John Constable (1776-1837)

3.5

John Constable was born in a small town in Suffolk, in the south of England. His father was a rich miller. He had a water mill. When the boy was seventeen, he left school and began to work for his father. John always liked drawing and now when the working day was over he studied drawing. His teacher was a landscape painter. John’s landscapes were good and his father let John go to London to study art there. John’s teacher in London was a landscape painter too. He liked John’s pictures and taught him for two years.

Then John’s father asked the young man to come back home and help at the mill. But in 1799 John Constable decided to take up painting as a profession. He became a student at the Royal Academy Schools in London. In 1802 there was an exhibition at the Academy and Constable offered some of his landscapes. The president of the Academy liked his landscapes and advised him to continue his studies in art. Constable was offered work as a teacher of drawing at a school, but the president of the Academy advised him not to take that work and Constable continued to study art.

In 1811 he offered a large landscape for the Academy exhibition. For the first time in his life many lovers of art found Constable’s landscape good. The next years were most successful in his life. In 1824 some of his landscapes were a great success at the exhibition in Paris. In 1829 Constable became a member of the Academy.

John Constable died in 1837. In 1838 all his works were sold. His children bought many of the pictures and left them to England.