The National Gallery is an art museum in Trafalgar Square in the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Founded in 1824, it houses a collection of more than 2,300 paintings dating from the mid-13th century to 1900. The current director of the National Gallery is Gabriele Finaldi.
John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
Benjamin Lauder Nicholson, OM was an English painter of abstract compositions, landscapes, and still-life. He was one of the leading promoters of abstract art in England.
John Egerton Christmas Piper CH was an English painter, printmaker and designer of stained-glass windows and both opera and theatre sets. His work often focused on the British landscape, especially churches and monuments, and included tapestry designs, book jackets, screen prints, photography, fabrics and ceramics. He was educated at Epsom College and trained at the Richmond School of Art followed by the Royal College of Art in London. He turned from abstraction early in his career, concentrating on a more naturalistic but distinctive approach, but often worked in several different styles throughout his career.
The Hay Wain – originally titled Landscape: Noon – is a painting by John Constable, completed in 1821, which depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. It hangs in the National Gallery in London and is regarded as "Constable's most famous image" and one of the greatest and most popular English paintings.
The Cornfield is an oil painting by the English artist John Constable, completed from January to March 1826 in the artist’s studio. The painting shows a lane leading from East Bergholt toward Dedham, Essex, and depicts a young shepherd boy drinking from a pool in the heat of summer. The location is along Fen Lane, which the artist knew well. Constable referred to the piece as The Drinking Boy.
Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows was painted by John Constable in 1831, three years after the death of his wife, Maria. It is currently on display in London, at Tate Britain, in the Clore gallery. He later added nine lines from The Seasons by the eighteenth-century poet James Thomson that reveal the painting's meaning: that the rainbow is a symbol of hope after a storm that follows on the death of the young Amelia in the arms of her lover Celadon. Constable exhibited this painting at the Royal Academy in 1831, but continued working on it during 1833 and 1834. The art historians Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams have described the painting as the climax of his artistic career.
The Government Art Collection (GAC) is the collection of artworks owned by the UK government and administered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). The GAC's artworks are used to decorate major government buildings in the UK and around the world, and to promote British art, culture and history. The GAC now holds over 14,000 works of art in a variety of media, including around 2,500 oil paintings, but also sculpture, prints, drawings, photographs, textiles and video works, mainly created by British artists or artist with a strong connection to the UK, from the sixteenth century to the present day. Works are displayed in several hundred locations, including Downing Street, ministerial offices and reception areas in Whitehall, regional government offices in the UK, and diplomatic posts outside the UK.
James Bolivar Manson was an artist and worked at the Tate gallery for 25 years, including serving as its director from 1930 to 1938. In the Tate's own evaluation he was the "least successful" of their directors. His time there was frustrated by his stymied ambition as a painter and he declined into alcoholism, culminating in a drunken outburst at an official dinner in Paris. Although his art policies were more advanced than previously at the Tate and embraced Impressionism, he stopped short of accepting newer artistic movements like Surrealism and German Expressionism, thus earning the scorn of critics such as Douglas Cooper. He retired on the grounds of ill health and resumed his career as a flower painter until his death.
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in England, with Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Founded by Sir Henry Tate, it houses a substantial collection of the art of the United Kingdom since Tudor times, and in particular has large holdings of the works of J. M. W. Turner, who bequeathed all his own collection to the nation. It is one of the largest museums in the country. The museum had 525,144 visitors in 2021, an increase of 34 percent from 2020 but still well below pre- COVID-19 pandemic levels. In 2021 it ranked 50th on the list of most-visited art museums in the world.
David Hepher is a British artist, best known for his paintings of buildings, landscapes, especially tower blocks, including the Aylesbury Estate:
The Aylesbury Estate is... the remarkable leitmotif of [his] work as a painter… the Aylesbury is to Hepher what the Stour valley was to Constable or the Medway to Turner.
Wivenhoe Park is a painting of an English landscape park, the estate of the Rebow family, by the English Romantic painter, John Constable (1776–1837).
The Vale of Dedham is an 1828 oil painting by the English painter John Constable which depicts Dedham Vale on the Essex-Suffolk border in eastern England. It is in the permanent collection of the Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh.
Admiral's House is a Grade II listed house in Hampstead in the London Borough of Camden. The house's name is a misnomer, as no admirals have ever lived there. The house is featured in multiple paintings by John Constable.
The White Horse is an oil-on-canvas landscape painting by the English artist John Constable. It was completed in 1819 and is now in the Frick Collection in New York City.
Sir Richard Steele's Cottage, Hampstead is a landscape painting by the British artist John Constable, begun in 1831 and completed the following year. It shows a view from Haverstock Hill in then rural Hampstead looking southwards towards London with its skyline dominated by St Paul's Cathedral. The painting takes its name from the cottage to the right of the road, formerly home to the Irish writer and politician Richard Steele, a member of the Kit Cat Club. On the left of the street is a public house the Load of Hay, popular with travellers on their way to Hampstead Heath. The stretch was part of Hampstead Road which connected the city to Hampstead and still retains its historic alignment. The cottage was demolished in 1867 during the development of Belsize Park as a residential area, but is still commemorated by the name of Steele Road.
The Opening of Waterloo Bridge is an 1832 history painting by the British artist John Constable. It depicts the scene on 18 June 1817 when the newly constructed Waterloo Bridge across the River Thames in London was ceremonially opened by the Prince Regent. To distinguish it from other works of the scene by Constable and others, it is known by the longer alternative title Embarkation of George IV from Whitehall: The Opening of Waterloo Bridge, 1817.
Gillingham Bridge is an 1823 landscape painting by the British artist John Constable. It portrays a scene of the country town of Gillingham in Dorset. It features the old bridge crossing the River Stour by the town with church tower of St Mary the Virgin in the background. Constable's friend John Fisher held the incumbency of Gillingham and Constable visited him there in 1820. He returned again in 1823 when he painted this work.
The Glebe Farm is an 1830 landscape painting by the British artist John Constable. It shows a view of the Glebe Farm in the village of Langham in Essex on the Stour River in what is often now known as "Constable Country". Seen clearly behind it is the tower of St Mary's Church. Constable seems to have been inspired to paint the work by the death of his patron the Bishop of Salisbury in 1825. The Bishop had been rector of Langham in the 1790s when Constable first met him.
Hampstead Heath with a Rainbow is an 1836 landscape painting by the English artist John Constable. It depicts a scene from Branch Hill in Hampstead overlooking Hampstead Heath.
