Explore the painting's subjects and meaning, Constable’s technique, and why he thought it was his greatest work

John Constable thought Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows was his best work. Why was the painting, and the city of Salisbury, so important to Constable?

Revolutionary in his approach to landscape but conservative in his approach to life: discover some of the themes that inspired John Constable's Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows 1831

How do you frame a masterpiece? Go behind the scenes and discover the process of making a frame at Tate

Explore the techniques and materials that John Constable used – and discover why his series of ‘six-footer’ paintings were so revolutionary

What does a painting sound like? Hear the sheep in the fields and the ring in the bells in this audio piece made by young people

Steven Sherrill pens a fictional account of a studio visit to the English painter John Constable

Poet Lavinia Greenlaw pens a poem on Constable inspired by a visit to the ruins of Hadleigh Castle, Kent.

A new series of In Focus displays at Tate Britain takes an in-depth look at artworks as well as items from the Tate archive. The subject of one of these is Constable’s oil sketch A Cornfield c.1817, an unfinished picture he made outdoors in Suffolk, and which was acquired by Tate in 2004. It is connected with the genesis of the famous picture in the National Gallery, The Cornfield 1826, which, as one Constable expert argues, means far more to us than its simple subject would suggest

Naturalism was a broad movement in the nineteenth century which represented things closer to the way we see them

Landscape is one of the principal types or genres of subject in Western art

The French term plein air means out of doors and refers to the practice of painting entire finished pictures out of doors

Oil paint is form of a slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil that forms a tough, coloured film on exposure to air

Term in use by the early nineteenth century to describe the movement in art and literature distinguished by a new interest in human psychology, expression of personal feeling and interest in the natural world