art
John Constable Studying the English painter John Constable will be useful in our effort to understand the changing meaning of nature during the industrial revolution. He is, in fact, largely responsible for reviving the importance of landscape painting in the 19th century. A key event, when it is remembered that landscape would become the primary subject of the Impressionists later in the century. Landscape had had a brief moment of glory amongst the Dutch masters of the 17th century. Ruisdael, Rembrandt and others had devoted large canvases to the depiction of the low countries. But in the 18th century hierarchy of subject matter, landscape was nearly the lowest type of painting. Only still-life was considered less important. This would change in the first decades of the 19th century when Constable began to depict his father's farm on oversized six-foot long canvases.