John Constable

John Constable's paintings are rooted in observation of the English countryside, especially the Suffolk landscape associated with his early life. Oil sketches made outdoors recorded effects of light, cloud, and vegetation for later use in larger exhibition pictures developed in the studio. The Hay Wain places an empty wagon crossing shallow water beside Willy Lott's house at Flatford, with haymakers working in the distant meadow. Although the setting is the River Stour, Constable painted the finished canvas in London, using earlier outdoor studies and a full-size preparatory oil sketch. This process joins immediate observations with deliberate decisions about scale and composition. Salisbury Cathedral subjects bring architecture into a similarly studied landscape of trees, sky, and changing weather. Small studies and large finished works thus reveal different stages of his sustained attention to particular places.