The amazing Constable

I went to see the John Constable exhibition on tour here at Te Papa on Saturday. What I saw was simply breathtaking. I could have spent the whole day there looking at the paintings again and again. Constable was the son of a prosperous miller and spent a long period of his life around the place he grew up in and painted the scenes of his everyday life with such clarity and such beauty. He evidently loved the place and the love comes through in his paintings. His paintings have a three-dimensional quality and standing in front of them makes you feel like you are actually there watching the scene through the painter's eyes. You are transported back to the place and time almost two centuries ago looking at pastoral scenes or ships in the harbour or London in the distance, thinking 'this is how it was, this is how the painter saw it'. And any moment you expect the leaves to move or the water to start flowing, such is the dynamism in the paintings. Truly a memorable experience.