Constable: Colour Library

No artist has rivalled John Constable (1776-1837) in his powers to express the beauties of the British countryside, especially the scenery of his native East Anglia. He sought above all to make 'pure and unaffected representations of the scenes', and to this end he made detailed studies of the minutest phenomena of nature. He wrote: 'My limited and abstracted art is to be found under every hedge, and in every lane...'. But this feeling for such qualities had to be reconciled with the tradit...