John Constable was a major figure in English landscape painting in the early 19th century. He is best known for his paintings of the English countryside, particularly those representing his native valley of the River Stour, an area that came to be known as “Constable country.” – which he invested with an intensity of affection. “I should paint my own places best”, he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, “painting is but another word for feeling”.