John Constable
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Constable was a famous English painter and artist.
He was born on July 15 1776 in East Bergholt in Suffolk. His family had plenty of money because his father owned a business running corn mills. Constable's father wanted his son to take over the business after him, but Constable started painting at an early age, and convinced his father to let him follow art as a career.
He married Maria Bicknell in 1816, and they had seven children. She died in 1829 of Tuberculosis, which made Constable very sad. Constable died on March 31 1837.
His paintings are treasures of British art, but in his lifetime his work was appreciated more in France. Constable's most famous painting, The Hay Wain (now in the National Gallery in London), was first shown at the Paris Salon in 1824. He had to wait until he was 52 years old before the Royal Academy voted that he should be a member.
Constable was influenced by the French painter Claude Lorrain. His most famous paintings are landscapes showing the countryside around Dedham and Flatford, where his father's mills were.