Organised by National Gallery
IMPORTANT: You must pre-book via this link to attend this event
Few paintings are more curiously English than John Constable's masterpiece The Hay Wain. In the 200 years since it was painted, it has come to represent much more than a mere snapshot of the East Anglian landscape. Within its frame is contained a rural idyll of life and labour; a landscape we strive to be apart of, yet which we can never fully join.
What can we really see of our 21st-century world in 'The Hay Wain', and what might we learn about society, climate change, enclosure and heritage? In considering what Constable included in his own visions of the English landscape, as well as what may have been left out, we also explore his artistic legacy through those working today.
In this online discussion, a range of speakers present their alternative views of 'The Hay Wain' in recognition of the painting's bicentennial year, and its contributions to a modern English picturesque.
Speakers include:
- Justin Hopper, American writer
- Roei Greenberg, Israeli artist
- Susan Oliver, Professor in Literature at the University of Essex
- Christine Riding, The Jacob Rothschild Head of the Curatorial Department and Curator of British Paintings at the National Gallery.
Image: Detail from John Constable, 'The Hay Wain', 1821