This picture was given to the National Gallery by the painter's
children. It is possibly one of three pictures on which Constable
obtained the gold medal of the Paris Salon in 1822--the one which in
the Salon catalogue is entitled "A Canal." The other two were "The
Hay-Wain" (shown on the next page) and "Hampstead Heath," both now in
the National Gallery.]
This was henceforth the aim of his life; and from constant study
out of doors he learned that natural objects exist to our sight not
isolated, but in relation one to another; that the whole is more
important than a part; and that the bark of a tree, a minutely defined
plant, or a conscientiously geologically studied rock, may mar the
effect of a whole picture, while the scene to be represented has a
character of its own more subtle, more evanescent, but also infinitely
more true than any single element of which it is composed. More than
that, through living on such intimate terms with Mother Nature, he
learned to value the smiles of her sunshine, and to cunningly adjust
her cloud-veils when she frowned.
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