ANECDOTES OF CONSTABLE. John Constable was born in East Bergholt, Suffolk, England. His father was a miller and well to do and wished his son to enter the Church. This was so distasteful to John that a compromise was effected whereby he should go into the mill, although his own wish was to be a painter. His talent was manifest and from his earliest years he was continually sketching the lanes and byways near his country home. However, he worked faithfully in the mill, learning about the structure of windmills and observing the weather, the changes in the clouds and other things in nature which helped him later on. He was a fine-looking young man and was known as "the handsome young miller." About this time he chanced to meet Sir George Beaumont, who was an art amateur and collector, and his acquaintance strengthened Constable's desire to become a painter. Finally his father consented to his going to London to see what others thought of the advisability of his taking up painting as a profession. John went to London where he met various artists but they were not enthusiastic in their opinion of his works. So we find him in his twenty-first year, writing to a friend, "I must now take your advice and attend to my father's business. . . . I see plainly that it will be my lot to walk through life in a path contrary to that in which my inclination would lead me." But for all this the inclination won in the end, and two years later he took up his brush never to abandon it again during his life. At twenty-six he exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy, of which Sir Benjamin West was president. West took an interest in the young man, advised him not to be discouraged when one of his pictures was refused by the Academy, and prophesied a successful future. Success was very slow in coming. For years his pictures had almost no sale and he felt much discouragement. Pictures that are now beyond price, were exhibited almost unnoticed and returned unsold. He once said, "My art flatters nobody by imitation, courts nobody by its smoothness how then can I hope to be popular?" Constable was often low-spirited because of this lack of recognition and the continued postponement of his marriage through many weary years—indeed it would never have taken place but for his persistency and an inheritance of a few thousand pounds. The marriage was a happy one and when, after he was fifty years old, a comfortable fortune of £20,000 came to him, he settled it upon his wife and children, saying, "It will make me happy and I shall stand before a six-foot canvas with a mind at ease." It was at about this time that "The Hay Wain" and "The Corn Field" were painted. But now that happiness had come, it was quickly snatched away, for his wife soon died and he never fully recovered from the blow, though he lived and painted for nearly ten years more. In February, 1837, he began to work upon a picture which he declared was to be the best he had ever done. But it was never finished. During the March following, on a cold night, he walked part way home from a meet ing of the Academy with his friend Leslie, who writes: "The most trifling occurrences of that evening remain on my memory. As we proceeded along Oxford Street he heard a child cry on the opposite side of the way: the griefs of childhood 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 we parted at the end of the street laughing. saw him again, alive." I never The next day Constable worked on his picture and that night, awaking in pain, in less than an hour after, he was dead. 66 'He was faithful in all ways," says one biographer, to his friends, to the memory of his wife and to his art. No adverse criticism, no disappointment could move him an inch from the path he thought right to pursue as a landscape painter." He was faithful to his art, for, had he been willing to paint pictures in the fashion, he could have made more money and perhaps have sooner achieved success. preferred to be true to what he believed. But he THE FIGHTING TÉMÉRAIRE. By Joseph Mallord William Turner of the English School (Born 1775, died 1851) William Turner carried the painting of atmospheric effects further than any of his predecessors. He was the first to try to depict upon canvas the full force of the sun. In "The Fighting Téméraire " we have one of his very latest and very best canvases in which the sun is setting in a sky of the greatest brilliancy. It is said that the picture was done one day when he was on a holiday excursion with some other artists. One moment he would be talking and joking, and the next transferring some wonderful glory of color to his canvas. Thornbury tells how the idea of painting the old ship came about. 66 Suddenly there moved down upon the artist's little boat the grand old vessel that had been taken prisoner at the Nile and that led the van at Trafalgar. She loomed pale and ghastly and was being towed to her last moorings by a fiery, puny steam-tug." It was "The Fighting Téméraire" of which Henry Newbolt has sung: There's a far bell ringing And a phantom voice is singing |