The Hay-Wain, and
Hampstead Heath, both at present in the National Gallery, London, were
of the three, and excited the greatest enthusiasm among the group of
young painters who, with Delacroix at their head, were warring against
the academic rule imposed by David. Constable's work thenceforward was
the dominant influence in France, and from it can be directly traced
the great group of landscape painters which we to-day miscall the
"Barbizon" school.
It is pleasant to recall that official honor--the first which he
received--came to Constable by the award of the great gold medal of
the Salon at this time. For a number of years after this he sent his
work to the successive Salons. Pecuniary success, such as fell to the
lot of Turner, was never his; the first painter who looked at nature
in the open air "through his temperament," as Zola aptly expresses it,
was perforce contented to live a modest life at Hampstead, happy in
his work, grateful to nature who disclosed so many of her secrets to
him.
[Illustration: THE "FIGHTING TEMERAIRE" TUGGED TO HER LAST BERTH.
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