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City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
surroundings. Paintings that today are some of the most
valuable in the world. In 1799, impressed by his clear
talent, his father agreed to his attending classes at the
Royal Academy in London.
John Constable was very aware of the work of Thomas
Gainsborough, who had been born just a few miles
away in the town of Sudbury and had died when John
Constable was 12 years old.
“I fancy I see Gainsborough under every hedge and
hollow tree”
wrote Constable when he was 23. Both artists were by
their nature landscape painters at a time when it was
portrait painting that brought in the money.
Gainsborough painted over 500 portraits of the English
aristocracy, but left behind just 200 landscape
canvasses.
Landscape painting was very unfashionable in the 18
th
century when the noble art of history painting reigned
supreme closely followed by portraits of themselves
commissioned and paid for by the aristocracy.
Sir
Joshua Reynolds, first President of the Royal Academy
said sniffily "A mere copier of nature can never produce
anything great." Both Gainsborough and Constable had
difficult relationships with the Academy, Constable
once had to button his lip while a member of the RA
rejected one of his paintings on the grounds of it being
"a nasty green thing". In the end he wasn’t elected
a full academician until he was 53 years old and
even then it was by just one vote.
If you’re quick you could organize a coach to take
your group to see the Royal Academy exhibition
Constable, Turner, Gainsborough and the
Making of Landscape
exhibition during its short
run from 8 December 2012 until17 February 2013.
The exhibition will present works by the three
towering figures of English landscape painting -
John Constable RA, Thomas Gainsborough RA
and JMW Turner RA - and will explore the
development of the British school of landscape
painting. The display will include 150 works of art,
including paintings, prints, books and archival
material. (from £7.00pp for senior citizens).
But the beautiful landscapes painted by Constable
and Gainsborough are there for us to enjoy all year
round
.
We offer two itineraries that will show
something of this part of England.
An East Anglian Panorama
is a Together tour
with morning coffee and lunch in Long Melford
and an afternoon in Lavenham.
A Taste of Suffolk begins at Constable’s birthplace
village of East Bergholt before going off the beaten
track to the Shotley Peninsula stopping for a fish
and chips lunch at the marina. For the afternoon we
visit the Suffolk Food Hall and either Flatford Mill
or Dedham, the choice is yours.