Constable: A Country Rebel

Alastair Sooke explores the life of landscape painter John Constable, who, despite not being as celebrated in England during his time, is now lauded as having birthed modern Impressionism., The Haywain by John Constable is such a comfortingly familiar image of rural Britain that it’s difficult for us to believe it was ever regarded as a revolutionary painting, but in this film, made in conjunction with a landmark exhibition at the V&A, Alastair Sooke discovers that Constable was painting in a way that was completely new and groundbreaking at the time. Through experimentation and innovation he managed to make a sublime art from humble things and though he struggled in his own country during his lifetime, his genius was surprisingly widely admired in France.