The first modern re-publication of John Constable's great suite of mezzo tints after his finest works.
From 1829 until his death, Constable devoted an increasing amount of time, energy and his own money to the production of prints after his work. Intended as the epitome of his naturalistic art, English Landscape brought together twenty-two images from the whole span of his career, reimagined with all the drama and delicacy possible with mezzotint.
In David Lucas, Constable found a collaborator capable of responding to his work with an unprecedented range of tonal expression, and an endlessly patient colleague who could cope with Constables extreme anxiety and mood swings.
The result, though not a commercial success at the time, is widely acknowledged as one of the summits of English landscape art, and of the art of the mezzotint.
This edition includes Constables introduction, his most sustained explanation of his aims as a painter and the revolution he effected in landscape art.
Table of contents
introduction
1: Spring
2: Autumnal sun set
3: Noon
4: River Stour, Suffolk
5: Summer morning
6: Summer evening
7: A Dell, Helmingham Park, Suffolk
8: A Heath
9: Yarmouth, Norfolk
10: A Seabeach
11: Mill Stream
12: A Lock on the Stour, Suffolk
13: Old Sarum
14: A Summerland
15: Stoke by Neyland, Suffolk
16: A Mill
17: Weymouth Bay, Dorsetshire
18: Summer afternoon after a shower
19: The Glebe Farm
20: Hadleigh Castle near the Nore
21: Hampstead Heath, Middlesex
John Constable RA was born in 1776 in East Bergholt, Suffolk. The landscape of East Anglia remained the touchstone of his art, and even in his lifetime the area around Dedham Vale was known as Constable country. Nevertheless, his career had been slow to take off and the importance of his art was not recognised in England until late in his life. In France, however, his naturalism and forceful painting style were key influences on Romanticism and later on Impressionism. A devoted family man, Constable travelled very little beyond his familiar haunts. He lived much of his life in London, where he died in 1837.
David Lucas was born in 1802 in Northamptonshire and received his early training from Samuel William Reynolds. He worked with Constable on English Landscape from 1830 to 1832 and continued to make prints after Constables work following the painters death. He later fell into poverty and died in a workhouse in 1881.
