John Constable was one of the greatest British artists who had historical as well as European significance, but most importantly, has grand bein or especial pleasure derived from his work. In his works, the beholders witness a heightened and intense perception of particular English places, seasons, tricks of lights, and weather. Constable wrote,
“No two days are alike, not even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world.”
And we saw this similar attribute of his words in his paintings. He revolutionized landscape paintings in oils and watercolors, taking away from the tinted drawings of the eighteenth century. With a great instinct for total unity and picture design, he swept the simplicity in the empty foreground. Today, John Constable is the most popular of all British painters, and his Landscape, Noon, or should I say The Hay Wain, is one of the most famous paintings in the world. Here, in this article, we will learn about his famous painting, which shook the world with awe and surprise.
The Hay Wain | Fast Knowledge
The Hay Wain is one of John Constable’s “six-footer” series, portraying the beautiful stretch of the River Stour where the artist spent his childhood with a bullock cart or way hain crossing the muddled water. Painted in 1821, the romantic artwork exhibits precision of atmospheric perspective, in-depth knowledge of the light and weather, and vigorous brushwork.
General Information About The Hay Wain Painting.
1. Artist Statement.
“I shall endeavor to get a pure and unaffected manner of representing the scenes that may employ me… there is room enough for a natural painter. The great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something beyond the truth.”
2. Subject Matter.
One of the third largest landscape paintings Constable exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1819 and 1825, The Hay Wain, became a stir in the Paris Salon’s exhibition. John managed to capture a rural Suffolk landscape of his boyhood in this one of the monumental paintings in the times of rapidly changing times due to industrialization. The view is from a millpond at the Flatford, which still survives today.
This atmospheric painting foretells one of the stories from the summer’s day in the English countryside where John used to play in his boyhood. The subject matter of the painting includes two figures in a cart (the wain of the title of the painting) who are determined to cross a shallow river. The painting evokes the emotions and sensibility of the natural world- especially the lush, fertile landscape of Suffolk, which affected and inspired the artist deeply during his lifetime. Using an expressive and overly loose brushwork with a network of dabs and flecks, John attempted to portray and convey a movement, vitality and reflected light of the beautiful stretch of the River Stour where he spent his most of childhood. There is a realistic sense of depth in The Hay Wain’s sky reflected in the fields and rivers, along with the billowing clouds. Stendhal from the Salon of 1824 wrote,
“Truth immediately strikes the viewer… that delicious landscape… is the trusted mirror of nature.”
To summarize, The Hay Wain painting consists of the traditional wooden hay cart with two agricultural workers in the cart, adding human interest to the scene with rhythms of nature, a Willy Lott’s cottage with smoke rising from the chimney suggesting the farmer’s presence, few laborers harvesting the hay by hand with scythes and splashes of red with the horses, a woman washing on a landing stage that projects from the cottage, and a dog standing at the water’s edge. We will learn the entire subject matter in the following sections.
3. Artist.
John Constable, one of the famous landscape British artists, painted The Hay Wain. Recording his countryside life, which was threatened by industry and commerce, he was so invested in landscapes with an intensity of affection. He once wrote to his friend John Fisher on 23 October 1821,
“I should paint my own places best.”
He portrayed a darker side of the landscape with the shadows and storms of wind and rain, alongside supplying the contemporary metropolitan audience with images of a peaceful, happy, and prosperous land, usually busy with contented laborers. The professional career exhibited the paintings to the public for over thirty-five years, which was unusual and somewhat enigmatic. In his lifetime, Constable’s work was more admired in Paris than in London. During the 1838 auction of this studio collection, only a small portion was sold. Now, we will learn a brief life introduction of the artist in the following sections.
4. Date.
The Hay Wain painting dates back to 1821, which the artist prepared for the R.A. Summer Exhibition.
5. Provenance.
A little provenance of the painting is about the new phase of the artist’s artworks, which opened in 1819. It was the same year in which he became an associate of the Royal Academy, long after his mediocre fellow painters, and exhibited The White Horse, the first series of six-foot canvasses which also included The Hay Wain. Constable wrote to Fisher,
“I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas.”
After this writing, he nearly made all of his works monumental. However, at first, it was difficult for him to carry the freshness and immediacy of the oil sketches into larger and more finished pictures, so The White Horse was considered somewhat dry and diffuse. However, with time, he added more sentiment to his works, making them the focus of attraction. Like in The Hay Wain painting, the artist managed to retain the fresh realism of the sketches in a large finished picture. He also made an oil study for the same, which was nearly about the size of the finished work, with a greater boldness and freedom, as if there is expressive power in the final work. However, according to Kenneth Clark, he added more qualities in his final version- like the range of color was enlarged, the planes and distances were firmer, and the composition was more classical and logical with slower rhythms, hence constituting a beautiful realistic picture from his boyhood days, where he achieved peace.
There is a lot more about the painting, like the letters where he described the artwork and the historical context of the artwork, which we will learn in later sections of the article.
6. Location.
The Hay Wain by John Constable is located in the National Gallery, London.
7. Technique and Medium.
The medium of the painting is oil on canvas. Constable first made numerous small studies in pencil, pen, chalk, watercolor, and oil paint and then used them as references while painting a larger version or simply The Hay Wain. Referring to these images, he called them “hasty memorandums.” With such great accuracy, he sketched even the clouds with great perfection for different seasons, times of the day, and wind directions through the blending, thick-scumbled color, and intricate linework.
One of the French art critics, Charles Nodier, saw The Hay Wain by John Constable at the R.A. exhibition of 1821, and he wrote how Constable’s work can be seen better from a distance, adding few words,
“it is water, air, and sky; it is Ruisdael, Wouwermans, or Constable.”
He further added that a few paintings of Constable are similar to Ruisdael’s art, specializing in portraying densely wooded landscapes with forest paths, enlivened by windmills or watermills with a time cloud in extensive skies.
| Artist | John Constable |
| Year Painted | 1821 |
| Genre | Landscape Painting |
| Period | Romanticism |
| Medium | Oil on canvas |
| Dimensions | 51.2 x 72.8 in |
| Price | Not for Sale (First Sold to a dealer in Paris Salon in 1824 with two other paintings for £250). |
| Where is it housed? | National Gallery, London |
Now that you have a brief information about the painting, The Hay Wain, let us finally move on to its detailed analysis.
Detailed Description of The Hay Wain.
About the Artist: John Constable.
Born in 1776, as the fourth child of the Golding and Ann Constable, John Constable belonged to an economically thriving family. His family had land, and a milling and trade business, which gave them a prominent place in the local community. John spent his childhood with his family in the village of East Bergholt, Suffolk, which was one of the group of villages above the valley of River Stour. All these villages near this river valley are familiar to us through the drawings of Constable. In his own words, he said,
“These scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful; the sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc, willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.”
As Constable turned sixteen or seventeen, he joined the family business but his desire to become a professional painter never stopped. Fortunately, he was encouraged to paint by a local amateur painter, John Dunthorne, who was a plumber and glazier. When Constable was a boy, he often accompanied Dunthorne on his sketching sessions in the countryside surroundings, hence it is confirmed that Dunthorne was Constable’s first informal art master. However, in 1795, Mrs Constable obtained an introduction to one of the leading collectors and amateur artists of England, Sir George Howland Beaumont. Then, in the following year, his uncle Thomas Allen made him meet two first professional artists- engraver John Thomas Smith and painter John Cranch. In a sketchbook from 1796, Constable introduces us to his thirteen early drawings in pen and ink, which were sent to John Thomas Smith. This was how Smith and Cranch meetings affected him to lead one more step towards being a professional artist. In 1799, Constable’s father asked him to apply to the R.A. Schools, but his development towards artistry was slow. It was because he always painted with his own ideas on nature and he deeply conflicted too much with the academic theories of landscapes and other genres, which were taught in the 1800s. On 29 May 1802, he wrote to John Dunthorne that he had been learning about landscape art from other painters and that he had been,
“seeking the truth at second hand… I shall shortly return to Bergholt where I shall make some laborious studies from nature- and I shall endeavor to get a pure and unaffected representation of the scenes… with respect to color particularly.”
Now that we know a little brief about the artist’s early life, let us move toward the historical context of the painting, The Hay Wain.
Historical Background of the Painting.
John Constable met his friend Fishers and stayed at his place in around 1820, following their move to the Leadenhall, a house in the corner of the Cathedral Close at the Salisbury. By this time, Constable had two children, John Charles, who was born in 1817, and Maria Louisa who was born in 1819. Fisher invited them to their home through a letter saying,
“Mrs Fisher is delighted with the thoughts of seeing Mrs Constable and her little boy. Bring your babe with you: we have plenty of room.”
It was during this time that he painted ‘A View at Salisbury from Archdeacon Fisher’s House.’ The composition remained informal which suggests that the artist painted the composition out of his leisure and not as a further painting in mind. Following this year, early in June 1821, the artist toured Berkshire with Fisher. It was a busy year as he completed the painting, The Hay Wain, in time for the R.A. summer exhibition. During this time, he settled into his new home in Hampstead. However, we do know that the summer exhibition didn’t bring a lot of attraction to the Constable’s Hay Wain.
One of the famous Parisian art dealers, John Arrowsmith visited London in the spring of 1821 with a particular intent of looking at contemporary English paintings.
One of the important paintings on exhibition was Landscape: Noon – The Hay Wain which was shown but not sold and had the price of £157. To this, Constable wrote to Fisher on 13 April,
“I have had some nibbles at my large picture (The Hay Wain) at the Galler. I have had a professional offer of £70 for it (without the frame) to form part of an exhibition in Paris- to show them the nature of English art. I hardly know what to do- it may promote my fame and procure commissions, but it may not. It is property to my family- though I want the money dreadfully.”
On 17 April, when he decided against selling the picture to Arrowsmith, he again wrote a letter to Fisher,
“It is too bad to allow myself to be knocked down by a Frenchman. In short, it would fetch my family something one time or another and it would be disgracing my RA diploma to take so small a price and less by over one-half than I asked.”
However, the French art critic, Arrowsmith visited London again in early 1824 of which Constable wrote to Fisher again,
“The Frenchman who was after my large picture of the Hay Cart last year is here about it again- he would I believe have both that and The Bridge (the View on the Stour, near Dedham) if he could have them both at his own price. He has made me offers for that one or both… His object is to make a show of them in Paris, perhaps to my advantage- for a prophet is not known in his own country… He most desires that as it has already a great reputation in Paris… He assures me that it will become the property of the French nation- and will be in the Louvre the ensuing exhibition…’
So, Constable sold the two paintings to Arrowsmith for £250, writing again to Fisher,
“cannot fail of melting the stony hearts of the French painters. Think of the lovely valleys mid the peaceful farmhouses of Suffolk, forming a scene of exhibition to amuse the gay and frivolous Parisians.”
And when The Hay Wain painting exhibited at the Paris Salon, it literally made a stir as it became so famous that there were huge commission orders for Constable. One of the art dealers, Claude Schronth ordered his three Hampstead views and Arrowsmith brought more, which led Constable to accumulate nearly £600. So the painting which got nothing from the R.A exhibition broke all the records when exhibited at the Paris Salon. Another French critic who noticed Constable’s work, Charles Nodier, wrote in his journal Promenade de Dieppe aux Montagnes d’Ecosse that The Hay Wain was one of the best paintings in the R.A. 1821 exhibition. Another French Critic, Stendhal who disliked the work of Sir Thomas Lawrence (the top Portraitist of London) wrote a series of 8 articles on what he loved about The Hay Wain. Some of his lines were,
“On the other hand the English have sent us some magnificent landscapes this year by Monsieur Constable. I doubt if we have anything to compare with them. The truth of these charming works instantly strikes and delights us. Monsieur Constable’s brushwork is excessively free and the planes of his pictures are carelessly observed. He has no idea, but his delightful landscape with the god on the left is the mirror of nature, and it completely outshines a large landscape by Monsieur Watelet hanging next to it in the main gallery.”
Understanding the Meaning of The Hay Wain.
The artwork portrays the emotional sentiment of the artist towards his boyhood days when he used to live in East Bergholt, Suffolk, near River Stour. The beauty of nature and slow life engrossed him for long. So, The Hay Wain is a composition to portray these messages to a wide audience in times of rapid industrialization, which changed the lives of the nation.
Subject Matter and Dominant Elements.
Before we move into learning the painting through a detailed subject-matter analysis, let me first give you a few insights into the artist’s views on landscape paintings from his recorded lectures.
One of Constable’s favorite examples of landscape painting was Titian’s Peter Martyr, which he considered,
“the foundation of all the styles of landscape in every school of Europe in the following century.”
And there were other works besides him, which were of high praise, like Poussin’s Deluge, The Rainbow Landscape by Rubens, and The Mill by Rembrandt. Now, this was significant because of the technique used in Chiaroscuro. He writes,
“Chiaroscuro is the great feature that characterizes his art and was carried further by him than by any other painter, not excepting Corregio.”
Now, let us move on to the subject matter analysis of the painting.
At the center of the painting, the viewer sees a hay wain or a traditional wooden hay cart, which appears to have been seen in many seasons. There are two agricultural workers in the cart, adding a human interest to the scene and suggesting a way of life with tunes of nature. It is crossing the river at a ford and probably took the path so that the horses can drink water or check if the wooden wheels are fitted properly. The collars of the horse have a red color, which is unusual for the working horse. Constable used similar red color splashes in the fields to intensify the lush green of the fields and foliage; the fisherman by the boat in the foreground has a red neckerchief, reapers wears a red sash and tiny clump of poppies in the bottom left-hand corner of the painting.
Seeing the summer sky, which is wide stretched and portrays the fine weather of the summer-hay-making season, Constable exaggerated it through moving clouds. To the left of the painting, there is Willy Lott’s cottage, whose location is still the same. The artist’s father rented it to the tenant farmer, Willy Lott. The cottage shows the farmer’s presence indoors as the chimney smoke rises. Now, there are specks of white, brown, and red paint in the distant field which shows the laborers harvesting the hay by hand with scythes. There is a use of the chiaroscuro technique on the field, which suggests the changing patterns of the sky.
Further, on the left side of the river near the cottage, a woman kneels towards the water, but it is unclear whether she is washing clothes because a terracotta jug stands behind her. A working rural community such as this illustrates a part of domestic life through her inclusion in the landscape. Furthermore, a dog stands at the water’s edge finishing the painting as an important element in the painting and directing our gaze towards the animal, hinting at a narrative. The painting is also dotted with small white specks, giving the impression that light is reflecting from the surface.
Formal Analysis of The Hay Wain.
1. Light and Color.
The painting has only one actual light source, which is in the overcast sky. However, the light is scattered and mostly diffused by the clouds with direct sunlight patches as it overthrows light on the grass in the distance. The Hay Wain by John Constable is fairly darker with a high note of Impressionism. As the upside sky is lighter, the landscape is more darker at the same time, tightly compressing simply the composition. The colors chosen are mostly restrained and muted with saturated colors on the small areas, highlighting the entire landscape. The red color is vivid cadmium red to draw your absolute attention. With the patches of sunlight, the artist creates further depth in the artwork.
2. Shape.
The Hay Wain painting has organic as well as rigid shapes. Like if you look at the cloudy sky, the trees, and overstretched lands, these are organic shapes, whereas the bullock and cottage are rigid shapes. Finally, in the contusion between two larger trees, there is a small area which is also called negative space, usually done by any artist to provide a great sense of depth in the composition.
Conclusion and Opinions.
The Hay Wain is a masterpiece that changed the entire career of the artist through a single French exhibition. What’s most interesting are the letters exchanged between Fisher and Constable, depicting more of his inside life, giving exclusive details on his artworks, techniques, personal life, and more. Now, I have briefly introduced you to The Hay Wain, but to read more of the relevance, you can always refer to the book- Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (Linked in the resources).
Resources.
- Great Paintings: The World’s Masterpieces Explored and Explained by Karen Hosack James.
- John Constable: The Man and His Art by Ronald Parkinson.
- John Constable by Phoebe Pool.
- Memoirs of the Life of John Constable by C R Leslie.
- Featured Image: The Hay Wain by John Constable, John Constable, Public Domain, Via Wikimedia Commons.
Frequently Asked Questions.
The Hay Wain is not romantic rather it shows a nostalgia for the old mesmerizing landscapes of the British countryside where the artist spent his boyhood. Being made as an emotional resentment to the changing periods of industrialization, it takes back to the imagined pastoral life.
The Hay Wain was first sold along with two other paintings by John Constable for £250. However, there is not a right amount to guess about the painting’s worth today.
The Hay Wain depicts a wagon with two people in it, crossing the shallow water to cross the river. There are other things in the painting, like a woman washing on the left side of the painting, a cottage, long overstretched vast green lands, and a dog with an everchanging cloudy sky.
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