John Constable and the Theory of Landscape Painting - Tapa dura

"Ray Lambert's new book provides a fresh approach to the familiar territory of landscape studies and a rich investigation of the aesthetic and artistic practices of the English landscape painter John Constable." - Juilee Decker, Georgetown College

Ray Lambert provides a close study of Constable's landscapes and his writings about them. Displaying a high level of engagement with ideas on art and aesthetics that had decisive consequences for his style of painting, Constable's texts clearly reveal and adumbrate his views. They also give an indication of the artist's knowledge of scientific, poetic, and aesthetic ideas that were relevant to the creation of a serious landscape art as well as a theory of landscape. Linking these theories with those of Joshua Reynolds, Lambert demonstrates that Constable was an intellectual painter whose works are not a revolutionary break with the past. Moreover, his theory and practice place him within the great tradition of landscape painting in the West.