Page 20 - constable.pages copy

Charlotte Mason Picture Study Aid John Constable

Stonehenge

1835
watercolor
8.7 x 59.7 cm
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
KEY TOPICS:

• In this piece we see the prehistoric monument of Stonehenge located in Wiltshire, England. It is surrounded by
grass and behind it is a tumultuous sky in varying shades of blue. The two arches coming out of the left and

center of the monument and reaching into the sky are a double rainbow. Two figures are in the painting: one

(possibly a shepherd) is sitting on the fallen stone laying diagonally just right of center on the bottom and the
other is standing just above and to the left of the seated figure. A rabbit is darting away in the lower left.
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• In the catalogue for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition of 1836 where he exhibited this piece, Constable
wrote about it:

The mysterious monument of Stonehenge, standing remote on a bare and boundless heath, as much
unconnected with the events of the past ages as it is with the uses of the present, carries you back beyond
all historical records into the obscurity of a totally unknown period.”
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• The rabbit or hare in the lower left was added after the painting was completed - Constable painted it on a

separate piece of paper that was later glued to the original painting. 2

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