John Constable
Constable’s Quiet Tumult
New York Review of Books
Christopher Benfey reviews three books about John Constable: John Constable: A Portrait by James Hamilton, Constable’s White Horse by William Kentridge and Aimee Ng, and Late Constable by Anne Lyles, Matthew Hargraves, and others. Benfrey reviews each book while considering the question “What do John Constable’s seductive paintings—those cunningly constructed scenes of English rural life […]
Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery @ The Frick
New York Sun Arts
Simon Carr reviews Masterpieces from the Scottish National Gallery at The Frick Collection, New York, on view through February 15, 2014. Carr writes that the show “is a feast… in this small yet broad selection of jewels from Scotland, the standouts are canvases by Antoine Watteau, John Constable, Thomas Gainsborough and John Singer Sargent… For […]
Constable @ the V&A
London Review of Books
Rosemary Hill reviews the exhibition Constable: The Making of a Master at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, on view through January 15, 2015. Hill writes: "The Hay Wain … recalls the pre-enclosure landscape of Constable’s childhood. Its setting, at noon, evokes a high point, a brief moment of stasis in the business of life or of […]
Frank Auerbach on John Constable
The Guardian
Tim Adams talks to painter Frank Auerbach about the work of John Constable on the occasion of the exhibition Constable: The Making of a Master at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, on view through January 15, 2015. Auerbach tells Adams: "With the passage of time … Constable has meant more and more and more to me. […]
Constable’s Oil Sketches
Lines and Colors
Charley Parker blogs about the exhibition Constable: Oil Sketches from the Victoria and Albert Museum on view at the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, TN from June 23 – September 30, 2012. Parker writes: "Constable in his sketches not only sought the truth of nature, but the fleeting effects of light and […]
Head in the Clouds
Slate Arts
Slate’s Christopher Benfey considers Constable’s cloud paintings and the artist’s possible motivations for painting them. Benfey writes: “They seem, in fact, to register quite distinct aesthetic programs, as though what Constable is classifying isn’t clouds at all, but rather whole schools of painting, along with their dominant moods. The best analogy may be Chopin’s Etudes, […]