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Your galleryBranch Hill Pond, Hampstead
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Compare the bright and dark masses of cloud with the sandy slope below, then find the cart, the horses and the small pond at left.
Constable studied the weather closely, and at Hampstead he made a long series of cloud studies, a practice he called “skying.” In this view the rain clouds take up more of the canvas than the land. The workers with their horses and cart in the foreground stay small, so their labor reads as part of the scene rather than its subject.
oil on canvas · Framed: 89 x 105.5 x 11.5 cm · Cleveland Museum of Art · Romanticism
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Details and source
- Museum title
- Branch Hill Pond, Hampstead
- Artist
- John Constable (British, 1776–1837)
- Date
- 1828
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- Framed: 89 x 105.5 x 11.5 cm (35 1/16 x 41 9/16 x 4 1/2 in.); Unframed: 60.6 x 78.1 cm (23 7/8 x 30 3/4 in.)
- Credit line
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
- Image license
- CC0 1.0 · Public domain
- Museum record
- Cleveland Museum of Art
Galler’s rooms and hanging scale are imagined. The image is the museum’s original digital reproduction.