lid of his painting box,
0:18:43 > 0:18:46which is a very efficient way of combining easel and paint box.
0:18:46 > 0:18:51He didn't have, as I understand it though, tubes of paint, did he?
0:18:51 > 0:18:55No, as I understand it he bought his paint in bladders, pigs bladders.
0:18:55 > 0:18:56And then you imagine him what?
0:18:56 > 0:18:58Sort of, with a pin prick into the bladder,
0:18:58 > 0:19:01- you could squeeze a bit of the paint out?- Yes.
0:19:01 > 0:19:02Much like using...
0:19:02 > 0:19:05Onto a palette that I should imagine would be sitting here,
0:19:05 > 0:19:07and the paint stored underneath or chucked all around.
0:19:07 > 0:19:10But for him, painting was quite a dynamic thing.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13While Julian gets started on his sketch,
0:19:13 > 0:19:16let's have a look at some of Constable's work.
0:19:16 > 0:19:19The Victoria And Albert Museum recognises the importance
0:19:19 > 0:19:22of these pictures with a whole wonder wall devoted to them.
0:19:24 > 0:19:26I really find these oil sketches a total revelation,
0:19:26 > 0:19:29they're done with such speed, with such spontaneity.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32There's a clear delight that Constable
0:19:32 > 0:19:34is taking in what he sees around him.
0:19:34 > 0:19:37And in all of it, you get that sense of freshness
0:19:37 > 0:19:41and sparkle of nature, which Constable wanted.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43And that looseness,
0:19:43 > 0:19:48that sense of intimacy with him, as an artist, makes them so beguiling.
0:19:48 > 0:19:52I mean, here you can see all of these clouds, which you
0:19:52 > 0:19:56sense them sort of forming and rushing off before your eyes.
0:19:56 > 0:20:01Dramatic light peeping through trees, a sense of storminess.
0:20:01 > 0:20:03They feel like they could've been
0:20:03 > 0:20:05painted by some of the Impressionists.
0:20:05 > 0:20:09Constable was at the cutting edge in that sense - he was doing
0:20:09 > 0:20:12something which avant-garde artists later in the 19th century
0:20:12 > 0:20:15were going to do, kind of, 50 years ahead of his time.
0:20:15 > 0:20:19And I didn't really know about that, so to encounter this and see
0:20:19 > 0:20:24not that slightly more formal Academy vision, but him inhabiting
0:20:24 > 0:20:29the spirit of the landscape, has actually really been quite special.
0:20:29 > 0:20:32What is it about his paintings that you admire?
0:20:32 > 0:20:34They're just so brilliantly implicit.
0:20:34 > 0:20:37He's constantly animating the surface.
0:20:37 > 0:20:41There are constantly these little flecks, these strange highlights.
0:20:41 > 0:20:43His paintings are like accumulations of marks.
0:20:43 > 0:20:46They're not brushed out quite in the usual way that you
0:20:46 > 0:20:48think of a painting.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51It's ironic that he put so much effort into the bigger ones
0:20:51 > 0:20:53and they have great strengths, but for me,
0:20:53 > 0:20:58if I was nicking one painting, it would be a little sketch on paper.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00Do you want to be inspired by some Constable quotations?
0:21:00 > 0:21:03Well, I think I might be intimidated... Go on.
0:21:03 > 0:21:07The world is wide. No two days are alike, nor even two hours.
0:21:07 > 0:21:10Neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike
0:21:10 > 0:21:12since the creation of the world.
0:21:12 > 0:21:13HE LAUGHS
0:21:13 > 0:21:18Well, that's like a charter for exactly how difficult painting is.
0:21:20 > 0:21:23That's where Constable is a modernist, because he's developing
0:21:23 > 0:21:26a new language to painting that isn't routed in Italy,
0:21:26 > 0:21:29and it isn't routed in neo-classicism,
0:21:29 > 0:21:31it's routed in the fields of Suffolk.
0:21:31 > 0:21:33In the plein air painting,
0:21:33 > 0:21:35where he had to paint really quickly
0:21:35 > 0:21:38and he had to get the kind of vitality.
0:21:38 > 0:21:41And that's what I think is really exciting about the sketches,
0:21:41 > 0:21:43is that he created a language which has
0:21:43 > 0:21:47passed on through his career, into his larger paintings
0:21:47 > 0:21:50and into the careers of many other artists thereafter.
0:21:53 > 0:21:55The decade after he left the Academy was a challenging
0:21:55 > 0:21:57time for Constable.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00He occasionally made modest sums from commissions,
0:22:00 > 0:22:02but not really enough to live on.
0:22:04 > 0:22:06He survived instead on an allowance from his father.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12He was as dedicated as ever to refining his techniques but,
0:22:12 > 0:22:14judged by the standards of the day,
0:22:14 > 0:22:17his pictures seemed unfinished or worse.
0:22:17 > 0:22:20He was accused of being lazy or clumsy,
0:22:20 > 0:22:23and buyers were few and far between.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29At this point, we need to leave Constable's artistic struggles
0:22:29 > 0:22:32for a moment, and examine his personal struggles -
0:22:32 > 0:22:35with which they have more than a little in common.
0:22:36 > 0:22:40100 yards down the road from the Constables' new mansion was
0:22:40 > 0:22:42the picturesque church of East Bergholt.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50In the rigidly stratified society of a rural Georgian parish,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53the country parson was a very important person,
0:22:53 > 0:22:57whose opinions, as Constable was to discover, carried some weight.
0:22:59 > 0:23:02The rector of this very pretty church was a formidable,
0:23:02 > 0:23:07forbidding figure known as the Reverend Dr Durand Rhudde.
0:23:07 > 0:23:11And here on the wall, you've got pretty much his entire CV.
0:23:11 > 0:23:13He was one of His Majesty's chaplains,
0:23:13 > 0:23:15formerly of King's College Cambridge.
0:23:15 > 0:23:17He was rector of this parish
0:23:17 > 0:23:21and he is a centrally important figure in the story of Constable's
0:23:21 > 0:23:25life because he had a granddaughter, and her name was Maria Bicknell.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28And in 1805 Constable fell profoundly,
0:23:28 > 0:23:31head over heels in love with Maria -
0:23:31 > 0:23:33when he was 33 and she was just 21,
0:23:33 > 0:23:37and Dr Rhudde wasn't very happy about it.
0:23:39 > 0:23:42How do you solve a problem like Maria?
0:23:42 > 0:23:45Well, Dr Rhudde, he had several objections to the match,
0:23:45 > 0:23:48not least of which was the fact that Constable lacked any real prospect
0:23:48 > 0:23:50of earning enough to support a family.
0:23:51 > 0:23:55In addition, however wealthy the Constable family were,
0:23:55 > 0:23:58the Reverend Dr would certainly have regarded them
0:23:58 > 0:24:02as social inferiors on account of their being in trade.
0:24:02 > 0:24:05And in this case, quite rough trade.
0:24:05 > 0:24:07Constable had a bit of a reputation
0:24:07 > 0:24:09in the village as the handsome miller.
0:24:10 > 0:24:13Constable painted many versions of this picture -
0:24:13 > 0:24:16the view from an upstairs window in East Bergholt House,
0:24:16 > 0:24:19possibly that from his own bedroom.
0:24:19 > 0:24:23The house in the distance across the fields is the rectory,
0:24:23 > 0:24:27where Maria stayed when visiting her grandfather.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30The space between them is heavy with symbolic longing -
0:24:30 > 0:24:33there's something visible, but just out of reach.
0:24:34 > 0:24:37The ensuing seven years saw a titanic tussle
0:24:37 > 0:24:41between the irascible rector who threatened to cut Maria out
0:24:41 > 0:24:45of his will and not inconsiderable inheritance,
0:24:45 > 0:24:47and the two star-crossed lovers
0:24:47 > 0:24:49The plot could have been lifted
0:24:49 > 0:24:52straight from the pages of a contemporary novel by Jane Austen.
0:24:57 > 0:25:01But fear not, gentle viewer, she married him.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04In 1816 to be exact, and still against the wishes of her family.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06In the single-minded John Constable,
0:25:06 > 0:25:09the redoubtable Dr Rhudde had found his match.
0:25:13 > 0:25:15Constable's great friend, the Reverend John Fisher,
0:25:15 > 0:25:17officiated at the ceremony.
0:25:17 > 0:25:20The Fishers had also just got hitched, and the newlyweds
0:25:20 > 0:25:24spent their honeymoon at his parish in Osmington on the Dorset coast.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27It sounds like a blast.
0:25:27 > 0:25:30They went for walks together and Constable sketched.
0:25:30 > 0:25:32In the evenings, they sat by the fire
0:25:32 > 0:25:36while Fisher read aloud to them from volumes of sermons.
0:25:40 > 0:25:43But when the honeymoon was over, his prospects were bleak.
0:25:44 > 0:25:47His father died that same year
0:25:47 > 0:25:51and Constable inherited a share of the profits in the family business,
0:25:51 > 0:25:54which was now run by his younger brother.
0:25:54 > 0:25:56But the returns were meagre.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59As a direct consequence of the victory at Waterloo
0:25:59 > 0:26:03the previous year, the markets of Europe were suddenly opened
0:26:03 > 0:26:05and the price of wheat tumbled.
0:26:05 > 0:26:07Rural areas were hit extremely hard.
0:26:09 > 0:26:12He was 40 years old, and his ceaseless campaigning
0:26:12 > 0:26:16for recognition at the Academy had got him nowhere.
0:26:16 > 0:26:19He needed to find some way to attract attention
0:26:19 > 0:26:22in the crowded rooms of the summer exhibition.
0:26:22 > 0:26:27And in 1818, he made a surprising breakthrough.
0:26:27 > 0:26:30His idea was so simple it was almost absurd.
0:26:30 > 0:26:34But like many simple ideas it proved to be very effective.
0:26:34 > 0:26:37Every year, the successful candidates at the elections
0:26:37 > 0:26:40tended to be the painters of big historical subjects -
0:26:40 > 0:26:42the kinds of paintings that Constable
0:26:42 > 0:26:44himself was quite sniffy about.
0:26:44 > 0:26:46And because they were truly complicated pictures,
0:26:46 > 0:26:50they tended to be really big. Some of them could be enormous.
0:26:50 > 0:26:53By contrast, Constable's paintings were much smaller,
0:26:53 > 0:26:55there wasn't that much dramatic about them.
0:26:55 > 0:26:59But of course that was part of their appeal.
0:26:59 > 0:27:03In 1819, he dramatically increased the size of his canvas,
0:27:03 > 0:27:05and exhibited The White Horse -
0:27:05 > 0:27:09an everyday scene of a barge horse being ferried across the river here.
0:27:10 > 0:27:14The canvas was six feet wide, and on this scale, Constable's fresh paint,
0:27:14 > 0:27:18his bright colours, they really leapt out at the viewer.
0:27:18 > 0:27:22They really must have been quite startling, mesmerising,
0:27:22 > 0:27:25because the tranquil beauty of the countryside round here was
0:27:25 > 0:27:27augmented somehow, it was given added punch.
0:27:27 > 0:27:28It really worked.
0:27:29 > 0:27:33Explicitly, it ticked two very important boxes.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38A newspaper critic compared him to Turner for the first time,
0:27:38 > 0:27:39and the following November,
0:27:39 > 0:27:43he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy.
0:27:43 > 0:27:46The gestation of The White Horse wasn't without its problems,
0:27:46 > 0:27:51because around about this time Dr Rhudde was so furious with
0:27:51 > 0:27:54his grandson-in-law that Constable actually felt that he couldn't visit
0:27:54 > 0:27:57East Bergholt, and that meant he wasn't able to paint the picture
0:27:57 > 0:28:00on location, which had now become his usual working method.
0:28:00 > 0:28:05So he had to kind of knock it up using sketches back in London.
0:28:05 > 0:28:07And in order to test his composition,
0:28:07 > 0:28:12as well as examine the way light and shade fell across the canvas,
0:28:12 > 0:28:18he created a full-size preliminary sketch and that was revolutionary.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21The full size sketch is something that's
0:28:21 > 0:28:25pretty much unique to Constable - no other painter is doing this.
0:28:25 > 0:28:28And one of the qualities that he's really interested in,
0:28:28 > 0:28:30is that looser, more sketchy brushwork
0:28:30 > 0:28:33that he's developed in his oil sketching out in the countryside,
0:28:33 > 0:28:37and how do you get that freshness into a carefully designed
0:28:37 > 0:28:39and consciously-planned six-foot painting?
0:28:39 > 0:28:43And one of the ways he uses the six-foot studies is to be able to
0:28:43 > 0:28:46experiment with how you might paint a tree more loosely
0:28:46 > 0:28:49and incorporate that into the finished painting.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52In the years that followed, Constable built upon
0:28:52 > 0:28:55the experience that he gained from The White Horse, and within just a
0:28:55 > 0:28:58couple of hundred yards of towpath, along this bend in the river,
0:28:58 > 0:29:00he created a series of six footers
0:29:00 > 0:29:03that are now considered his principal achievement,
0:29:03 > 0:29:08and the greatest of them all he called Landscape: Noon.
0:29:23 > 0:29:27This is arguably the most famous view in Britain.
0:29:28 > 0:29:31And the painting, at least, is so famous that it has a curious effect.
0:29:31 > 0:29:35It makes this scene in front of me now, even though I'm here,
0:29:35 > 0:29:37feel paradoxically quite unreal.
0:29:37 > 0:29:41I think part of the reason for that is there obviously a desire
0:29:41 > 0:29:42culturally, on behalf of all of us,
0:29:42 > 0:29:45to preserve this spot as somewhere you can go and see,
0:29:45 > 0:29:49as though that channels Constable's inspiration somehow.
0:29:49 > 0:29:54And in doing that, the place has been slightly prettified.
0:29:54 > 0:29:57Willy Lott's cottage is in much better nick now than it ever was
0:29:57 > 0:29:59when he was living there.
0:29:59 > 0:30:01The trees are clearly very managed,
0:30:01 > 0:30:04and in a sense that deviates, for me,
0:30:04 > 0:30:08from the real spirit of Constable, because he said he was really
0:30:08 > 0:30:10interested in rotten banks and
0:30:10 > 0:30:13willows and slimy posts and brickwork.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16And here, I have to say this morning, it's a beautiful day,
0:30:16 > 0:30:19but there's a distinct absence of slime.
0:30:22 > 0:30:23For Constable, the process of
0:30:23 > 0:30:26translating this landscape from slimy reality
0:30:26 > 0:30:29to finished picture involved his now-established procedure of
0:30:29 > 0:30:34preparing a full-size, six-foot study or sketch of the view.
0:30:35 > 0:30:38I think the trouble with The Hay Wain is that is feels
0:30:38 > 0:30:43impossible to look at it and not see some sort of visual cliche.
0:30:43 > 0:30:46One answer is to come and look at this, because what he's doing
0:30:46 > 0:30:49is taking everything that he'd honed and learned and experimented with
0:30:49 > 0:30:52when he was making much smaller oil sketches.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56But here is really writ large, I mean this is colossal.
0:30:56 > 0:30:58And it feels so strikingly modern. There are bits over here
0:30:58 > 0:31:00that look like modern, almost abstract, art.
0:31:00 > 0:31:04He's delighting in the simple act of putting paint on canvas.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08So down here, he's painted this dog very rapidly, with great economy,
0:31:08 > 0:31:09just a few strokes,
0:31:09 > 0:31:13including this delightful white splodge of paint on his back.
0:31:13 > 0:31:16I just find that delicious, it's good enough to eat, that.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20This is what he's doing in his own private studio.
0:31:20 > 0:31:21And then in the finished picture,
0:31:21 > 0:31:26he's creating something suitable for the Academy.
0:31:30 > 0:31:34It's funny, for me, seeing this painting is completely transformed
0:31:34 > 0:31:38now that I've actually been to the spot and seen the full-size sketch.
0:31:38 > 0:31:43Even Constable himself was surprised when he created The Hay Wain.
0:31:43 > 0:31:46He said it had a much more novel look than he had expected.
0:31:46 > 0:31:48And I guess that's because it
0:31:48 > 0:31:52retains such a sense of the freshness of the sketch.
0:31:52 > 0:31:55The sense of sparkling sunlight that suffuses the whole thing -
0:31:55 > 0:31:57you can see it in these white highlights
0:31:57 > 0:32:00that are scattered across the foreground.
0:32:00 > 0:32:03Seeing the tweaks that Constable has made along the way,
0:32:03 > 0:32:04has made me realise that this isn't
0:32:04 > 0:32:07a sort of painting equivalent of a photograph.
0:32:07 > 0:32:09We know that this is a piece of artifice
0:32:09 > 0:32:13because there is a great story about the fact that Constable's
0:32:13 > 0:32:15father's bargeman, when he saw the picture,
0:32:15 > 0:32:19he objected to the way the Constable painted the horses, because he said
0:32:19 > 0:32:24that the horses in reality would never have had those trappings.
0:32:24 > 0:32:29This is a landscape remembered from childhood by a 45-year-old man.
0:32:29 > 0:32:32It was already a nostalgic vision of a vanishing way of life
0:32:32 > 0:32:34when it was painted.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38Constable's world is a pre-industrial paradise,
0:32:38 > 0:32:40everything is done by hand -
0:32:40 > 0:32:44the ploughing, the harvesting, the opening and closing of the
0:32:44 > 0:32:49locked gates - powered machinery is nowhere to be seen.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52But this was a world that was already falling apart.
0:32:52 > 0:32:53The price of grain was tumbling,
0:32:53 > 0:32:56pushing the advance of rural mechanisation,
0:32:56 > 0:32:58and farm labourers were moving to
0:32:58 > 0:33:01the cities to work in the mills and factories.
0:33:01 > 0:33:05The prison population in Norwich had doubled in the previous five years,
0:33:05 > 0:33:07since the end of The Napoleonic Wars.
0:33:07 > 0:33:10250,000 ex-soldiers had flooded the countryside,
0:33:10 > 0:33:14and as a result, labourer's wages were dramatically reduced.
0:33:14 > 0:33:19So there was a real sense of unease and trouble across England,
0:33:19 > 0:33:21but you'd never know it looking at The Hay Wain.
0:33:21 > 0:33:24There's something else about the picture that is entirely new -
0:33:24 > 0:33:26the sky is real.
0:33:31 > 0:33:34Though Constable looked to the past for inspiration,
0:33:34 > 0:33:38he was very happy to explore the latest advances of science
0:33:38 > 0:33:43if it would help him in his quest to paint the truth of nature.
0:33:43 > 0:33:47"We see nothing until we understand it" he said, and he wanted to
0:33:47 > 0:33:52understand the weather, to depict it accurately in his paintings.
0:33:52 > 0:33:54Around the time he began work on The Hay Wain,
0:33:54 > 0:33:58he started to sketch the sky as a subject in its own right.
0:33:58 > 0:34:03At the same time, Constable moved his family out of central London to
0:34:03 > 0:34:07live in Hampstead, then a rural village north of the city.
0:34:07 > 0:34:11Maria was showing the first serious symptoms of tuberculosis,
0:34:11 > 0:34:14and it was hoped the clean air up here on the edge of the heath
0:34:14 > 0:34:17would be beneficial to her health.
0:34:17 > 0:34:21It was also the perfect place to indulge his new passion for the sky.
0:34:24 > 0:34:26- You must be John?- That's right - nice to meet you, Alastair.
0:34:26 > 0:34:28Yeah, great to meet you too.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31Well, I can see this must be the spot because there's the plaque.
0:34:31 > 0:34:33I can only apologise about the weather -
0:34:33 > 0:34:35I was hoping to spot some clouds with you today.
0:34:35 > 0:34:37Oh, not to worry, because Constable
0:34:37 > 0:34:40would have loved this type of weather. He was a real meteorologist.
0:34:40 > 0:34:43He would look forward to how the weather would develop
0:34:43 > 0:34:46during the day, and he deliberately moved here because he knew this was
0:34:46 > 0:34:49close to his favourite spot, which is the view across Branch Hill Pond.
0:34:49 > 0:34:52- I feel like we should see it, can we go there?- Definitely, yes.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55Lead the way then. Which way are we off to? Lovely.
0:34:55 > 0:34:57I'm a professor of meteorology,
0:34:57 > 0:34:59so I suppose I have looked at the skies all my life.
0:34:59 > 0:35:02Constable's skies are probably the closest an artist has
0:35:02 > 0:35:05ever managed to get to the real thing.
0:35:05 > 0:35:06So it's just down here, is it?
0:35:06 > 0:35:10Yes, so this is the most-favoured view of Constable,
0:35:10 > 0:35:12from more or less this spot.
0:35:12 > 0:35:16Around about 1820, he started to paint some of his six-foot canvases
0:35:16 > 0:35:19and was struggling really with the size of the sky.
0:35:19 > 0:35:21He decided, almost like a scientist,
0:35:21 > 0:35:25to do a series of observational experiments,
0:35:25 > 0:35:27to actually paint the sky,
0:35:27 > 0:35:30and he did almost 100 images of just the sky.
0:35:30 > 0:35:32- 100?- Yeah.
0:35:32 > 0:35:35The great meteorologist at the time was called Luke Howard,
0:35:35 > 0:35:38and he developed the Latin names that we use for clouds that we use today
0:35:38 > 0:35:40like cirrus and cumulus et cetera,
0:35:40 > 0:35:43and he kept very detailed weather observations.
0:35:43 > 0:35:48And there's a very good correlation between Constable's weather notes
0:35:48 > 0:35:52on his paintings and Luke Howard's weather observations.
0:35:52 > 0:35:54He mixed in, not just artistic circles,
0:35:54 > 0:35:57he mixed in scientific circles within Hampstead.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00Turner produced some fantastic skies,
0:36:00 > 0:36:02but they were purely from his visual memory
0:36:02 > 0:36:05whereas Constable was much more aware of the fact that to get
0:36:05 > 0:36:09the sky correct in a landscape, you have to understand how
0:36:09 > 0:36:12things like rainbows and clouds are formed.
0:36:20 > 0:36:23When the summer exhibition of 1821 came to a close,
0:36:23 > 0:36:26The Hay Wain returned to Constable's painting studio unsold,
0:36:26 > 0:36:30and in that autumn, in the next round of Royal Academy elections,
0:36:30 > 0:36:32he was unsuccessful again.
0:36:32 > 0:36:36So the six-footers, they had won him some recognition,
0:36:36 > 0:36:38they had got him an associateship.
0:36:38 > 0:36:41But now he needed another big idea.
0:36:41 > 0:36:46His friend, now Archdeacon John Fisher, made the shocking suggestion
0:36:46 > 0:36:50that Constable might paint something other than the Stour Valley.
0:36:50 > 0:36:54"One cannot survive on a diet solely of mutton," says Fisher.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58"People are tired of mutton on top, mutton at bottom,
0:36:58 > 0:37:01"mutton at the side dishes, though of the best flavour."
0:37:09 > 0:37:11Fisher's uncle was the Bishop of Salisbury, and he wanted
0:37:11 > 0:37:15a painting of his cathedral to display in his London drawing room.
0:37:18 > 0:37:20The Bishop invited Constable to make the picture,
0:37:20 > 0:37:22and it was a really welcome commission for him,
0:37:22 > 0:37:25not only because it provided him with much-needed cash,
0:37:25 > 0:37:28but also because it allowed him to broaden out his subject matter.
0:37:28 > 0:37:30Although there are elements
0:37:30 > 0:37:32of meadows and river that we
0:37:32 > 0:37:33know from the Suffolk pictures,
0:37:33 > 0:37:35the cathedral itself is something
0:37:35 > 0:37:36new for Constable
0:37:36 > 0:37:38and he found it quite challenging.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43In his own opinion, he believed that he had pulled it off.
0:37:43 > 0:37:44He told Fisher afterwards,
0:37:44 > 0:37:48"It was the most difficult subject I have ever had upon my easel.
0:37:48 > 0:37:50"I have not flinched at the work
0:37:50 > 0:37:52"of the windows, buttresses, et cetera, et cetera,
0:37:52 > 0:37:54"but I have, as usual,
0:37:54 > 0:37:57"made my escape in the evanescence of the chiaroscuro."
0:38:01 > 0:38:04Constable's religious faith was a comfortable fit
0:38:04 > 0:38:06with his political beliefs.
0:38:06 > 0:38:07He was staunchly Anglican,
0:38:07 > 0:38:11and certainly regarded the church as the Tory Party at prayer.
0:38:12 > 0:38:14It's easy to read in the painting
0:38:14 > 0:38:15his admiration for Salisbury
0:38:15 > 0:38:18and the religion it represented.
0:38:18 > 0:38:21In the lower left he paints the bishop himself,
0:38:21 > 0:38:26gesturing proprietarily to the cathedral with his family.
0:38:26 > 0:38:29It looks different now, but I think it was different then.
0:38:29 > 0:38:31I don't think the trees existed like that.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34It's a painter's device for showing something off.
0:38:34 > 0:38:37The natural arches seem to echo the gothic arches, just like
0:38:37 > 0:38:39the interior of the cathedral really.
0:38:39 > 0:38:41And I think it's that echo of inside and out,
0:38:41 > 0:38:46nature and architectural form that Constable's playing with.
0:38:46 > 0:38:48Do we know what the bishop made of the finished painting?
0:38:48 > 0:38:50I don't think he liked the sky.
0:38:50 > 0:38:53I think he thought it was rather dark and lowering.
0:38:53 > 0:38:55I think there's always a bit of a dark sky over
0:38:55 > 0:38:59the Church Of England, and society was pretty tricky in the 1820s.
0:38:59 > 0:39:02Out of The Napoleonic Wars, not feeling quite stable,
0:39:02 > 0:39:04would there be a revolution in
0:39:04 > 0:39:06England as there was on the Continent?
0:39:06 > 0:39:09All of those things were around but there were issues in church as well -
0:39:09 > 0:39:11Catholic emancipation, and indeed
0:39:11 > 0:39:16the style in which clergy lived in smart places like Salisbury.
0:39:16 > 0:39:19And we're not far off Trollope and The Barchester Chronicles
0:39:19 > 0:39:25and the sense of how this isn't sustainable as a pattern of living.
0:39:25 > 0:39:28Constable, who was very fond of staying in the cathedral close,
0:39:28 > 0:39:32was extremely scornful of these modish ideas.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35So it's no wonder he felt that a gloomy sky was appropriate.
0:39:35 > 0:39:38The really wonderful thing about having
0:39:38 > 0:39:40the Bishop Of Salisbury as your patron is that
0:39:40 > 0:39:42because he was a Prince of the Church,
0:39:42 > 0:39:44the picture would hang in his
0:39:44 > 0:39:46opulent London residence where it could be seen,
0:39:46 > 0:39:51and possibly even admired, by all sorts important, influential people.
0:39:51 > 0:39:54And yet Constable, despite this guilt-edged opportunity,
0:39:54 > 0:39:57he didn't hand over the finished picture for three years,
0:39:57 > 0:39:59and only then, he did it grudgingly.
0:39:59 > 0:40:02Still, by the time that it was completed,
0:40:02 > 0:40:05he'd found a really new subject to paint.
0:40:08 > 0:40:11MUSIC: "I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside"
0:40:20 > 0:40:21Before they were married,
0:40:21 > 0:40:25Maria Constable had gone on holiday to Brighton and she loved it.
0:40:25 > 0:40:28She wrote to tell Constable what fun it was.
0:40:28 > 0:40:32"I was never at a bathing town," he wrote back rather caustically,
0:40:32 > 0:40:35"But I am told they are amusing."
0:40:35 > 0:40:39By now, Maria was in very poor health, and not as amused
0:40:39 > 0:40:41by the town as she might once have been.
0:40:41 > 0:40:44But the family's increasingly urgent pursuit
0:40:44 > 0:40:48of fresh air saw them relocate here in 1824.
0:40:48 > 0:40:53I think it's a measure of just how much Constable loved Maria,
0:40:53 > 0:40:55or his darling little fish, as he called her,
0:40:55 > 0:40:58that he even contemplated coming to Brighton.
0:40:58 > 0:41:01At the time, the town was at its peak of popularity -
0:41:01 > 0:41:04the King, George IV was in residence at the Royal Pavilion.
0:41:04 > 0:41:06But Constable didn't care for that at all.
0:41:06 > 0:41:11This is his, superb, I think, description from the first summer
0:41:11 > 0:41:16that he was in Brighton, and it's in a letter to his friend John Fisher.
0:41:16 > 0:41:20He says, "Brighton is the receptacle of the fashion
0:41:20 > 0:41:22"and offscouring of London.
0:41:22 > 0:41:24"The magnificence of the sea is drowned in the din
0:41:24 > 0:41:28"and tumult of stagecoaches, gigs, flies, et cetera,
0:41:28 > 0:41:31"and the beach is only Piccadilly by the seaside.
0:41:31 > 0:41:35"Ladies dressed and undressed - gentlemen in morning gowns
0:41:35 > 0:41:37"and slippers, or without them or anything else,
0:41:37 > 0:41:39"about knee-deep in the breakers.
0:41:39 > 0:41:43"Footmen, children, nursery-maids, dogs, boys, fishermen -
0:41:43 > 0:41:48"all mixed together in endless and indecent confusion."
0:41:48 > 0:41:51It's a great passage, sort of proto-Dickensian.
0:41:51 > 0:41:55It's almost like Constable, despite himself, was energised by the place.
0:41:55 > 0:41:59Fisher replied that this passage was worthy of publication
0:41:59 > 0:42:01in John Bull magazine,
0:42:01 > 0:42:05a trenchantly Tory satirical rag they both subscribed to.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09"Brighton is an odious place," he agreed.
0:42:09 > 0:42:13Not surprisingly, the house Constable found for the family was
0:42:13 > 0:42:17far away from the busy haunts of the "offscourings" on Marine Parade.
0:42:17 > 0:42:20Number 9 Mrs Sober's Gardens was then on the
0:42:20 > 0:42:22western edge of the town, and across
0:42:22 > 0:42:26the road was Mrs Sober's vegetable patch, and beyond, the open fields.
0:42:28 > 0:42:32In a strange twist of fate, the room in which Constable painted is
0:42:32 > 0:42:34now once more a studio.
0:42:34 > 0:42:37This is the space that he used as a painting room,
0:42:37 > 0:42:41He shared it with the cook, and his wife redecorated it for him.
0:42:41 > 0:42:44We've got that in his letters.
0:42:44 > 0:42:47We moved into this space without knowing that it was
0:42:47 > 0:42:49Constable's house.
0:42:49 > 0:42:52This is what he would have looked out to.
0:42:52 > 0:42:53That was a two-hour sketch,
0:42:53 > 0:42:56and it was the view out of his studio window.
0:42:56 > 0:42:57How do you feel about the whole
0:42:57 > 0:43:00Brighton chapter in Constable's story?
0:43:00 > 0:43:04The way that he's painting is much freer, much more adventurous.
0:43:04 > 0:43:07Brighton just opens him up and he's on an absolute high -
0:43:07 > 0:43:10he's painting like a demon, he's absolutely on fire,
0:43:10 > 0:43:12sort of producing a painting every two hours.
0:43:12 > 0:43:16There's 150 paintings that went on in this house over four years.
0:43:16 > 0:43:18I often wake up each morning thinking,
0:43:18 > 0:43:22"How on earth did he manage to produce so much work?" It's insane.
0:43:24 > 0:43:28In May 1824, at the same time as the Constables were
0:43:28 > 0:43:31unpacking their bags at 9 Mrs Sober's Gardens,
0:43:31 > 0:43:35The Hay Wain was being unpacked by its new owner.
0:43:35 > 0:43:36After much haggling,
0:43:36 > 0:43:39and with the addition of other minor pieces to gild the deal,
0:43:39 > 0:43:44Constable had received £250 for the painting.
0:43:44 > 0:43:46The man who worked so hard negotiating
0:43:46 > 0:43:49to secure his purchases had a very English name,
0:43:49 > 0:43:54he was called John Arrowsmith, but in reality he was a Frenchman.
0:43:55 > 0:43:56Oh, dear.
0:44:09 > 0:44:12When John Arrowsmith bought The Hay Wain,
0:44:12 > 0:44:14he wasn't some oddball French Anglophile -
0:44:14 > 0:44:19he was surfing a cultural wave that had been building in strength
0:44:19 > 0:44:21ever since the Battle of Waterloo.
0:44:23 > 0:44:25This corner of the Boulevard des Italiens became
0:44:25 > 0:44:28the centre of the British community in Paris at the time.
0:44:30 > 0:44:32There was a cross-channel exchange in the aftermath of nearly
0:44:32 > 0:44:3625 years of war, and it saw a flood of Brits arriving here in Paris.
0:44:36 > 0:44:38And the French, well, they found the strange fashions the
0:44:38 > 0:44:41Brits were wearing completely hilarious, but in time, they also
0:44:41 > 0:44:44realised that there was quite a bit to admire about British culture.
0:44:50 > 0:44:53The works of Sir Walter Scott and Lord Byron
0:44:53 > 0:44:55were widely read and admired.
0:44:55 > 0:44:57The theatres were full of Shakespeare
0:44:57 > 0:44:59and other British plays and,
0:44:59 > 0:45:03most surprisingly, British art became popular.
0:45:03 > 0:45:04That year, the salon
0:45:04 > 0:45:06here at The Louvre was known as "The British Salon."
0:45:06 > 0:45:08"They seem to think we can paint a little,"
0:45:08 > 0:45:10William Etty wrote rather drily to Thomas Lawrence,
0:45:10 > 0:45:13who was the President then of the Royal Academy.
0:45:13 > 0:45:16But the general popularity of British art is only a small
0:45:16 > 0:45:19part of the admiration of French painters for Constable's work.
0:45:19 > 0:45:21And he explains what the French painters
0:45:21 > 0:45:23liked about his own paintings.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27He said, "They're struck with their vivacity and freshness,
0:45:27 > 0:45:29"things unknown to their own pictures.
0:45:29 > 0:45:33"The truth is they study pictures only, they know as little
0:45:33 > 0:45:36"of nature as a Hackney coach horse does of a pasture."
0:45:38 > 0:45:41The supremely polished and finished pictures of artists
0:45:41 > 0:45:44from the Napoleonic era like Jacques-Louis David
0:45:44 > 0:45:48and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres were still popular in Paris.
0:45:48 > 0:45:51The Hay Wain seemed like the freshest breath of
0:45:51 > 0:45:54meadow-scented air, blowing across the Channel.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58But it was Constable's Anglophile fan boy, the young painter
0:45:58 > 0:46:02Eugene Delacroix, who was the most excited by the picture.
0:46:02 > 0:46:03After the end of the Empire,
0:46:03 > 0:46:08the immigrants who spent the French Revolution in Britain came
0:46:08 > 0:46:11back speaking English, for instance, and adding British Culture.
0:46:11 > 0:46:15- And still...- Did that become fashionable suddenly?
0:46:15 > 0:46:16Yes, of course, it was very fashionable.
0:46:16 > 0:46:21Even the word fashionable became part of the French language.
0:46:21 > 0:46:24All the way of acting, the way of behaving,
0:46:24 > 0:46:30the way of being dressed also came from England at that bit of time.
0:46:30 > 0:46:34To exhibit British paintings was a very new thing.
0:46:34 > 0:46:38- And did they cause a sensation? - Yes. Major sensation.
0:46:38 > 0:46:42With the Constable paintings, it was a kind of revolution.
0:46:42 > 0:46:44All generations say,
0:46:44 > 0:46:45"It's not painting
0:46:45 > 0:46:48"because I have not to see the trace of the brush."
0:46:48 > 0:46:52In Constable paintings, of course you see the traces of the brush.
0:46:52 > 0:46:55And it's the same in Delacroix's paintings,
0:46:55 > 0:46:59so he was very much impressed, as all of the Romantics' generation.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06The French enthusiasm for Constable's pictures seems
0:47:06 > 0:47:10to me to be a genuinely unprejudiced response to the way he painted -
0:47:10 > 0:47:14they knew nothing of his background or his status at the Royal Academy.
0:47:14 > 0:47:18The Hay Wain won a gold medal, and Constable was deluged with orders
0:47:18 > 0:47:20from French dealers, including Arrowsmith,
0:47:20 > 0:47:23who confidently rented an apartment
0:47:23 > 0:47:26for Constable to use when he came to collect his prize.
0:47:28 > 0:47:32He wrote "The trip from Brighton is so convenient and the King
0:47:32 > 0:47:35"himself awaits the opportunity to express his admiration.
0:47:35 > 0:47:39"I will make every arrangement possible for your comfort -
0:47:39 > 0:47:41"will you come?'"
0:47:41 > 0:47:46I'm afraid Mr Constable is very busy presently.
0:47:46 > 0:47:48Back in Brighton, Constable seemed to
0:47:48 > 0:47:51find this adulation extremely irritating.
0:47:51 > 0:47:53He flatly refused to visit France,
0:47:53 > 0:47:56and his xenophobia increased with each letter
0:47:56 > 0:48:00from Paris that arrived addressed to Monsieur Constable Payagiste.
0:48:02 > 0:48:05But even here, it seemed, there was no escape.
0:48:05 > 0:48:09His next door neighbour was a successful French portrait painter
0:48:09 > 0:48:12called John James Masquerier.
0:48:12 > 0:48:17Predictably, he loathed Masquerier, but did however meet many
0:48:17 > 0:48:20eminent men who came to have their portraits painted.
0:48:20 > 0:48:26Just the sort of people he liked - Enlightenment thinkers.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30Gideon Mantell, the fossil hunter, Horace Smith, the poet,
0:48:30 > 0:48:33and Michael Faraday, the scientist.
0:48:33 > 0:48:36It's a mark of his contradictory character to consider that,
0:48:36 > 0:48:40in the same year that Constable was painting The Hay Wain,
0:48:40 > 0:48:43with its nostalgic vision of a world free of mechanisation,
0:48:43 > 0:48:46he should also become friendly with Faraday,
0:48:46 > 0:48:49who was busy perfecting his electrical motor.
0:48:51 > 0:48:55Though he resents the time he has to spend painting his
0:48:55 > 0:48:59French commissions - flogging the "dead horses" as he called them,
0:48:59 > 0:49:00he compensated with long walks
0:49:00 > 0:49:02across the downs with his sketchbook.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09In one of the lectures that Constable delivered towards
0:49:09 > 0:49:12the end of his life, organised, in fact, by his friend
0:49:12 > 0:49:14from Brighton, Michael Faraday, he said,
0:49:14 > 0:49:15"Painting is a science
0:49:15 > 0:49:18"and should be pursued as an enquiry into the laws of nature.
0:49:18 > 0:49:21"Why, then, may not a landscape be considered as a branch
0:49:21 > 0:49:25"of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?"
0:49:26 > 0:49:30I think Brighton was a significant turning point in Constable's career.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34He began to regard his own work as an experimental journey
0:49:34 > 0:49:36and embraced scientific progress.
0:49:36 > 0:49:39At the same time, he turned away from his obsessive
0:49:39 > 0:49:42pursuit of accuracy and instead sought to reveal a deeper
0:49:42 > 0:49:44kind of emotional truth in his painting.
0:49:46 > 0:49:50His work was becoming critically and financially appreciated
0:49:50 > 0:49:52for the first time in his life whilst he lived here,
0:49:52 > 0:49:56and he expanded his range of subjects and his techniques.
0:49:57 > 0:50:01He painted only one six-footer in Brighton - The Chain Pier.
0:50:04 > 0:50:07The working out of the relation between the traditional,
0:50:07 > 0:50:11the old, the rural and the modern and the contemporary is
0:50:11 > 0:50:14something I think that first happens in Brighton.
0:50:14 > 0:50:17The pier had been opened in 1823.
0:50:17 > 0:50:20It was the first major pier built in Britain, and it was also
0:50:20 > 0:50:23a suspension pier and a piece of new technology as well.
0:50:23 > 0:50:26I'm absolutely fascinated hearing that - in this case he's
0:50:26 > 0:50:29- painting cutting-edge technology? - I think the painting is him
0:50:29 > 0:50:32working his way through his conflicting feelings about Brighton.
0:50:32 > 0:50:34It's the place where the ideology,
0:50:34 > 0:50:38the conventions of the picturesque fall apart because they're
0:50:38 > 0:50:42brought up against the reality of the urban development in Brighton.
0:50:42 > 0:50:45And for all his reactionary political views,
0:50:45 > 0:50:47Constable was a, visually, very honest painter
0:50:47 > 0:50:52and so he couldn't ignore the wreck as it were of Brighthelmstone,
0:50:52 > 0:50:55the little fishing port, in its transition into Brighton.
0:50:59 > 0:51:01From the end of his street, in a few minutes
0:51:01 > 0:51:05he could be in open countryside, or ranging along the coast to the
0:51:05 > 0:51:08west to Shoreham, or to the east to Rottingdean.
0:51:09 > 0:51:12In this landscape, which offered such a rich variety
0:51:12 > 0:51:18of contrasting vistas, he painted some of his best oil sketches.
0:51:18 > 0:51:20His ability to transcribe a scene
0:51:20 > 0:51:22with extraordinary speed and economy,
0:51:22 > 0:51:27was never more effective than in the seascapes he painted here.
0:51:28 > 0:51:29He said, "There's nothing here
0:51:29 > 0:51:32"for the painter but the breakers and the sky."
0:51:32 > 0:51:34And that's what you find in his oil sketches, which are wonderful.
0:51:34 > 0:51:36They become somehow freer,
0:51:36 > 0:51:39more vigorous, as he just tries to transcribe what he's seeing.
0:51:39 > 0:51:42Very simple, with economy, but with great force.
0:51:44 > 0:51:47Another clear indication of Constable's enhanced status
0:51:47 > 0:51:51is the fact that Turner was now keenly aware of his work,
0:51:51 > 0:51:54and for the first time, following in his footsteps.
0:51:54 > 0:51:57In one of his letters he refers to him almost like Voldemort
0:51:57 > 0:51:59when he said, "He, who would be lord of us all."
0:51:59 > 0:52:03It's almost like he can't bring himself to mention Turner's name.
0:52:03 > 0:52:04So when Turner arrives here,
0:52:04 > 0:52:06this is one of the rare moments
0:52:06 > 0:52:09when he might be aware of a rivalry with Constable.
0:52:09 > 0:52:12The position from where he looks at Brighton seems to contrast
0:52:12 > 0:52:14almost deliberately with Constable.
0:52:14 > 0:52:17So Turner is sighted out at sea and he's looking towards
0:52:17 > 0:52:21the sun which is dissolving the town behind it into light.
0:52:21 > 0:52:24Sadly, Constable's Brighton summer didn't last.
0:52:25 > 0:52:29In January 1828 his seventh child was born,
0:52:29 > 0:52:33but less than a year later Maria died of tuberculosis.
0:52:35 > 0:52:36The family returned to Hampstead.
0:52:38 > 0:52:41With bitter irony, a few weeks before she passed away,
0:52:41 > 0:52:45her father had also died, and despite all threats to the contrary,
0:52:45 > 0:52:47left her £20,000.
0:52:47 > 0:52:51A substantial fortune, but this was of little consolation now.
0:52:54 > 0:52:57In the elections to the Royal Academy the following autumn,
0:52:57 > 0:52:59to everyone's surprise, including his own,
0:52:59 > 0:53:04Constable was finally made a full member.
0:53:04 > 0:53:08"Mr Constable and Mr Danby were then put on the ballot,
0:53:08 > 0:53:14"and the numbers proving to be for Mr Constable 14, Mr Danby 13."
0:53:14 > 0:53:19So in a sense, this was the culmination of his career ambitions,
0:53:19 > 0:53:24but it also came so late, and it's amazing to see
0:53:24 > 0:53:27that the final result, he only won by a single vote.
0:53:27 > 0:53:31He was still dividing opinion, even this late on in his life.
0:53:32 > 0:53:34But coming so soon after Maria's death,
0:53:34 > 0:53:39this vindication of his work brought him little joy.
0:53:39 > 0:53:41The pictures he made in the last decade
0:53:41 > 0:53:42of his life are less well known,
0:53:42 > 0:53:45and to me they reveal another change in his work.
0:53:45 > 0:53:48It was now no longer necessary to please either clients or
0:53:48 > 0:53:52the Academy and his expressive, loose handling of paint,
0:53:52 > 0:53:54which I love, becomes more prevalent.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00For lots of his early critics,
0:54:00 > 0:54:04Constable's late style was a big, big problem.
0:54:04 > 0:54:08But for me, pictures like this, they're intensely personal visions.
0:54:08 > 0:54:12You sense that, by now, Constable's not so much interested in painting
0:54:12 > 0:54:16a view from a particular spot, he wants to transcribe this kind
0:54:16 > 0:54:21of subjective psycho-drama that's broiling about inside his own head.
0:54:21 > 0:54:24After all, painting is another word for feeling.
0:54:26 > 0:54:30Take the rainbow - surely the rainbow has got to be symbolic,
0:54:30 > 0:54:33because a rainbow like that couldn't have existed with the light
0:54:33 > 0:54:36coming from the direction in which Constable had painted it.
0:54:36 > 0:54:39He would have known that, so it seems as though he left his
0:54:39 > 0:54:42strict adherence for the truth of nature behind.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45That didn't matter though, because this is a picture about freedom -
0:54:45 > 0:54:48he's exploring, he's experimenting with technique,
0:54:48 > 0:54:51he's using the end of his brush, he's laying down these thick
0:54:51 > 0:54:54clumps of impasto and he's vigorously using a palette knife,
0:54:54 > 0:54:58so much so that he said that in this picture, he'd cut his own throat.
0:54:58 > 0:55:02But did that mean he felt the picture was any less finished?
0:55:02 > 0:55:05Personally, I feel we need to get over any lingering prejudices
0:55:05 > 0:55:09about how finished his pictures seemed then or even seem today.
0:55:09 > 0:55:14Constable's late handling of paint has a really modern feel,
0:55:14 > 0:55:18and I think its influence is visible in 20th-century artists
0:55:18 > 0:55:23like Lucian Freud or Frank Auerbach.
0:55:26 > 0:55:30Constable died in 1837 in his painting room in Hampstead.
0:55:30 > 0:55:34He was still largely unappreciated in his own country,
0:55:34 > 0:55:37and when the contents of his studio were sold,
0:55:37 > 0:55:40some pictures went for as little as £3 or £4.
0:55:42 > 0:55:46Now I've seen the places that made John Constable a painter,
0:55:46 > 0:55:50and I've seen more of his work than I ever knew existed,
0:55:50 > 0:55:52can I see him as a revolutionary artist?
0:55:58 > 0:56:02Well, there was one place where this was never in doubt,
0:56:02 > 0:56:05where his techniques were studied and admired,
0:56:05 > 0:56:07and where his legacy is clearly visible...
0:56:08 > 0:56:13..in the progressive art of that great enemy, France.
0:56:15 > 0:56:17If there's one thing that Constable demanded of other artists,
0:56:17 > 0:56:19it's that they use their eyes
0:56:19 > 0:56:22when they were considering a scene in front of them.
0:56:22 > 0:56:24And, if I'm honest, I don't think I've ever properly
0:56:24 > 0:56:27looked when I've thought about his pictures in the past.
0:56:27 > 0:56:30I mean there are aspects of his personality,
0:56:30 > 0:56:33his sarcasm about his contemporaries, his parochialism,
0:56:33 > 0:56:36his jingoism, that frankly I don't find all that sympathetic.
0:56:36 > 0:56:39But there was another side to Constable which was much more
0:56:39 > 0:56:42revolutionary, as I've discovered.
0:56:42 > 0:56:44I mean, he was upending the hierarchy of painting
0:56:44 > 0:56:46so that finally people would start
0:56:46 > 0:56:49to take landscape seriously as an art form.
0:56:49 > 0:56:52Decades before the Impressionists, he was painting out of doors,
0:56:52 > 0:56:54he was interested in recording fleeting
0:56:54 > 0:56:57and ephemeral impressions, and as time wore on,
0:56:57 > 0:57:00became enamoured with laying down thick, almost abstract,
0:57:00 > 0:57:04paint that just wouldn't look out of place in the 20th century.
0:57:04 > 0:57:07He put it really beautifully, he said
0:57:07 > 0:57:10"It's the business of the painter not to contend with
0:57:10 > 0:57:14"nature, but to make something out of nothing,
0:57:14 > 0:57:19"in attempting which, he must almost of necessity become poetical."