John Constable is the first major English…
September 1821 CE
John Constable is the first major English artist to focus exclusively on the depiction of rural scenes, without historical or classical associations.
He has dedicated his artistic life to painting a small portion of the English countryside, especially the area around the River Stour in East Anglia.
Although he has scraped an income from painting, it was not until 1819 that he sold his first important canvas, The White Horse, which has led to a series of "six footers", as he calls his large-scale paintings.
He had been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy that year, and in 1821 he shows the six-foot- (one point eight meter-) wide The Hay Wain (a view from Flatford Mill) at the Academy's exhibition.
Although revered today as one of the greatest British paintings, when it is originally exhibited (under the title Landscape: Noon), it fails to find a buyer.
However, Théodore Géricault sees it on a visit to London and is soon praising Constable in Paris, where a dealer, John Arrowsmith, buys four paintings, including The Hay Wain.
A joyful rendering of a classic autumnal scene, the painting is voted the second best painting in any British gallery in a poll organized by the Today program in September 2005.