The sketches at Kensington and Burlington House show that Constable, while painting these large pictures in oil, was not neglecting the study of natural detail. Some of his best pencil-drawings of trees belong to the year 1820, and in the following two years he spent much time in painting skies from nature. These studies cannot claim to be regarded as pictures, but in the expression of natural colour, motion, and luminosity they can hardly be surpassed. The water-colour drawing of Old Houses at Harnham Bridge—Salisbury, made in 1820, shows how powerfully he could handle that medium, and may be compared, not unprofitably, with the later sketch of the same place in the British Museum.
Constable's large picture at the Academy in 1822 was a View on the Stour, now in the possession of Mr. T. H. Miller of Preston. Constable painted several variations of this composition, one of which was mezzotinted by Lucas and another engraved in line by W. R. Smith. It represents the Stour just below Flatford Lock, and is painted in a more sober key than most of Constable's work at this time, being in this respect a contrast to the Salisbury Cathedral, exhibited in the following year, and now at South Kensington. There for the first time we notice that tendency to paint glittering sunlight by spots and scumbles of pure bright pigment which is characteristic of Constable's later manner. He had for some years practised this method in his sketches, but the "Salisbury" is the first instance where it is used extensively in a large finished picture. He seems indeed to have had some difficulty with this work, finding that the rigid architectural lines gave the whole a formal effect without the contrast of brilliant handling and definite chiaroscuro. The fine picture of Trees at Hampstead Church, which was probably painted about this time, is handled far more quietly. At this time, too, while visiting Sir George Beaumont, he made a number of sketches in the grounds at Coleorton. Among them was a drawing of the monument to Sir Joshua Reynolds, which thirteen years later developed into The Cenotaph, now in the National Gallery.
In 1824 he exhibited A Boat Passing a Lock, possibly the picture in the Diploma Gallery which, though it bears the date 1820, looks as if it had been painted some years earlier. The date may have been added during some subsequent re-touching. In the summer he went to Brighton, where he made a large number of sketches,
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