Constable Correspondence volume VII

John Constable's Discourses is the seventh volume in the series of publications on the life and writings of John Constable edited by R. B. Beckett and published by the Suffolk Records Society. The volume brings together Constable's formal lectures, essays, notes, and other writings on art, drawn largely from the last five years of his life. Taken together, these documents reveal Constable's artistic philosophy and his passionate defence of landscape painting as a serious and intellectually demanding art form. The Discourses reveal Constable not only as a painter, but as an art historian, critic, and teacher, as well as a passionate advocate for realism and the direct study of nature itself. As part of the wider series, it contributes significantly to an understanding of Constable's development as an artist and his enduring legacy.