When his good friend and patron Bishop Fisher of Salisbury died in 1825, Constable decided to paint The Glebe Farm c. 1830 in his memory. He included the church of St Mary the Virgin at Langham, where Fisher had been rector when Constable met him in 1798. Constable did not make an accurate depiction of the scene, but combined a view of the church with the image of a nearby farmhouse. Constable painted the view along a valley, with water in the foreground, a cow drinking, tall trees to the left and the farmhouse beside the church tower on a hill to the right. He based the farmhouse on a small oil sketch he had made c. 1811–15, rather than from nature. He often used his own paintings as a ‘pictorial dictionary’, taking elements from one work and using them again in another. So the fresh, spontaneous quality of many of Constable’s paintings, which suggests a direct link between real life and the painted surface, is in fact carefully constructed. The image of Glebe Farm was a favourite with Constable. He painted four versions between 1826 and 1830, all from memory, as change was occurring in his harmonious, pastoral world – where man, religion and nature were in balance. Activities • Visit the National Gallery of Australia’s Constable website and compare this painting with the third version of The Glebe Farm painted in 1830 nga/gov.au/Constable • Use the internet to find out about the 1832 Reform Act. Constable and his friends were anxious about the changes that this act would make to rural English life.