“ No one has painted English cloud effects so truthfully, or used them as a compositional quantity with so much skill. Though in looking at nature he was determined to see with his own eyes and not with those of any former master, he found that the science of his predecessors was necessary to him before his sketches could be translated into large pictures. In these pictures his vivid tones and fresh colour are grafted upon the formulae of Claude and Rubens, and it is a common error to regard Constable as an opponent of the great old masters. ”

“ As already indicated, the mature art of Constable did not develop till after the year 1811, when he began to combine the fresh colour of nature, which he had learned to depict by working in the open air, with the art of making a picture, which he had learned from painting portraits and copying those of other masters. ”

“ From boyhood he was devoted to painting, which he studied in his spare time in company with John Dunthorne, a local plumber and glazier. While working thus he made the acquaintance of Sir George Beaumont, a mediocre painter but a keen patron of the arts, and was inspired by the sight of Claude’s “Hagar and Ishmael” and by some drawings of Girtin which Sir George possessed. His passion for art increasing, he was allowed by his father to visit London in 1795 to consult the landscape-painter Joseph Farington, R. A. (1747–1821) , who recognized his originality and gave him some technical hints. ”