What painting was executed by John Constable as a memorial to Sir Joshua Reynolds?
“The Cenotaph”
English master John Constable often painted his landscapes out of doors; this experience helped him develop a direct and free painting style, which in turn influenced the next generation of artists known as the French Realists.
Constable created his work entitled “Cenotaph to the Memory of Sir Joshua Reynolds, erected in the grounds of Coleorton Hall, Leicestershire, by the late Sir George Beaumont” (1833) in two renditions: first in pencil and gray wash, and then in oil. The two works differ not only in their medium but also in their details. Not shown in the drawing but included in the painting are two pedestals with the busts of masters Raphael and Michelangelo, which are part of Beaumont’s shrine in the grounds of Coleorton Hall. Beaumont's sanctuary in the trees memorializes the role of British art in the Renaissance.
Sir Beaumont was a patron of the arts and an amateur painter himself. He assembled a collection of paintings, first those done by his acquaintances and then, after extensive travel, extended his acquisitions to Old Master paintings. Beaumont welcomed certain sympathetic artists, including John Constable, to study the Old Masters in his collection.
This dramatic picture by Constable seems to show the presence of a departed spirit felt in the air and among the dark brown and matted wild trees. The deer that pauses to look back at the viewer, startled in its wanderings through the landscape, seems like a spirit, perhaps that of Joshua Reynolds himself. The painting's somber portrayal stems from its purpose of seeking homage to Reynolds, a major figure in the art world who had been dead for forty years.
According to Mary Sturge Gretton in “Constable’s Life,” the cenotaph, or monument, built by Sir Beaumont as a dedication to Joshua Reynolds, includes these lines of poetry by Wordsworth inscribed on the back:
- Hence in my patrimonial grounds have I / Raised this frail tribute to his memory; / From youth a zealous follower of the art / That he profess’d, attach’d to him in heart; / Admiring, loving, and with grief and pride / Feeling what England lost when Reynolds died.
Constable viewed Reynolds, the first president of the Royal Academy, as a sympathetic figure with an intellect he could relate to. Reynolds, the neo-classical art theorist, insisted that Classical art should be studied not as an end in itself but "to attain the real simplicity of Nature,” a sensibility Constable identified with.
In making this drawing, and the related painting, Constable was paying tribute to both men: Joshua Reynolds and Sir Beaumont. Today the painting resides in the National Gallery, London.
Sources:
- Bailey, Colin J. The Art Quiz Book: 2000+ Questions on Painters and Paintings. Station Press: Scotland, 1995.
- Gretton, M. Sturge. Constable. Scribner: New York, 1905.
- Grove Dictionary of Art. Oxford University Press, 2008.
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