England before Constable's time, but also because Constable himself speaks of his drawings in a manner that leaves no doubt of the great influence they had upon him; indeed, in a moment of enthusiasm he goes so far as to call Cozens "the greatest genius that ever touched landscape."
Thus, at the time of Constable's birth, while art on the Continent had practically ceased to exist, there were three distinct schools of landscape-painting in England to guide a rising artist. The classical tradition had been ably sustained by the refined taste and majestic genius of Wilson; the princely realism of Rubens had turned to delicate romance in the hands of Gainsborough; while water-colour, though still in its childhood, was already giving indications of its capacity.
Thirty years later, before Constable had finished his professional apprenticeship, all was changed. Turner had given the classical landscape a new lease of life with The Garden of the Hesperides, had eclipsed all previous painting of the sea with his Calais Pier, and was carrying forward the development of water-colour drawing from the point where his friend Girtin had left it. James Ward, Cotman, Morland and Barker of Bath had done sound work on the lines of the landscape and cattle painters of the Netherlands, but the advance that they made upon their predecessors was small compared with the extraordinary perfection attained in the same style by John Crome. Indeed, with Crome and the youthful Turner the landscape method of the old masters reached a pitch of sustained excellence unknown to Titian or Claude, perhaps even to Rubens and Rembrandt, at the very moment when, all the world over, it was to be superseded. Almost a century has passed since then, yet there is hardly a sign of any reaction from the change effected in the art of Europe by the example of Constable.
The ancient tradition of landscape was invariably founded on chiaroscuro, to which a suggestion of reality was given by the addition of a moderate amount of local colour. To supply an interest comparable in some degree to that aroused by figure-painting, landscapes were either peopled with historical or mythological figures, or were animated with striking atmospheric effects. Rembrandt and Claude proved that rustic life could provide material enough for admirable sketches, but the work of the lesser Dutchmen showed that average country scenery was by
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