|
Intro |
Points Of View |
North |
South |
Highlands |
Midlands |
East |
West |
Conclusion
The Flatlands (The East)
Creating One's Own Heaven |
In Focus: John Constable
Creating One's Own Heaven
One of the reasons John Constable never achieved equal
fame and fortune to his rival J.M.W. Turner was that he insisted
on painting the agricultural flatlands of his native East Anglia,
which were not considered a worthy subject for art. In the late
eighteenth century, landscape painting was generally considered
inferior - but if an artist insisted on painting nature he was expected
to concentrate on dramatic scenery where mountains, precipices and
waterfalls could be seen as pictorial equivalents to tragedy in
literature.
Constable went against the grain of this received opinion.
In the end his obstinacy paid out, since 'Constable Country' is
now a tourist attraction and a site of pilgrimage for some artists.
The irony is that although Constable insisted on painting nature
as he found it 'under every hedge' and talked about creating a 'natural
painture', his images transcend the everyday so that they have come
to stand for an ideal of an England that never really existed.
Many later artists have paid homage to Constable in
their work. Have a look at David Murray's In the Country of Constable
1903, Frances Hodgkins' rendition of Flatford Mill 1930, and Howard
Hodgkin's untitled work.
- Is Murray's painting markedly different in style or content from Constable's? If not, why do you think it was painted and why did Tate buy it?
- New Zealander Frances Hodgkins sought out a place which has come to typify the way we view the English countryside. Do you think the way that it was a century ago is still how we imagine it today?
- The dream constructed by Howard Hodgkin from Constable's work is purely aesthetic. He takes Constable's most famous motif, the cloudscape, and turns it into a simple pattern of colours. In so doing do you think that he creates another kind of heaven?
|
In Focus:
|
More info in Tate Collection
