Constable, John 1776-1837
English landscape painter

Born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, he assisted his father for a year in the family mill (1794), but the landscape painter and art patron Sir George Beaumont (1753-1827) prevailed on his family to send him to London, where he studied at the Royal Academy schools. He exhibited his first picture at the Royal Academy in 1802. In 1828, on the death of his father-in-law, an inheritance of �20,000 enabled him to devote himself exclusively to his landscape work, which expressed is profound love of the country, and his interest in the effects of changing light and the movement of clouds across the sky. In 1824 he had a success with The Haywain (1821) in the Paris Salon, and in 1825 at Lille with his White Horse. Both gained gold medals and exercised a powerful influence upon Eug�ne Delacroix and other French Romantic artists. His later years were saddened by bereavements, ill health and depression, but he worked steadily, though his landscapes were frequently unsold. Some of his finest landscapes, including The Valley Farm, Cornfield and The Haywain, are in the National Gallery, London, and nearly as many are in the Tate Gallery. Other well-known works include View on the Stour (1819) and Salisbury Cathedral (1823, Victoria and Albert Museum, London).