Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845

It was probably the manner of Constable's execution, as much as any thing else, which for a time interposed a serious obstacle to his success; particularly with artists or persons accustomed to attend to the executive detail of painting. "My pictures will never be popular," he said, "for they have no handling; but I do not see handling in nature." His aim, in fact, though we must admit it was not always successful, was to exhibit art, but not artifice – to efface all traces of the mere mode of execution – to conceal the handwriting of the painter, and to imitate those mysterious processes by which nature produces her effects, where all is shadowy, glimmering, indefinable, yet pregnant with suggestion. In Turner more than any other modern artist – for in this respect we think he far excelled Constable – is this alchymy of art carried to perfection. Look closely at his pictures, and a few patches, dashes, and streaks only are visible, which seem a mere chaos of colour; but retire to the proper distance, what magnificent visions grow into shape; how the long avenue lengthens out for miles; how the sun-clad city brightens on the mountain – the stream descends from the eye – the distance spreads out into infinity! – all these apparently unmeaning spots or accidents of colour, in which it is difficult to detect the work of the hand or pencil at all, being, in fact, mysterious but speaking hieroglyphics, based on profound combinations of colour and light and shadow, and full of the finest harmonies to all who can look at nature with the eye of imagination.

Constable, a we have said, was not always successful in this, the most hazardous of all attempts in painting. If the touches of pure white, which he seemed to scatter on his trees as if from a half-dry brush, sometimes assisted the dewy effect which he loved to produce, they very often, from the absence of that power of just calculation which Turner seems so unerringly to possess, produced a spotty effect, as if the trees had been here and there powdered with snow. Very frequently he exchanged the pencil for the palette knife, in the use of which he was very dexterous, but which, Mr Leslie admits, he occasionally carried to a blamable excess, loading his pictures with a relievo of colour, and provoking the remark, that if he had not attained breadth, he had at least secured thickness.

On the whole, Constable, though now and then missing his object – sometimes, it would seem, as in his skies, from overlabouring his effect, and trying too studiously to arrest and embody fleeting effects – was eminently successful in the result at which he aimed – that of conveying vividly, and almost irresistibly, the sentiment and delineative character of the scene. We have already quoted Fuseli's well-known remark, when standing before one of his showery pictures. "I feel the wind blowing on my face," was honest Jack Banister's remark, (no bad judge by the by,) while contemplating another of his breezy scenes, with the rolling clouds broken up by means of sunshine, and the bending trees turning out their lighter lining to the gale. "Come here," was the remark of a French painter, in the exhibition of the Louvre in 1824; "look at this picture by an Englishman —it is steeped in dew." "We never ask," said Mr Purton, "whether his figures be well or ill placed; there they are, and unless they choose to move on, there they must remain." This truth and artlessness, and natural action or repose of his figures, only equalled in the English landscape by those of Gainsborough and Collins, he probably owed, in some measure, to an observation of an early acquaintance – Antiquity Smith, as he was nicknamed by his brother artists, who, at the commencement of his studies, had given him this judicious advice: – "Do not set about inventing figures for a landscape taken from nature; for you cannot remain an hour on any spot, however solitary, without the appearance of some living thing, that will, in all probability, accord better with the scene and time of day than will any invention of your own."

With Constable's strong natural tastes, and his long-considered views of landscape – at least that landscape for which he felt a vocation – it may be doubted whether he would have gained any thing by an acquaintance with continental scenery, leading, as it generally does, to the adoption of a certain fixed mode of treatment, or even by a more familiar intercourse with the grander features of our own country. He seems to have felt that his originality was, in some degree, connected with the intimacy of his acquaintance with that domestic nature, the study of which he chiefly cultivated, and which was matured by constant repetition and comparison of impressions. A circuit of a few miles, in fact, bounds his bosky bourne from side to side; a circuit of a few hundred yards embraces the subject of nearly half his favourite studies. "The Dutch," he says in one of his journals, "were stay-at-home people; hence the source of their originality."

"In the education of an artist," says Mr Leslie with great good sense, "it is scarcely possible to foresee what circumstances will prove advantageous or the reverse; it is on looking back only that we can judge of these things. Travelling is now the order of the day – and it may sometimes prove beneficial; but to Constable's art, there can be little doubt that the confinement of his studies with the narrowest bounds in which, perhaps, the studies of an artist ever were confined, was in the highest degree favourable; for a knowledge of atmospheric effects will be best attained by a constant study of the same objects, under every change of seasons and of the times of day. His ambition, it will be borne in mind, was not to paint many things imperfectly, but to paint a few well."

A motto, in truth, worthy of any of the seven sages – applicable to many things besides painting – and which can scarcely be applied in vain to any. Not many things imperfectly, but a few well!

With these imperfect remarks on the general character of Constable's pictures, we pass at once to a few extracts from the correspondence, which, as we have already said, makes up the substance of the present volume. Among the letters, by much the most striking and amusing are those of Constable's early and steady friend, Archdeacon Fisher – an admirable judge of art, and himself a very respectable artist. His excellent sense – his kindness – his generosity – which laboured to make its object forget the boon, or at least the benefactor; his strong attachment to his order, yet with a clear perception of the drawbacks inherent in the English hierarchical system; the caustic and somewhat cynical turn of his remarks on contemporary art – communicate great spirit, liveliness, and interest to his letters. In many things he resembles Paley, of whom he seems to have been a warm admirer. He had a thorough appreciation of the excellences of Constable, both moral and professional; but he had a keen eye also to the occasional weaknesses, want of method, and inattention to trifles, which now and then disfigured them. "Pray," he enquires on one occasion, "how many dinners a-week does your wife get you to eat at a regular hour and like a Christian?" "Where real business is to be done," said he, speaking of and to Constable, on another occasion, "you are the most energetic and punctual of men. In smaller matters – such as putting on your breeches – you are apt to lose time in deciding which leg shall go in first."

Such an adviser and critic was of the utmost use to Constable; for he never failed to convey to him his candid impressions and advice – and they were generally just, though not always followed. Being of opinion that Constable was repeating too often the same effects, he writes: "I hope you will diversify your subject this year as to time of day. Thomson, you know, wrote not four summers, but four seasons. People get tired of mutton at top, mutton at bottom, and mutton at the side, though of the best flavour and size." This was touching a sore point, and Constable replies: "I am planning a large picture, and I regard all you say; but I do not enter into that notion of varying one's plans to keep the public in good-humour. Change of weather and effect will always afford variety. What if Vander Velde had quitted his sea-pieces, or Ruysdael his waterfalls, or Hobbima his native woods? The world would have lost so many features in art. I know that you wish for no material alteration; but I have to combat from high quarters – even from Lawrence – the plausible argument, that subject makes the picture. Perhaps you think an evening effect might do; perhaps it might start me some new admirers, but I should lose many old ones. I imagine myself driving a nail: I have driven it some way, and, by persevering, I may drive it home; by quitting it to attack others, though I may amuse myself, I do not advance beyond the first, while that particular nail stands still. No one who can do any one thing well, will be able to do any other different thing equally well; and this is true even of Shakspeare, the greatest master of variety." Constable was in a condition, in fact, to quote the Archdeacon against himself; for in 1827 Fisher had written: "I must repeat to you an opinion I have long held, that no man had ever more than one conception. Milton emptied his mind in the first part of Paradise Lost. All the rest is transcript of self. The Odyssey is a repetition of the Iliad. When you have seen one Claude, you have seen all. I can think of no exception but Shakspeare; he is always varied, never mannered."

Here is a graphic sketch by Constable of one who had known better days, and whom it is probable those conversant with art about that time may recognise. We shall not fill up the asterisks. "A poor wretched man called to see me this morning. He had a petition to the Royal Academy for charitable assistance – it was * * *. His appearance was distress itself, and it was awful to behold to what ill conduct may bring us; yet calamity has impressed even on this man an air of dignity: he looked like Leslie's Don Quixote. When I knew him at the Bishop's he wore powder, had a soft subdued voice, and always a smile, which caused him to show some decayed teeth; and he carried a gold-headed cane with tassels. Now, how changed! His neck long, with a large head, thin face, nose long, mouth wide, eyes dark and sunken, eyebrows lifted, hair abundant, straight, erect, and very greasy, his body much emaciated and shrunk away from his dismal black clothes, and his left arm in a sling from a fall, by which he broke the left clavicle. I shall try the Artists' Fund for him. I cannot efface the image of this ghostly man from my mind."

Here are two clerical sketches as a pendant, by Fisher: – "I write this sitting in commission upon a dispute between a clergyman and his parishioners, and compose while the parties argue. There is a brother parson arguing his own case, with powder, white forehead, and a very red face, like a copper vessel newly tinned. He is mixing up in a tremulous note, with an eager bloodshot eye, accusations, apologies, statements, reservations, and appeals, till his voice sounds on my ear as I write like a distant waterfall."

"* * * and * * * have been together on the visitation for three weeks. They have neither broken bread nor spoken together, nor, I believe, seen one another. What a mistake our Oxford and Cambridge apostolic missionaries fell into when they made Christianity a stern haughty thing! Think of St Paul with a full-blown wig, deep shovel-hat, apron, round belly, double chin, deep cough, stern eye, rough voice, and imperious manner, drinking port-wine, and laying down the law as to the best way of escaping the observation of the Curates' Residence Act!" The Archdeacon himself was not without a little vanity, however, on the subject of his sermons, and once received a quiet hit from Constable on the subject. Having preached an old sermon once, (which he was not aware that Constable had heard before,) he asked him how he liked it. "Very much indeed, Fisher," replied Constable; "I always did like that sermon."

Like most men of original mind, Constable had a very just and manly taste in other matters besides painting. He read but few poets, but he read these with understanding and hearty enjoyment. To arouse his attention, it was necessary that they should be original and vigorous. For the mere artistic skill or cultivated taste displayed by some of the popular poets of the day, he had no sympathy. Of Milman, for instance, he writes: "It is singular that I happened to speak of Milman. No doubt he is learned, but it as not fair to encumber literature. The world is full enough of what has been already done; and as in the art there is plenty of fine painting, but very few good pictures, so in poetry there is plenty of fine writing, and I am told his is such, and, as you say, gorgeous, but it can be compared. Shakspeare cannot, nor Burns, nor Claude, nor Ruysdael; and it has taken me twenty years to find this out." It was on this principle that he classed together Dutch and Italian art – Claude and Ostade, Titian and Ruysdael. For, different as their modes of execution were, they fulfilled his prime condition of having furnished the world with something self-consistent, independent, and original. "Every truly original picture," he would say, "is a separate study, and governed by laws of its own; so that what is right in one would be often literally wrong if transferred to another."

It may be anticipated that Constable, who had no half opinions on any subject, would know his own worth, and rate himself at his due value. To his friend Fisher he does not hesitate to praise his own pictures with a naïveté that is amusing, but which was in harmony with his general severity and dislike of affectation. He would not even affect a false modesty, but spoke of his own performances as he would have done of those of others. "My Lock," he says in one of his letters, "is now on the easel: it is silvery, windy, and delicious – all health, and the absence of any thing stagnant, and is wonderfully got together. The print will be very fine." "My new picture of Salisbury," he writes in another, "is very beautiful; but when I thus speak of my pictures, remember it is to you, and only in comparison with myself." Mr Leslie mentions that he had retained these and similar effusions contrary to the advice of one with whose opinion on other points he generally coincided. He has guessed rightly; for, without such revelations, we should be but imperfectly acquainted with the man. He adds with truth, "The utterance of a man's real feelings is more interesting, though it may have less of dignity than belongs to a uniform silence on the subject of self; while the vanity is often no greater in the one case than in the other."

Of his tender, domestic, affectionate disposition, almost every letter in this volume exhibits proofs. We cannot better illustrate this than by quoting some passages from his letters to his wife while on a visit to Sir George Beaumont at Cole-Orton: while these letters exhibit one of the most delightful pictures of the country life of an accomplished gentleman, an excellent artist, and a kind patron. It is true, that between Sir George and Constable not a few differences in point of taste existed; the baronet was rather an ingenious eclectic than an original painter; his natural belief was, that beyond the pale of Claude and Wilson, an artist's salvation was at least doubtful; but he was too accomplished, too keen-sighted an observer not to be shaken in his theories by the sight of high and original art, and too liberal not to admit at last – as Toby did in the case of the fly – that the world was wide enough for both.

"To Mrs Constable

"November 2d.– The weather has been bad; but I do not at all regret being confined to this house. The mail did not arrive yesterday till many hours after the time, owing to some trees being blown down, and the waters out. * * * I am now going to breakfast before the Narcissus of Claude. How enchanting and lovely it is! far, very far, surpassing any other landscape I ever beheld. Write to me. Kiss and love my darlings. I hope my stay will not exceed this week."

In one of his letters from Cole-Orton to his wife, Constables says: —

"Sir George rises at seven, walks in the garden before breakfast, and rides out about two – fair or foul. We have had breakfast at half-past eight; but to-day we began at the winter hour – nine. We do not quit the breakfast-table directly, but chat a little about the pictures in the room. We then go to the painting-room, and Sir George most manfully sets to work, and I by his side. At two, the horses are brought to the door. I have had an opportunity of seeing the ruins of Ashby, the mountain stream and rocks (such Everdingens!) at Grace-Dieu, and an old convent there – Lord Ferrers' – a grand but melancholy spot. At dinner we do not sit long; Lady Beaumont reads the newspaper (the Herald) to us; and then to the drawing-room to tea; and after that comes a great treat. I am furnished with some portfolios, full of beautiful drawings or prints, and Sir George reads a play in a manner the most delightful. On Saturday evening it was, 'As You Like It;' and I never heard the 'seven ages' so admirably read before. Last evening, Sunday, he read a sermon, and a good deal of Wordsworth's 'Excursion.' Some of the landscape descriptions in it are very beautiful. About nine, the servant comes in with a little fruit and a decanter of water; and at eleven we go to bed. I always find a fire in my room, and make out about an hour longer, as I have every thing there – writing-desk, &c. – and I grudge a moment's unnecessary sleep in this place. You would laugh to see my bed-room, I have dragged so many things into it – books, portfolios, prints, canvasses, pictures, &c."

"November 9.– How glad I was, my dear love, to receive your last kind letter, giving a good account of yourself and our dear babies. * * * Nothing shall, I hope, prevent my seeing you this week; indeed I am quite nervous about my absence, and shall soon begin to feel alarmed about the Exhibition. * * * I do not wonder at your being jealous of Claude. If any thing could come between our love, it is him. I am fast advancing a beautiful little copy of his study from nature of a little grove scene. If you, my dearest love, will be so good as to make yourself happy without me for this week, it will, I hope, be long before we part again. But, believe me, I shall be the better for this visit as long as I live. Sir George is never angry, or pettish, or peevish, and though he loves painting so much, it does not harass him. You will like me a great deal better than you did. To-morrow Southey is coming with his wife and daughter. I know you would be sorry if I were not to stay and meet him, he is such a friend of Gooch's; but the Claudes, the Claudes, are all, all, I can think of here. * * * The weather is so bad that I can scarcely see out of the window, but Friday was lovely. I shall hardly be able to make you a sketch of the house, but I shall bring you much, though in little compass, to show you. * * * Thursday was Sir George's birth-day. Sixty-nine, and married almost half a century. The servants had a ball, and I was lulled to sleep by a fiddle."

"November 18.– My dearest love, * * * I was very glad to hear a very nice account of you and my dear babies. * * * I shall finish my little Claude on Thursday; and then I shall have something to do to some of Sir George's pictures, that will take a day or two more, and then home. * * * I sent you a hasty shabby line by Southey, but all that morning I had been engaged on a little sketch in Miss Southey's album of this house, which pleased all parties here very much. Sir George is loath to part with me. He would have me pass Christmas with him, and has named a small commission which he wished me to execute here; but I have declined it, as I am desirous to return. Sir George is very kind, and I have no doubt meant this little picture to pay my expenses. I have worked so hard in the house, that I never went out of the door last week, so that I am getting quite nervous. But I am sure my visit here will be ultimately of the greatest advantage to me, and I could not be better employed to the advantage of all of us, by its making me so much more of an artist. * * * The breakfast bell rings. I now hasten to finish, as the boy waits. I really think seeing the habits of this house will be of service to me as long as I live. Every thing so punctual. Sir George never looks into his painting-room on a Sunday, nor trusts himself with a portfolio. Never is impatient. Always rides or walks for an hour or two, at two o'clock; so will I with you, if it is only into the square. I amuse myself, every evening, making sketches from Sir George's drawings about Dedham, &c. I could not carry all his sketch-books. * * * I wish I had not cut myself out so much to do here; but I was greedy with the Claudes."

In his next letter to his wife, Constable deplores the facility with which he allowed his time to be consumed by loungers in his painting-room – an evil his good-nature to the last entailed on him. Mrs Constable in one of her letters had said: – "Mr **** was here nearly an hour on Saturday, reading the paper and talking to himself. I hope you will not admit him so often. Mr ****, another lounger, has been here once or twice."

"Cole-Orton Hall, November. 21st.– My dearest love, I am as heartsick as ever you can be at my long absence from you, and all our dear darlings, but which is now fast drawing to a close. In fact, my greediness for pictures made me cut out for myself much more work than I ought to have undertaken at this time. One of the Claudes would have been all that I wanted, but I could not get at that first, and I had been here a fortnight before I began it. To-day it will be done, with perhaps a little touch on Saturday morning. I have then an old picture to fill up some holes in. But I fear I shall not be able to get away on Saturday, though I hope nothing shall prevent me on Monday. I can hardly believe I have not seen you, or my Isabel, or my Charley, for five weeks. Yesterday there was another very high wind and such a splendid evening as I never before beheld at this time of the year Was it so with you? But in London nothing is to be seen, worth seeing, in the NATURAL way.

"I certainly will not allow of such serious interruptions as I used to do from people who devour my time, brains and every thing else. Sir George says it is quite serious and alarming. Let me have a letter on Sunday, my last day here, as I want to be made comfortable on my journey, which will be long and tiresome, and I shall be very nervous as I get near home; therefore, pray let me have a good account of you all. I believe some great folks are coming here in December, which Sir George dreads, as they so much interfere with his painting habits; for no artist can be fonder of the art."

"November 25th.– My very dearest love, I hope nothing will prevent my leaving this place to-morrow afternoon and that I shall have you in my arms on Thursday morning, and my babies; Oh, dear! how glad I shall be. I feel that I have been AT SCHOOL, and can only hope that my long absence from you may ultimately be to my great and lasting improvement as an artist, and indeed in every thing. If you have any friends staying with you, I beg you will dismiss them before my arrival."

We have already said we have no intention of going through the meagre incidents in the life of Constable. He was elected an Academician in 1829 after the death of his wife, which took place the year before. Much as he was pleased at the attainment of the honour, he could not help saying, "It has been delayed till I am solitary and cannot impart it." He could not add with Johnson, "until I am known and do not want it;" for probably no painter of equal genius was at that time less generally known in his own country. Two days before, he writes, "I have just received a commission to paint a mermaid for a sign to an inn in Warwickshire! This is encouraging, and affords no small solace after my previous labours on landscape for twenty years."

His death took place in 1837.

"On Thursday the 30th of March, I met him at a general assembly of the Academy; the night, though very cold, was fine, he walked a great part of the way home with me. The most trifling occurrences of that evening remain on my memory. As we proceeded along Oxford Street, he heard a child cry on the opposite side of the way: the griefs of childhood never failed to arrest his attention, and he crossed over to a little beggar girl who had hurt her knee; he gave her a shilling and some kind words, which, by stopping her tears, showed that the hurt was not very serious, and we continued our walk. Some pecuniary losses he had lately met with had disturbed him, but more because they involved him with persons disposed to take advantage of his good feelings, than from their amount. He spoke of these with some degree of irritation, but turned to more agreeable subjects, and we parted at the west end of Oxford Street, laughing. I never saw him again alive.