Constable: The Making Of A Master

Born into privilege and pomp (his father was a rich landed mill owner), John Constable threw it all away to wander around the landscape calling himself a painter. It was a brave move, not least, as this glorious exhibition shows, he really wasn’t a natural. Unlike his lifelong rival, JMW Turner, who was so organically gifted he was already selling at the age of 12.

But Constable’s persistence is testament to the old adage that success is 90 per cent application and 10 per cent talent. He initially taught himself to paint by copying 17th-century classical landscapes. The fact that he kept these lumpen early attempts (they hang here alongside the original inspirations) is both charming and slightly crazy. The contrast between a classic Gainsborough woodland, for instance, and the 25-year-old Constable’s own daubing rather suggests that his mentor, the artist John Thomas Smith, was right when he advised him not to give up the day job.

The curators’ decision to hang these early ‘workings out’ alongside the real versions does have the added benefit of giving the visitor a double treat; gems by Ruisdael, Rubens and Claude all thrill the senses.

Fortunately things improved for the determined Suffolk countryman and by his mid-30s he had clearly got the hang of things. The Hay Wain (1821) is what it is; a full-blown masterpiece. It’s fascinating to see the oil sketch he painstakingly worked over in an attempt to get it absolutely perfect.

Constable insisted on working outside, from nature, in all the elements, as if the need to be en plein air gave his chosen profession an element of being a ‘real job’.

Salisbury Cathedral From The Bishop’s Grounds (1823) and Water Meadows Near Salisbury (1829) endure as our views of pastoral England. Images that have launched a thousand chocolate boxes. And what’s wrong with that?

By 1831, he was given the prestigious title of Visitor at the Royal Academy. The following year Constable’s muchanticipated Opening Of Waterloo Bridge, a striking oil full of vermilion-robed dignitaries and macro-narrative detail, was hung alongside Turner’s seemingly understated seascape, Helvoetsluys. For once, the technician had triumphed. Then, an hour before curtain up, Turner strolled in, pulled out his brush, and flicked a vivid red buoy on to his cool green sea. That one chess move apparently blew the Constable off the wall. ‘He has been here,’ said Constable when he saw it ‘and fired a gun.’

Until 11 January at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7: 0800-912 6961, www.vam.ac.uk