In winter 2024‒25, as part of our NG200 celebrations, the National Gallery will stage the exhibition Discover Constable and The Hay Wain focussing on John Constable’s masterpiece The Hay Wain (1821).
This will be the first loan exhibition held at the National Gallery on John Constable (1776–1837) and the first to explore the social, political and artistic context of the English landscape at the time of 'The Hay Wain’s' production.
An exhibition on 'The Hay Wain' in the National Gallery’s Bicentenary year is apt as 1824 was a key international moment for Constable, when the painting garnered great acclaim at the Paris Salon, receiving a gold medal from the French King Charles X.
Now a symbol of a quintessential and somewhat romantic British countryside, 'The Hay Wain' has entered our collective visual memory and pop culture as an icon of traditional British landscape painting, and it is hard to imagine that 'The Hay Wain' was once considered radical. Yet, when it was first exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1821, it was viewed as an innovative reimagining of the landscape tradition.
One of the principal aims of the exhibition is to show how Constable came to be established as a master in the history of British art as his work entered the collections of major galleries and museums. It will introduce major donations from Isabel Constable, the artist’s daughter, and the art collectors John Sheepshanks and Henry Vaughan to the national collections of the V&A (South Kensington Museum), and the National Gallery, a number of which are now held in the collections of Tate Britain.
The exhibition will also look at the ownership of the painting and its acquisition by the National Gallery in 1886 and examine the rise in popularity of both Constable and 'The Hay Wain' since this point.
Constable, as the son of a wealthy mill owner and corn merchant, was intimately connected to the subject matter. The painting is of a rural scene on the River Stour in which three horses pull what appears to be a large farm wagon across the river. The house of Willy Lott, a tenant farmer, is visible on the far left. The setting is near Flatford Mill which belonged to Constable’s father. The picture is very conservative in some respects as Constable paints – in the context of a fast-changing social and political landscape – a scene he would have known and loved since childhood, and yet Constable managed, with this painting, to bring novelty and innovation to the genre of landscape painting. This paradox will be explored in the exhibition.
At the time in Britain, landscape painting was still considered an ‘inferior’ genre compared to history painting, although this was fast evolving due to the influence of great artists of the European tradition. The Hay Wain was painted in the artist’s London studio over five months in preparation for the Royal Academy annual exhibition which Constable had entered numerous times before. He painted it from several preliminary sketches, probably created ‘en plein air’, a revolutionary approach for the period which Constable eagerly adopted in his quest to represent ‘truth to nature’.
The use of the colour green (as opposed to traditional brown) to show foliage was also innovative, as was the precise – almost scientific – depiction of cloud formations. His looser, expressive handling of the paint with noticeable brushstrokes, the generous application of paint on foliage, the flecks of white paint (often dismissively referred to as ‘Constable’s snow’) to represent the sparkling or reflection of sunlight, were noted and sometimes criticised as making his paintings looking unfinished, yet these effects were instrumental in conveying emotions and an energy rarely seen before in landscape painting.
The sheer size of the painting – six feet in width – reminiscent of some of his predecessors such as Rubens, Ruisdael and Claude, was a conscious decision by Constable to try and create some impact at the Royal Academy exhibition. 'The Hay Wain', originally titled 'Landscape: Noon' is the third in the series (of six canvases), following 'The White Horse' in 1819 and 'Stratford Mill', exhibited in 1820.
The first section of the exhibition sets out the artistic and social context in which Constable made 'The Hay Wain'. The spiritual landscape is examined through the works of William Blake (1757–1827), and the political landscape through satirical contemporary prints (Charles Williams, 'Political Balance', 1816, University of Nottingham) that address topical issues, such as the corn laws. Paintings by Turner ('The Vale of Ashburnham', 1816, British Museum), John Crome ('Marlingford Grove', about 1815, National Museums Liverpool, Lady Lever Art Gallery) and Thomas Gainsborough (Cornard Wood, 1748, The National Gallery, London) will be included in this section.
John Constable
The Hay Wain
1821
Oil on canvas
130.2 × 185.4 cm
© The National Gallery, London
John Constable
The Wheat Field, 1816
Oil on canvas
54.6 x 78.1 cm
© Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA (2007.8.27)
John Constable
Willy Lott’s House, 1802
Oil on canvas
33.7 x 42.5 cm
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA (2013.1)
© Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, USA, image courtesy of Lowell Libson Ltd
John Constable
The Mill Stream about 1814
IPSMG:R.1941.72
Oil on canvas
71.1 x 91.5 cm
© Ipswich Borough Council Collections: Colchester + Ipswich Museum Service
John Constable
Willy Lotts house, East Bergholt, about 1812-1813
D.1952.RW.1505
Graphite
28.4 x 20.1 cm
The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London
© The Courtauld, London/ Bridgeman Images
John Constable
Rowing boat moored beneath a bank, unknown
D.1952.RW.3943
Graphite
12.6 x 9 cm
The Samuel Courtauld Trust, The Courtauld Gallery, London
© The Courtauld, London/ Bridgeman Images
John Constable
Full-Scale Study for The Hay Wain, about 1821
987-1900
Oil on canvas
137 x 188 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
© V&A Images / Victoria and Albert Museum, London
John Constable
Willy Lotts House, near Flatford Mill, about 1810-1815
166-1888
Oil on paper
24.1 x 18.1 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
© V&A Images / Victoria and Albert Museum, London
John Constable
Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishops Ground, 1823
FA.33[O]
Oil on canvas
87.6 x 111.8 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
© V&A Images / Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The second and third sections of the exhibition look at where Constable was in his career before 1821 and in 1821 when he produced 'The Hay Wain' and his process of building final works from sketches and studies produced over many years. Two deeply personal works by Constable ('Golding Constable’s Flower Garden', and 'Golding Constable’s Kitchen Garden', 1815, Ipswich Borough Council Collections: Colchester and Ipswich Museum Service) made after the death of his mother Ann, allude to her interest in horticulture while representing a landscape he cherished. The flower garden had been created and tended by his mother for her own pleasure. while the view of the kitchen garden reflects his father Golding’s cultivation of, and commercial profit from, the land. Constable’s engagement with meteorology will also be highlighted with some sketches ('Cloud Study: Horizon of Trees', 1821, Royal Academy of Arts; and 'Cloud Study, Hampstead, Tree at Right, 11 September 1821', Royal Academy of Arts) and the inclusion of his copies of Alexander Cozens’s cloud studies ('Cloud Studies (after Alexander Cozens’ ‘Engravings of Skies’), about 1822‒1823, The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust)), which influenced his understanding of cloud formation.
The last section of the exhibition will include works made shortly after 'The Hay Wain', which entered public collections and established the artist’s reputation: 'Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Ground' (1823) to the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A); and The Cornfield, 1826, the first of his works to enter the National Gallery, London.
This exhibition is part of the ‘Discover’ series, staged in the National Gallery’s Sunley Room, which explores well-known paintings from fresh and unexpected perspectives. This will be the fourth in the series after Manet & Eva Gonzalès, Liotard & The Lavergne Family Breakfast, and Degas & Miss La La.
The exhibition is curated by Christine Riding, Director of Collections and Research and Dr Mary McMahon, Associate Curator NG200 Collections at the National Gallery.
Christine Riding, Director of Collections and Research, says ‘It is very rewarding for a curator to see the paintings of the National Gallery with a fresh outlook, especially when it is a painting you know so well. The Discover series allows us and our visitors to do just that, rediscover well-known paintings by exploring the context in which they were made and their enduring impact. The generous loans to the exhibition will allow our visitors to understand how radical 'The Hay Wain' was when it was made and how it has become one of the most cherished paintings in the UK.’
Dr Mary McMahon, Associate Curator NG200 Collections, says ‘Today 'The Hay Wain' is Constable’s most well-known painting and considered a nostalgic image of the English landscape. This status was far from a given when it was first exhibited in 1821, and neither was Constable’s current standing as a key figure in the history of British art. This exhibition provides an opportunity to explore the rise in appreciation for both the painting and artist over the last 200 years, and how this is linked to the history of the National Gallery Collection.’