The Haywain

The Haywain by John Constable

I was brought up with a copy of John’s Constable’s Haywain (see above) hanging in my parents’ lounge. As a child I was puzzled why a wagon and its horses should be driving down the course of a small river; or was it stationary? Other than that I gave the painting little thought, although I did unconsciously imbibe the mood of peace, tranquility and beauty that the mind, unbidden, attaches to it. I have a modicum of artistic skill but art has not been my area of study, so unsurprisingly it is only in the last few days I have discovered the solution to the riddle of Constable’s evocative work.

Recently I happened to be in Ipswich, helping to escort my wife’s Spanish students. We visited Christchurch mansion where there is a display of Constable’s paintings. At the end of my visit I purchased a small book on Constable’s work by Ian St. John (entitled Flatford, Constable Country). According to St. John the Haywain is fording the river Stour from the near bank (where wheel ruts can be seen entering the river) with the purpose of collecting sun dried hay from the meadows over the river. Corn reapers can, in fact, be seen working in the distance. St John also points out those easily ignored disconnected incidentals which richly and randomly embroider real life: A fishermen can be seen coming through the undergrowth on the far bank to his moored boat and a kitchen maid is on the landing stage of Willy Lot’s house collecting water.

Christchurch Mansion, Ipswich, houses the largest collection of Constables outside London.

As far as I’m concerned, however, there remain riddles in composition of the The Haywain: The wagon and its team of horses doesn’t seem to be taking the most rational course to the other bank; according to St. John they are heading for the right hand fork of the river and thence up onto the bank. To my eye there is an awkward discontinuity in the trajectory of the Haywain and I suspect this is because elegance of composition was the overriding factor in Constable’s mind; for example he laterally compressed Willy’s Lot's cottage to bring in to the painting a more varied roof line thus improving composition.

Constable’s painting is a snap shot of arcadian life in the early 19th century. The stasis and silence of paintings whatever the content, dresses the subject with a peaceful ambiance and even more so if the painting depicts a rural setting. However, in spite of the idyllic content of the painting and the apparent aimless deportment of the Haywain itself the subject matter is, in fact, very dynamic: Constable’s rural contexts depict the countryside as a place of work. In the early 19th century that work was in many cases hard and long and I suspect its workers hit their beds at the end of the day very ready for sleep. I’m reminded of Darwin’s statement to the effect that the seeming tranquility of country hedgerows hides an unseen struggle for survival.

But the inhabitants of Flatford where the Haywain was painted were, I suspect, more placid than we are today: Although there were justifiable rebellions in the face of poverty (e.g. the Swing riots of 1830) their society had only just started on the road to industrialization and they did not know that plenty, like poverty, can also cause vexation: Contemporary media and advertising allow comparisons to be made between peer groups, raising expectation and the desire for status & one-up-man-ship; there always seems to be something better to attain or gain, especially as the apparent social mobility of modern society suggests that the opportunity for extraordinary levels of betterment are in principle open to all. Restlessness leading into outright discontentment is inflamed when expectations are dashed. One might own a 50 foot luxury yacht, but a nagging angst can set in if most of one’s peer group own 100 foot yachts. And when one does achieve one's goals of wealth and status there is a strong desire to hold on to them, at all costs. (Phil 3:7-12) *

But the composure of the arcadian idyll didn’t equate to a lack of self-awareness. Constable stood back and took stock of his conditions of existence through his art. Naturally enough for an artist like Constable his appraisal was intuitive and instinctual rather than analytical. Remarking on his painting called “The Lock” Constable wrote:

..its light cannot be put out, because it is the light of nature – the Mother of all that is valuable in poetry, painting or anything else – where an appeal to the soul is required. The language of the heart is the only one that is universal.

Constable’s paintings attach a sense of beauty, grace and dignity to the workplace that was Flatford and  glorifies it. These very human qualities are less an intrinsic property of the situation-in-itself than they are an extrinsic property arising from the atmosphere our minds impute to that situation. Mood is, as Constable suggests, the language of the heart and mood is more easily conveyed by art rather than by science. In the case of The Haywain, the enigmatic and seemingly purposeless orientation of its wagon and horses adds to the ambiance of composure and serenity.

Willy Lot's Cottage and the Haywain ford today.

* Footnote: It is reckoned that the hill forts dating from the iron age which pockmark Britain were a response to  growing agricultural abundance. This abundance provided the opportunity for the ambitious to compete with their peers in the control of that abundance. Once control was achieved there then arises the need to hold on and protect one's wealth and status from the grasping hands of one's fellow humans; the hill forts were a means to this end.