Salisbury Cathedral from Lower Marsh Close

Salisbury Cathedral from Lower Marsh Close at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, painted in 1820, belongs to the earliest phase of Constable's most sustained pictorial commitment. His friendship with Archdeacon John Fisher and his uncle Bishop John Fisher gave him intimate access to the Cathedral Close and its surroundings from 1811 onward, and over the following two decades he produced dozens of studies and major exhibition paintings of the cathedral from different vantage points and in different weather conditions. The Lower Marsh Close, a meadow south of the cathedral, provided one of his most open views — the great Gothic spire rising above trees, the summer meadow stretching in the foreground. This early 1820 version preceded by nine years his most celebrated treatment of the same subject: Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows of 1831, now at the National Gallery in London, which showed the cathedral under a stormy sky and a rainbow that Constable connected explicitly to his grief over his wife Maria's deteriorating health. The NGA's earlier version captures the cathedral in the freshness of discovery, before personal loss had freighted the subject with the emotional weight that his greatest Salisbury paintings carry.

Constable carefully orchestrates the composition with framing trees directing the eye toward the cathedral spire. The sky is painted with characteristic freshness, using broken whites and grays to suggest moisture-laden English clouds.

This painting is in the National Gallery of Art, Washington. It was painted during one of Constable's visits to his friend Archdeacon John Fisher in Salisbury. The canvas has been cleaned and restored, revealing the fresh greens and luminous sky that characterize Constable's best work. The painting is in good condition overall, with the careful architectural rendering of the cathedral well-preserved.