Arty Farty Friday ~ John Constable, Master of the English Landscape

John Constable was born not far from where one of my grandfathers was born. The last of the images below shows my grandfather's birthplace, Stoke-by-Nayland.

John Constable, self portrait (1806) left, was born in 1776 in rural Suffolk, in the south-east of England. He is one of England's best-known landscape painters. The artist's most famous works are based on the Suffolk countryside into which he was born and grew to love. His techniques and methods of capturing natural light and movement were innovative, modern artists still find them inspirational.

He was son of a prosperous miller, came to art as a profession fairly late in life, after working in his father's milling business, always with an abiding interest in art awakened by some early coaching from a local amateur artist. He never moved far from the south of England, where he found more than enough beautiful scenery and cloud-dappled skies to satisfy him. According to his first biographer, Constable was known in the neighbourhood as the "handsome miller", being "tall and well formed … with a fresh complexion, and fine dark eyes". Most of what is known about Constable’s personality comes from his letters. These show an emotional and affectionate man who was also capable of sarcasm and over-sensitivity. He married late, aged 40, in 1816, fathered seven children. His wife sadly died from tuberculosis in 1828, leaving Constable devastated. He died aged 61.


Born on 11 June 1776 in East Bergholt (8 miles from Ipswich), Suffolk, England. Astrotheme offers a time of birth giving Aries Moon, Aries rising, but Astrodatabank gives none. I've shown a 12 noon chart which is sufficient for a quick look.



Hmmm. 4 planets in Gemini, not exactly what I'd have expected to see. Gemini doesn't represent the staid stay-around-home mindset we are led to believe was Constable's. But balancing that Airy Gemini potential social butterfly image we have Mercury and Jupiter in home-loving, family-loving Cancer. In Constable's case it looks as though Cancerian traits beat down his Geminian traits. The quotations of Constable scattered between images of his paintings below indicate to me that he was no slouch when it came to putting words together: Gemini!

Constable had a Neptune/Pluto trine; it doesn't link cleanly to an Earthy personal planet, but does loosely aspect Venus by trine in early Gemini - which produces still, technically, a Grand Trine in Earth, and links Neptune's creativity and Venus's art with Pluto's passion and potentially dark side, perhaps reflecting the shadow from Constable's devastating early loss of his wife.

Examples of his paintings. We had several of these on the walls of our school classrooms, long ago.

Click on the images for bigger, better views.

The Cornfield (For US viewers - corn in Britain = wheat, not sweetcorn as in USA)

My art flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, nobody by petitelieness without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how then can I hope to be popular?
From letter to Mr. C. R. Leslie 22 June 1832

The Hay Wain

Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not a landscape be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?
(John Constable)

The White Horse

Light – dews – breezes – bloom – and freshness; not one of which... has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world. (John Constable)

How sweet and beautifull is every place & I visit my old Haunts with renewed delight... nothing can exceed the beautiful green of the meadows which are beginning to fill with butter Cups — & various flowers — the birds are singing from morning trill night but most of all the Sky larks — How delightfull is the Country.
Letter to his wife, Maria (20 April 1821); as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 28

Dedham Mill

There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, – light, shade, and perpective will always make it beautiful. (John Constable)

But the sound of water escaping from mill-dams, &c., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things. Shakespeare could make everything poetical; he tells us of poor Tom's haunts among "sheep cotes and mills." As long as I do paint, I shall never cease to paint such places. They have always been my delight.
From letter to Rev. John Fisher (23 October 1821), from John Constable's Correspondence, part 6, pp. 76-78

Salisbury Cathedral

I associate my 'careless boyhood' with all that lies on the banks of the Stour. Those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful – that is, I had often thought of pictures of them before ever I touched a pencil... (John Constable)

Ive added the two below, even though they don't translate to screen well, because they are Constable's paintings of the birthplace of my paternal grandfather, Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk.

"I am glad you encouraged me with the 'Stoke' [his painting 'Stoke-by-Nayland', circa 1835] What say you to a summer morning? July or August, at eight or nine o’clock, after a slight shower during the night, to enhance the dews in the shadowed part of the picture, under 'Hedge row elms and hillocks green.' Then the plough, cart, horse, gate, cows, donkey, &c. are all good paintable material for the foreground, and the size of the canvas sufficient to try one’s strength, and keep one at full collar."
From letter to William Purton (6 February 1836), as quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable (Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993), p. 380

Arty Farty Friday ~ Constable and Turner

As this Arty Farty Friday is also Earth Day, I'm featuring two artists whose work honours the Earth (and the sea). Constable and Turner, two famous names, recognisable by anyone with even a passing interest in art. John Constable and Joseph Mallord William Turner, born just over a year apart in the second half of the 18th century. Two very different characters, their professional rivalry became a thing of legend.

I'm always surprised to learn of intense rivalry between artists - but I guess I shouldn't be. Artists are only human. It seems that rivalry between painters has gone on since man first picked up a paintbrush. Leonardo da Vinci versus Michelangelo, Matisse versus Picasso - well-documented examples of highly competitive rivals. 16th-century goldsmith and sculptor Benvenuto Cellini even stabbed a competitor to death .

As for Constable and Turner, their styles differed more than their subject matter. Both were originally landscape artists, though Turner preferred sea scapes later on. Constable's style remained fairly constantly realist, with only occasional whispers of impressionism, while Turner's style developed from realism to out and out impressionism, to abstract. Rivalry was mutually felt, by all accounts, but from detail available it would appear that Turner was the more egotistical of the pair, at least in professional life, and I'd guess that he was more of a driving force in the rivalry.

Their personal lives reflect their innate differences too.

Constable (self portrait, 1806, left) was born in 1776 in rural Suffolk, in the south-east of England. He was son of a prosperous miller, came to art as a profession later in life than his rival, after working in his father's milling business, but always with an abiding interest in art and some early coaching from a local amateur artist. He never moved far from the south of England, where he found more than enough beautiful scenery and cloud-dappled skies to satisfy him. According to his first biographer, Constable was known in the neighbourhood as the "handsome miller", being "tall and well formed … with a fresh complexion, and fine dark eyes". Most of what is known about Constable’s personality comes from his letters. These show an emotional and affectionate man who was also capable of sarcasm and over-sensitivity. He married late, aged 40, in 1816, fathered seven children. His wife sadly died from tuberculosis in 1828, leaving Constable devastated. He died aged 61.


Turner (portrait as a young man, 1799, left) was born in 1775 in London, son of a barber and wigmaker. His mother was a seriously disturbed woman who had to be sent to an asylum and eventually went mad. He was into painting from a young age, and by the age of 27 was a Royal Academician. In contrast to Constable's staid lifestyle Turner travelled in Britain and Europe, had a wealthy patron and friend in the third Earl of Egremont. Both as man and artist though he was withdrawn and secretive, much about him was hidden. There are theories that he was dyslexic, for he is said to have been, at times "inarticulate to the point of incomprehensibility".

Turner never married, but fathered two children with a mistress. He died aged 76, and, according to Wikipedia, "in the house of his mistress Sophia Caroline Booth in Cheyne Walk, Chelsea on 19 December 1851. He is said to have uttered the last words "The sun is God" before dying..... Depiction of light in his paintings was always his "signature".

ASTROLOGY

From http://arthistory.about.com

"There is no record of Turner's actual date of birth, which was sometime between late April and early May of 1775. The artist himself chose April 23 as the best candidate, possibly because it is also St. George's Day (patron saint of England, among many other places and organizations) and the birthday of William Shakespeare."

All we know for sure is that he was born in London, baptised on 14th May 1775.

John Constable was born on 11 June 1776 in East Bergholt (8 miles from Ipswich), Suffolk, England

So....it's not possible to compare the natal charts of the two artists in any depth. Even so, simply considering their two Sun signs, Gemini for Constable and Taurus for Turner - using his choice of 23 April - seems somewhat off the mark for Turner. He seems to have been unlike a staid, conservative Taurus-type. Constable seems far more of a Taurus-type in fact....but he wasn't.

I wonder whether 19 April might be nearer the mark for Turner, putting Sun in Aries. I think it would! That would leave a rather long gap to 14 May - the baptism - but not impossibly long I guess. A little research told me that towards the end of the 18th century baptism was increasingly postponed due to the changing economic, social and religious atmospheres.

There seems little point in posting a chart for a date "chosen" by Turner for his own patriotic reasons, or one I might think appropriate. I've taken a quick look at charts for 23 April, 20 April, 19 April and 7 May. Most have at least Mercury in Aries (tendency to be mentally competitive) Sun in Taurus (except for 19 April) ruled by Venus planet of the arts, is often found in the charts of artists.

Without an accurate birth date it's all pure guesswork, though one thing the dates around that particular period in 1775 have in common is Neptune and Pluto in trine (Virgo/Capricorn) further trined to one of the personal planets in or close to Taurus. This makes up an Earthy Grand Trine linking creativity (Neptune), secretiveness, darkness (Pluto) and one of the personal planets. Secretiveness has been covered, above - the darkness could reflect Turner's early unhappy youth - his mother's madness, and the death of his young sister.

John Constable's chart is easier to assess. Astrotheme offers a time of birth giving Aries rising, but Astrodatabank gives none. I've shown a 12 noon chart which is sufficient for a quick look.




Hmmm. 4 planets in Gemini - not exactly what I'd have expected to see. Gemini doesn't represent the staid stay-around-home mindset we are led to believe was Constable's. But balancing that Airy Gemini potential social butterfly image we have Mercury and Jupiter in home-loving, family-loving Cancer. In Constable's case it looks as though Cancerian traits beat down Geminian traits!

Constable had a similar Neptune/Pluto trine to the one in Turner's likely chart, but Constable's doesn't link cleanly to an Earthy personal planet - only loosely to Venus in early Gemini. So though it's still technically a Grand Trine, it's not quite as direct as Turner's, but still links Neptune's creativity and Venus's art with Pluto's potentially dark side - perhaps reflecting Constable's devastating early loss of his wife ?

Examples of their paintings:

CONSTABLE

The Cornfield (For US viewers - corn in Britain = wheat, not sweetcorn as in USA)





The White Horse



Dedham Mill



Salisbury Cathedral



Ive added these two, even though they don't translate to screen well, because they are Constable's paintings of the birthplace of my paternal grandfather, Stoke-by-Nayland, Suffolk. I've never been there.





TURNER

Arundel Castle with Rainbow



Fall of the Tees, Yorkshire




The Decline of the Carthaginian Empire



The Fighting Temeraire



Calais Pier



Snowstorm