Walking the Landscape

Constable’s connection with the countryside and intimate familiarity with rural life is evident in his paintings, drawings and prints, in his choice of subjects and attentive observation of the smallest detail of the natural world. Moreover, Constable was convinced that it was the Stour Valley, on the Suffolk-Essex border, that made him a painter.

This project uses digital technologies to take prints locked in a museum back into the landscape which made them, which represents them, and of which they are part. Using digital techniologies that enable us to pinpoint and ‘see’ various Constable compositions we will curate a series of public walks in landscapes Constable sketched, documenting them to produce a walking diary as a form of public writing.

How much has the landscape changed and how recognizable are the same views today?

How can we capture what it feels like to walk with Constable?

This project received funding from a Research England Enhancing Research Culture award, as well as Cambridge Digital Humanities and the University of Cambridge Research and Collections Programme.