National Treasures

Constable’s landscape, The Hay Wain was the centre piece of the exhibition Truth to Nature. Painted in 1821, ‘The Hay Wain’ has been widely reproduced, copied, satirised and politicised. ‘Truth to Nature’ explored how landscape inspired artists from Constable to the present day. With art from Bristol Museum & Art Gallery’s extensive collection, the exhibition also included oil sketches by Constable from the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The exhibition featured an early landscape from the 1600s by Jacob van Ruisdael and showed Constable’s influence with examples from the Bristol School and 19th century French art. Modernist landscapes from the 20th century by Christopher Wood and Ivon Hitchens were displayed along with a conceptual land piece by Richard Long and an abstract landscape by the St Ives artist Peter Lanyon. The exhibition tackled humanity's conflicted relationship with the land, which can be both a place of refuge and hostility.