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John Constable "The Young
Waltonians" This is the full-scale oil sketch for one of Constable's exhibition pictures: he was slow and meticulous in his working processes, and painted such a sketch before each of the large landscapes that he showed at the annual Royal Academy exhibitions from 1819 onward. His main aim at this stage was to see how the masses of light and dark would work across the composition. Brilliant and full of life though his sketches are, he regarded them as a means to an end, preferring to be judged by works of detail and "finish." He showed the exhibition version of the present view at the Royal Academy in 1820 (it is now at the National Gallery in London). Stratford Mill was a watermill that powered a paper factory on the river Stour, near the artist's birthplace. The barge in the middle distance is waiting to pass a lock off to the right. |