Constable’s Year by Susan Owens

Description Shaped by the cycle of the natural world, a fresh look at the life and work of John Constable to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth in 2026. As exhilarating as a lungful of oxygen: thats how some of his contemporaries felt about John Constables paintings. Others, though, were baffled by his uncompromisingly fresh and realistic treatment of the natural world. Susan Owens follows Constable through the seasons, tracing the rhythms and resonances of the artists year to offer a vivid, unconventional perspective on this beloved figure. Whether in London in May, preparing pictures for exhibition and longing for the Suffolk spring, or painting boat-builders and waiting to be married in a particularly gloomy September, Constables life and work were unusually shaped by the yearly cycles of weather and agriculture, as well as by the often competing demands of the art world. Raised in Suffolk and trained to manage his father’s land, his rural background had an enduring impact on his painting. His was the approach of one who knew the laneways, ploughs and millponds he painted intimately, and who understood the countryside as a place of both labour and natural phenomena. Though today he is often considered a traditional artist, in truth John Constable was a radical. His sketchbooks and paintings reject second-hand, slip-shod versions of nature, instead subjecting the land, its people and industry to intense scrutiny; developing a new kind of painting to fit the landscape he saw with his farmers eye and felt beneath the soles of his boots. Customers Also Liked Related products Sashiko 365: Stitch a New Sashiko Pattern Every Day of the Year by Susan Briscoe Bittersweet by Susan Cain On Women by Susan Sontag Curator by Owen King Reviews