Consolations of Constable

William Cook takes refuge from the modern world at an exhibition of the artist’s paintings of his beloved Salisbury

I’d always thought of Constable’s paintings of Salisbury Cathedral as grand, majestic things — but seeing them again in Salisbury, with Richard Constable, the artist’s great-great grandson, you begin to look at these splendid pictures in an entirely different light. Richard has come here, to the Salisbury & South Wiltshire Museum, to attend the opening of an exhibition that celebrates his ancestor’s close relationship with this city, and standing alongside him, in the shadow of Salisbury Cathedral, you realise John Constable wasn’t painting architecture, but the landscape of his private life. The cathedral may be the focal point, but these are pastoral pictures, and the leafy panorama that he painted remains miraculously intact. Step outside this gallery and Constable’s Salisbury stands before you, mercifully unaltered by the last two centuries. If Richard’s great-great grandfather were here today, I reckon he’d feel quite at home.