Cleaning Constable's 'Hay Wain' | National Gallery

And so now I'm in the process of cleaning this painting. You can see here I've cleaned this area at this side and a similar area down at this side. And you can see a real marked difference between the cleaned areas and the uncleaned areas, particularly in the sky. Hello, my name's Paul Aykroyd from the National Gallery Conservation Department and I will be talking about the restoration of this painting, Constable's Hay Wain. It is one of the gems of the National Gallery collection and is rarely off show where it hangs in room 34. Like many 17th century Dutch paintings of landscapes, this painting has a very simple narrative. It really describes the journey of the hay wagon as it crosses the mill pond. Here you can see the marks left by the wheels as it's crossing the bank into the mill pond and the wheel at the front here is turning right towards this stream where it will forward it and cross the meadows to join these figures in the far distance who are gathering the hay. And presumably this almost fully laden wagon here will then make the return journey across the stream. Just before starting on this painting he made a full-size sketch of it which is in the V&A collection. In that sketch he shows a horse and rider in the foreground on the bank of the mill pond about here. And in this final painting that horse and rider was included. You can see the dark shape of it around here. But this was painted out and a barrel which again you can see here as a pentiment was put in but then that too was painted out. This just left the dog which was a far more elegant compositional solution because it sort of draws your attention to the main centre of interest, the hay wagon and the curve of its body acts as a nice counterpoint to this sweeping arc of the mill pond. As for the restoration of the painting, it was cleaned during the war in 1942 and you can see the effects of the varnish that had been put on then which was about 80 years ago. The varnish is quite noticeably discoloured, particularly visible in the sky here. And the effects of removing that varnish are that you can now really closely see the drama and the brushwork in the sky. But also you can see now more clearly the aerial perspective with the blues and pale greens in the far distance so that now the landscape really pushes back in space. And in the foreground you can see more clearly the reflections on the water and the cooler tones here of the river. And this river bank which had been quite flat like it is here now moves subtly in and out. And also with Willie Lott's cottage the white plaster work and so on and the details are much more visible. Details such as this smoke coming out of the chimney. The painting is in remarkably good condition and it won't require very much in the way of retouching. There are only a few small damages to the edges where it's been abraded a little. So it is expected that this painting will return to the galleries and go back on display in late January or early February next year. If you'd like to find out more about the painting and the collection of the National Gallery please click here and here. Thank you.