"The Hay Wain" by John Constable (1821)
This is one of England's most famous and most loved paintings. It resides in The National Gallery in London, next to Trafalgar Square. It was painted by John Constable when he was 45 years old. The canvas is quite large - measuring 51 inches by 73 inches.
The scene depicts a hay wain or wagon crossing the River Stour which separates the ancient ceremonial counties of Suffolk and Essex. Constable grew up very close to this spot for his father owned nearby Flatford Mill.
The house on the left was rented to a tenant farmer called Willie Lott. It is reckoned that he only spent three or four days away from this spot in his entire life. Though it was originally known as Gibeons Farm, in Constable's lifetime it was always known as Willie Lott's Cottage just as it is today.
What do people like about this painting? Perhaps its fame is simply cumulative with its established familiarity gilding its popularity with modern witnesses. But thinking more aesthetically - maybe it is the sense of rural peace that the work exudes. It celebrates country life and the composition guides our eyes towards a distant future where there is a little blue sky, a little hope overhead.
It was a way of life that by 1821 was already giving way to industrialisation and the growth of cities. Many farm workers were seeking a way out of rural poverty and servitude and new industries seemed to represent that possibility. Soon the quiet bucolic lifestyle of the folk who occupied the countryside will be gone along with the hay wains their horses pulled.
Have you seen it before? What, if anything, do you think about the picture?
My mum and dad had that picture in the house when I was growing up. I had no idea it was a copy of a famous painting.
ReplyDeleteThe industrial revolution moved poverty and death from the countryside, into cities, but still poor people suffered the most, as they still do. There is enough in the world for everyone and yet people and children still starve to death, and die from unsafe water. I think the painting was what people wished for, not the harsh reality of living hand to mouth, hoping each harvest would get them through to the next harvest.
I have been to Trafalgar Square but not to this museum and thus, this piece is new to me. I am not surprised it's loved. I see what you mean about rural peace and without much context, when I look more closely I wonder, are these flood waters? The water is so close to the home. Is the water receding? Thus the garden's saved? The dog's playing again? The dark clouds likewise receding? Faming life (the source of all our origins) resumes. It seems hopeful for this reason too.
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