For many, these six works – so named for their sheer scale – are (according to Wikipedia) "the defining works of the artists's career". The first of them – originally titled A Scene on the River Stour – was the first important work that he sold, and it earned him 100 guineas – a significant sum in those days. It has been described as "on many accounts the most important picture Constable ever painted".
The Six–Footers are among a group of paintings, all by Constable, described by The New York Times as "the knottiest and most forceful landscapes produced in 19th–century Europe ... walls of organic matter, as mulchy and dense as the earth they depict. You don't stroll into them; you dig your way in."
© Haydn Thompson 2020