Artist field note

John Constable

A familiar place deserves the scale of history.

The Cornfield by John Constable
Art Institute of Chicago · Public domainSource ↗

04 / 05

The Cornfield

1826

A boy drinks beside a lane while sheep move toward the field. Tall trees gather the scene into shade before opening it toward sunlit distance.

The five in one idea

Constable made close attention to familiar ground a serious artistic argument: local places could sustain ambitious painting without borrowing a classical myth.