|
|
Boat-Building Near Flatford Mill
By John Constable R.A. (1776-1837)
In the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London
It has remained for posterity in England to recognise the full measure of Constable's genius, although he was entirely appreciated in France during his lifetime, and in a measure in his own land, as his tardy election to the Royal Academy bears witness. He was the son of a wealthy miller of East Bergholt, Suffolk, where he was born. His father's original intention was to place him in holy orders, but he entered the paternal business at the age of eighteen. His genius, however, would find its outlet, and his parents were induced to send him to London to study art. He returned home two years later to take the place of an old clerk, but a little more than a year after he entered the Academy Schools where he was to prove a splendid teacher in future years.
For some time he supported himself by following the conventional pathways in art - painting portraits and altar-pieces, and copying pictures by Reynolds and others; but his first picture in the Academy was a landscape, exhibited in 1802, which was praised by Sir Benjamin West, the President, who gave him much encouragement and advice. This painting was the first notable outcome of his conviction that there was room for a "natural" painter: one who should depict the green grass, the wet water - in short, the country as the artist saw it instead of as he thought he saw it.
"Boat-building" was painted in 1815, and marked a further step in his progress towards his great pictures which brought him his fame. The love of the country which inspired him was expressed in his preface to "English Landscape Scenery," in which he said his desire was "to increase the interest for and promote the study of the rural scenery of England, with all its endearing associations."
From the book "Famous Paintings" printed in 1913.
Large files of this public domain print are available at Stock Photos at Songs of Praise
(Firefox users must click again on the large photo to see the very large image.)
Online "Name the Painting"
John Constable Paintings
at Olga's Gallery
John Constable Biography
at Olga's Gallery
List of images of paintings by John Constable
at the ArtChive
John Constable
at Wikipedia
Famous Paintings in this Series
M. Bompard
A Prayer to the Madonna
Botticelli
The Madonna and Child
Sir Edward Coley
Burne-Jones
King Cophetua and the Beggar Maid
Sir Edward Coley
Burne-Jones
The Mill
Jean Charles Cazin
Ishmael
John Constable
Boat-Building Near
Flatford Mill
John Crome
On the Skirts of the Forest
Pascal Adolphe Jean
Dagnan-Bouveret
The Blessed Bread
Theophile Emanuel Duverger
Alone
C.W. Furse
Diana of the Uplands
W.H. Gore
"'Listed"
Peter Graham
A Rainy Day
Jean Baptiste Greuze
The Listening Girl
Sir James Guthrie
A Highland Funeral
Frans Hals
A Man With a Glove
In His Hand
Hans Holbein the Younger
The Ambassadors
Henry Holiday
Dante and Beatrice
Sir Edwin Landseer
Suspense
Sir Edwin Landseer
A Naughty Child
H.H. La Thangue
Mowing Bracken
Sir Thomas Lawrence
Caroline of Brunswick,
Queen of George IV.
G.D. Leslie
Sun and Moon Flowers
J. Seymour Lucas
Flirtation
Jean Louis Ernest
Meissonier
The Print Collector
Jean Francois Millet
The Angelus
Jean Francois Millet
Going to Work
Sir William Quiller
Orchardson
The Farmer's Daughter
Ralph Peacock
Ethel
Rembrandt
His Own Portrait
Sir Joshua Reynolds
The Infant Samuel
Sir Joshua Reynolds
The Strawberry Girl
George Romney
The Parson's Daughter
W. Dendy Sadler
A Good Story
W. Dendy Sadler
Friday
William Small
The Last Match
J.M. Swan
On the Alert,
Lioness and Cubs
J.M.W. Turner
Peace: Burial at Sea of the
Body of Sir David Wilkie
J.M.W. Turner
Rain Steam and Speed
The Great Western Railway
Velazquez
Portrait of a Spanish Lady
"La Femme a L'Eventail"
Frederick Walker
The Vagrants
George Frederick Watts
Hope
James McNeill Whistler
My Mother
Anders Zorn
A Fisherman
Index Page
Famous Paintings
