The Cornfield

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The Cornfield: John Constable

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Art Type: Oil Painting
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John Constable Oil Painting - The Cornfield

Keywords: Cornfield

Work Overview: The Cornfield
1826
John Constable
Oil on canvas
143 x 122 cm

The Cornfield is an oil-on-canvas painting by the English artist John Constable. It was finished in 1826 and was first exhibited at the Royal Academy that same year. It measures 143 by 122 cm. It is in the National Gallery, London.

Constable referred to the painting as The Drinking Boy. It shows a lane leading from East Bergholt towards Dedham, Essex.

The title seems first to have been used by the subscribers who presented the picture to the National Gallery. Constable referred to it familiarly as 'The Drinking Boy'. It probably shows a lane leading from East Bergholt towards Dedham; the distant church could be an invention.

The painting was exhibited several times during Constable's lifetime, first at the Royal Academy in 1826.

In this wonderful landscape, Constable departs from his usual river scene to paint a path through a dense wood, leading out to a field ripe with grain. In England, all grain is called "corn," hence the name of the painting is The Cornfield. It is not, of course our corn, which the British call maize, or Indian corn.

Constable's touch of red, this time, is found on the vest of a young shepherd who has temporarily abandoned his sheep to the care of the dog, while he crouches down on his stomach to examine a little creek, and perhaps take a drink. The sheep are hidden in the shadows, as are the workers in the field beyond, who are cutting down the ripened grain.

Despite the care with which Constable has composed the scene -- the artful arches of the trees and the glaring sunlight on the grain are outstanding -- the impression is of a "spot of time," a unique glimpse that will never return. This was Constable's aim: to show nature and humans in a moment of time.

The Cornfield is, today, one of Constable’s best-known works. It was also the first of his pictures to enter a public collection. Shortly after his death in 1837, a committee was set up to subscribe towards the purchase of a painting for the nation, and The Cornfield was bought for the National Gallery for 300 guineas. The list of subscribers included the poet William Wordsworth, the scientist Michael Faraday, and several artists.

This print of the subject was published in 1834, and was a great commercial success. However, Constable never found a buyer for the painting during his own lifetime.

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John Constable

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