John Constable is a British artist best known for his paintings of English landscapes. Constable was born on 11 June 1776 in East Bergholt, Suffolk, UK, and died on 31 March 1837 in London.
Constable's father, Golding Constable, was successful miller. Instead of joining his father's business (though he did work there a little while) Constable entered the Royal Academy in London to study art when he was 22. He first exhibited his paintings in 1802, but struggled to be successful. He was elected to be a Royal Academician only in 1829, only eight years before he died.
Constable's work is characterised by free, vigorous brushstrokes and the use of a palette knife to creature texture. (To his contemporaries, the result looked some-what 'unfinished'!) Around 1818 he started working on canvases six feet and larger, in an attempt to have his work noticed at the Royal Academy. He first did full-size preparatory sketches for each large paintings.
Perhaps his best-known painting is The Haywain (or haywagon), which was painted in 1821 and won him a gold medal at the Paris Salon in 1824. It's now held in the National Gallery in London.
