Not long to catch an artistic ‘National Treasure’ on display in Bristol!
Posted on: 16 Aug 2024John Constable’s masterpiece The Hay Wain has been loaned to Bristol Museum & Art Gallery and is the centrepiece of a beautiful exhibition that runs until the end of the month.
National Treasure: Constable in Bristol ‘Truth to Nature’ runs at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery until Sunday 1 September 2024.
This year is the 200th anniversary of London’s National Gallery and, to mark this landmark occasion, they have sent twelve of their greatest pieces to galleries up and down the UK. Botticelli, Turner, Vermeer, Velasquez, Canaletto, and others are showing in various cities, including Constable’s iconic work in Bristol!
Tickets for the exhibition can be booked on the gallery website.
John Constable’s 1821 painting ‘The Hay Wain’ is an icon of British landscape art and has, over the subsequent centuries, been widely reproduced, politicised and satirised. The painting depicts the rural beauty of Suffolk’s historic countryside – in 2022 it was targeted by Just Stop Oil protestors.
With The Hay Wain at its core, ‘Truth to Nature’ explores how the natural landscape has inspired artists from Constable to the present day. The exhibition also features Constable’s oil sketches from the Victoria & Albert Museum as well as art from the Bristol Museum & Art Gallery’s own collection.
The exhibition aims to contextualise Constable with other works, such as an early landscape from the 1600s by Jacob van Ruisdael, showing the former’s influences with examples from the Bristol School and 19th-century French pieces. Also expect Modernist landscapes, conceptual land pieces and abstract art.
‘Truth to Nature’ is also accompanied by free thought-provoking exhibitions that explore the nocturnal life of bats, the challenges of divided lands, LGBT+ relations with nature, the barriers of movement, and more.
National Treasure: Constable in Bristol ‘Truth to Nature’ runs at Bristol Museum & Art Gallery until Sunday 1 September 2024 – exhibition tickets can be booked HERE.
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Stan is a born and bred Bristolian, recently graduated from studying English Literature in Sheffield. His passions are music and literature and he spends the majority of his time in venues all over the city, immersing himself in Bristol’s alternative music scene. A lifelong Bristol City fan, Stan’s Saturdays are spent watching his team both home and away.
