By 1812 Constable was thirty-six years old. He had been living in London for twelve years – firstly as a student at the Royal Academy Schools, where he learnt to draw from plaster casts of antique statues and from life, and later as a professional artist, making a small living by painting society portraits. But it was the lure of the landscape that led him to purchase a small house opposite the family home in 1802, so that he could paint the local landscape. He expressed his intention to return to East Bergholt as often as possible to make, in his words, ‘laborious studies from nature’ and to get a ‘pure and unaffected representation of the scenes’.
Between 1808 and his marriage in 1816, Constable spent most summers and early autumns in East Bergholt, painting directly from nature, sketching in the fields and surrounding countryside. He then returned to London to get his works ready for exhibition at the Royal Academy in May.
In Autumnal sunset c. 1812 he paints an evening view over the fields, with a man and woman walking down the ancient path connecting East Bergholt with the neighbouring village of Stratford St Mary. The figure on the horse is about to descend the farm track to Vale Farmhouse. Constable has shown the sun glowing across the undulating landscape, but not reaching into the valley, which remains in shadow; he included a flock of rooks to enhance the atmosphere of the evening.
He later wrote that ‘Autumn only is called the painter’s season, from the great richness of the colours of the dead and decaying foliage, and the peculiar tone and beauty of the skies’. He was fond of this image, and in 1829 selected it as one of the works for David Lucas to translate into a mezzotint: Autumnal sunset c. 1829–32.
Question
• Read the entry for 1812 in the biographical summary. What connections can you make between Constable’s attitude to nature and that of contemporary writers?