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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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John Constable
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(1776–1837) Painter whose largely uneventful life was devoted to capturing on canvas the natural landscape, with its flicker of light on leaf and water and grass. To this end he made hundreds of oil sketches, studying changes in the weather or in clouds, which he used when working up his large exhibition canvases. Though relatively unappreciated in his own time (he caused more of a stir in France than in England), his pictures now seem to offer the essential image of the English landscape, direct and rich in tone, free from the fashions of the *picturesque.
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His home was on the border between Suffolk and Essex (his father was a rich miller in East Bergholt), and his paintings of the river Stour, such as (The *Hay Wain, have immortalized not only the district but even particular buildings on the bank; of these Flatford Mill and Willy Lot's cottage were presented to the nation in 1928. Two other areas feature in many of his paintings – Salisbury, with many views of its great cathedral from the surrounding countryside, and Hampstead, where he lived from 1821.
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