John Constable (British, 1776-1837)

“Arundel Mill and Castle,” 1836 - 1837. Oil on Canvas. 28 ½ x 39 ½ in. (72.4 x 100.3 cm). TMA# 1926.53. http://emuseum.toledomuseum.org/objects/55063

On the South wall of Gallery 31, at the Toledo Museum of Art (TMA), hangs “Arundel Mill and Castle,” the last oil painting that John Constable was working on the day he died in 1837. (Henderson 111) “Arundel Mill and Castle” was part of Edward Drummond Libbey (1854-1925) private art collection, who bequeathed it, among other artworks, to the TMA collection in 1926.

“Arundel Mill and Castle” is a crowded/busy landscape composition arranged by different visual narratives that are being told at the same time in the foreground, middle ground, and background of the painting. Vertical, horizontal, and diagonal lines traversed the composition in different directions, and converged at different angles, giving rise to forms such as: a hill, water, trees, dead branches and bushes, human and animal figures, and architectural shapes. In the vanishing point, we can perceive the presence of a faraway town. The horizon line is made of distant hills that separates it from the blue sky with white organic cloud formations that occupy approximately three and a half parts of the composition (when dividing the composition in nine equal parts, as in a viewfinder grid). The sky is mostly seen in the upper left third of the composition. The aerial or atmospheric perspective is noticeable in the left side of the composition where the landscape of the valley is set by the artist’s appliance of different tonal colors and smaller size objects when compared to the objects in the foreground. Also, towards the left side border of the frame, in the foreground, a bush hides the horizon line and part of the sky due to its size. Starting at the right corner of the painting, our eyes move diagonally downhill, stopping by the presence of a castle that overlooks the valley of grassland where cows are feeding. The presence of the hill on the right pushes the composition to the foreground for us to focus on it. The foreground is separated from the middle ground by a narrow river. We can see both banks of it. The river curves in the right side of the composition, where it runs close to houses that are reflected in the water, where movement is perceived by waves painted with the knife of short lines or touches of white color. We can see, hidden by vegetation of the hill, a bridge, followed by several houses close to each other, with their chimneys rising white smoke. The houses are placed in front of the green and yellow hill by creating a linear Z shape, by the disposition of their close grouping, creating a unit complex. On the right corner of the composition, the water of the river forms a small pond in front of houses, where we see a man/woman/or child riding a horse that is drinking water on the pond. Behind this scene, close to the last house on the right side of the frame, we see a cart/or wagon wheel and part of the cart/wagon is cut by the right frame of the painting.

The water reservoir or pond is in a higher terrain than the river. It seems that there is a lock or small mill waterfall dividing it from the river. The lock or waterfall is hidden by a group of trees, set in the right foreground. There is one tall tree that dominates the others, by its size, and a dead trunk leans against it leaving a triangular space in between them, from which we can see the figure of a woman standing in a Dutch door. She is observing the scenery and facing us, the viewer. The human figure is of small size, in accordance with the visual perspective of the relation of size versus distance. In between this higher ground area, just described, and the ground area on the left side of the composition, the river runs in a circle creating a small oval island where we see two children, that can be described as boys because of their attire. One of them is wearing a black coat and pants, white shirt, and a red tie bow, with a black cap or hat. The other child has blond hair, wearing brown pants and a long sleeve white shirt. One of the boys is squatting, and the other, the blond hair boy is lying flat on his stomach on the ground. Both are facing each other watching and touching something (not clearly seen) in the ground. The blonde boy, lying flat in the ground, is holding in his left hand a long stick, a fishing pole, that is hanging towards a little creek on the left. Behind the narrative scene of the boys, closer to the South bank of the river there are chickens or ducks standing in the ground. Continuing our description of the foreground, after the creek, a dead trunk with tree branches lies diagonally in the floor facing the viewer, creating a dividing line. Behind it, towards the South riverbank, a brown with white spots cow is lying down in the ground in profile, also a calf head is noticed close by. Crossing the river, in the same direction of the visual diagonal line of the dead tree trunk, in the North bank of the river, a cow is standing and drinking water from the river. In the prairie or valley two or three cows are walking towards the river. On the left lower corner of the composition, dark brown color predominates, but light goes through by the addition of yellow, green, and white colors forming tree trunks and branches and dense vegetation. Also, in the immediate left side foreground, a cow, painted in dark brown with hints of white color on its back, is standing in profile, with horns and udder. Behind this cow, another light brown cow’s body is foreshortened with the head facing the viewer. Both cows are arranged in a linear L shape direction.

Constable started painting “Arundel Mill and Castle” in his studio, in London, hoping that it could be exhibited in 1836, but he changed his mind finishing another painting “Cenotaph, 1833-36” (now at the National Gallery in London) that was the one submitted in the 1836 Academy Exhibition. (Lyles) For the 1837 British Academy Exhibition, Constable decided that he would present “Arundel Mill and Castle.” It is mentioned by family and friends, as witnesses, that he was painting “Arundel Mill and Castle” the morning of March 31, 1837, that night he died of a heart attack (Gomez 15), six weeks before the exhibition. (Henderson 112) “Even not quite finished, his friends thought it was completed enough to show “Arundel Mill and Castle” in the 1937 Academy Exhibition as a memorial to John Constable.” (Reynolds 11) He based the subject matter of this painting on two oil sketches that he did of the Arundel castle, mill, and hill of the Sussex landscape, on two trips he made to the area in 1834 and 1835. One sketch of this painting is in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, titled “Arundel Mill” done in 1835. See web site: https://art.famsf.org/john-constable/arundel-mill-194024

When comparing “Arundel Mill and Castle” to “The Hay Wain” that was done in 1821, we can say that both were created in the same medium: oil on canvas. Both are English landscapes depicting rivers: the 2river Arun in Sussex (South of London, south coast of the Island) and River Stour in Suffolk (North East of London, east coast of the Island). The following paragraphs will describe (and compare) “The Hay Wain” in more detail.

“The Hay Wain” (Kleiner 818) is larger in size than the “Arundel Mill and Castle.” It measures 4’ 3 ¼” x 6’ 1” and it is in the National Gallery in London. “The Hay Wain” is a less crowded, and a less dark composition. Constable uses less or smaller size (round) white paint strokes or layers and the hues are warmer: yellow, orange, gold, and red, colors that give a more sense of calm, and tranquility. There is one house or cottage with two chimneys on the left foreground of the composition. The background of the composition (horizon line) is a forest where individual trees are aligned horizontally and a town, as a vanishing point, is seen on the extreme right side. The sky space is dominated by white clouds with gray ones hovering above a group of trees that are concentrated in the left middle ground. The middle ground is a yellow green grassland space where people (farmers?) dressed in white are seen standing (working?) in the distance.

The house’s backyard faces the river. The water of the river is shallow. A cart or wain is parked in the middle of the river. The cart or wain is moved by two rows of two black horses per row (3 or 4 in total), with red harnesses, that are facing to the left of the composition, as looking towards the group of trees. The river is divided in two, forming a linear Y, exactly where the cart is located. The cart indicates or covers the site of the river division. A lonely tree marks the angle of the Y, which is in a ground shaped as a peninsula or island where the river divides in two and embraces the ground (ground and river trail relationship also described in “Arundel Mill and Castle”). This scene of the cart or wain is the focal point or emphasis of the foreground of the composition. Two men wearing hats are standing in the water, at each side of the front of the cart, facing each other. A white with brown spots dog is standing, profile view, in the south bank of the river with his face looking the cart’s scene. Ducks are swimming in the North bank, towards the right side of the composition. They are swimming close to an empty rowing boat where a hidden man wearing a red shirt and holding a long stick is standing in a tall grass or bushes area behind the boat. Close to the house a woman with a long red skirt seems standing close to the water facing the back of the house. She is hidden behind a wood post. Trees, clouds, walls, wheels, and figures are reflected in the water that seems moving by the waves painted in white.

The farmhouse painted in “The Hay Wain” belonged to Willy Lott, the owner in 1800s, who did not leave the house for 80 years, except for four days. Willy Lott’ story is about loyalty and belonging to a place when referring to the site that Constable sketched in oil in 1816. (Reynolds 38) The farmhouse story tells in part John Constable’s personal life choices and character.

Constable’s “The Hay Wain, 1821” was first presented in the British Academy in 1821 (Darracott 74) but was not sold in London. (King 209) The same painting was exhibited under the name: “Landscape: Noon” in the Paris Salon in 1824, where it was sold along with other Constable’s paintings presented in the exhibition. “The Hay Wain” or “Landscape: Noon” won a gold medal at the Paris Salon in 1824, and Constable’s oeuvre started to be recognized and admired by French artists and the French public. After his French success, Constable’s paintings became more appreciated in England. It took him five more years (1829) to be admitted as a full time Royal Academician. Constable started lecturing at the Academy mostly about the importance of landscape as a subject matter that helped change the way landscape was started to be considered as a genre not related with historical events.

These two paintings were done in different periods of Constable’s personal life and evolution as an artist, but both paintings were created with the same interest: that his art be judged by his peers and the public. While painting “The Hay Wein” he was in love and married with a local (East Bergholt) lady Maria Elizabeth Bicknell (1788-1828). He waited to be married seven years because she was not allowed to do so by her family. They married in 1816, he was 40 and she was 21 years old.

In 1836, he was 59 years old while painting “Arundel Mill and Castle,” and a widow since 1828. His wife Maria was diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis in 1824 (King 207), and one year after giving birth to their seventh child she died at age 40, in 1828. In his later years, he was suffering from crippling rheumatism. (Gomez 15)

Through a careful chronological study and observation of the artist’s oeuvre will permit us to identify the artistic improvements and the introduction of personal innovational changes that will differentiate if the artist is in the process of developing his own style or still is in the stage of being an imitator or copyist. This fact is important to consider as art history students because by acquiring this observational and study discipline we would be able to identify the generational variations that has occurred through the global history of human creativity one artist at a time.

An artist’s career is made not only by an individual’s innate talent but as an artistic process that includes the study of previous generations of artists’ experiences, who by their written observations, biographies and works of art leave a testimony of their human creativity. This study usually is done by joining art schools, artists’ groups, and societies where to discuss and interchange academic observations. Simultaneously to the acquiring of academic artistic knowledge, it is the practice of the art (sketching/painting) chosen in a group or solo art studio or outdoors, and to visit world museums and world cities by traveling or by learning about them through books.

John Constable went through all the steps, above mentioned, to become an artist, except that he did not travel abroad. He stayed in England. He was firm and content with his conviction to draw and paint the English landscape, especially the Suffolk area, at the banks of the Stour River (North East of London). Constable’s father owned mills and land in East Bergholt, Suffolk, where John, was born, grew up and wandered with his five siblings (he was the second of six children) and friends exploring the area. Art historians have denominated “Constable country” to John Constable’s landscapes of the Stour River valley; places where he returned throughout his lifetime to sketch and paint on site. He mainly worked on four English districts: “meadows around Dedham, meadows around Salisbury, the beach at Brighton and the suburban scenery of Hampstead.” (Masters in Art: John Constable 32)

As his friend and first biographer Charles Robert Leslie stressed: “the subjects of his works form a history of his affections.” (Rosenthal 8) His paintings are an autobiographical journey. His paintings relate his personal life to his visual experience as an artist. His methodical observational visits to the countryside, where he sketched in oil outdoors, were left in his letters to his family and friends and in his paintings that are available for us to review and to make our own conclusions and comparisons as art history students. His 50 (King 209) oil studies of clouds or skies, mostly painted in 1821 and 1822, being the first one in 1806 (Kimmelman), are accompanied by detailed annotations of data, classifying them by day, the time of the day, wind speed direction, climate or weather, cardinal direction or point, season and area location. These clouds or skies paintings are important visual documents to review to understand Constable’s artistic thinking and evolution. He “did not use these cloud studies in any of his landscapes; their sole purpose was to improve his own technique.” (King 209)

John Constable’s life story, his choice of subject matter and art style tell us how he became to be recognized, by his peers and the art world, as an English art innovator who paved the way for the development of future art styles like the Barbizon School in France (1830-1870) the Hudson River painters in the U.S.A., and others. It was the academic recognition of the genre of landscape into an art style, that was not the case at that time John Constable was living, that it is mentioned in art history books as an attribution to Constable’s efforts in 1800s.

Constable’s oeuvre is considered romantic, expressionistic, and naturalistic. He painted for the art market and the art establishment of his time by following the rules imposed by the Academy, especially compositions in big size canvas that was a standard for the annual Summer Exhibitions. He also painted, for his personal artistic pleasure, as a way of practicing and experimenting, in small size oil compositions at plein air or outdoors, of what he saw and felt in contact with nature. These small paintings show a freer, innovative, and naturalistic way. It is the small canvas paintings that “critics argue that they have the freshness and spontaneity that were lost in the labor of producing the larger final pictures.” (TMA Library Vertical Files) He preferred to paint outdoors in the Spring and Summer, and he liked to catch the sunlight of early afternoon. He applied broad strokes and thickly white highlights that were called “Constable’s snow,” that were not well taken by the art technique conventions of his time.

Constable’s words “Painting is but another word for feeling,” were “expressing the most radical ideas in 19^th century art theory. For the first time an artist was claiming that a view of a provincial boat yard or even the dunghill he placed in the foreground of his paintings…were as worthy of the viewer’s attention as a subject from classical mythology.” (Dorment)

With this review of John Constable’s art and life, I learned about the meaning of his “cloud studies” or “skies studies,” “Constable’s snow,” “Constable’s country,” and the historical importance of the painting “Arundel Mill and Castle, 1836-1837” that belongs to TMA permanent collection since 1926. The comparison of this painting, that I could see and sketch in person in the museum, with the “The Hay Wain, 1821” from a photograph reproduction, was a disadvantage because I was not able to see and describe the painter’s brush strokes and the presence of “Constable snow” in the photograph that was seen when studying the painting in person.

John Constable’s love story towards his wife, children and country influenced in the way how his emotions were poured into his works of art. It was the places that connected him to his family’s stories that was part of his being and becoming an artist. Mr. John Constable’s story is a human story of creativity in the early 19^th century. 

emotions were poured into his works of art. It was the places that connected him to his family’s stories that was part of his being and becoming an artist. Mr. John Constable’s story is a human story of creativity in the early 19^th century

Works Cited

 Brenson, Michael. "Two Sides of Constable: Classic and Romantic." The New York Times 13 May 1988.

Constable, John. Toledo Museum of Art. Oil on Canvas.

Constable, John (1776-1837). Arundel Mill and Castle. Oil on Canvas. Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio. TMA# 1926.53.

Darracott, Joseph. England's Constable: The LIfe and Letters of John Constable. London, England: London The Folio Society Limited, 1985.

Dorment, Richard. "John Constable: To sensuous, cerebral artist, "painting was another word for feeling"." Washington Times 1989.

Gomez, Mandi. Essential Constable. London, England: Dempsey Parr, Parragon, 2000.

Henderson, M. Sturge. Constable. London, England: Duckworth and Co., 1905.

Hoozee, Robert. L'opera completa di Constable. Milano, Itlaly: Rizzoli Editore, 1979.

Kimmelman, Michael. "Discovering the Concealed Depths Beneath Constable's Quiet Simplicity." New York Times 25 November 1994. Vertical Files. Toledo Museum of Art Library.

King, Ross (foreword). Artists: Their Lives and Works. New York, NY: Penguin Random House, 2017.

Klein, Jacky. Turner and Constable: Who was the greater artist? London, England, 19 September 2014. www.youtube.com/watch?u=wLiN378TRSg.

Kleiner, Fred S. Gadner's Art Through the Ages: A Global History 16th Edition. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning, 2019.

Kramer, Hilton. "Fine Show of Constable, Patron Saint of the Impressionists." The New York Observer 6 June 1988.

Kunz, Elaine. "John Constable." TMA Docent Research Paper. 2000. Education Department. Toledo Museum of Art.

Lyles, Anne. The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition: A Chronicle, 1769–2018. Ed. Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art. 2018. 26 November 2020. <https://chronicle250.com/>.

"Masters in Art: John Constable." New England, MA, n.d. 23-41. Vertical Files. Toledo Museum of Art.

Reynolds, Graham. John Constable: The Natural Painter. 62 Paintings and Drawings from Great Collections. 1973-1974.

Rosenthal, Michael. Constable. London, England: Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1987.

Rutter, Frank. "Constable's Cloudscapes." Exhibition of Cloud Studies. June 1923. Vertical Files. Toledo Museum of Art.

Salander, Lawrence B. "John Constable, R.A.: Public and Private Painting." 1988. Vertical Files. Toledo Museum of Art Library.

Note of the author: This paper was presented on November 29, 2020 (University of Toledo, Fall Semester) History of Western Art II (Professor Mysoon Rizk)