Tag / John Constable

by cristina@cristinaschek.com

Constable on the beat: how painter was drawn to ‘the lungs of London’

Estelle Lovatt follows in the footsteps of John Constable, who loved Hampstead almost as much as his beloved Suffolk

Source: Camden New Journal

Estelle Lovatt on the Constable trail in Hampstead photo credit Cristina Schek

Estelle Lovatt on the Constable trail in Hampstead [Photo credit Cristina Schek]

IN John Constable’s 250th birthday anniversary year, Hampstead offers an exceptionally enlightening and informative way to re-evaluate the great English Romantic landscape painter’s accomplishments.

Born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, on June 11, 1776, he was drawn to Hampstead by its lush Heath greenery and its early Georgian and Regency architecture. It was here that he painted, sketched, drew, taught and lectured, declaring: “Here, Hampstead, let me take my everlasting rest.”

He first visited Hampstead when he was a student at the Royal Academy. Walking there from central London, he spoke of covering the “three miles from door to door … see nature, and unite a town and country life”. Its rich green verdant landscape reminded him of his family farm and home in Suffolk.

He spent the last 19 years of his life in Hampstead, painting the views that, he said, included “Child’s Hill, fields in Hendon, church spires in Harrow on the Hill, and even Windsor Castle!” He also sketched workhands labouring on the Heath, managing cows, sheep, horses, donkeys and dogs beneath ash, birch, elm, oak and fir trees around the ponds.

At about 450 feet above the city of London, Hampstead stood apart from the crowded, polluted city and offered a sanctuary for Constable’s family, especially his often-unwell wife, Maria. As he put it, “Hampstead is the lungs of London”, with “the finest views, unsurpassed in Europe, from Westminster to Gravesend, Kent, and the dome of St Paul’s” to paint.

Constable wrote that “every day in Hampstead makes me long for a walk”. He favoured the coarser landscape of the Heath to formal stiffly manicured city parks, which he saw as artificial rather than natural. As he said: “the gentleman’s park is my aversion. It’s not beauty because it’s not nature!”

John Constable

He added: “My art is found under every hedge; in every lane – therefore no one thinks it’s worth picking…[But] the landscape is too large to go unnoticed…[and the] Canvas takes the place of God’s work; the landscape is God’s plan in eye; because since the Creation, no two days are alike, no two hours are alike. No two trees are alike. No two leaves are alike.” To communicate that selection of hue, he mixed “a thousand greens to capture the complexity of nature’s beauty.”

While living in Hampstead, Constable advanced some of his most investigational practises, including the cloud studies associated with his famous masterpiece The Hay Wain, 1821, in the National Gallery. Although the painting shows the River Stour and Willy Lott’s house, in Suffolk, it is believed to have been developed from sketches and drawings made near to Whitestone Pond. It was completed in the back garden shed of his Hampstead home, Lower Terrace.

On the Heath and around Whitestone Pond, he studied light, atmosphere and movement with extraordinary liberty and self-determination, shifting direct observation into a new language of landscape painting. His oil paint sketches capture transitory rain showers, drifting vapours, fumes and coal-smoke unsettling the skyline.

These images still feel extraordinarily modern, not only for their wholesomeness of painterly-touch, but because they also seized the weather conditions, as lived experience. Hampstead gave him the visual platform he needed to seize the kaleidoscopic light, surging clouds, church towers in the distance and far-reaching outlooks analysing views across London, all of which sharpened his eye.

The Village streets, sweeping heathland and Constable’s actual painting viewpoints lets one see, feel and live the visual exchange between artist and location. Reminding us how Constable painted not only topography – en plein air, but also memory – back in his studio. Finding godliness and spiritual power deep in English landscape.

Walking where he Constable did is to see how Hampstead became both a safe haven and art studio: a place for family life and artistic experimentation. In Hampstead, the natural world continually charged his artistic imagination, making celebrating Constable’s 250th birthday here feels so significant.

He died in 1837 and is buried with his wife, Maria, and six of their seven their children, in their family tomb at St John’s Parish Church, Church Row, Hampstead.

• To book tickets for Estelle Lovatt’s Constable’s Hampstead Walk on June 28 see www.estellelovatt.com or www.eventbrite.com/o/34402021167

by cristina@cristinaschek.com

Celebrating the artist who made Hampstead home | Barnet Post

Estelle Lovatt on marking Constable’s 250th birthday

The backs of the heads of two people looking at a field
Credit – Cristina Schek

This year we mark the 250th birthday of John Constable, the great British, Romantic Realist, landscape painter.

Born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, Constable later made Hampstead his home after falling in love with its lush green verdant setting and early Georgian and Regency architecture.

He first discovered the area whilst he was a young fine art student at the Royal Academy. Walking from central London to the Heath, he described the route as the “three miles from door to door [from central London to Hampstead]…see nature, and unite a town and country life”. Its spectacular verdant landscape reminded him of his family farm and Suffolk home.

Rising some 450 feet above the City of London, Hampstead offered great distance from the over-crowded, fog polluted, metropolis and became a relaxing, exhilarating, refuge for Constable, and his family. His wife, whose health was extremely fragile, benefitted from Hampstead, a spa destination.

He praised its fresh air, calling Hampstead “the lungs of London”. And admired “the finest views, unsurpassed in Europe, from Westminster to Gravesend, Kent, and the dome of St Paul’s”, which he painted, sketched and drew as one of the most lovely, spectacular, sights he found.

Constable spent the final 19 years of his life in Hampstead. Capturing views he said included “Childs Hill, fields in Hendon, church spires in Harrow on the Hill, and even Windsor Castle!”

He sketched farm labourers at work on the Heath tending their cows, sheep, horses, donkeys and dogs. Beneath ash, birch, elm, oak and fir trees growing beyond hedgerows, around the ponds.

In Hampstead, Constable developed some of his most experimental painting techniques, including cloud studies for his celebrated six-footer masterpiece, The Hay Wain, 1821 (at the National Gallery). Although the painting shows the River Stour and Willy Lott’s house it is believed he worked from sketches made by Whitestone Pond and completed this masterpiece canvas in the garden shed of his Hampstead home — not in Suffolk!

Constable loved Hampstead and felt a deep connection with the area. Writing how: “Every day in Hampstead makes me long for a walk”. He preferred the rugged landscape of the Heath to formal city parks, which he considered artificial, saying: “The gentleman’s park is my aversion. It’s not beauty because it’s not nature!”

He added: “My art is found under every hedge; in every lane – therefore no one thinks it’s worth picking…[But] the landscape is too large to go unnoticed…[and the] Canvas takes the place of God’s work; the landscape is God’s plan in eye; because since the Creation, no two days are alike, no two hours are alike. No two trees are alike. No two leaves are alike.”

He used “a thousand greens to capture the complexity of nature’s beauty.”

He said: “Here, Hampstead, let me take my everlasting rest.” Constable is buried with his wife, Maria, and six of their seven children, in the family tomb at Saint John’s Parish Church, Church Row, London NW3.

You can celebrate the great Old Master’s landmark birthday by following in his footsteps and joining my ‘Walk Constable’s Hampstead’ guided tour.

To visit the places where Constable lived, loved, worked and painted his magnificent paintings, under the effects of ‘Skying’ and ‘Constable’s Snow’, painted ‘alla prima’, ‘en plein air’ in Hampstead Village, London NW3, more than 200 years ago. You’ll be surprised what’s to discover… and might be inspired to pick up a paintbrush yourself too.

For details and tickets see www.estellelovatt.com or www.eventbrite.com/o/34402021167

Source: https://barnetpost.co.uk/2026/06/23/celebrating-the-artist-who-made-hampstead-home/

by Estelle Lovatt

Discover Constable & The Hay Wain | Painters Online

New exhibition at the National Gallery plus Walk Constable’s Hampstead with art historian Estelle Lovatt.


As part of the National Gallery’s Bicentenary celebrations, Discover Constable & The Hay Wain, 17 October to 2 February, 2025, will focuss on and explore John Constable’s lush green masterpiece, The Hay Wain, painted in 1821.

This exhibition will look at how the great Romantic Realist artist’s perspective of the English landscape reformed itself from social, political and physical assessment and how much the Old Masters were a huge influence from Michelangelo to Ruisdael, Rubens, van Goyen and Claude. Artworks by William Blake, George Morland and John Linnell will also be included.

The exhibition

  • National Gallery, London, Sunley Room
  • 17 October 2024 – 2 February 2025
  • Admission free

Walk in Constable’s footsteps with Estelle Lovatt

Enjoy an opportunity to walk in Constable’s footsteps as Estelle Lovatt FRSA, art historian, art critic, and professional artists’ mentor, hosts guided walking tours, taking you to where Constable painted his masterpieces in London.

This, is a great complimentary event to the National Gallery’s exhibition, Discover Constable and The Hay Wain, as Estelle follows the great Romantic painter’s late life, to see where he lived, painted, sketched, worked and loved in Hampstead, London NW3. 

The walks take place throughout the year. Details and tickets are available on Estelle’s Eventbrite page, Walk Constable’s Hampstead,

CLICK HERE FOR DETAILS AND TO BOOK


Painting The Hay Wain

Constable painted his masterpiece, The Hay Wain, from drawings and studies he’d sketched over at least a twenty year period, en plein air, in Suffolk.  But even after his move, from here to London, when he studied at the Royal Academy, Constable often returned to the landscape of his youth to sketch his beloved countryside. Capturing and documenting the fleeting momentary weather effects pass amidst transitory effects of daylight, all naturally occurring.

He finished The Hay Wain in his London studio – the backyard shed in the garden of his Hampstead, London NW3, home.

This magnificent “six footer” painting was exhibited at the Royal Academy, the same year it was painted, in 1821. Géricault and Delacroix admired it and, although it was quite favourably welcomed by critics saying, it ”approaches nearer to the actual look of rural nature than any modern landscape whatever”, it failed to sell.

The popularity of Constable’s work

Constable’s pictures – exceedingly popular today – were not well received in his lifetime, here, in England. But he inspired contemporary French artists from the Barbizon School and Romantic movement. As he gained significant success in France, The Hay Wain got phenomenal approval and praise when it was exhibited at the Paris Salon, and received a gold medal from the King of France, in 1824.

Nowadays, it’s considered a very lovely, traditional, image of the verdant pastoral English countryside. Even Banksy has interpreted it!

Evoking the calm rustle of being outdoors in nature by Willy Lott’s farmhouse along the River Stour, Constable developed full-sized oil paint sketches to enable him to resolve the pictorial composition. 

His sketched studies, alla prima, are much admired. However, early 19th-century gallery-goers found them far too slapdash, radically expressionistic and unfathomably impressionistic, in interpreting the landscape. Today, we value these studies on paper as fascinating and insightful, pre-empting the artist’s working practice. And if Constable felt like it, he’d have no problem adding an invented rainbow – or two, designing elm trees taller than fact, or superficially brightening a horse’s red harness or boy’s waistcoat to best complement the star, principal colour, green.

The scene is about a mile from where Constable was born and spent his childhood, in East Bergholt. The place where, as Constable sympathetically wrote, he valued “The sound of water escaping from Mill dams, elms and willows, old rotten banks, slimy posts & brickwork. I love such things.”

Photos credit: Cristina Schek
Source: https://www.painters-online.co.uk/news/discover-constable-the-hay-wain/

by Estelle Lovatt

Turner and Constable rivalry revived in London exhibitions

Constable video

The competition between the British painters John Constable and William Turner has gone down in history as one of the greatest-ever artistic rivalries.

Almost 200 years later, that competition is being revived.

Turner’s work is going on display at the Tate Modern, with Constable’s paintings on show at the V&A.

Art critic Estelle Lovatt told BBC Breakfast why the parallel exhibitions would have appealed to the artists.