25 APRIL 1908, Page 8

Constable. By H. W. .Tompkins. "Little Books on Art" Series.

(Methuen and Co. 2s. 6d.)—The author has given a short and attractive account of Constable not encumbered with too many biographical details, and he has wound up with a well- balanced appreciation. Constable's great object was to paint the impact of light upon the landscape, and in his "Opening of Waterloo Bridge" he pushed his researches to the utmost. But he was ahead of his times, and soon after the painter's death "a picture-dealer, on the advice of 'several noblemen,' covered the whole canvas with a wash of blacking, secured by mastic varnish." Imagine the scene : the noblemen with their asses' ears sticking out of their coronets applauding the application of the Stygian fluid which was to keep out the light the painter had revealed.