Page:Constable by C. J. Holmes.djvu/35

 slowly from the valleys to melt before the rising sun, which is still low down on the horizon, so that the trees cast only obscure shadows over the sloping fields. The impression left by this infinite space and solemnity makes one almost wish that Constable had never painted otherwise.

I have mentioned these pictures at some length, because they afford a clue to the great improvement in technical skill which was henceforward characteristic of Constable's work. He continued to accept commissions for copying and portrait-painting for some years, from the wish to make an income that would enable him to claim Miss Bicknell's hand, and at one time seems to have thought well of his chances of success; for in 1812 he writes that his portrait of the Rev. George Bridgman "far excels any of my former attempts in that way, and is doing me a great deal of service. My price for a head is fifteen guineas, and I am tolerably expeditious when I can have fair play at my sitter." At the close of the year his mother writes to him: "Fortune seems now to place the ball at your feet, and I trust you will not kick it from you. You now so greatly excel in portraits that I hope you will pursue a path the most likely to bring you fame and wealth, by which you can alone expect to obtain the object of your fondest wishes." However, the sale of two landscapes in 1814 seems to have decided Constable in clinging to the branch of his profession that he really liked, and from that time forward he made but occasional experiments in portrait-painting.

Nevertheless, the time he had spent on it was by no means ill spent. Portrait-painting is good practice for a landscape painter, both because it forces him to treat a simple subject with close attention, and because it is the branch of art which has the most sound and definite technical traditions. In this latter respect it was specially useful to Constable, who had hitherto approached nature with more enthusiasm than science. After 1810 that accusation could no longer be levelled against him. His science, of course, cannot be compared with the science of a Van Dyck or a Velasquez, but it was at least great enough to enable him to do readily what he wanted to do. Look, for example, at his two little pictures of Bergholt Churchyard—one at Kensington, and the other in the Tate Gallery—and note how the solemnity of the one, the pathos of the other, and exquisite colour in each, are got by the most simple straightforward painting. The fine oil-study, 15