2 JUNE 1838, Page 20

SALE OF CONSTABLE'S PICTURES.

CONSTABLE'S paintings were sold at Foster's, lately; and fetched prices that showed the estimation in which he was deservedly held as a landscape-painter, notwithstanding that unfortunate mannerism he be- came addicted to, which latterly obscured the truth of his representations of nature. CONSTABLE. was tt peculiarly English landscape-painter : he studied in the school of nature, and was a diligent and docile pupil. He had not the poetry of GAINSBOROUGH ; but his prose was solid, sober, and simple—"a well of English undefiled," till he flung the dredging.

box over the surface. His views are all scenic portraits ; and the local accuracy gives identity to their general truth. He delighted in

fiat meadow scenes, with water and foliage. No landscape-painter un- derstood or represented trees so well its CONSTABLE the stems are solid, the branches tangled and flexible, and the foliage is in masses yet

pensile and waving. In the imitation of bright sunlight piercing through rain-clouds, the sparkling coolness of water, and the verdurous freshness of the grass—in the ever-shifting lights and shadows of our moist climate, where sun and shower contend for mastery, he was un- rivalled. Fest:Les sarcasm "lawn! pring me my omprella! I'm

gutting to see 31r. Cowin:still:lira victor," was a compliment. It is something to paint a shower. In the pictures round the sale. room, the variations of his manner might be traced, from the quiet and pure style of his earlier day, to the aberra- tions °Ibis last. A tarm.house with a boat-shed by a mill-stream thickly fringed with foliage, and a barge in the foreground (painted in 1819) is a sweet, modest, green landscape, clear, solid, and carefully finished, and only wanting a little more vigour in the parts near the eye to be perfect. " The Louis " is the perfection of his style ; of a rich deep tone, yet fresh and bright Its an out-door scene should be ; the distant meads basking in the sun, the stream glittering, the clouds reflecting the light, and time grass and foliage moist in their greenness. The scattered half- lights that diffuse the sense of brightness and freshness over the scene, are here indicated to a nicety : but in his subsequent performances these were no longer subdued to the pervading harmony of effect, but formed a screen, like a shower of sleet, before the landscape: the clouds got inky black, the distance heavy, and the foreground coarse, as in the view of Salisbury—in a word, mannerism threw its veil of de- formity over the fair face of nature. A bosky dingle crossed by a rus- tic bridge was one of the least injured by this defect among his latter works; you enjoyed the cool shade, and glimpsed the sun beyond. It is easy to ridicule CONSTABLL'S one fault, but difficult to imitate his many excellences.