11 3/8 x 14 1/8 ins
The one blessing when we left Amsterdam was that we fell into London; and Hampstead Heath became my countryside. It was a great, great blessing that I should have walked upon that marvellous piece of land.
I loved those streets that went off the Heath – Downshire Hill and Keats Grove where that extraordinary young man was living and writing those things. And gradually, gradually into the Vale of Health and up to the White Stone Pond. It is fantastic how clearly one had the feeling of Constable being there. And amazing to think of him wandering around the Heath. On that ground were painted some of the most marvellous paintings painted anywhere in this whole world – paintings fit to hang with the Rembrandts and the Michelangelos. An absolute genius. It is the incredible portrait he gave of where he was. It’s a portrait of the English skies, of English lanes and fields. The portrait even of half an hour of some blustery day. I’ve always adored that particular and curious English genius that is Constable and Cotman, Girtin and Cozens. Terribly moving. A perfectly natural reflection of Nature.