More Time Travel

There’s an odd satisfaction to going back in time – and when I’m making art, time travel is remarkably easy to accomplish. When I started this pencil version of John Constable’s 1820 oil painting, Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds, I was thinking about capturing the sense of space – the way the dark shadows of the grounds and trees open up to a bright and soaring cathedral tower. Constable was one of England’s great landscape painters; his expressive brushstrokes record the fleeting effects of light several generations before the Impressionists. With a combination of realism and looseness, he brings great movement and life to an essentially static view.

As I worked to develop the dark shadows and varied textures of the landscape in my pencil drawing, I became completely absorbed in the painting I was copying. I was mentally transported back to Constable’s moment in time where I was surrounded by the pastoral beauty of pre-industrial England. Cow bells, birdsong and church bells were unbroken by the hum of motorcars and air traffic. There was an underlying stillness.

All content copyright 2011 by Susan Sternau.