Constable painted such timeless scenes that you can still visit them, virtually unchanged, today, as AMY LAUGHINGHOUSEfinds out on a trip to Essex, in England
IT HAS BEEN nearly 200 years since John Constable strolled through Dedham Vale, alongside the grassy banks of the River Stour. Yet a recent visit to East Anglia’s “Constable Country”, sparked by the publication of a biography of the painter and an exhibition of his work at London’s National Portrait Gallery, showed that many of the scenes immortalised by one of England’s most renowned artists remain nearly unchanged since he planted himself in the fields with a paint box on his knees.
Constable Country straddles the border between Suffolk and Essex, northeast of London, encompassing the communities of Dedham, Flatford and East Bergholt, where Constable was born in 1776 and where his little cream-coloured studio still stands. Today this 90sq km area is designated an area of outstanding natural beauty, which would probably come as no surprise to Constable, who found endless inspiration in the water meadows, the gardens, the tempestuous skies and the activities of man and beast along the river.
“It’s possible to walk in Constable’s footsteps, see those landscapes and take yourself back in time,” says Paula Booth of Dedham Vale AONB and Stour Valley Project, an organisation dedicated to protecting and enhancing the local landscape.
This is especially true at Flatford Mill, which was once owned by Constable’s father, Golding, and is now the property of the National Trust. Near the riverside mill, in front of the 16th-century thatched Bridge Cottage, I meet Paul Andrae, an enthusiastic guide with a handful of laminated landscapes and a head full of anecdotes.
During an hour-long tour Andrae leads us beside the river, which is flanked by willows, poplars and bucolic fields. He pauses often, shuffling among his papers for a reproduction of one of Constable’s paintings, which he produces with a magician’s flair in front of a nearly identical scene.
On a bridge spanning the Stour, Andrae whips out Flatford Mill( Scene on a Navigable River), showing the same split stream, red-brick buildings and dirt path beside the waterway. Except for the young man in his unfashionable togs atop a draft horse, and some diversity in the foliage, it might have been painted yesterday.
Farther along the path Andrae invites us to admire View on the Stour near Dedham."Constable didn't go in for snappy titles," he jokes before pointing out a few alterations that the artist made to the landscape. Dedham Church tower, in the distance, is taller and thinner in the painting, perhaps to make it appear more formidable than a sail on the water. "I'm also not sure that you could see the river meandering into the distance while you're standing on the ground," Andrae says. "You would have to be halfway up a tree."
And in one of Constable's most famous paintings, The Hay Wain, the artist "played fast and loose" with the roofline of Willy Lott's cottage, which still squats among the reeds on a bend in the river. "He was a painter," Andrae says with a shrug, "not a photographer."
Yet despite fiddling with those details, Constable prided himself on his verisimilitude. His studies of clouds are so accurate, Andrae says, they’ve been used by pilots for training, and, unlike many artists of the day, Constable often painted in the open air rather than always sequestering himself in the studio.
“Nature is the fountain’s head, the source from whence all originality must spring,” this eloquent artist once remarked. “When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is forget that I have ever seen a picture,” he wrote.
Constable was a romantic not only in his painting style but also in his personal life, as revealed by Constable in Love, an entertaining and insightful biography by the author and art critic Martin Gayford.
“I’m trying to present an edgy, neurotic, driven man who is not quite getting on as a painter and who can’t marry the woman he loves,” explains Gayford, whose tale of the love affair between Constable and his soul mate, Maria Bicknell, seems worthy of their contemporary Jane Austen.
Forbidden by her family to marry the painter, because of his lack of “that necessary article Cash”, Bicknell begged Constable in a letter “to think of me no more but as one who will ever esteem you as a friend.”
Undeterred, Constable continued to profess his devotion in letters, to make unannounced visits and to linger in the park outside Bicknell’s home, hoping to catch her out for a walk. His mother derided his behaviour as “continual molestation”. Today we might call it stalking. But in the absence of a restraining order, and in the face of real affection on both lovers’ parts, it worked – eventually.
After seven years of courtship Constable finally made Bicknell his bride in 1816. Thirteen years later he was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy, a mark of recognition he had aspired to for decades.
After traversing the countryside that captivated Constable, it’s possible to compare and contrast reality with many of the resulting landscapes on display in London at the National Gallery, Tate Britain and the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Until June 14th the National Portrait Gallery also provides a rare glimpse of another side of the artist, with Constable Portraits: The Painter His Circle, an exhibition selected by Gayford and Anne Lyles, Constable scholar and curator at Tate Britain.
“Nobody thinks of him as a portrait artist,” admits Gayford, who notes in his book that the “prickly” Constable lacked the “emollient manner” necessary to succeed in that field. “But you can see the painter of those great skies in a lace bonnet – the wonderful, free, energetic brushwork,” he says, gesturing to a middle-aged Mrs Edwards wrapped in acres of gauze and lace.
A newly identified portrait of Constable’s father, formerly thought to be of his schoolmaster, made headlines recently; my favourite paintings are those of his wife and children. Here is a portrait of Maria, pale and serene with dark curls framing her face, which Constable claimed “calms my spirit under all trouble”. Farther along I find hastily wrought sketches of Maria, who died shortly after the birth of their seventh child, surrounded by assorted offspring, and another endearing little image of one son tempting a cat with a saucer of milk.
While Constable’s landscapes were his lifelong mistress, and his ticket to fame, these portraits are, in the curators’ words, “family snapshots” of the hard-won, albeit brief, domestic bliss of a painter in love.
* Amy Laughinghouse was a guest of East of England Tourism (00-44-1284-727470, www.visiteastofengland.com)
Go there
Aer Lingus (www.aerlingus. com), Ryanair (www.ryanair. com), Aer Arann (www.aer arann.com), BMI (www.fly bmi.com), British Airways (www.ba.com) and easyJet (www.easyjet.com) fly, variously, to London Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton from Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Derry, Galway, Kerry, Knock, Shannon and Waterford. Constable Country is about an hour by train from Liverpool Street – get off at Manningtree – with National Express East Anglia (00-44-845-600-7245, www.nationalexpress.com).
Where to see Constable in London
National Portrait Gallery. St Martin’s Place, 00-44-20-73060055, www.npg.org.uk. Constable Portraits: The Painter His Circle runs until June 14th. The National Gallery. Trafalgar Square, 00-44-20-77472885, www.nationalgallery.org.uk. Make a beeline for Room 34 to see Constable classics such as The Hay Wain and The Cornfield.
Tate Britain. Millbank, 00-44-20-78878888, www.tate.org.uk/britain. Collection includes Flatford Mill (Scene on a Navigable River), among other famous Constable paintings.
Victoria and Albert Museum. Cromwell Road, South Kensington, 00-44-20-79422000, www.vam.ac.uk. The world’s largest collection of Constable’s work.
Where to stay, eat and go
Where to stay
Milsoms. Stratford Road, Dedham, 00-44-1206-322795, www.milsomhotels.com. With a small garden, comfortable lounges, an excellent bistro and 15 well-appointed rooms, this lovely little hotel is a steal. Doubles from £80 (€92).
Maison Talbooth, Stratford Road, Dedham, 00-44-1206- 322367, www.milsomhotels. com. You’ll feel like a guest at a country-house party ensconced in one of 12 rooms at this intimate hotel. Doubles from £190 (€220).
The Granary, Flatford, East Bergholt, 00-44-1206-298111, www.granaryflatford.co.uk. Built as a granary in 1740, this bed and breakfast is alongside the River Stour between Flatford Mill and Bridge Cottage. Two rooms, both en-suite with dining area. Doubles from £54 (€63).
Where to eat
The Sun Inn. High Street, Dedham, 00-44-1206-323351, www.thesuninndedham.com. Bright yellow without, warm and fire-lit within, this cosy pub welcomes weary travellers with an Italian-inspired menu.
Boathouse Restaurant. Mill Lane, Dedham, 00-44-1206- 323153, www.dedhamboat house.com. Rent a rowing boat here, to work up an appetite, then sate your hunger with crayfish tails, rainbow trout or rib-eye steak.
Le Talbooth. Gun Hill, Dedham, 00-44-1206-323150, www.milsomhotels.com. Feast on a hearty, meaty menu and a wealth of seafood while nestled alongside the River Stour in a 16th-century country house.
Where to go
Flatford Bridge Cottage and mill. Flatford, East Bergholt, 00-44-1206-298260, www.nationaltrust.org.uk/flatford. Free. Thrice-daily hour-long guided tours (May to September), starting from Bridge Cottage, at 11.30am, 1.30pm and 3pm; £2.50 (free for under-16s). For longer guided rambles through the villages and fields that inspired Constable, see website or call for details.
Walk or cycle around Constable Country. For information about routes, contact East of England Tourism (00-44-1284-727470, www.visiteastofengland.com), Rural Essex (00-44-845- 6007373, www.visitessex.com/ discover/rural/Constable Country.aspx) or Dedham Vale AONB Stour Valley Project, (00-44-1473-264263, www.dedhamvalestourvalley.org).