John Constable Exhibition to Enjoy the Age of Picturesque
Photography became common in the world on August 19, 1839, when Frenchman Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre invented the It began with the daguerreotype. This was the world’s first practical method of photography. In Japanese, it is called silver-plate photography.
Photography was developed to meet the demand for portraits from the middle class during the economic boom that followed the Industrial Revolution (1837). ゙, it cost about 100,000 yen in today’s prices to take a single portrait in a studio.
Before the spread of photography, oil paintings were the common medium for meeting the demand for portraits (self portraits at that time) that people wanted. The first time I saw a painting, I was surprised to learn that it had been made by a painter.
Now, with this background in mind, I saw the first solo exhibition in 35 years of John Constable (1776-1837), a leading British painter active in the 19th century. As a Turner lover, I was excited by his unbearable works.
John Constable excelled at landscapes as well as portraits. Constable lived on the eve of the Industrial Revolution and the general spread of photography.
People enjoyed a picturesque lifestyle that included not only painting, but also literature, travel, and nature tours such as landscaping. ゙.
Imagine that. How avant-garde it was to attempt to create oil paintings of landscapes seen with the eye in an age when photography did not exist.
Now, you, too, can hop on a time machine and leisurely savor the scenery of England 200 years ago.
◆Outline of the event
Constable Exhibition” from the collection of the Tate Museum of Art
Venue: Mitsubishi Ichigokan Museum
2-6-2 Marunouchi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo
Dates: February 20-May 30, 2021
Official website: https://mimt.jp/constable/
