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John Constable The Hay Wain
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| Limited Edition:
15 Banners |
| Price:
$479 |
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| Museum:
The Huntington |
| Exhibition:
Constable’s Great Landscapes: The Six-Foot Paintings |
| Material:
Printed vinyl |
| Dimensions:
L: 96 " (244 cm) : W:35 "
(89 cm) |
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Description:
Driven to depict nature in its realistic and dramatic form, John Constable’s paintings moved landscape painting from an interpretive style into a free study of nature as it is. Constable rejected the notion that an artist should use his imagination to interpret nature and instead strove to portray his landscapes as observed by his own. Inspired by his travels throughout England’s Suffolk countryside in his youth, his expressive brushstrokes captured a realism of scenes and subject matter. “These scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful…the sound of water escaping from mill dams etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things,” he said.
A detail of Constable’s most recognized work, The Hay Wain, (1820–1), is depicted on these banners from The Huntington from the exhibition Constable’s Great Landscapes: The Six-Foot Paintings. The depiction of a horse-drawn agricultural vehicle (a wain) is a scene Constable almost surely witnessed while on his father’s property in Suffolk. The front of the banner depicts a small sliver of the original painting, but in doing so powerfully illustrates Constable’s command of his craft. The bulbous clouds ominously lording over the countryside are palatable in their grandeur, showing the insignificant scale of man in the face of nature. We can see the sunlight glimmering on the leaves and almost hear leaves rustling in the wind. This powerful realness is intensified by the tiny field hands who barely, but noticeably, dot the landscape. The exhibition dates "Feb. 3—April 29, 2007" appearing at the top of the banner.
The back of the banner continues The Hay Wain detail so that putting two banners side-by-side- creates a diptych completing the image. The artist’s name "Constable" and "at The Huntington” boldly appear on a dark red vertical band on the back of the banner.
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| Provenance:
These banners were displayed around San Marino and the Los Angeles area from February 3 through April 29, 2007 to promote the exhibition Constable’s Great Landscapes: The Six-Foot Paintings. The exhibition also traveled to the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. and the Tate Britain. |
About the Artist:
The son of a wealthy corn merchant, English landscape artist John Constable (June 11, 1776–March 31, 1837), sought to capture nature’s realism rather than an interpretative pictorial style as was prevalent in landscape painting at the time. He valued the nuanced aspects of weather conditions, light, and shadow and conveyed these through expressive brush strokes on canvas. Along with his large-scale finished works, he called “six footers”, Constable produced landscapes and a series of influential full-size studies. These works show a depth of expressive brushwork that influenced the Romantics such as Delacroix and later were extrapolated to become Impressionism in the 19th century.
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| Color Scheme: Neutral - |
| Style: Romanticism - |
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