Although he
showed an early talent for art and began painting his native Suffolk scenery
before he left school, his great originality matured slowly. He committed
himself to a career as an artist only in 1799, when he joined the Royal Academy
Schools and it was not until 1829 that he was grudgingly made a full
Academician, elected by a majority of only one vote. In 1816 he became
financially secure on the death of his father and married Maria Bicknell after
a seven-year courtship and in the fact of strong opposition from her family.
During the 1820s he began to win recognition: The Hay Wain
(National Gallery, London, 1821) won a gold medal at the Paris Salon of 1824
and Constable was admired by Delacroix and Bonington among others. His wife
died in 1828, however, and the remaining years of his life were clouded by
despondency.
Constable worked extensively in the open air, drawing and
sketching in oils, but his finished pictures were produced in the studio. For
his most ambitious works--`six-footers' as he called them--he followed the
unusual technical procedure of making a full-size oil sketch, and in the 20th
century there has been a tendancy to praise these even more highly than the
finished works because of their freedom and freshness of brushwork.
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