Page:An Elementary History of Art.djvu/658

 628 Painting James Stark (1794 — 1859), who was an able follower of Crome, and sent pictures to many of the London Exhibitions. His views of the " scenery of the Yare and Waveney " were engraved by Goodall, Cookes and others. George Vincent (fl. ab. 1811 — 1862), famous for his sun- light effects, and John Sell Cotman (1782 — 1842), known for his landscapes and sea-pieces, and his engravings of architectural views. None of these artists are represented in the National Gallery : but works by them were shown at the "Old Masters" in 1878. John Constable (1776 — 1837) was pre-eminently an English painter ; a most faithful exponent of English cultivated scenery — a branch of landscape neglected even by Turner. Like Crome, Constable required but few materials for the production of his finest works; his Hampstead Heath (No. 36 in the South Kensington Museum, — which contains a good collection of his land- scapes) is merely a country view, with two donkeys in the foreground, but it is instinct with thought and feeling, and betrays the most earnest study of nature. Constable delighted in painting the sun high in the heavens, and his works are mostly pervaded by a luminous glow of light, and are, moreover, remarkable for brilliancy of colouring, truth and harmony of tone, and thorough mastery of the infinite variety of misty atmospheric effects peculiar to the showery English climate. The influence of Constable is very marked in the works of Leslie and others of his English cotemporaries ; and the exhibition of his Ray -wain at Paris in 1824 is thought to have had much influence on the French school of landscape painting, which has now risen into such great importance. There are four of his best pictures, including the Cornfield