Constable: The Great Landscapes  1 June - 28 August 2006

Catalogue

Constable
The Great Landscapes

Edited by Anne Lyles
Tate Publishing, 224pp, 245 x 280 mm
100 colour and 10 black-and-white illustrations
Hardback, ISBN 1 85437 635 7, £35.00
Paperback, ISBN 1 85437 582 2, £29.99

In 1819 Constable was a newly married man settled in London and harbouring great ambitions to become elected as an associate of the Royal Academy. In this year he produced The White Horse, the first in a series of six large-scale canvases painted between 1819 and 1825, featuring the river Stour. This conscious decision to create works that by their very size attracted attention when exhibited, but also reflected a more classical style, marked a turning-point in Constable’s career. This study concentrates on these remarkable works, which are almost entirely responsible for his present-day status as one of Britain’s best-loved artists.

This beautifully illustrated book brings these masterpieces together for the first time. It also shows each work beside its full-scale compositional sketch, allowing a new understanding and appreciation of Constable’s artistic process. These incredibly time-consuming sketches were an innovative tool used by Constable primarily to aid his move from working outdoors to the studio and became a working practice that he maintained to the end of his career.

Anne Lyles is a curator at Tate and a world-renowned authority on the art of John Constable.