The Royal Academy advertise their current Late Constable exhibition: ‘Discover the free and expressive brushwork that came to define Constable’s late career.’ The words transgress the Trades Descriptions Act. The late paintings are tame rather than free, constrained rather than expressive.
The painting which the Academy uses for its publicity is one of a kind. A sketch, painted between 1824 and 1828, more mid-career than late, of sky with dramatic raw brush strokes. No other painting is anything like this.
Seeing a good gathered collection of Constable’s paintings is still a pleasure.
From early, Constable was fascinated by sky. His cloud scenes are evocative, painted with care and admiration. His best sky in the exhibition is behind Hadleigh Castle. Painted in 1829, at a momentous time in his life, when he had finally been accepted as a Fellow of the Royal Academy and his wife had died, the sky is a moving combination of light and dark. But this sky is carefully worked on. We are shown his draft which could be called ‘free’ but incomplete and dull compared to the final great sky.
The room after Hadleigh Castle, the truly late room, has paintings with less sky and more buildings. The patches of sky are more routine. Constable seems to have lost much of his fascination with clouds. His painting of the plinth for a statue in memory of Joshua Reynolds has little, unremarkable, sky. This 1833-36 canvas is full of tress, painted with careful, constrained, detail. A stag is prominent, making a puzzling composition. Is Constable juxta-posing Nature and Classical Art, showing the vibrant coat of the stag against a dead block of stone to commemorate a dead man? All in a setting where we see no sky.
The great sky painting of Constable’s later years is missing from the Academy exhibition. Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows of 1831 is one third sky, towering clouds, light and dark, with the dark central. A thin rainbow fails to dispel the overall gloom. Seeing a pricy exhibition of Late Constable without this late painting feels like another cheat.
The Tate Britain exhibition of Turner’s Modern World, brought into one marvellous room Steam and Speed, Snow Storm, and The Fighting Temeraire. Previous rooms showed fascinating, contrasting, work. As an Art Fund member, I paid less than to the Academy. Beware the expensive Royal Academy publicity for Late Constable, but enjoy the paintings nevertheless.
Roger Harper
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