Looking Outside the Chocolate Box: John Constable

 Looking Outside the Chocolate Box: Noticing John Constable

 

 

I stood, in chilly early December 2021, on the edge of the water where Constable had set his celebrated painting now called The Haywain, but originally and more reservedly, Landscape: Noon.

 

Binham Priory

 Binham Priory

 

The Benedictines formed the earliest English monastic communities, starting with St Augustine at Canterbury. Rich and influential monasteries flourished in the Middle Ages, not least those attached to the great Cathedrals. Henry VIII brought an abrupt end. Their lands were confiscated and sold; their wealth seized.