Page:Bryan's dictionary of painters and engravers, volume 1.djvu/487

 year 1650. His plates consist chiefly of portraits, part of which are from his own designs. They possess great merit, and some of them are success- ful imitations of the style of Lucas Vorstermans. The following are his principal prints :

PORTRAITS.

Christopher Lore. Jacob Triglande, professor of Theology at Leyden. Thomas Maiirois, of Canterbury, ecclesiastic at Amsterdam ; after D. Boudringhen. Godefroid Hotton, Pastor of the French Church at Amsterdam ; after H. Mermans ; very fine. The Flagellation ; after A. Diepenbeeck. The Crucifixion ; after the same.

CONRAD, Carl Emanuel, an architectural painter, was bom at Berhn in 1810, and instructed first in that city, aod afterwards at Diisseldorf. the Academy of which town he attended from 1835 till 1839. Both in this institution and at the Real-Bchule he gave instruction in perspective to young artists, and received the title of professor, the Order of the Red Eagle, and a medal from the Pope. Hi painted buildings of the middle ages, with land- scape surroundings, such as ' The Church of St. Quirinus in Neuss,' ' The Cloister of St. Severinus in Cologne ' (1837), ' The Cathedral of Mayence ' (1841), 'Custom House in London' (1852), 'Views of Cologne Cathedral,' &c. He also executed some excellent acquatints, as ' Pius IX. in his Cabinet,' and ' An Assemblage at Sigmaringen in the Olden Time ' (1872). He died at Cologne in 1873.

CONRADER. See Konrader.

CONSCIENCE, Francois Astoise, a French painter of animals, who always exhibited under the name of Francis. He was bom at Besanyon in 1795, became a pupil of Guerin, and died at Luxeuil in 1840.

CONSETTI, Antonio, an Italian historical painter, who was born at Modena in 1686, and died in 1766, is represented in the Estense Gallery, in his native city, by 'The Virgin of the Rosary with St. Dominic,' and 'St Joseph and Angels.'

CONSORTI, Bernardo, an Italian line-engraver, was bom at Rome about 1785. He engraved the 'Holy Family with the Family of St. John ' after Garofalo, the ' Entombment ' lifter Van Dyck, and ' Psyche ' and other sculpture after Canova.

CONSTABLE, John, one of the greatest realistic landscape painters of England, was born at East Bergholt, in Suffolk, on the 11th of June, 1776. It is recorded that he was so weakly at Ids birth, that he was baptized on the same day. He was sent to school at Lavenham and afterwards to Dedham, where, it is said, the boy was distinguished for little more than his penmanship. His father, a wealthy miller, at first intended him to enter the Church, but as he had no taste for theological studies, the old man changed his mind, and determined that his son should follow his own trade ; and, although the youth showed a decided taste for painting, he would on no account hear of his making that a profession. John, how- ever, made friends with a village plumber and glazier, of the name of Dunthbme, who was an enthusiast in art, and these two used to study painting in the fields ; and thus it was that he took his study from the books of nature. As Constable grew up, he was known from his good looks and fine figure as the ' handsome miller ' ; and when he was eighteen years of age, he spent a year, under the pretext of carrying on his business as a miller, in observing the picturesque effects of the heavens and the earth, and copying the drawings of Girtin, which had been lent to him by Sir George Beaumont.

In 1795, Sir George's patronage and his own unmistakable genius for art, induced his parents to allow him to go to London to study painting. Shortly afterwards, however, he was recalled to his native village, where he for some time shared his father's labours ; and it was not until 1799 that he revisited London. In the same year he was admitted as a student into the Royal Academy, and he received some instruction from Farrington and Reinagle, and painted a few por- traits, and attempted historical subjects ; but his true instructor was Nature, and his true branch of art was landscape painting ; and in the year 1802 one of his landscapes was included in the Royal A' ademy Exhibition.

During the following years he stayed in the Buuimer months in the country, " living nearly always in the fields, and seeing nobody but field labourers," and sent to the Royal Academy and the British Institution numerous landscapes and studies. He was twice induced to paint an altar-piece : one, 'Christ blessing little Children,' f or Brantham Church, in 180-1, and the other, 'Our Saviour blessing the bread and wine,' for Nayland Church, in 1809 ; but it is believed that he never again attempted sacred subjects.

The whole life of Constable is a testimony to his preference for the study of nature : his letters to Archdeacon Fisher, of Salisbury, and to his old friend, John Dunthorne, are full of delicate observ- ations on the subject, and show a fresh appreciation of the qualities of the country and the various methods of landscape painting. The more his talent was developed, the greater became his wish to depart from the popular style of classical painting at that time in vogue, and to observe directly all the different aspects of nature.

Though a hard worker, it appears that Constable met with little success for manyyears, and in 1811 he was still without reputation, except among a few friends ; some of whom were Sir George Beaumont, Reinagle, Bishop Fisher, and Miss Mary Bicknell, whom he married, secretly, in 1816. But in the year 1819 Constable was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy, and ten years afterwards an Ac.idemician.

About this time Constable's pictures began to gain notoriety, and a French speculator, who had bought three at the Royal Academy, sent them to the Paris Salon in 1824. These were 'The Hay Cart,' a ' View near London,' and ' The Lock on the Stour.' These pictures were much admired at Paris ; the native artists were astonished at the power displayed in them, and the King of the French awarded Constable a gold medal. In the year 1827, ' The Corn-Field,' one of his masterpieces, was exhibited at the British Institution, where it held its own even in the neighbourhood of works by Claude and Cuyp.

In the same year Constable took up his abode at Hampstead, his dear Hampstead, his sweet Hampstead, as he called it. He says, "My little studio commands a view without an equal in all Europe." Here he loved to sketch, and the neighbourhood furnished him with many studies for his pictures, as did also Osmington, the birthplace of his wife, and Salisbury, the residence of his friend Fisher. He continued to send many contributions to the