There was constant development in Constable’s choice of materials. His early works are almost textbook copies from the instructions in Bardwell’s painting manual of 1756, with pictorial references to Claude, Gainsborough and Dutch 17th-century landscapes.23 As his career progressed, his painting methods became much more spontaneous and flamboyant than the casual observer might think. From the beginning, he had scant regard for his own early work, and regularly cut up used canvases or painted on fragments of unstretched primed canvas with roughly flattened tacking edges. From c.1808 he began regular oil sketching outdoors, honing his skills and developing a personal notation of rapid expressive brushwork. The V&A collection contains numer-ous oil sketches on canvas fragments that have never been Fig. 1 Sarah Cove (right) and Anne Lyles (left) at Willy Lott’s cottage,
Flatford Mill, the scene of Constable’s The Hay Wain (see Fig. 8), in 2006.
(Image © Constable Research Project.)
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laid onto a secondary support. Some are double-sided, such as the 1810 sketch Willy Lott’s House (Fig. 2), which has two other paintings underneath, distinguishable using cross-sec-tions and X-radiography, making a total of six images on a single canvas scrap.24 It has also been possible to ‘virtually’
rejoin several oil sketches, that are now kept thousands of miles apart, to form canvas ‘jigsaws’. This was possible using X-radiography and cross-sections long before the develop-ment of today’s computerised weave-scanning techniques.25
Constable constantly refined and improved his practice by adopting established techniques that were new to him, as well as developing his own unique methods. After a brief period of using his own laid writing paper, around 1812‒15 he began to use laminated paper supports for oil sketching.26 He prepared his own oil sketching supports in batches from standard 20
× 24 in. (50.8 × 61 cm) paper sheets, laminated together with a proteinaceous glue. When dry, a whole sheet was primed with an oil- or water-based ground and then cut into a range of regularly-used sizes, many to fit inside his paint box lid.27 The paper and ground constructions of these sketches have been identified and it has been possible to reconstruct ‘vir-tual’ sheets using digital technology. A significant proportion of those from the 1820s are inscribed and/or dated. Where these form part of a reconstructed sheet, this has been useful in suggesting dates for previously undated works.
In the 1980s, when this research began, oils on paper by British artists had hardly been studied, so Constable’s methods had almost no context and they seemed new and innovative.
However, interest developed in this area and scholarship has moved on. A number of exhibitions and publications have shown that many British and European painters were also sketching outdoors in an oil medium on a range of papers and boards at this time.28 As well as using home-made paper sup-ports, Constable also employed shop-bought papers, millboard and 3- and 4-ply lightweight card. A sketch of Dedham Lock and Mill, c.1816, is painted on a 2-ply sheet with a buff-col-oured wove wrapping paper on the front and a purplish-blue
‘sugar’ paper on the back.29 This is identical to a support used by Turner, so it is presumed to be a purchased sheet.30
From the beginning, Constable favoured a range of brown and pink primings to give a unifying undertone to his model-ling, and to enable his exemplary use of the ‘turbid medium’
effect in his skies. In the mid-1820s he altered his practice and began utilising a localised washy brown imprimatura only in the landscape, instead of the opaque dark reddish-brown priming that is typical of the first half of his career.31 This is in the manner of Rubens, whom he greatly admired.
It is interesting to note that almost no underdrawing is found in Constable’s early works, probably because it was done in chalk that is no longer readily detectable over a brown prim-ing. However, when painting on a light-toned ground, he would draw freely in ink and graphite pencil. This is one of the most distinctive features of his later works and a key to attri-bution and dating in paintings from the mid-1820s onwards.32 In 1821‒22, Constable undertook a lengthy study of cloud formations, or ‘skying’ as he called it. He sketched outdoors, mostly on Hampstead Heath, London, in all weathers, from dawn until dusk, and built up a huge pictorial library of weather
effects. From his correspondence, we know that he produced about 200 oil sketches in total, of which just over 100 are known today. The majority are painted on his laminated paper sup-ports, cut to standard sizes as mentioned above. However, there are also four exceptionally beautiful large skies painted on a full laminated sheet, 20 × 24 in. (50.8 × 61 cm), and executed in Fig. 2 John Constable, outdoor oil sketch for Willy Lott’s House, oil applied to both sides of an un-stretched canvas fragment, 27.3 × 24.2 cm (10¾ × 9½ in.), c.1810, Victoria and Albert Museum, reverse of 787‒1888, in raking light. Willy Lott’s cottage still stands today (see Fig. 1). (Image
© Constable Research Project with permission of the Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum.)
Fig. 3 John Constable, Cloud Study, 1st August 1822, oil on a whole sheet of laminated paper, 50.8 × 61 cm (20 × 24 in.), private collection. (Image
© Constable Research Project.)
SARAH COVE
the late summer of 1822. By this time, Constable had achieved absolute mastery over his materials and subject matter.33 The earliest of these, dated on the back in the artist’s hand 1st August 1822, is indisputably one of the finest sky sketches that he ever produced (Fig. 3). As a result of the lessons learnt during his
‘skying’ practice, Constable henceforth always prepared his painting supports, whether canvas or paper, with a very pale pink ground or priming to create luminosity. This resulted in the fabulous skies of his later exhibition pictures, such as The Lock, 1825 (Fig. 4).34 This is the second version of this composition that Constable completed to a very high level of finish for his own enjoyment, having exhibited the first version at the Royal Academy in 1824. It is a wonderful example of his technique in finished paintings of the mid-1820s. The sky was painted with thin scumbles, translucent washes, rubbing back and scraping, finishing with natural ultramarine and the use of subtle optical purples created using the turbid medium effect (Fig. 5).35 Fig. 4 John Constable, The Lock, 1825, oil on canvas, 139.7 × 112 cm (55 × 48 in.), private collection. (Image © Sotheby’s.)
Fig. 5 Detail of The Lock (Fig. 4) showing the complexity of the paint surface in the sky. Constable interwove opaque and transparent layers and exploited the ‘turbid medium’ effect to create subtle optical blues and purples that cannot be directly mixed on the palette. (Image © Constable Research Project with the permission of Sotheby’s.)
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