Rachel Rose on John Constable

John Constable painted Dedham Vale over and over, returning to his home region for his whole working life. Dedham Vale 1828 was his last major work of the Stour Valley. Whatever the reading of Constable – as either a nostalgia-generating machine or a sociological observer of land use and labour – he is almost always seen as producing the opposite of whatever Turner did in his glowingly emotional and existential landscapes.

For years, I’ve been obsessed with the biblical story of The Rest on the Flight into Egypt. One of the most widely painted allegories in the canon of European painting, it’s about the connection between our psyche and our surroundings. Traditionally, in these depictions, Mary is foregrounded breastfeeding Jesus while Joseph stays nearby, searching for food and getting up to whatever else. The nature around her bends to protect her and her baby: miraculous plants spring up, a tree crouches for Joseph so he can pick its fruit, fields swell with grass to conceal them from Herod’s pursuing army. I’ve always thought of the scene as being about the power of maternal love and how our experience of our surroundings warps under its influence.

When I revisited Dedham Vale recently, I noticed something I hadn’t seen before. Embedded in the foreground is a mother breastfeeding her baby. She sits enraptured next to her pitched tent and roasting sustenance. While some scholars believe Constable based his composition on Claude Lorrain’s Landscape with Hagar and the Angel 1646, I can’t help but read the mother’s presence as Constable implanting the epicness of The Rest into his homey Stour view. Look at the landscape. It looks like a storm is about to break. The leaves tilt in the air, nudged by a slight wind. Everything flickers. It’s like he’s trying to render the beat of each movement as clearly as possible. Time has paused, and, for a second, Constable’s very real Stour is warping for Mary. Maybe there’s an army on the other side of our view, just over our shoulders, as we look.

^{Turner and Constable, Tate Britain, until 12 April}

^{Rachel Rose is an artist and filmmaker who lives and works in New York.}

^{Turner and Constable is in partnership with LVMH. Supported by the Huo Family Foundation and James Bartos. With additional support from the Turner and Constable Exhibition Supporters Circle, Tate Americas Foundation and Tate Members. The media partner is The Times and The Sunday Times. Research supported by the Manton Historic British Art Scholarship Fund.}