拍品专文
Constable spent seven weeks in the Lake District during the autumn of 1806. The earliest drawing is dated 1 September 1806 and the last 19 October. During this time he spent three weeks in Borrowdale. Stimulated by the scenery and the powerful feelings he experienced when confronted with the landscape he gradually discovered through his drawings ways of expressing these sensations and produced some of his finest work. Timothy Wilcox states of Constable's time in Borrowdale 'It was their seemingly endless variety, seen singly, in combination, or only in part, which detained Constable so long', The Solitude of the Mountains; Constable and the Lake District, exhibition catalogue, Cumbria, 2006, pp. 107-8. (see fig. 1).
In 1805 Constable had encountered the musician and amateur artist Dr William Crotch (1775-1847), who had shown him a series of Welsh landscapes by his teacher John Baptiste Malchair (1729-1812). The influence of these works can be seen in the broader, simpler style that Constable developed with an emphasis on contrasts of tone, Wilcox, op.cit., p. 132 '... he came to appreciate that the scenery demanded a stronger treatment, less complicated and more direct. The techniques Constable used were transformed... never before had he handled the pencil with such verve, blocking in large areas, yet varying the pressure to record the fall of light over the surfaces of hillsides and fields.'
Peter Bower suggests that the present drawing was executed on a sheet made by Richard Edmeads and John Pine, who worked in the Loose Valley, near Maidstone, Kent. Constable used several different papers during his visit to the Lake District, including three different Edmeads and Pine papers, Reynolds, op.cit., nos. 06.191, 06.192 and three Borrowdale subjects, nos. 06.204, 06.214 and 06.257.
In 1805 Constable had encountered the musician and amateur artist Dr William Crotch (1775-1847), who had shown him a series of Welsh landscapes by his teacher John Baptiste Malchair (1729-1812). The influence of these works can be seen in the broader, simpler style that Constable developed with an emphasis on contrasts of tone, Wilcox, op.cit., p. 132 '... he came to appreciate that the scenery demanded a stronger treatment, less complicated and more direct. The techniques Constable used were transformed... never before had he handled the pencil with such verve, blocking in large areas, yet varying the pressure to record the fall of light over the surfaces of hillsides and fields.'
Peter Bower suggests that the present drawing was executed on a sheet made by Richard Edmeads and John Pine, who worked in the Loose Valley, near Maidstone, Kent. Constable used several different papers during his visit to the Lake District, including three different Edmeads and Pine papers, Reynolds, op.cit., nos. 06.191, 06.192 and three Borrowdale subjects, nos. 06.204, 06.214 and 06.257.