Volume 7, Number 2 · August 18, 1966
Constable: The Dark Side
By Francis Haskell
Constable Oil Sketches Watson-Guptill this Fall)
by John Baskett
Barrie & Rockliff (London) (to be published in America by
John Constable: The Man and His Work
by Carlos Peacock
New York Graphic Society, 148 pp., $12.00
'Yet dark ages may return, and there are always dark minds in enlightened ones…' Constable's sadly perceptive remark brings him near to us. Its cautiously balanced pessimism is more appropriate to our confused times than the reactionary grandeur of Delacroix, who so much admired him as an artist, or the visionary optimism of Van Gogh. But he can be compared with these men for his wonderfully articulate intelligence, and like them—though on a far more restricted scale—his recorded comments and writings, on life as on art, are often hauntingly memorable; for like his paintings they are born out of true experience and conviction and owe little to received convention. But the phrase (lifted here out of an insignificant context) is also central to his art. He was profoundly aware of change—Benjamin West's famous words of advice, 'always remember, sir, that light and shadow never stand still,' must have been delivered to a man well prepared by temperament to welcome them—and he usually expected change to be for the worse. How often do storm clouds lower in the distance of some seemingly idyllic landscape! 'Placid' and 'serene' were for him words of praise, but the state of mind they describe was hardly won, and bears little relation to most of his greatest masterpieces.
Review, 1901 words
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