The Glebe Farm

After John Constable (British, 1776 - 1837)

Engraver David Lucas (British, 1802 - 1881)

Date1832

MediumMezzotint on paper

DimensionsOverall: 9 15/16 x 14in. (25.2 x 35.6cm)
Image: 5 3/4 x 8 13/16in. (14.6 x 22.4cm)

ClassificationsPRINTS

Credit LineGift of Edward W. Root

Terms

Object number53.140

Description

On View

Not on view

Collections

Graphic Arts

CopyrightNo known copyright restrictions.

Label TextConstable was one of England's greatest Romantic landscape painters. Towards the end of his career he undertook an ambitious project with the engraver David Lucas to produce a series of mezzotint prints after his own paintings. This venture, titled, "Various Subjects of Landscape Characteristic of English Scenery" occupied the last seven years of his life and was at least partially inspired by a similar suite of prints that his rival, the English landscape painter J.M.W Turner produced several decades earlier. Constable's use of the mezzotint medium was a happy choice in that the remarkably subtle range of tones Lucas produced in mezzotint fairly approximated the atmospheric qualities of Constable's paintings. He called this aspect of his paintings "the chiar'scuro of Nature." All the prints in Constable's series are freighted with important personal associations. The subject of this print, for example--a farm that yielded income for a clergyman of the Church of England--depicts the site where Constable met one of his most important patrons, Dr. John Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury. Constable referred to this as an event that "entirely influenced his future life." PDS February 2005