In the London National Portrait Gallery has recently opened an exhibition devoted to portrait painting of the English painter John Constable

From 5 March to 14 June in London National Portrait Gallery hosts exhibition of works by John Constable (John Constable, 1776-1837), which is considered one of the best of British landscapes. However, he also achieved great success in portrait painting, which is very well illustrated in the exhibition of more than 50 works by covering 30 years of his creative activity. This first of its kind project devoted to portraits painted by famous is the master.

On display are self-portraits, paintings and graphic works with images of family members and friends of the artist, including a very touching portraits of his wife and children. The exhibition also presents the picture, written by Constable at the order in which you can see the middle and upper class, who lived in the province: the priests, minor nobility, members of wealthy families of British negotiator. A complementary exhibition of portrait beautiful scenery in which the artist captures a neighborhood of homes where he lived. According to the organizers, they help to better convey the situation at that time.

Portraits Constable can be called unique in the English art of the beginning of the XIX century, and together they provide an excellent introduction to his life and work.

John Constable was the second son of the owner of the mill Goldinga Constable (Golding Constable) from East Bergholta (Suffolk County) and his wife Anna. The parents wanted to continue the case or his father became a priest, and, of course, were opposed to his artistic passion. Therefore, John has lived mostly at the expense of parental resources, the talent of the painter languished under spudom.

In 1799 he went to London and enrolled at the Royal Academy. Despite the fact that he had a flat in the British capital, Constable often came into their house and held there long. During these visits, he wrote a lot of landscapes East Bergholta, the surrounding space, and especially around his father's mill in Fletforde.

Friendship occupies an important place in the life and work of John Constable. He longed to communicate, but did not attempt to acquire a large number of acquaintances, but rather, on the other hand, preferred to a vicious circle of close friends present. In his early portraits, we see his family and patrons, with whom he was on a friendly footing. In 1806 Constable has created a series of sketches, depicting people in a relaxed atmosphere. These lively scenes Georgianskoy era reflect the author's observation and his enjoyment of social life. Constable was pronitsatelen and had a good sense of humor. He also often wrote pretty young girls. But even the best of them do not priukrasheny - in contrast to the secular beauties on canvas by Joshua Reynolds (Joshua Reynolds) and Thomas Lawrence (Thomas Lawrence). In the works of Constable, they are themselves.

• John Constable soldier playing the guitar
  Approx. 1806 Source:
  npg.org.uk
• John Constable Rev. John Fisher
  1816 Source:
  npg.org.uk

artist for a long time caring for his wife, Mary Biknell (Maria Bicknell). Her family opposed the marriage. This hostility was due to causes of a financial nature: the artist Constable earning too little to even feed themselves - and that much to talk about his wife and children.

Mary's father, attorney Charles Biknell (Charles Bicknell), among other clients are often involved in the affairs of the Prince Regent, the future King George IV. And her grandfather, the Reverend Durant Ruddy (Durand Rhudde), a wealthy parish priest in the East Bergholte, and he, apparently, when it occurred to a family spat Constable. And his father, grandfather and a girl believed reasonable abortive landscape unsuitable match for Mary, which has already revealed signs of tuberculosis. Constable courtship lasted seven years, and all these years, Mary's family has tried to separate the lovers. But in the end, the wedding took place. In October 1816 the London church of St. Martin-in-boxes, and Mary, John married his friend, the Reverend John Fisher (John Fisher).

first time, the wife lived very happily. They rented a house in Keppel Street in an area Blumsberi where Constable wrote to Fisher: «[There were] five most happiest and most interesting years of my life. <...> In this house, my children were born, here I come glory. Neither the order nor the other, I would not change with anyone in the world ».

It was in these years, he created a lot of joy filled with images of Mary and the children in the garden in Hempstede, and in the room, presumably, the very house in Keppel Street. But since the mid 1820-ies of the Constable family life was marred by the illness of Mary: her condition began to deteriorate. The artist had covered the concerns about the health of his wife and children and tried to do everything possible to earn enough for their decent living. Mary died in November 1828, leaving her husband in the care of seven children. The loss left the soul Constable deep, does not blur out before the end of his life, but mostly the artist began to comfort the children.

• John Constable Charles Golding Constable
  1835-1836 Source:
  npg.org.uk
• John Constable Mrs Tyuder. Approx. 1818
  Source:
  npg.org.uk

Shortly after the wedding and then after the birth of children the artist, in order to feed their families, is actively engaged in portrait painting: ever more out of his hand does not go as many portraits as in 1818. In works of this time felt a new, more mature style of the master. But after the 1819 Constable was recognized as a landscape painter and painted portraits becoming less and less.

Nevertheless, he finally abandoned the genre. It is best to him, like many other artists, was able to close the image of people. His characters - people are not as significant as the leading figure in the portrait paintings of the time Lawrence and Reynolds. These priests and their wives, minor nobles, lawyers and a doctor. They are the heroes of novels sovremennitsy Constable famous writer Jane Austen (Jane Austen).

During the preparation of the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery organizers held a series of studies and have made a very valuable discovery. Tate curator Ann Laylz (Anne Lyles), along with writer and critic Martin Geyfordom (Martin Gayford) found evidence to support the attribution of writing in 1805 a portrait painter mother, Anne, John Constable himself. First of all, in favor of the attribution said the size of the work: the portrait of a little cat, but with an image of hands. It is this format Constable often used for portrait painting at an early stage of creation, until 1814. In addition, the picture painted on canvas, contact Thomas Brown with Real Holborn Street (Thomas Brown of High Holborn Street), in which Constable purchased materials.

These data helped to identify the identity of the person on the other a portrait painted by Constable, who, like the portrait of Anna, is a collection of museums in Colchester and Ipsvicha. Previously it was thought that the canvas shows the artist's teacher Dr. Thomas Lekmer Grimvud (Thomas Lechmere Grimwood). The reason this is the appropriate entry in the catalog auction Sotheby's, held in December 1926, which were sold to the two above-mentioned works. However Laylz and Geyford, comparing it with the portrait of the artist's father, Goldinga Constable, 1815 from the collection of Tate, found that men in both the portraits visually similar. In addition, the researchers noticed that the book is that the model for the study portrayed holding hands, very similar to a family Bible Constable, preserved to our days. And the size of the canvas on which is written the picture coincides with the size of the portrait of Anna. Thus, the researchers concluded that the portrait of the artist and mother studied male portrait - twin portraits of the parents of John Constable. In favor of this indicates a common history and existence of these works. Both are transmitted by inheritance to one of the branches of the family of Constable, were then sold at auction Sotheby's in December 1926, and later donated to the association of museums and Colchester Ipsvicha.

• John Constable Golding Constable (previously identified as «Doctor Grimvud»). Approx. 1805
  Source:
  artdaily.com
• John Constable Anna Constable. Approx. 1805
  Source:
  artdaily.com

This conclusion is confirmed in the correspondence the artist. The collection of the Tate Gallery, there are two pairs of portraits of parents Constable, which he did in 1815, after the death of Anna Constable, at the request of his relatives Saville Harriet (Harriet Savile). In the letter he tells her that writes pictures «with those we already have». These words, as experts believe, is precisely related to the two portraits from the collections of the museums in Colchester and Ipsvicha.

Two portraits Goldinga Constable, 1805 and 1815, presented at an exhibition in London National Portrait Gallery. A portrait of Anne Constable in 1805 is now on display in an art gallery in Uolsi Ipsviche.

material produced Catherine Onuchin

Sources: npg.org . uk , artdaily.org , telegraph.co.uk , artinvestment.ru