John Constable (Constable) (1776 – 1837) – one of the greatest landscape painters of England, the son of a fairly wealthy miller. His father intended him first to the clergy, and then he wanted to train to his job, but, after a vain effort on this, let him devote innate attraction and devote himself to painting.
In 1795 Constable arrived in London, but soon returned home to draw native species. In 1799 he again went to the British capital, and this time, students enrolled in Tarabya Acad. Arts. It became his mentors landshaftist J. Farington and painter of animals Rich. Raynal (Reinagle). Around this time he wrote a few portraits and two historical paintings, but no time to make sure that neither they nor the other did not constitute his true vocation, and took only the scenery.
The first product of its kind in this, which was the before the public in 1802, was unsuccessful and did not satisfy him: it is strongly echoed tsarivsheyu then conventionality. In his subsequent works he freed himself from the conventions of an increasingly became reproduce nature in all its unvarnished truth, and introduced to landscape paintings new element – a variety of colors, which introduces us to nature, but reduced to a single harmonic tone.
The success achieved by them in this regard was not, however, appreciated his countrymen, but brought him notoriety in France: he has become among the French artists of the founder of naturalness and the mood in the landscape, pushed out of this branch of painting the old fit lines, masses and picturesque spots under the requirements of the false idea of beauty and poetry. Disseminators of Fame Constable were particularly Delacroix and Dobbin.
First, under the influence of paintings by the English artist, in four days with landscape radically altered portion of its already finished "Chios Massacre." While London Acad. Painting, in 1819, and numbered Constable to its composition, and in 1829 elected him a full member, although the paintings exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1824, King Louis Philippe awarded him a gold medal, and all of Paris came to the the delight of his works – the British only after his death, recognized their high dignity and become proud of their author, as a national celebrity.
Its main products – "Niva" (in London nationalism. Gallery; engraves. Lucas), "Farm in the Valley" (ibid), "Gempstedsky heather (at Kensington Museum)," Storm in Veymautskom Gulf "(in the Louvre Gallery Paris; gravel. Lucas), "Rainbow" (ibid.), "The passage of the ship through the gateway (at W. Forster, in London; gravel. Lucas)," Kind of the Thames, and some. etc. Wed C.-R. Leslie, "A Memoir of the Life of John Constable" (London, 1842).