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As we welcome David Downes’ exhibition to Open Door, Estelle Lovatt FRSA shares her vast knowledge of the artist who inspires Downes the most.
Join art historian and critic Estelle Lovatt FRSA as she brings alive the greatest of all English Romantic landscape artists, John Constable RA, with stories of the Royal Academy, Turner, his family and the French, demonstrated with a display of fine paintings by landscape artist, David Downes, known for his vast skies borne of Constable Country.
Constable’s pictures of rural England reference his careless childhood. Tree lines and Church spires rise in the distance, with horses, sheep and cows drinking from ponds, and his fascination with sky, the best cloud formations, weather conditions, sunshine, windmills, and sail barges. All whilst he painted the finest views in Europe over Westminster to St Paul’s, Windsor Castle, and Kent.
See and hear how Constable loved the countryside, using it as a refuge from the City of London. With a combination of fresh air, famous spa waters, and open countryside, it’s where he started and finished his most famous and lovely canvas, ‘The Hay Wain’.
Open Door is a community arts space and café on Berkhamsted high street with a range of activities, exhibitions and workshops on offer – see www.opendoorberkhamsted.co.uk/whats-on for more information, or get in touch if you’re interested in volunteering – there’s lots to get involved in!