John Constable’s gloomy landscapes have long been thought of as representations of his dark mood after his wife’s death, but an expert now claims he was just accurately painting miserable British weather.
Mark Evans, the head of paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum in Knightsbridge, London, has compared some of Constable’s work to meteorological data, reports the Times.
The data was collected by Charles Henry Adams, a headmaster at The Latymer School in Edmonton which is just five-and-a-half miles from Hampstead Heath where Constable would paint.
Mr Evans was able to compare the two because Constable wrote the date, time of day and weather conditions on the back of his paintings.
John Constable’s gloomy paintings after his wife died in 1828 have long been considered a representation of his dark mood – but an expert now says they were just accurate depictions of miserable British weather (Pictured: West End Fields, Hampstead, 1833)
Constable’s wife Maria died from tuberculosis in 1828 and his paintings after that date, which depict gloomy skies, have been linked to his depression after her death.
Mark Evans, the head of paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, was able to compare the meteorological data to the paintings because Constable (pictured) wrote the date, time of day and weather conditions on the back
Mr Evans, an expert on Constable, said: ‘Several writers have associated the dark and expressive effects, wild weather and rough and painterly handling of Constable’s work post-1828 to his depression following her death.’
He compared sketches from September 26 and December 7, 1833, and April 12, 1834, and realised that actually they were ‘founded on what he saw’.
He told the Times: ‘With Constable’s late work, people said he painted like that because he was sad as his wife had died or he was ill, he was feeling gloomy.
‘Poor man died of a heart attack, he didn’t realise he was going to die, but there’s been a general perception to interpret Constable’s late work in terms of his emotional and mental state.’
One work from 1834 that had ‘spring clouds – hail squalls’ written on the back was painted on a day with ‘frequent hail and a heavy shower at 3pm’.