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Enduring: The Hay Wain (1821), oil on canvas, The National Gallery, London.

The huge dimension of his landscape paintings defied the established convention that only Biblical, historical or mythological themes with a moral significance could be done on this grand scale.

Constable’s selection of the “six footer” was based on a simple proposition: to attract attention among hundreds of paintings at the Royal Academy’s exhibition. And notice and recognition was crucial to the professional success and esteem that Constable sought when he had to rival and stand above not only the old masters but also celebrated contemporaries like J.M.W. Turner.

While expressions like “placid”, “calm” and “idyllic” are normally used to describe landscape works, there was a touch of powerful action and a jerk of movement in the paintings of Constable.

Constable grew up in the Stout River Valley of Suffolk County in the southeast England. The rustic countryside was dominated by the meandering waterway which was navigable for large barge traffic in the 18th century. Constable chose this area for subjects for much of his career. And even in his lifetime the Stout River Valley was called “Constable County”.

After choosing the enormous six-foot size for his landscapes, Constable embarked on an equally unheard of and untried venture: preparation of a sketch on the same scale as the finished masterpiece. Although artists had used drawings on paper to help prepare their canvasses, composing a preliminary full-scale sketch in oil on canvas for a large exhibition work was unprecedented. Thus, for each of his great work, Constable has a parallel canvas claiming the status of an equally original product. None of the sketches, with a multitude of minute details, corresponded exactly with the resultant finished works; Constable added, removed, and rearranged elements in both sketches and final versions, constantly changing and perfecting along the way.

Constable disagreed with the prevalent artistic culture of his time that taught painters to use their imagination to compose their pictures rather than draw ideas from looking at nature itself. Constable said: “When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.”

There was a natural sequel to this line of thinking and work. Constable wrote: “No two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of all the world; and the genuine production of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from each other.”

Constable was acutely conscious of weather as a continuous phenomenon, ever altering the appearance of the landscape. There was a two-fold exercise involved in this perception. Firstly, to understand the changefulness of nature, Constable undertook an intense study of the sky, producing dozens of cloud sketches, annotating them with details of the time, wind directions etc. Thus, to Constable, the sky was “the key note, the standard of scale , and a chief organ of sentiment” in a landscape. The pioneering work of meteorologist Luke Howard on the classification of clouds influenced Constable to a large extent.

To compose the sparkle of the sunlight, Constable applied flecks of white and yellow to the surface of the painting and by using broken brushwork he created an impression of sparkling light covering the entire landscape. Constable captured the physical effect of weather conditions to such an extent that it prompted one critic to write: “The atmosphere possesses a characteristic humidity that almost imparts the wish of an umbrella.”

What brought much acclaim to Constable was the sheer vitality of “The White Horse”, exhibited in 1819. The painting was an unassuming and prosaic narrative of a tow horse being ferried from one bank of the river to the other. The superior merit of the work was Constable’s fidelity to nature and the surroundings in which the daily rural work was conducted. Admiration for “The White Horse” earned for Constable greater professional recognition and he was voted an associate member of the Royal Academy.

Constable rose higher up in the ladder with “The Hay Wain” (c. 1820). The full-sketch of “The Hay Wain” and the celebrated final version revealed how Constable sharpened the wagon — the focus of the picture. The painting became Constable’s most famous image. It was shown in Paris, creating a profound effect on Frech artists like Eugene Delacroix.

In “The Lock” (1824) Constable compressed action and attention on a single spot where the central character presses down upon a crowbar to open the gate and release the water. In “The Leaping Horse” (1825), the drama and dynamism of the painting centre around the rider and horse jumping over a cattle barrier.

Constable became broken hearted in 1828 when his wife Maria Constable died of tuberculosis. Even his selection to the academy could not console his suffering. “Hadleigh Castle” (1829) a depiction of medieval ruins, reflected the state of mind and feelings of Constable. The painting itself projected a heightened and higher sense of majesty, aligning the work more strongly with the conventions of historical landscape painting.

The heavily overcast sky and the crumbling structures seem to hint at Constable’s anguished state of mind, yet rays of sunshine break through the blanket of clouds as a vibrant light bathes parts of the countryside.

Constable wrote below the exhibit lines from “Summer” (1727), a part of James Thompson’s poem “The Seasons” (1726-1730):

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