Object Type
Landscape painting in oils steadily became more popular during the 19th century. John Constable and his contemporary J.M.W. Turner take credit for establishing landscape as a significant subject. Until then, history paintings had been considered more important, but increasingly naturalistic paintings of picturesque views of the British landscape appealed to a wider section of the art-buying public.

People
Dr John Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury, commissioned this painting in 1820. He and his family were some of Constable's closest friends and the artist taught one of his daughters. There has been some confusion over the identities of the figures in the painting but they are now thought to be the Bishop and his wife at the gate, and the figure a little further down the path, one of their daughters, probably Dolly. Constable had made a series of sketches before starting work on the canvas, and after it had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1823, he was asked to make a smaller version and a full-scale replica.

Subjects Depicted
The painting embodies the full range of qualities of a quintessentially British landscape painting - the clouds, trees, a water meadow, cattle drinking at the edge of the pasture and the glorious architecture of a medieval cathedral - but all on a human scale. Paintings like this one have so conditioned our view of rural Britain that it is now difficult to imagine a time when the countryside and country life were not held in such high regard.