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English painting also produced two men of genius: Turner and Constable. (Art & Civilisation & Artists: Turner & Artists: Constable) Kenneth Clark, Civilisation 11/13: The Worship of Nature, BBC 1969
Without any doubt the great works of Constable were done at the point when his desire to be a ‘natural’ painter and his need to express his restless, passionate character overlap. Through his violence of feeling, concealed under a conventional exterior, he was able to revolutionise our own feelings about our surroundings. The conviction that open spaces and areas of rural scenery must be saved for the refreshment of our spirits owes more to Constable than to any other artist. While Turner, with greater gifts, was transforming the ‘beauty spots of Europe, Constable was teaching us all to realise that our own countryside could be taken exactly as it is, and yet become more precious to us’. Kenneth Clark, The Romantic Rebellion
In the early years of the nineteenth century Britain suddenly found herself with two powerful but contrasting visions of her landscape. The paintings of John Constable and William Turner were the stars of the Royal Academy shows. But they were as different in temperament as they were in artistic technique. This Green and Pleasant Land: The Story of British Landscape Painting, BBC 2011
John Constable, an almost exact contemporary of Turner, was to achieve an equally elevated status as a landscaper. ibid.
Like Stubbs before him, Constable offered us a vision of rural content. ibid.
There have been few more powerful painters of landscape than John Constable. He brought a scale, ambition and impact to a subject long considered amongst the lowest forms of art, but he is largely celebrated as a nostalgic painter of a lost England. Great Artists with Tim Marlow s1e21: John Constable, Sky Arts 2003
He says at the beginning though that he wants to produce a pure and unaffected view of nature. ibid.
There seems to be at least thirty different tones of green here. ibid.
This modest quiet backwater tucked in just behind his father’s mill inspired one of the most popular and iconic pictures in all of English painting: The Hay Wain. ibid.
Every year a quarter of a million people from all over the world make pilgrimage to this spot to see from themselves something they know only through a two-hundred year old painting. This is Flatford in Essex. And this is the Hay Wain by John Constable. Sir Roy Strong, The Genius of British Art, Channel 4 2010
Arguably the greatest of all English landscape paintings. ibid.
The sound of water escaping from mill-dams etc. willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork ... those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful. John Constable, letter 23rd October 1821
In Claude’s [Lorrain] landscape all is lovely – all amiable – all is amenity and repose – the calm sunshine of the heart. John Constable, lecture 2nd June 1836
There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life; for let the form of an object be what it may – light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful. John Constable
Painting is but another word for feeling. John Constable
Two possible works by this quintessential English artist ... and ends with a painting restored to its rightful place as a work by one of England’s finest artists. And there’s more good news ... Yarmouth Jetty was also likely to have been painted by John Constable. Fake or Fortune? s3e2: Constable, BBC 2014
Can we prove that this beautiful English landscape is the work of national importance? A lost masterpiece by John Constable. Fake or Fortune? s6e1: Constable, BBC 2017
Still bears the scars of a botched makeover. ibid.
‘In our opinion it is indeed a genuine authentic compositional sketch by John Constable’. ibid. expert
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London boasts the largest collection of works by John Constable anywhere in the world. Alastair Sooke, Constable: A Country Rebel, BBC 2014
He began to regard his own work as an experimental journey. ibid.
There is one painting, and you will know it, whose impact on the story of Western art is perhaps particularly surprising. I’m talking about John Constable’s The Hay Wain. This is in essence a very very simple image of a little pinch of England Constable knew best. Great Paintings of the World with Andrew Marr: Hay Wain, Channel 5 2021
His relatively small canvasses were lost against the vast classical landscapes by other exhibitors like the hugely successful J M W Turner. ibid.
For an artist now seen as so very conservative he was remarkably experimental which didn’t help sales. ibid.