“Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable
“Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable was painted one year after the death of his wife and was a personal statement of his turbulent emotions at that time. The sky reflects this turbulence and shows his emotional state of being.
Constable later highlighted the lines from a poem called The Seasons by James Thomson that helped him to explain the painting’s meaning. In essence, the rainbow was a symbol of hope.
The hope after a storm that follows the death of a young woman in the arms of her lover. Some further symbolism in this painting that represented Constables’ emotions includes:
- the grave marker, a symbol of death
- the ash tree, a symbol of life
- the church, a symbol of faith and resurrection
- the rainbow, a symbol of renewed optimism
John Constable was an English Romantic painter known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home, which he painted with a passion.
Although his pictures are now famous and valuable, he was not financially successful during his lifetime. His work was more prevalent in France, where he sold more works than in his native England and which helped inspired the Barbizon school.
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
- Title: Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows
- Artist: John Constable
- Year: 1831
- Type: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 151.8 cm × 189.9 cm (59.8 in × 74.8 in)
- Museum: National Gallery, London
John Constable
- Artist: John Constable
- Born: 1776 – East Bergholt, Suffolk, East Anglia, England
- Died: 1837 (aged 60) – London, England
- Nationality: English
- Notable works:
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows by John Constable
A Tour of the National Gallery
19th Century Paintings
- “Portrait of Doña Isabel de Porcel” by Francisco Goya – 1805
- “The Emperor Napoleon I” by Horace Vernet – 1815
- “Dido Building Carthage” by J. M. W. Turner – 1815
- “Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows” by John Constable – 1831
- “The Execution of Lady Jane Grey” by Paul Delaroche – 1833
- “The Fighting Temeraire” by Joseph Mallord William Turner – 1839
- “Rain, Steam, and Speed – The Great Western Railway” by J. M. W. Turner – 1844
- “Cimabue’s Celebrated Madonna is carried in Procession through the Streets of Florence” by Frederic Leighton – 1855
- “Madame Moitessier” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres– 1856
- “The Gare St-Lazare” by Claude Monet – 1877
- “Bathers at Asnières” by Georges Seurat – 1884
- “Sunflowers” by Vincent van Gogh – 1888
- “Tiger in a Tropical Storm” by Henri Rousseau – 1891
- “After the Bath, Woman Drying Herself” by Edgar Degas – 1895
- “Boulevard Montmartre at Night” by Camille Pissarro – 1898
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows by John Constable
20th Century Paintings
- “Misia Sert” by Pierre-Auguste Renoir – 1904
- “Portrait of Hermine Gallia” by Gustav Klimt – 1904
- Bathers (Les Grandes Baigneuses) by Paul Cézanne – 1905
- “Men of the Docks” by George Bellows – 1912
- “Water-Lilies” by Claude Monet (National Gallery, London) – 1916
Constable: A Country Rebel
~~~
“The world is wide; no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world, and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from one another.”
– John Constable
~~~
Photo Credit: 1) National Gallery [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
Popular this Week
