COLCHESTER.- As part of the yearlong commemorations marking the 250th anniversary of the birth of Suffolk-born artist, John Constable (1776-1837), visitors to Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, are invited to follow in the wheel tracks of John Constable’s masterpiece, The Hay Wain (1821, National Gallery) and take in the views that so inspired the artist.
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For the first time ever, The Hay Wain is rolling into Suffolk, where it will be reunited with preparatory sketches made by Constable, along with 70 unprecedented key loans drawn from the collections of the National Gallery, Tate, V&A, Royal Academy and National Galleries of Scotland to explore themes of landscape, place and walking.
The iconic painting depicts an idyllic scene of a horse and wooden cart (the eponymous hay wain) crossing the shallow waters of the millpond at Flatford, as it makes its way towards the hay meadow in the background, while an attentive spaniel watches its progress from the riverbank.
Though it is rightly considered a national treasure and synonymous with the bucolic Suffolk countryside, The Hay Wain was painted in Constable’s London studio and has long been one of the National Gallery’s star attractions since its acquisition in 1886.
Today, Constable is hailed for changing the way we look at landscape and create art. A legacy of which, is that the area where he was born, grew up, and frequently painted is now known as Constable Country. Perhaps even more remarkable is that the idyllic rural setting of The Hay Wain remains largely unchanged, much like other views Constable painted of the local landscape. The Hay Wain: Walking Constable’s Landscape exhibition in Suffolk’s county town of Ipswich invites viewers to admire the views beloved by the artist and then savour walking among them as they are today.
Constable would surely approve, as he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821: ‘I should paint my own places best - painting is but another word for feeling.’ That passion for the area was also very much evident in an earlier missive, written in 1800, to John Dunthorne (1770-1844), his close friend and early mentor while still in his native East Bergholt: ‘I even love every stile and stump, and every lane in the village, so deep-rooted are early impressions.’
Other historic loans featured in the exhibition include Dedham Vale (1828, National Galleries of Scotland), Tate’s oil sketch of the Mill Stream at Flatford (c.1810) which will be shown alongside Ipswich’s slightly later version of The Mill Stream. Also of local interest will be Boat Building near Flatford Mill (1815) which was first exhibited in the year it was painted at the Royal Academy and is now part of the V&A collection. Constable painted the scene en plein air (outdoors) at the location of the dry dock at Flatford, which can still be seen today.
Another highlight on display at Christchurch Mansion will be the painting Constable presented as his diploma piece when finally made a Royal Academician, A Boat passing a Lock (1826). It was exhibited in 1829 and has been kindly lent by the RA.
Three beautiful cloud studies are also travelling from the RA in London’s Piccadilly to Suffolk and will be displayed alongside Colchester + Ipswich Museum’s own Constable collection, including the two most personal paintings from his childhood home, Golding Constable’s Flower Garden and Golding Constable’s Kitchen Garden (both 1815).
The exhibition is further complemented by objects and artefacts that help to build a broader understanding of Constable and his life, including a section of drawings displaying his approach to sketching. From worked up drawings of The Interior of East Bergholt Church (about 1800) in pen and grey wash to pencil drawings of Colchester Castle (circa 1813) and St Botolph’s Priory, Colchester made earlier, between 1806-9. A rare aspect of the artist’s experiments with other art forms will include a carved image of a mill, made when he was just sixteen in 1792. The timber came from Pitt’s Mill, in his home village of East Bergholt.
At the time, Constable had been sent to work in his father’s mills and the pieces of wood he used came from the mill he worked in. They clearly demonstrate that he was more interested in depicting mills than working in them.
‘When I look at a mill painted by John, I see that it will go round,’ his younger brother Abram Constable once noted.
Another highly personal object directly connected with the artist, is Constable's paint box including pens, brushes, pigments, Royal Academy tickets and lapis lazuli.
A rare, recently restored and still playable cello, originally made by John Dunthorne, is one such piece.
Helping to imbue visitors with a sense of looking at the view of the paintings as if en plein air, is Constable Ambisonic, a brand-new sound artwork composed by Stuart Bowditch from field recordings made in the locations depicted in Constable’s most famous artworks.
Emma Roodhouse, Collections & Learning Curator (Art), Colchester + Ipswich Museums says: “Ipswich and Suffolk nurtured Constable’s early career and it was the place that made him a painter. To bring these internationally important landscape paintings back to the place that inspired them is a once-in-a lifetime moment. We are encouraging visitors not just to gaze at Constable’s art, but to walk with him – along the riverside paths, down the quiet lanes and beneath the skies that shaped his way of seeing the world and reconnecting us with nature.”
The curatorial advisor for the exhibition, Peter Harrap, is a British Romanian artist who has examined Constable’s walking and painting method to create a series of sketches based on Constable’s walking routes. These reflect that the paintings selected for the exhibition reveal personally important walks for Constable that he undertook as a child from East Bergholt through Flatford and on to school in Dedham, complete with breathtaking views across the vale, from sunrise to sunset.
Peter says: “It is a wonderful experience to stand on the banks of the Stour, retracing Constable’s footsteps. The Suffolk landscape is unchanged since he painted The Hay Wain. Making drawings and paintings today in the same places Constable made his irresistible little paintings which became 6ft masterpieces, feels like a handshake across time.”
Christine Riding, National Gallery Director of Collections and Research said “We are so delighted to be partnering with the Colchester + Ipswich Museums, who were such generous lenders to our recent Hay Wain exhibition. This is a wonderful moment to for us to all come together to celebrate the genius of Constable, one of our most celebrated artists, and the richness of public collections in the UK.”
