CONSTABLE’S CLASSIC
The Hay Wain remains a muchloved image of England, but what does it tell us about the rural realities of the age?
Two centuries after it was painted, this remains one of the most celebrated images of the English countryside. Why do we love it so? And what does it tell us about real rural lives in Georgian England? Dr Janina Ramirez steps into the world of The Hay Wain
“Constable wanted scenery with human associations: villages, churches and farms”
Back in 2005, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme ran a public poll to find the greatest painting in England. JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire won and, just last year, the image cemented its status as the nation’s favourite when it was imprinted on the back of the new £20 note.
John Constable’s The Hay Wain came second, continuing a rivalry that dogged the careers of the two founding fathers of English landscape painting, who were born just 14 months apart. For 200 years, Constable’s six-foot-wide masterpiece has struggled to distinguish itself from its rival, and even now hangs just yards from Turner’s more popular Industrial Age seascape in the National Gallery, London.
The Hay Wain came second because many people today consider it twee, good for little more than biscuit tins and tea towels. An impossibly tranquil depiction of an idealised British landscape, its significance and quiet radicalism have been lost, while Turner’s bright colours, experiments with light and depictions of industrialisation seem more relevant and exciting.
Yet, as we mark its 200-year anniversary, now is the ideal time to return to Constable’s painting and appreciate what makes it so important. In terms of its legacy for English art and its relevance to the history of England’s countryside, The Hay Wain beats The Fighting Temeraire hands down.
SHOCK AND SUBVERSION
Before Constable, painters were encouraged to use precise brushstrokes and create a perfect finish. In the absence of photography, a painting provided a lasting visual record that should be as close to life-like as possible. Patrons would request images of their family, estate, even their dogs, to document and elevate the things they held dear. Constable’s The Hay Wain may appear to be part of this school of realism. But look closer and his maverick techniques become clear.
The leaves are not individually painted. Instead, blobs of paint and splashes of colour suggest variegated foliage. When the French painter Théodore Géricault saw The Hay Wain, he couldn’t get over Constable’s mastery of green. That so much subtlety and freedom could be expressed through one colour staggered artists of the time. He also used white boldly, not to highlight precise details as in a Dutch still life, but to confuse the mind into seeing reflections. Constable was criticised for his lack of finish and roughshod approach. His response? “I don’t see any finish in nature.”
Obsessed with the new craze of ‘sky studies’, Constable spent his time out in the field, sketching the ever-changing clouds and the shifting colours, textures and atmospheres of the natural world. In one of his most striking paintings, Seascape Study with Rain Cloud, he dispenses with realism completely, instead sweeping the starkly contrasting black and white in hard strokes down the canvas. Constable wanted to capture the wonders of nature, to faithfully give the impression of changing weather and even the colours in a rainbow. His paintings are textured, the lowermost colours visible through broken sections of overlaid paint. His works sparkle, but they’re not glossy, varnished or precise.
PAINTER OF SKIES
Constable was as innovative in subject as in style. The view of the River Stour (the dividing line between Suffolk and Essex), Willy Lott’s Cottage and his father’s mill framing a hay waggon crossing the water, today doesn’t seem
like a controversial choice of topic. But in 1821, this simply wasn’t how you ‘did’ a landscape. The great exemplar was the French Baroque artist Claude Lorrain. His landscapes feature classical ruins and idealised European settings. Constable admired Claude’s work greatly, but he resisted the trend among his contemporary artists of travelling to Italy to emulate the Frenchman’s subjects. His landscapes celebrated the English countryside, not imagined scenes of ancient Rome.
In the 19th century, landscape painting was still considered of lesser value than historical paintings and portraiture. Artists could elevate their work by including nods to the classical tradition, such as a ruined temple or nymphs frolicking in the foreground. By rejecting these themes, Constable was bucking the trend. He was a man of a very particular kind of countryside. He wanted scenery with human associations: villages, churches, cottages and farms. A pair of workers, a dog and a washerwoman were his choices for The Hay Wain. He knew them, as they lived on his father’s estate. These are real people involved in real activities.
A CHANGING LANDSCAPE
The Hay Wain may not seem radical to us today, but at the time Constable was making a very clear statement. From 1801 onwards, rising industrialisation prompted Parliament to invoke a series of Enclosure Acts. This took common land away from the poor, who had rights to farm it since the medieval period, and put it in the hands of wealthy landowners.