]
By a public which was used to the conventional tones of the older
painters, and which understood or was interested in Turner's daring
variations on the theme of classical landscape, these fresh, simple
pictures which to-day look so natural to us were regarded with
distrust. Not even the shepherd, much less the warrior or the demigod,
inhabited these quiet scenes. A picture which any rural gentleman
could see from his front door, smacked too little of art for the
modish town. Moreover, Constable, no doubt sighing for something
lighter and more brilliant, was accustomed, in a vain effort to rival
the clear light of out-of-doors, to use the lightest colors of his
palette. On a varnishing day at the Royal Academy, the word was passed
around among the astonished painters that in portions of his picture
of the year Constable had actually used pure white!
In 1829, however, the world moving, Constable was elected to
membership in the Royal Academy. The most notable triumph of his
life, though, befell seven years earlier, in 1822, when he sent three
pictures to be exhibited in the Salon in Paris.
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