Generally speaking, I’m against moving major artworks from galleries in large cities to the provinces, where there are fewer people to see them. But there are exceptions. This summer bears witness to one such exception – the decision by the National Gallery to loan John Constable’s ‘The Hay Wain’ to Christchurch Mansion in Ipswich as part of an exhibition celebrating the 250th anniversary of the artist’s birth.
Because whatever you think you know of ‘The Hay Wain’ – one of Britain’s best known and beloved oil paintings – you’ll have never seen it like this before. As well as giving you an opportunity to see it without a French tourist’s backpack bumping into you, seeing it in this location confers another astounding benefit: the actual scene it depicts at Flatford Mill on the Essex-Suffolk border is just 12 miles away.
That’s right. So you can see the picture and then go and see the real thing. Which is quite something when you consider that it was painted in 1821, just six years after the Battle of Waterloo, and has never been displayed so close to the view it has made famous.
Which brings me back to my bold statement above: you’ll have never seen ‘The Hay Wain’ like this before. If you’ve only seen it in the cavernous room 40 of the National Gallery surrounded by other Constables, Turners and Corots, you really haven’t seen it at all.
