He was a son of a wealthy miller. He began to take interest in landscape painting while he was at Dedham grammar school. His father didn't favor art as the profession and Constable as a boy worked almost secretly, painting in the cottage of the local plumber, who was an amateur painter by nature himself. Constable left school to work for his fathers business. During his spare time he studied painting. His keen artistic interest was so strong that his father allowed him to visit London where he began to study sketching. After 2 years in London he returned to his fathers business for a year. The year spent at his fathers mill was a great importance for him. He learned to watch the sky with the exactness of a miller, to note the direction of the wind, the significance of the clouds. In 1799 Constable entered the Royal Academy school in London.

In his paintings the artist showed the new altitude to the nature. He refused to learn works of famous landscape painters and decided to go to the country and to paint nature as he saw it.

Constable depicted nature in his own realistic way, he was the first artist who began to paint sketches which were as big as paintings. He was able to show the inside life of nature. John Constables innovation influenced greatly the development of French landscape painting.

In 1826, when he was 50, he showed a number of landscapes in the Paris salon. Among them was the famous “Hay Wain”, painted in 1821, for which the painter was awarded the Gold Medal. He was elected to the Royal Academy in 1829, but he felt, that this honor had come too late in life to have much meaning. Among his best landscapes are: “The Flatford Mill”, “A Farm in the Valley”, “Hay Wain”, “The Flatford Mill”, “Cottage door”, Dedham Valley”, “The Corn Field”, etc.

William Joseph Turner(1774 - 1851) was the greatest English romantic, landscape and marine painter. He was a son of a fashionable barber, started drawing and painting at his early age. His father used to sell the boys drawings to his customers and in such a way he earned money for the boys learning of art. At 14 he entered the Royal Academy School. His water-colors were exhibited at the Royal Academy when he was only 15. At 18 he started his own studio and received a commission to make drawings for magazines. For some years he tramped over Wales and Western England. As Turner never married, he devoted his life to art. Visitors were rarely admitted to his house and no one was aloud to see him at work. He loved his paintings as a man loves his children. At the age of 27 he was elected as a Royal Academician. From that time his paintings became at great demand and brought good money. The last years of his life he spent in a little cottage at Chelsea.

He liked to watch the sunrise and sunset. And it is said, that only a hour before his death he had his chair wheeled to the window, so that he might look for the last time at the sun, shining upon the river.

During his life Turner created some hundreds of paintings and some thousands of water-colors and drawings. After his death his own entire collection of paintings and drawings was willed to the nation. They are exhibited at the National and Tate Galleries in London. Some of his famous pictures are: “The Fighting Temeraire”, “Rain, Steam and Speed”, “Light and Color”, “Fisherman at Sea” and others.

William Turner dedicated most of his paintings to the sea. He was a sailor and the sea in itself absorbed him. He gave to his seas mass and wave as well as movement. His waves seem to be alive.

“Calais Pier” is one of his greatest creations. The picture of a storm in it is real and impressive. In the center of the picture there is a boat with people in it. All the figures are living individuals. The farther objects in the picture failed in the darkness, attracting our attention to the people in the boat. Those who look at the picture can smell the water and hear the shout of the wind. Color as well as tone in William Turners pictures produces the effect of sunlight.

The name of William Turner is famous above all other landscape painters.

So if portrait painting is one of the glories of English art, landscape is another: in both directions it rose to supreme highs.

Russian painting

The Tretyakov Gallery

The state Tretyakov Gallery is one of the best-known art galleries in Russia. Different genres of painting are exhibited there. It takes its name from its founder Pavel Tretyakov, a Moscow merchant and connoisseur. In the middle of the XIX th century Pavel Tretyakov began to collect Russian paintings. A man of high culture and fine aesthetic taste, he selected the most significant and characteristic works of the Russian school of painting. He dedicated 40 years of his life to his main calling: the establishment of a National Art Museum. Many works of “Peredvizhniki” are exhibited in this gallery. Tretyakov started by collecting contemporary paintings, but soon he extended the boundaries of his collection. Art of the XIX th century, works of Brulov, Ivanov, Vasnetsov; works of Art of the XVIII th century and ancient Russian art - all gradually found their way into Tretyakov`s collection. More than once he had to add wings to his house in the Lavrushinskiy pereulok. In 1881 he opened his collection to the public. In 1892 he denoted his collection to the city of Moscow. Since then, the gallery had received hundreds of pictures from other museums and private collections. It has a rich collection of old Russian icons. The world famous icon, "The Trinity”, painted in the early XV th century by Andrey Rubliov is exhibited there. The gallery contains halls, devoted to the magnificent works of such XVIII th century celebrities, as Rokotov, Levitskiy, Borovitskiy, Shchedrin. The first half of the XIX th century is represented by brilliant works of Brulov, Ivanov, Tropinin, Venitsianov. The second half is especially well represented. The gallery has the best collection of the “Peredvizhniki”, such as Kramskoy, Perov, Yaroshenko, Myasoedov and others. Linked with “Peredvizhniki” are such great names, as Surikov, Repin, Vereshagin, Vasnetsov, Levitan. Here you can see historical painting, portraits, stylists, landscapes, seascapes and others. Nowadays the gallery is an important source for studding and promotion of Russian Art.

The Hermitage

The Hermitage in St.-Petersburg is one of the most famous museums in the world. The museum's foundation dates to 1764, when Katherine the Great received 225 west - European paintings as a dept from Berlin merchant Yoghant Ernst Gatskovskiy. First the museum was intended to be a place of solitude, resembling the park pavilions, which were called at that time “Hermitages”. It consisted of two pavilions - Southern and Northern and a garden, suspended between them. Walls in the Northern pavilion were hung with pictures. Later the whole collection of paintings and antiquities got its name.