Willem Roelofs vs. John Constable
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
Willem Roelofs
1822 – 1897
Willem Roelofs was a Dutch painter, water-colourist, etcher, lithographer and draughtsman. Roelofs was one of the forerunners of the Dutch Revival art, after the Romantic Classicism of the beginning of the 19th century, which led to the formation of The Hague school. His landscapes, especially the early ones with their dominating cloudy skies, demure bodies of water and populated with cattle, are typical for the School of Barbizon.
"Lately I have been asking for landscape with animals, so I have devoted a lot of time this year sketching cows."
John Constable
1776 – 1837
John Constable was an English landscape painter in the Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedham Vale, the area on the borderland of Suffolk and north Essex surrounding his home – now known as "Constable Country" – which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".
"The landscapes of Ruysdael present the greatest possible contrast to those of Claude, showing how powerfully, from the most opposite directions, genius may comm…"
Connections
Both wrote about: