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

by Martin Gayford (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  2009

  $4.24

  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.

• New

  Paperback
  2010

  $14.22

  Art critic Martin Gayford, author of The Yellow House , brings the Regency period to life in Constable in Love: Love, Landscape and the Making of a Great Painter his account of the life of English Romantic painter John Constable. Love, not landscape, was the making of Constable...John Constable and Maria Bicknell might have been in love but their marriage was a most unlikely prospect. Constable was a penniless painter who would not sacrifice his art for anything, while Maria's family frowned on such a penurious union. For seven long years the couple were forced to correspond and meet clandestinely. But it was during this period of longing that Constable developed as a painter. And by the time they'd overcome all obstacles to their marriage, he was on the verge of being recognised as a genius. Martin Gayford brings alive the time of Jane Austen in telling the tremendous story of Constable's formative years, as well as this love affair's tragic conclusion which haunted the artist's final paintings. Delightful...a small drama of love, frustration and despair played itself out with massive repercussions for the history of painting. ( Financial Times ). 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 ). Martin Gayford is a celebrated art critic and journalist who has written for the Spectator and the Sunday Telegraph and is the current Chief European Art Critic for Bloomberg. In his other book The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles Gayford depicts the period in which artistic geniuses van Gogh and Gauguin shared a house in the small French town of Arles.