Thursday, December 19, 2013

The Romantic Era (pt. 11)

One prominent English landscape painter was John Constable.  He wanted to paint the sky, meadows, hills, and streams as the eye actually sees them.  To produce this realistic recreation of what he saw, he kept a small sketchbook during his walks through the fields.  His paintings of countryside landscapes are colorful, calm, and peacefully inviting.  A popular painter during his time, he was commissioned by several patrons to produce artworks representing their own estates.  One such patron, his father's friend, asked him to paint his estate at Wivenhoe Park, in Essex.  Constable's own vision of the estate was painted like so.
You can hardly even see the estate; it's all about the natural, pastoral landscape around the house.  Half of the entire canvas is just clouds!  This fixation on the beauty and perfection of nature is a very Romantic concept; and while it was readily accepted by many, some on the more traditional side still would have preferred to see the estate.  Which do you like better: looking at the house or the natural setting around it?

No comments:

Post a Comment