last year, i wrote that i planned to make a winter visit to constable country. well, dear reader, i did make a special visit to 'Constable country' in early march, which as any British person or Englishman will unhappily remind you if asked, still felt like the depths of winter. it was a bright day, on the cusp between winter and spring, the trees were still bare of leaves but the many surrounding fields were a vibrant shade of green with the sowings of winter wheat.
Willy Lott's cottage, Flatford Mill, March 2012i was very pleased the two ducks stopped waddling briefly for this photograph by the glassy millpond at flatford mill, but i was disappointed the glare of the sun burnt out the white fluffy clouds. the owners of Flatford Mill (now a field studies centre) must work very hard to preserve this iconic English pastoral scene so that visitors can say how wonderfully it still resembles the famous painting nearly two hundred years later.here is a small reminder of the painting...
The Hay Wain, 1821 © National Gallery, Londonand here is my 'impromptu' contemporary reference to the hay wain...
a toy farm trailer in a farm trailer, round about noon, early september 2011...and so began a very pleasant circular walk around flatford, firstly across a lush green meadow, meeting with some inquisitive sheep...
[in the (brief) company of wolves]i had heard that in 'Constable country' there are powers in place to minimise unsightly blots on the landscape such as electricity pylons, but it was only a few minutes into our walk (after the brief encounter with the 'wolves') when i looked up and saw this...
[an electricity pylon & power lines spanning constable country]no matter; i was here for the day to walk about and maybe sketch a little, to see some 'Constable' scenery...we passed by and walked around a lovely old woodland, called 'the grove' - and we didn't meet any other walkers along the path. i made a note of this old, weathered tree stump (below, sketched from two angles) as perhaps being an old hawthorn as it was very tightly gnarled and twisted but was also quite small compared to the other trees. these are two very quick sketches. sketching tree forms such as this feels much like gestural life-drawing; you work within the restraints given and you try not to be too 'precious' about it.
two more very quick bark/tree sketch studies, in graphite, drawn while standing...further on, the landscape opened out and i made some notes of the field names (based on the map). the second sketch is a view looking down a hill back towards flatford mill. the third sketch is looking at the wide expanse of dedham vale, with gibbonsgate field, miller's field and church field.
three sketches, a winter hedgerow and some green fields...towards the end of the walk we met a dog walker, or rather his two dogs made their keen acquaintances with us - and shortly after that i found this large piece of metal detritus on the perimeter of a ploughed field - a very mangled, flattened tin bucket - and i considered it to be the finest 'Constable country' find of the day.
a constable country souvenir, a very mangled, flattened tin bucket (verso)it was a very pleasant, relaxing walk (with afternoon tea taken later on in the day at a delightful Dedham teashop), but it was not possible to walk far and also find time to draw; so, i enjoyed the walking.it was also nice to take another peek into one of John Constable's early sketchbooks online (collection of the V&A Museum, London). Constable's many studies and sketches were invaluable visual resources throughout his career. after Constable moved to London with his wife (and a fast-expanding family) he only returned to Suffolk for a few days or weeks each summer (which would explain the distinct lack of winter landscapes), although he travelled quite extensively throughout England due to painting commissions. on one occasion, while working on his preparatory studies for The Hay Wain, Constable required a sketch of a hay cart, and a young Johnny Dunthorne (the teenage son of a friend back in Suffolk) was duly sent out to make an initial study which Constable could work from and refine back in his Hampstead studio. i can quite understand the artistic frustration of earnestly painting a summer scene in the winter months, and many miles away from its source.by all accounts, painting the The Hay Wain was an anxious task for Constable, a difficult and slow to resolve painting, hastily completed for The Royal Academy summer exhibition - but that is far from most people's minds as they gaze into the romantic, pastoral quietude of the scene. i think most painters will empathise with that particular anxiety of making work for art exhibitions. add to that anxiety, that his young wife was expecting their third child (they had seven children together in total), and they were perhaps conscious of outgrowing their new hampstead home, as well as the ever-present difficulty of making an income from art to support his young family.it was amusing to read that they had to remove a window from the property to deliver the finished painting to Somerset House (the location of the Royal Academy at that time) - although the painting was (probably) not completely finished, as - as was the custom - artists often completed their paintings in situ in the gallery on varnishing days (aware of the competition!). Constable was anxious that this painting would sincerely impart all he felt about nature and the landscape, and that it would make a good impression at a time when the fashion in painting was for the very grand, the mythical, the historical & the dramatic...I hear little of landscape - and why? The Londoners with all their ingenuity as artists know nothing of the feeling of country life (the essence of landscape) - any more than a hackney coach horse knows of pasture.John Constable, in a letter to John Fisher (a good friend and patron), dated 1st April 1821, shortly before completion of the painting Landscape, Noon later to become more widely known as The Hay Wain, a title first suggested by John Fisher.John Constable was born on this day, 11th June, 1776....see also, in constable country and on thinking, clouds in a sketchbook
in constable country
this is a small toy farm trailer or cart (or hay wain) situated inside a much larger, rusty farm trailer (or hay wain) - it would probably look quite effective with a muddy puddle. this photograph is not a deliberate social comment on farming but is more the result of chance, circumstance & a small act of spontaneity...[a toy farm trailer, 15 september 2011, 12.19pm]the hay wain, 1821, 130.2 x 185.4 cm© national galleryjohn constable's most notable pastoral landscape painting, 'the hay wain' (1821), which is on display in the national gallery's permanent collection in london, was first exhibited at the royal academy, but it was slated by some critics as looking rough and 'unfinished'. it didn't sell. in the catalogue it was entered as 'landscape, noon' reflecting constable's concern with recording details of time as evidenced in his oil sketches. in 1822 constable wrote that:'i have had some nibbles at my picture [...] i have a professional offer of £70 for it to form part of an exhibition in paris.''the hay wain' was later awarded a gold medal by king charles x of france at a paris salon exhibition of constable's work in 1824. the painting was purchased by an art dealer (arrowsmith), sold on a number of times eventually making its way into the permanent collection at the national gallery. you can order an extra large print of the haywain on canvas (with a contemporary wood frame) from the national gallery's gift shop for £175.as many people will know, 'the hay wain' was not painted on location (willy lott's cottage, flatford mill, suffolk - it is now a field studies centre) but in constable's hampstead (london) studio from many preliminary sketches - a working method which is still pursued by many landscape painters today.after looking up john constable on the the royal academy's list of RAs and viewing some work there i was reminded of this photograph i took a while back of tree tops (or clouds) near the river...
[cloud study, suffolk, tree at left, may 2009] (seen in post, on bad photography)because it bore a striking similarity to this small cloud study by constable...
cloud study, hampstead, tree at right, 11 September 1821, 24.1 x 29.9 cm© royal academyi had not seen the royal academy's online collection of john constable's work before now (including the cloud study above), many of which are small studies on paper or later engravings published by constable (perhaps the gicleé prints of their day), donated to the royal academy after his death.here are two of my sketchbook studies of trees. the first drawing is of a long-since dead oak tree in a meadow near the marshes, first shown in this post, art and making a living.
[study of the trunk of an oak tree, ink, pencil, crayon & watercolour, april 2010]
[study of tree in woodland, pencil, wax crayon & watercolour, april 2010]this second sketchbook drawing of a coppiced tree in the woods is quite different, but nevertheless it seems to be related (first seen in the post, on having a conversation with a tree).in these two very hasty sketchbook studies of trees i am reminded of what happened on both of those days and what made me go out sketching. i see now how i failed to impart the intricate detail of bark as evidenced in this small tree study by john constable (illustrated below). i have not seen this small painting by constable in 'real life' and i only came across it recently. it is in the archives of the victoria & albert museum (in london). what struck me immediately was the intensity of constable's gaze in such a small study (little more than A4), and that the line of sight indicates he was sitting down only a few steps away from the tree. who, these days, would sit down and gaze at one tree all day long? actually, i think i would like to study trees (or nature) all day (and not just for a few minutes here and there) and create some new art out of the experience, if the demands of a day job were not a consideration.
study of the trunk of an elm tree c.1821, 30.6 x 24.8 cm© victoria & albert museumMany of my Hamptstead friends may remember this 'young lady' [an ash tree] at the entrance to the village. Her fate was distressing, for it is scarcely too much to say that she died of a broken heart. I made this drawing [Study of Trees, pencil on paper, circa 1821] when she was in full health and beauty; on passing some times afterwards, I saw, to my grief, that a wretched board had been nailed to her side, on which was written in large letters: 'All vagrants and beggars will be dealt with according to law.' The tree seemed to have felt the disgrace, for even then some of the top branches had withered. Two long spike nails had been driven far into her side. In another year one half became paralysed, and not long after the other shared the same fate, and this beautiful creature was cut down to a stump, just high enough to hold the board.[Lecture by John Constable, given at Hamptstead (July 1836), quoted in Constable, Parris, Fleming-Williams, Tate Gallery Publications, London 1993, p. 391]the above quote from a lecture by constable in 1836 adds an obvious layer of poignancy to this small painting even if it is does not refer to the same tree. the heartfelt sentiment of constable's concern with nature is made clear. something drew him to study and paint this elm tree with tenderness and deep respect.it is fascinating to contemplate that this small painting by constable (study of the trunk of an elm tree, 1821) pre-dates the invention of photography by ten years or more. it has many of the objective characteristics of contemporary landscape photography i have seen and yet there is (to me) a difference between the objective painting study of a tree and an objective photograph of a tree.the photographer, although considering and planning his/her composition for a long time will finally only look through the lens of the camera for a few seconds - it is the photograph and not the photographer that 'looks' deeply and extends the gaze for all time. when we look at a landscape photograph we are more likely to be engaged by the 'view' and have less regard for the viewpoint of the photographer. by virtue of the medium of photography their creative input, although considered & critical, is ultimately transient and perhaps secondary to the moment of recording.the opposite seems to be true of painters. time is evident in the surface as well as the subject of the painting. we witness or see both elements, of the observer and the observed, at the same time. in this small tree study by john constable, it is apparent he 'observed' the tree for many hours, most likely over the course of a couple of days. it is perhaps mid summer, and (as above) maybe in a park in hampstead (in the 1820's hampstead would have been a quiet 'village' suburb of outer london). i shall presume that constable's intense gaze was uninterrupted and he was necessarily working in solitude. it seems so perfectly 'framed' as a study i wonder if he used a viewfinder or other optical device, or whether it was later cut down to size. i was also reminded of the pre-raphaelite brotherhood of painters and their concerns with truth to nature.but, what relevance does this very brief analysis of constable's work have for me as an artist in 2011? a few months back i acquired a very large impasto-varnished reproduction on canvas of 'the hay wain' and it is now proudly hanging in the house. it has a chipped but quite ornate gold picture frame and it probably came from a pub clearance sale (many rural pubs have closed down and are sold on as private residences) but i found the canvas in a local junk shop. this reproduction 'painting' on canvas cost me considerably less than those offered by the national gallery gift shop (as mentioned above). it was undoubtedly intended as a piece of nostalgia, now in more ways than one. it was once hung with sentimental pride on a wall, a period feature or characterful adornment, then later it was discarded or sold at a clearance auction, eventually finding its way into my possession.my inferior reproduction of 'the hay wain' reminds me of the nostalgia that we (in suffolk especially) may have for the life & works of john constable. often (as i look at my constable 'painting' daily), i have entertained the idea of doing something mildly subversive (as with the mona lisa jigsaw), painting over parts of it or collaging on a 4x4 or a wind turbine, but would it be anything other than a visual joke (along the lines of banksy, for example)? this sort of artistic appropriation, intervention or vandalism has been done many times (and often very well) but it is not really what i want to do. visual jokes & metaphors as social commentary are often good (daumier, for example), but i can't help wanting to be more passive in my intentions.however, i thought of doing something else, so that the constable 'painting' would not be damaged or altered in any way (it is kitsch enough, thank you). i decided to use the 'painting' as a faux pastoral backdrop, placing myself within (or more accurately, in front of) the suffolk landscape as offered by 'the hay wain' - and a little in the style of a 19th century portrait. i don't know if society painters in the 19th century ever wore floppy, velvet caps but i was also thinking of one of rembrandt's later self portraits.
rembrandt van rijn 'self portrait' 1659 84.5 x 66 cm© national gallery of art...
i was considering using this image as the picture for my about page (as a suffolk-based artist), but perhaps it is a little too obscure in its reference...the british landscape painter john constable has been intriguing me much more of late. i want to learn more about his motivations and his psychological mindset, especially the mood of solitude and the perceptible traces of melancholia in some of his later work. i don't think the writer john ruskin was a big fan of constable's work - he was more taken by the high drama of jmw turner.i also want to make a visit to 'constable country' in the depths of winter, when most of the tourists have gone, when the trees are bare, perhaps on a grey, misty or frosty day - as prior knowledge of constable's work inevitably 'colours in' my vision of that particular landscape. i quite like these two quotes which i think impart a little of constable's earnestness in seeking and depicting a truth to nature:'when i sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing i try to do is to forget that i have ever seen a picture.''willows, old rotten, banks, slimy posts and brickwork. i love such things.'[john constable]this seems to be the critical element; to get to the truth of personal experience is to momentarily forget all that has gone before and just be immersed in the moment. an art historian & writer once told me (to paraphrase the conversation from my memory) that all art has to be subversive these days. it has become unfashionable to seek elements of beauty, sentiment or nostalgia as much contemporary art, the art most revered by curators or debated in the arts media, becomes more politicised, subversive or activist in its intent. if there is anything subversive in my humble efforts (which i doubt there is) it is that i have eschewed the realism of western pictorial traditions in my abstracted re-imaginings of small aspects of the landscape, of the rustic and the rural, of 'nature' co-existing with the man-made. i don't have to look very far to find it.over the summer i have been reading quite a lot, mostly books that have been suggested to me that i repeatedly dip into. i also made new art for the exhibitions i was featured in but there are many things i still want to finish before the end of the year. there is not much in the way of exhibiting in the very near future so i will continue to investigate & pursue relevant opportunities. i think the next couple of months will be quiet & focused as i continue to investigate philosophically, visually & materially the things that fascinate me. i doubt very much that i will want to openly 'blog' about what i am doing on a weekly basis because it is often a deeply personal and open-ended process.the subject of this particular 'blog post' developed out of two unrelated objects around the house, a faux painting and a small toy, which led me to think again about constable's work and it also enabled some connections to a couple of previous sketchbook drawings of trees. this blog post took me a good many hours to formulate, structure & draft up and yet i have only briefly touched upon a subject that has relevance to me as an east anglian artist. in this regard, this could be seen within an ongoing reflective context as i am learning more about myself as an artist as i think and write about these small things. i welcome any comments or suggestions, as usual....
on thinking, clouds in a sketchbook
dear reader, i have had my head in the clouds again, a mild attack of the vapours... the heavy rains came (more of a rain deluge, really) and then swiftly went away again, giving us brilliant blue skies for a day or so, but then those rain clouds gathered ominously once again...
[sketchbook pages, july 2010]these are some small sketches from the last few days, all completed during the course of travelling to places - and by humble bus, no less. it's a surprisingly bumpy ride by bus in the countryside - the pencils which i thought were securely retained in a pencil case threatened to jump overboard and skittle across the floor of the bus, as one did, but luckily the bus was close to empty...n.b. all of these sketches are all 14cm x 20cm.
some rain clouds... i guess they are cumulus... with a peek of sky blue...this is my favourite sketch of one day's travelling, a brief glimpse of rainfall in the distance (or perhaps it was just the sun's rays as seen through water vapour after a rainstorm), sketched on the return journey...
here is another one completed around lunchtime... it was a bright and breezy day with some sunshine, the clouds gathered up (so to speak) and it was 'looking like rain again'...
here is another sketch from earlier in the week (a single, small grey cloud, amongst the white fluff, that caught my eye). i had, to save some money, decided to draw on both sides of the paper in my sketchbooks - but i have noticed how the fugitive nature of graphite has transferred smudgy tones between the sketchbook pages, thus unintentionally clouding this drawing even further...
single grey cloud
another dark grey cloud - perhaps these incidental smudgings of graphite add a little life to the process.....there is no desire to use these small sketches as part of a preliminary process for painting - i think they will feed into my painting in other, less obvious ways...artists sometimes use photography to record the details of things, as visual references for their work, but plein air drawing (or as seen through a window in many of these examples) as a process has its own sensibility - one that is exploratory and purely responsive, of the moment - of making brisk, spontaneous marks in real time, marks that have no definitive end...i have, i think, a bit of a sketchaholicism when it comes to travelling (when not driving). there is the time and space to just gaze, to drift into momentary vistas, spied for perhaps only a few seconds. this inspires a loose, gestural style of drawing that i continue to work into for a few minutes, with the landscape or sky still there to refer to outside the window, slowing shifting in its perspective... this creates an immediacy and vitality of drawing, which if one were 'still' might produce a more technically-laboured outcome as one wrestles with capturing the singular 'view'. here, in these sketches, the most time i spent on a sketch would be three or four minutes... i look, i draw, i memorise - perhaps it is a form of (re)training, for the eyes and the visual memory, to hone one's perception, to be more receptive and impulsive in drawing what one sees... and i like the self-imposed restrictions of drawing on the move...for some contextual reference it would be churlish not to mention suffolk-born artist john constable, and also jmw turner, for their studies and sketches of skies and clouds. constable and turner were contemporaries, born only a year apart, with perhaps some professional rivalry if not open hostility towards one another at the time. three of the sky studies below are from the period 1822-23... perhaps the industrial, revolutionary smogs of those times made the turbulent skies into art...?this also begs the big question: who's the master of the painted skies, constable or turner? constable appears to offer a deeply respectful and naturalistic view of the landscape (rising metaphorically from the dark shadows of the industrial revolution), whereas turner immerses himself (and us, in turn) in the subjective, spiritual nature of landscape as a means to convey elements of the sublime...
John Constable, cloud study, circa 1822. oil on paper, 476 x 575 mm
John Constable, study of clouds, 5 september, 1822. oil on paper, 298 x 483 mmwhat is most interesting in constable's cloud studies is how they give an insight into his process. his often detailed annotations referring to time and place offer some evidence of the influence of advances in science during the age of enlightenment, although i am sure that romantic painters such as constable would have been a little sceptical.constable produced many preparatory studies and the final paintings were then completed in the studio. arguably the most famous constable painting, the haywain, was actually completed far away from the suffolk valley it depicted - in hampstead, london. he was truthful to the spirit of nature as he perceived it, a deeply nostalgic and poetic vision of britain's rural landscape, at a time when the real countryside increasingly exhibited the advancement of a more mechanised, industrial agriculture. i wonder if back then his paintings were seen as aspirational manifestations of a rural idyll existing only in the mind - he once said of his clouds that they were 'the chief organ of sentiment' in his paintings...
JMW Turner, storm at sea circa 1822-3. watercolour on paper, 178 x 257 mm
JMW Turner, study of clouds, with a shower passing over water circa 1826-32. watercolour on paper, 307 x 487 mmyou can view turner's sktchbooks online at the tate...constable is undoubtedly the better painter of real skies but turner captures the essential, intangible beauty of the ethereal elements. turner seems to delight in the deft touch, the merest suggestion of colour in atmospheric movement, of a fresh breeze or a sea mist rising. this is meteorology without the boring science bit. these are not absolute recordings but sensory responses and turner's later paintings always remind me that less is often more.i find the implied sensitivity in these small studies most fascinating when what we know of turner's personal life is that he was often brash and, how shall we say, a tad unrefined in demeanour, but let's not spoil the painterly magic. turner's magnificence as a painter and his influence on modern art is undeniable - as rothko once apparently said, 'this man Turner, he learnt a lot from me'. sometimes, i can't help imagining that if turner had just cleaned his brush on a scrap of paper it would be later viewed as yet another sketch of a storm at sea... constable, i think, would not have been so carefree......lastly… i have just penned a quick haiku style poem, in honour of some fluffy white clouds...reigning cloudssometimes flirt a littlewhen spurning summer's heated advances......