John Constable

John Constable (1776-1837) was an English Romantic painter who devoted his life to the landscapes of his native Suffolk, painting clouds and skies with scientific devotion. The Hay Wain, ignored at home at first, electrified French artists and changed landscape painting forever.

  • The Hay Wain

    ByDominik Szobak

    England did not want this painting. Shown at the Royal Academy in 1821, it failed to find a buyer and sat in the studio for three years. It took the Paris Salon of 1824 to change that — a gold medal from Charles X, and a generation of French painters who took what they saw…