JAMES HAMILTON

ONE OF THE TIMES AND SUNDAY TIMES' BEST BOOKS FOR 2022'Eye-opening and full of surprises . . .A treasure' Sunday Times'A biography as rich with colourful characters as any novel' TelegraphJohn Constable, the revolutionary nineteenth-century painter of the landscapes and skies of southern England, is Britain's best-loved but perhaps least understood artist. His paintings reflect visions of landscape that shocked and perplexed his contemporaries: attentive to detail, spontaneous in gesture, brave in their use of colour. What we learn from his landscapes is that Constable had sharp local knowledge of Suffolk, a clarity of expression of the skyscapes above Hampstead, an understanding of the human tides in London and Brighton, and a rare ability in his late paintings of Salisbury Cathedral to transform silent suppressed passion into paint.