One was The Water Mill, Gillingham, which represents Constable's art in its soundest phase. It had probably been started some years before, since the building represented was burned in 1825. The second picture was a Hampstead Heath, probably the largest of those at South Kensington. In it the characteristics of Constable's latter manner are apparent—reckless freedom of brushwork, reckless use of the palette-knife to get brilliancy, and everywhere spots and scratches of pure colour. He had for many years employed such methods in sketching to catch the glitter and freshness which he admired in nature, and had often used them in parts of large pictures to get some particular effect, but The Hampstead Heath is one of the first pictures in which they actually predominate. His large Academy picture of 1828, an upright view of Dedham Vale, is interesting because it is identical in design with the Kensington sketch of 1802, and shows that little or no change had taken place in the painter's affection for his native Suffolk. It was admirably mezzotinted by Lucas on a large scale.
In 1829 Constable was made a full member of the Academy, and his chief picture of that year, the Hadleigh Castle, was the work that Chantrey is said to have warmed upon Varnishing Day with a glaze of asphaltum, much to the painter's alarm. The composition was twice engraved by Lucas, with whom Constable was now arranging for the series of mezzotints from his sketches, that he published in six parts under the title of "Various Subjects of Landscape Characteristic of English Scenery."
The publication was produced and issued at the painter's own expense. He not only took the greatest care in the selection of the subjects, but supervised the details of the engraving, and even went to the expense of engraving plates twice when dissatisfied with the first result. The outcome was the most magnificent series of landscape mezzotints ever produced. Even Turner's Liber Studiorum, with its amazing delicacy, variety, and accomplishment, does not move one so profoundly.[1] Conditions of space unfortunately forbid me to treat the plates in detail, but no one who wishes really to understand Constable should lose an opportunity of acquiring any of them that he happens to meet with. The series was from the first an absolute failure, and even now good proofs cost less than most modern etchings.
- ↑ A more extended notice of the series with several illustrations will be found in The Dome for May 1900.
