Half-size Sketch for The Opening of Waterloo Bridge (“Whitehall Stairs, June 18, 1817”)
John Constable
1829 to 1831
Constable struggled with the composition for a decade before he began this sketch. Roughly half the size of the final six-foot canvas, it finally established the viewpoint for a scene that had frustrated him for so long. This painting was made with the aid of a grid, sometimes called a net, which artists had used for centuries to enlarge or reproduce a composition. The grid can be seen through thinner passages of paint, especially in the sky where the monumental stretches of clouds reflect the grandeur ofthe occasion.
Yale Center for British Art, New Haven · Image: Yale Center for British Art, Public domain · Text: Yale Center for British Art, CC0