Sincerity _to Nature .
Memoirs of the Life of John Constable. By C. R. Leslie, R.A. Edited by Jonathan Mayne. (Phaidon. i zs. 6d.) CONSTABLE is one of the few famous painters about whose private life and personal character there is abundant information. This is largely due to the fact that, unlike many artists, he was- an excellent letter-writer ; and we owe much to the careful foresight of C. R. Leslie, who secured his letters while they were still accessible to an editor, and in his Memoirs of the Life of John Constable gave us generous quotation from them. The charm of Leslie's Life—which the appearance of Mr. Mayne's excellent new edition affords a con- venient excuse for re-qading—lies in the combination of Constable's delightfully vigorous enthusiasm for his art as a landscape painter (and for the whole body of Nature) with the quietly admiring though always critical and technically expert commentary of his friend. As Sir Charles Holmes has said, " In it the message of sincerity to Nature finds its first and most perfect expression." Not only its human interest, but equally the unobtrusive manner in which it con- veys much indispensable information, makes it a unique book. Re-issued with 72 illustrations, fourteen in colour, it should be a welcome Christmas present for anyone interested in British painting, whether his views are right, left or centre..
Constable's childhood years in Suffolk left him with an intense love of the county where so many of his best landscapes were painted (wherever there are cows in his pictures, these are nearly always of the Suffolk breed without horns). His father, a prosperous landowner, set him to work in one of his mills, with the result that Constable's young brother could say to Leslie: " When I look at a mill painted by John, I see that it will go round, which is not always the case with those by other artists." His mother obtained an introduction for him at the age of eighteen to the art connoisseur, Sir George Beaumont. The picture of Beaumont's which interested him most was Claude's " Annunciation " (now in the National Gallery), and though his choice of a painter's career can hardly be ascribed to any one cause, this little picture had as much to do with it as anything. He had a struggle with his parents before he finally escaped from the mill, and was admitted a student at the Royal
Academy. But he was confident in his powers, for not long after- wards he wrote to a friend : " I feel now, more than ever, a decided conviction that I shall sometime or other make some good pictures. Pictures that shall be valuable to posterity, if I reap not the benefit of them."
One spur to activity was his attachment to Maria Bicknell, grand- daughter of the formidable Rector of Bergholt, Dr. Rhudde. The courtship was long and.difficult, owing both to the extreme caution displayed on his daughter's behalf by Mr. Bicknell and to the persistent opposition of Dr. Rhudde. As Dr. Rhudde had a large fortune from which Miss Bicknell hoped to benefit, an awkward situation was created ; ultimately he relented sufficiently to leave her 14,000 ; this was a good deal more than she expected, for by that time she and Constable were min and wife. They were married in 1816 by Constable's great friend and patron, the Rev. J. (later Archdeacon) Fisher, and lived together extremely happily for twelve years. Constable's married years formed the great creative period of his life ; his marriage meant everything to him ; and after his wife's death he was often the victim of nervous depression.
In the steady pursuit of his career the help and advice of John Fisher meant more to Constable than that of any other-man. A great part of Leslie's .book is filled with quotations from their correspondence • whence it appears that Fisher not only constantly affirmed his belief in Constable's genius, when all /he world was against him, but was always ready with a very practical sympathy, which showed itself in his purchase of " The Leaping Horse " and " Stratford Mill." Constable called this friendship " the pride, the honour, and the grand stimulus " of- his life.
It is wrong to think of Constable as one whose method of execution was all innovation. In his later years the lavish use that he made of the palette knife, in pictures such as " Hadleigh Castle," may have been startling ; but on the whole he remained a disciple of the old masters. -It was in the sincerity with which he looked at Nature, and in his determination to impart something of the brightness of Nature to his canvases, that he was a true original. The dominating impression of the man himself that we obtain from Leslie's book is of one devoted to his family, generous to those less fortunate than himself, and in all his ways most temperate and kindly (Reynolds' remark, that " the virtuous man alone has true taste," was one which he often quoted.) He had a caustic wit, and administered it impartially. Even his friend Fisher, on enquiring whether he had enjoyed one of his sermons, may have been surprised to get the reply: " Very much indeed, Fisher ; I always did like that sermon." And it was Constable who corrected his milkman with the .words, " In future we shall feel obliged if you will send us the milk and the water in separate cans."
Leslie describes his last meeting with .Constable in a paragraph that has some of the quality of Lamb or de Quincey :
"On Thursday, March 30th, I met him at a general assembly
of the Academy, and as the night, though very cold, was fine, he walked a great part of the way home with me. The most trifling occurrences of that evening remain on my memory. As we pro- ceeded along Oxford Street, be heard a child cry on the opposite side of the way ; the griefs of childlrood never failed to arrest his attention, and he crossed over to a little beggar girl who had hurt _ her knee ; he gave her a -shilling and some kind words, which, by stopping her tears, showed that the hurt was not very serious, and we continued our walk. .. . We parted at the west end of Oxford Street, laughing."
Within twenty-four hours, on the evening of March -31,1837, John Constable was dead. Those who visit the National Gallery and stand before " The Cornfield," " Weymouth Bay " or " Hadleigh Castle " can best estimate his worth to his country. Perhaps they will echo Edward Fitzgerald's words in one of his letters to Bernard Barton: " Oh, Barton, how inferior are all the black Wouwermans, Holbeins, Ruysdaels to a fresh Constable with the dew on it."
DEREK HUDSON.
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