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Lot Essay
St. Mary's Church lies in the centre of Constable's native village of East Bergholt, Suffolk. Located on the High Street, the church was close to Constable's family home, East Bergholt House, which had been built by the artist's father, Golding in 1774. Golding Constable was church warden of St. Mary's for thirteen years and the family had its own pew in the middle aisle. The Reverend Durand Rhudde, the formidable rector, was the grandfather of Maria Bicknell, who was to become Constable's wife. The couple met in East Bergholt in 1800, during one of Maria's annual visits to her grandparents' rectory, but did not start a relationship until 1809. Despite strong opposition from Rhudde, who thought Constable of too low a social status and without a steady enough income to make a suitable grandson-in-law, the couple were finally married in 1816.
Constable had made an architectural study of St. Mary's Church as early as the 1790s. During his long courtship with Maria Bicknell, it became the subject of a series of sketches and paintings from various aspects and at different times of day (see L. Parris and I. Fleming-Williams, op.cit, pp.93-97, nos. 27-30; pp.182-183, no.90; pp.407-408, nos.243-244; and pp.432-434, nos.278-279). The present work, which shows St Mary's Church from a south-westerly angle, with the south entrance porch (opening onto the churchyard) and the distinctive cupola crowned turret framed by an arch of trees, is datable to c.1810-1815.
By 1810, Constable was fully committed to establishing a career as a landscape artist, and to raising the status of that genre. Having studied the Old Masters, and trained in drawing from plaster casts and live models at the Royal Academy Schools (from 1799), Constable was convinced that the fine arts could only progress through continued study of Nature. Having been 'running after pictures and seeking the truth at second hand', Constable set out to confront Nature directly, 'the fountain's head, the source from whence all originality must spring' (cited in A. Lyles, Constable: The Great Landscapes, Exhibition Catalogue, Tate Britain, London, 2006, pp.76-77). Rather than travelling widely in search of sublime, awe-inspiring landscapes, Constable chose to focus on a limited number of sites that he knew intimately, in particular the area around East Bergholt and Dedham. With its rapid brushwork, vivid colouring and dramatic lighting effects, the present sketch is characteristic of Constable's increasingly bold and expressive handling from 1810. In addition, it exhibits an intensity of feeling no doubt prompted in the artist by a place that held strong personal associations.
Constable executed two worked up pictures of East Bergholt Church: the first, a view of The Church Porch, East Bergholt, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1810, taken from a south-easterly viewpoint and incorporating part of the churchyard (17 x 14 1/8 in.; Tate Gallery, London) (Fig.1); and the second dating to c.1817, taken from a south-westerly perspective (21 1/8 x 17 in.; Durban Art Museum, South Africa) (Fig.2). The present oil sketch would appear to be the earliest preparatory work for the latter picture.
In the work exhibited in 1810, the subject is invested with moral content: the figure grouping (an old man and two women) relates to an earlier pencil-and-wash picture of the churchyard, in which Constable depicted a group pondering lines from Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) inscribed on a tombstone (c.1806; Louvre, Paris). This Paris sketch was later engraved as the frontispiece to A Select Collection of Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions. In addition, the south face of the south porch is brightly lit, highlighting the sundial and its motto: 'Ut umbra sic vita' (Life is like a shadow), which though not visible in the painting would have been known locally. The finished picture of c.1817 is divested of such moralising undertones.
Other sketches from this specific 'avenued', south-westerly perspective include three pencil sketches (L. Parris and I. Fleming-Williams, op.cit, p.182, fig.62, under no.90, p.434, no.279; G. Reynolds, op.cit, p.232, no.16.98) and an oil sketch (G. Reynolds, op.cit, p.232, no.16.96). The present oil sketch would appear immediately to predate this preparatory series. It does not bear as close a relationship to the worked up picture, in which the arch of trees is lowered, almost obscuring the sky, and the viewer is more distanced from the subject. In addition, it retains some of the Memento Mori aspects of the 1810 exhibition piece, with a tombstone brightly lit in the foreground and the dark silhouette of an anonymous figure just beyond, which are eliminated in the subsequent preparatory works and finished oil of c.1817.
This sketch descended to the artist's great-grandson, Colonel J.H. Constable. Colonel Constable's collection comprised chiefly of oil sketches and drawings, of which he lent sixteen to the Auckland City Art Gallery, his forbears having parted with most of the large paintings.
Constable had made an architectural study of St. Mary's Church as early as the 1790s. During his long courtship with Maria Bicknell, it became the subject of a series of sketches and paintings from various aspects and at different times of day (see L. Parris and I. Fleming-Williams, op.cit, pp.93-97, nos. 27-30; pp.182-183, no.90; pp.407-408, nos.243-244; and pp.432-434, nos.278-279). The present work, which shows St Mary's Church from a south-westerly angle, with the south entrance porch (opening onto the churchyard) and the distinctive cupola crowned turret framed by an arch of trees, is datable to c.1810-1815.
By 1810, Constable was fully committed to establishing a career as a landscape artist, and to raising the status of that genre. Having studied the Old Masters, and trained in drawing from plaster casts and live models at the Royal Academy Schools (from 1799), Constable was convinced that the fine arts could only progress through continued study of Nature. Having been 'running after pictures and seeking the truth at second hand', Constable set out to confront Nature directly, 'the fountain's head, the source from whence all originality must spring' (cited in A. Lyles, Constable: The Great Landscapes, Exhibition Catalogue, Tate Britain, London, 2006, pp.76-77). Rather than travelling widely in search of sublime, awe-inspiring landscapes, Constable chose to focus on a limited number of sites that he knew intimately, in particular the area around East Bergholt and Dedham. With its rapid brushwork, vivid colouring and dramatic lighting effects, the present sketch is characteristic of Constable's increasingly bold and expressive handling from 1810. In addition, it exhibits an intensity of feeling no doubt prompted in the artist by a place that held strong personal associations.
Constable executed two worked up pictures of East Bergholt Church: the first, a view of The Church Porch, East Bergholt, exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1810, taken from a south-easterly viewpoint and incorporating part of the churchyard (17 x 14 1/8 in.; Tate Gallery, London) (Fig.1); and the second dating to c.1817, taken from a south-westerly perspective (21 1/8 x 17 in.; Durban Art Museum, South Africa) (Fig.2). The present oil sketch would appear to be the earliest preparatory work for the latter picture.
In the work exhibited in 1810, the subject is invested with moral content: the figure grouping (an old man and two women) relates to an earlier pencil-and-wash picture of the churchyard, in which Constable depicted a group pondering lines from Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751) inscribed on a tombstone (c.1806; Louvre, Paris). This Paris sketch was later engraved as the frontispiece to A Select Collection of Epitaphs and Monumental Inscriptions. In addition, the south face of the south porch is brightly lit, highlighting the sundial and its motto: 'Ut umbra sic vita' (Life is like a shadow), which though not visible in the painting would have been known locally. The finished picture of c.1817 is divested of such moralising undertones.
Other sketches from this specific 'avenued', south-westerly perspective include three pencil sketches (L. Parris and I. Fleming-Williams, op.cit, p.182, fig.62, under no.90, p.434, no.279; G. Reynolds, op.cit, p.232, no.16.98) and an oil sketch (G. Reynolds, op.cit, p.232, no.16.96). The present oil sketch would appear immediately to predate this preparatory series. It does not bear as close a relationship to the worked up picture, in which the arch of trees is lowered, almost obscuring the sky, and the viewer is more distanced from the subject. In addition, it retains some of the Memento Mori aspects of the 1810 exhibition piece, with a tombstone brightly lit in the foreground and the dark silhouette of an anonymous figure just beyond, which are eliminated in the subsequent preparatory works and finished oil of c.1817.
This sketch descended to the artist's great-grandson, Colonel J.H. Constable. Colonel Constable's collection comprised chiefly of oil sketches and drawings, of which he lent sixteen to the Auckland City Art Gallery, his forbears having parted with most of the large paintings.