John Constable, 1821, Oil On Canvas, National Gallery, London.
When I first saw John Constable’s The Hay Wain, I was overwhelmed by its sheer size, which had the effect of making me feel I was immersed in this idyllic landscape scene. The Hay Wain is one painting in a series of large-scale six-footers created by Constable; the English landscape painter composed these enormous paintings displaying scenes along the River Stour for summer exhibitions at the Royal Academy. They were lauded for their keen representation of nature.
In this piece a hay wain, which is a simple wooden wagon used to transfer hay, and a young boy in a shallow stream draw our eye into the composition. Our gaze then drifts to the left to a brick cottage before sweeping over to the lush trees and sun-drenched field, and finally up to the cumulus clouds. Constable moves our eyes from the warm tones of the foreground to the greener tones of the middle ground and then to the cooler tones of the background. Throughout the composition the interplay between light and shadow is brilliant, bringing the scene to life.
Constable painted this during the Industrial Revolution in the early nineteenth century, when more and more people were moving to the cities looking for a supposedly better life. This period of industrialization began in Great Britain and spread throughout the world; it involved a transitioning from hand power to machines, making liberal use of steam power. Many rural, agricultural people found themselves without jobs since machines reduced the need for manpower to harvest crops or raise farm animals. Uprisings occurred in many rural communities due to job losses. Even people who moved from poor agricultural areas to cities in search of work sadly remained poor since work hours were long and wages were meager.
Artists like Constable turned to the genre of the landscape as an escape from this new reality of the crowded urban life. Constable wanted to present the viewer with scenes of beauty and simplicity via paintings one could melt into. His oil paintings were a breath of fresh air during a time of revolutionary transformation. They still inspire a reverence for nature and simplicity today.
Natural tones are predominant in The Hay Wain, creating a soothing effect for the viewer’s eyes. The warm tones complement the cool tones of the stream and the lush foliage of the trees. The blue in the stream is echoed by the blue sky, and the red in the cottage is echoed slightly in the foliage. All these complementing gives harmony to the composition.
Let your eyes relax upon the water, trees, field, and sky. Do you feel your muscles relaxing? Your mind clearing? Stress melting away?
The Hay Wain is considered one of Constable’s most highly regarded paintings, with good reason. After all, we love to melt into a beautiful painting, to get lost in it. The Hay Wain is simple, calm, soothing, and sweet. It depicts a world that seems to have been left behind, in a natural setting we somehow yearn for. In a fast-paced world, scenes like this where nature predominates serve to ground us.