Constable: The Painter and His Landscape

There are two large categories of art books. The first is primarily about reproducing works of art in book form and the text, even if of high quality, is there more or less to enrich the display of art. The other is primarily a book of words with a specific focus and the reproduced art, even if the reproductions are of high quality, are there to illustrate the points the author is making. This book is of the second sort. This is a solid work letting us know about the artist and where he worked. This is especially important to understand Constable, because he is a landscape artist and almost exclusively limited himself to the immediate surroundings to where he lived. The author, Michael Rosenthal, also takes us through his works, what we know of his working method, his development as an artist of the very late 18th and early 19th centuries, the literary connections to Constable's art, and how his social status probably influenced the way he composed his paintings. The last chapter focuses on the masterpieces of the last years and I think the book culminates quite well here. Everything is drawn together to make these masterpieces live more fully in our understanding, removed as we are by nearly two centuries from this artist. Constable is often compared to Turner, and they are assuredly both great artists and painted scenes in nature. However, they are quite different in how and what they composed. While I do love both painters, it is Turner who holds a higher place in my mind, heart, and imagination. However, several of Constables compositions remain clearly in the first rank, no matter what the fuddy duddy non-representationalist postmodern deconstructionists may say to dismiss him.