Constable: The Making of a Master

20 Sep 2014-11 Jan 2015

Overview

This exhibition will reveal the hidden stories of how John Constable created some of his most loved and well-known paintings. Constable’s work is shown for the first time alongside the old masters of classical landscape such as Ruisdael and Claude whose compositional ideas and formal values he revered and studied in great depth. On display will be such famous works as The Haywain together with the oil sketches he painted outdoors direct from nature which are widely held to be unequalled at capturing transient effects of light and atmosphere. The exhibition will also examine Constable’s collection of over 5000 etchings, a vital resource for his own image making, as well as the mezzotints of his paintings made in the last decade of his life to secure his lasting legacy.