Eternal England: John Constable's The Hay Wain

The sky can only be British. It is raw and rain-promising, but also cool and mellow. Beneath it, mild fields roll across an earth ancient and quietly prospering. The mill seems eternal, as if characters from Shakespeare or Chaucer could be found chatting in its kitchen. The water has the grandeur of a painted sea and yet is just a local puddle. Constable never travelled abroad. He didn’t need to. This painting sees a universe in a corner of England Illustration: The National Gallery, London