John Constable: 120 Paintings and Drawings

This Art Book with Foreword and annotated reproductions by Maria Tsaneva contains 120 selected drawings and paintings of John Constable.

John Constable rejected the formal or "picturesque" rendering of nature; instead, he tried to capture informally the effects of changing light and the patterns of clouds moving across the country sky. He loved the countryside, and his best work was of outdoor scenes in his native Suffolk and his London home in Hampstead.

He worked in the open air, though he returned to his studio to finish his paintings. Often completing primary sketches prior to starting a large canvas, in England Constable had no real successor and the many imitators turned rather to the formal compositions than to the more direct sketches. In France, however, he was a major influence on Romantic painters such as Delacroix, on the members of the Barbizon School, and ultimately on the Impressionists.