Constable In Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter - Hardcover

Gayford, Martin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1905490240 ISBN 13: 9781905490240

Publisher: Fig Tree, 2009

Synopsis

When John Constable fell in love with Maria Bicknell, granddaughter of a Suffolk country neighbour, he little knew how long it would take to make her his wife. The impediment to their marriage was simple: 'that necessary article cash'.

He was a painter without sufficient funds to support the daughter of a prominent London lawyer, and both he and her grandfather, the formidable (and sometimes comical) Rector of East Bergholt, disapproved of the match. It would be seven long, difficult years before they could marry, but in that time he would become one of the greatest painters of the nineteenth century.

Martin Gayford writes superbly about Constable's early years as a painter and Maria and John's correspondence provides the lively backdrop to the story; one of lovers' tiffs, London versus country life, encounters with Turner, Byron and Wordsworth, royal scandals and rivalries at the Royal Academy. All the time, John Constable battles to become a painter who can earn his living and win Maria's hand.

About this title

Review:

Brilliant, wholly fascinating. I can't recommend this delightful book too highly (Craig Brown Mail on Sunday)

Delightful...a small drama of love, frustration and despair played itself out with massive repercussions for the history of painting (Financial Times)

A stunning account of Constable's coming of age as both a man and an artist (Guardian)

Gayford's nuanced narrative throws much-needed fresh light, as well as real understanding, on both Constable's painting and his love life (Sunday Telegraph)

A scrupulously observed tragical-comical tale (Evening Standard)

Engaging, cunning, agreeable and alert to the vagaries of human behaviour (Literary Review)

About the Author:

Martin Gayford has been art critic of the Spectator and the Sunday Telegraph. He is currently chief European art critic for Bloomberg. Among his publications are The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles, The Penguin Book of Art Writing, of which he was co-editor, and contributions to many catalogues. He is co-curator of the exhibition Constable Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery and Compton Verney in 2009. He lives in Cambridge with his wife and two children.

About this edition

• Publisher: Fig Tree
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1905490240
• ISBN 13: 9781905490240
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384