Romanticism in England
Constable, The Hay Wain John Constable, "The Hay Wain", 1821. Oil on canvas, 51 1/4" x 73" (130.2 x 185.4 cm) (The National Gallery, London)
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- It was painted in 1821 and this painting in a a poll a few years back it was dubbed the number two most
- loved painting in Britain.
- So let's talk about why that might be. It's large, it is very large.
- And, very British, in the sense that it shows what was intended to be quintessential
- country sightseeing, It's painted in Suffolk which is an area of the country
- which is very green, beautiful and rural.
- Constable actually was the artist who was best known for painting these beautiful
- pastoral scenes in the English countryside and something about it is unique
- because what they are doing is reflecting the landscape back on to Britain
- because before this everyone was always looking to Italy, abroad to that sense of
- Arcadia, beautiful paradise that you wanted to go and capture.
- People travelling around in Rome and copying people who had gone before like
- Claude and their kind of ideas of light and colour
- and what picturesque, beautiful places would look like.
- What Constable is doing, is turning the lense back on the UK
- and saying 'Hey' we have paradise here on our own, look at our wonderful countryside
- and in addition this is, so it's the begining of the 1820's
- The early 19th century was prime Industrial Revoulotion time in London
- and this scene was actually painted not in the countryside
- but in Constable's London studio.
- He did a lot of preparation sketches out in the countryside
- but he actually painted this in his studio.
- He's looking at this Industrial Revoloution that's
- eating up the British countryside.
- He's sort of holding up this beautiful, green, still, peasant lifestyle
- as something that's really in reaction to that industrialisation.
- It's definitely got a homely and very nostalgic feel to it
- and that's relevant to Constable because this land was actually owned by his father,
- So although it's nostalgic for a sort of a industry before the
- machination revouloution, before it came along, it's also
- sort of nostalgic to his own childhood
- and I think you can see that closeness to the land
- that he's managed to capture his own pasion
- and his own feeling.
- There is a sense of fondness about the way this is painted,
- I mean he's very careful with the brush strokes
- to pay a lot of attention, you know that dog in the front
- that's standing on the shore looking very attentively
- at the man in the middle of the pond and
- that's the hay wain, by the way, refers to this carriage,
- right in the middle, the wain being a carriage carrying hay.
- It's interesting because it's focussing on work,
- they're crossing the river, they've got their horses,
- the lady in the background there she seems to be
- washing some clothes, or something in the river.
- So there is a view of working life going on here,
- but at the same time, it's very still and quiet
- and Constable himself he was part of this
- land owning, wealthier class.
- He's not actually somebody who would be working
- in this way, so at the same time there's kind of a
- idealising of the peasant workers and also
- not really showing them at work, this feels
- much more still then it would if you were actually watching
- a carriage forward across a stream.
- If you were to listen to this painting, you can imagine
- the noise of the river and the racking of the wheels on the
- carriage and the dog I'm sure is not standing there quietly.
- He's probably about to bark at the noise and the animals
- going by. So there is a very concious choice that
- Constable is making, to make this almost like a snapshot
- of the beautiful English countryside and that
- you could just stumble across this and it could be happening
- anywhere, this painting itself, this type of painting in
- Constable's paintings in general, but this one has been
- reproduced many, many times and shows up
- as the prime number one with a star illustration of
- this sort of English landscape painting from the
- beginning of the nineteenth century and I think
- there is, the potential, to be over saturated with
- reproductions and images of The Hay Wain so that when
- you actually stand in front of it, you feel
- like you already know it.
- It's interesting that it's so popular now because, when it was
- first exhibited, it wasn't popular, it wasn't a huge success
- and he actually took his paintings to the salons of
- Paris, where he had a little bit more recognition and then
- came back to the UK. But the British public didn't
- appreciate this in the first offer.
- See how far they've come.
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