John Constable Impressionism

John Constable was an Englishman born in the late 18th century who specialized in Romantic paintings until his death in March of 1837. He is notable for his oil on canvas painting The Hay Wain (1821). Constable had played an important role in reviving the important style of landscape painting in the 19th century which later would influence the emergence of Impressionism (1). He also developed a, “changing meaning of nature during the industrial revolution” (1) as he was influenced by how society influenced by was the economic and social impact of the English industrial revolution. William Wordsworth, also an English, was born in the late 18th century. An accomplished poet, he found poetic inspiration through landmark events such as contact …show more content…
Both men were dedicated Romanticists and fundamentally rejected societal industrialization. Constable conveyed this, making use of his “six-footer” (1) canvas style paintings with his 1821 canvas oil painting, The Hay Wain (3). The scene is completely untouched by the aspects of industrialization at the time. Puffy clouds add movement to the picture and emphasize the romance of light and dark in nature. Constable kept his vision of the natural landscape, last being notable within 17th century Dutch artist culture (1)(2). The Hay Wain depicts his father farm at complete peace and expresses the everyday ordinary poetry of nature, wonderfully expressed in the line from Wordsworth’s The Solitary Reaper, “Alone she cuts and binds the grain” we also see only a single figure within the landscape, accompanied by nothing else than his home, a few animals, and unscathed nature. There is bliss within the scene as well, Constable was an ardent believer in rejection of industrialization and the potential, instead, to develop a beautiful union between man and nature state (2)(4). Wordsworth’s line, in The Solitary Reaper, “Breaking the silence of the seas among the farthest Hebrides” also introduces the key concept that although one’s isolation may pertain to feelings of emptiness, it …show more content…
Wordsworth’s poetry has practically an unlimited potential of expression through it’s use of the English diction, whereas Constable is limited by the physical means of artistic creation. This is due likely to the restrictive nature of painting, as opposed to the open nature of poetry. Existentially, it was more difficult for Constable to be able to express the same level of romantic detail through works of art the way poetry can. It is showcased by the lines, “Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way, they stretched in never-ending line along the margin of a bay: ten thousand saw I at a glance, tossing their heads in sprightly dance”. Wordsworth takes it a step further from Constable’s Romantic landscape painting style as he applies elements of romanticism to the atmosphere, an aspect of nature Constable doesn 't necessarily depict in his landscape paintings(4). This is unique in that only one’s writings at that time in history could possibly generate such a type of romantic expression of that which resides unseen above the clouds. Wordsworth’s sense of awe and admiration for nature is as vast and as powerful as the galaxy and much more romantic. Constable is limited due to the subject matter of the landscapes of the physical world and that which he can observe with his eyes; not those that are