Page:Constable by C. J. Holmes.djvu/36

 Trees and Cottages (1812) (No. 324), and the Sketch of a Cart and Horses (1814), show an increasing love for fresh cool colour and stronger contrasts of light and dark, though the finished picture of Boat-building, exhibited in 1815, looks like the work of some English Cuyp, so sound is the technique, so delicate is the scheme of tone and colour, so serene is the brightness of the sunlit air. One would hardly imagine that it was painted later than the brilliant sketch engraved by Lucas under the title of "Spring," but in judging the dates of Constable's work one always finds that the style of his oil-sketches anticipates that of his finished pictures by several years.

The small pencil study of Netley Abbey, belonging to the year 1816, seems to have been used by Constable for one of the few etchings by him of which proofs still remain. He had experimented with etching in the days of his friendship with "Antiquity" Smith, but acquired little or no mastery of the medium. One print in the British Museum, apparently a scene near Salisbury, is quite respectable amateur's work; but the Netley Abbey, which must have been done at a time when his painting was strong and sound, is an utterly feeble and worthless production. Its defects, too, are not due to any failures in the biting, but are caused by ineffective design, and more than indifferent workmanship: nor is the failure unique. There are a couple of water-colours in the British Museum, and several drawings at Kensington (all bequeathed by Miss Constable), which indicate clearly that except in his oil-painting Constable was never on perfectly safe ground, and was always liable to turn out work that was utterly unworthy of a professional artist.

Constable was now in his fortieth year, and in his next decade produced much of his very finest painting. I regret that I have not here the space to deal with it in detail. In the year 1817 he exhibited the noble Cottage in a Cornfield, and the brilliant sketch of A Cornfield, now in the National Gallery. He also made the small studies in sepia (at Kensington) and in oils (at Burlington House) for The Opening of Waterloo Bridge. I think the sound and careful Study of the Stem of an Elm Tree belongs to this period. Though rather more skilful, its technique is remarkably like that of the Flatford Mill in the National Gallery, which is dated 1817. In the following year the exquisite little picture in the Tate Gallery, The Salt Box, was probably painted—a view looking 16