See the pictures at your iphone; enjoy Greek Mythology; more understand Greek Mythology
#2265018 in eBooks 2014-08-20 2014-08-20File Name: B00QOBM8I6
Review
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful. an engaging chronicle of Constables private lifeBy hmf22Anthony Baileys biography of John Constable is; I believe; the first full-scale biography of Constable in over a century. Bailey did a fine job of sifting through the sources and constructing a meticulous account of Constables private life; yet this book is more of a chatty chronicle than a rigorous analysis of Constables life and work. Reading it; I learned something about Constables education; his relationships with patrons and other artists; and his experience of marketing his paintings; a great deal about his relations with his siblings; children; and housecats; and more than I really wanted to know about his prolonged; tedious courtship of Maria Bicknell; yet I did not learn much more about his painting than I could have gotten from Wikipedia or Smarthistory or other readily accessible websites. The book includes color plates of some of Constables paintings; but these plates are neither dated nor keyed to the text. In fact; the selection of plates doesnt match up to the text very well--some of the paintings that are discussed in the text do not appear as illustrations; and some of the paintings that do appear on the color plates are not; as far as I could determine; discussed in the text. Flipping back and forth between the not very illuminating text and the not very well-organized or well-labeled plates got on my nerves after a while.I was also troubled by Baileys tendency to romanticize his subject. For example; when describing how Constable; aged 24; met his future wife; aged 12; for the first time; Bailey writes: "Constable was twenty-four and Maria half his age . . . He may not have recognized the spark that flashed--he might even have been horrified by any flicker of erotic impulse--but something happened; it is visible in the painting he made of young Maria apparently about this time. . . Maria at that age could not have had a conscious sense of what was to come. And yet between painter and sitter a current passed" (27). The painting--which isnt firmly dated and apparently isnt even firmly identified as a picture of Maria--shows a pretty; impish-looking young girl with her hand on her hip. The sitters personality comes across decidedly; but it seems a stretch for Bailey to deduce from this painting; and from the fact that painter and putative sitter got married about sixteen years later; that Constable was attracted to his adolescent subject when he made the painting. This is one of several places in which I felt that Bailey sensationalized his material in order to make a good story.Overall; this is an entertaining read; rich in personal information; but not a very rewarding choice for someone who seeks to understand Constable as a painter.
