John Constable RA (1776-1837) was, with Turner, the major English landscape painter of the 19th century. Began exhibiting in 1802 but was slow to achieve recognition. Became ARA in 1819 and RA 1829. Visited the Lake District in 1806 but preferred his native Suffolk landscape. Studied the work of Claude and seventeenth-century Dutch landscape painting. Awarded a Gold Medal in 1824 at the Paris Salon, his work later influencing the Barbizon School of painters (see Ruskin on Constable's influence upon the French school). His originality and greatness as a landscape artist stems from his intense observation of nature, and his direct work from the subject in terms of drawings, water colour and oil sketches. This basis of study and analysis contributed the essential underpinning for his large and strongly structured landscape oil paintings. Ruskin had scant respect for Constable's work (see Ruskin's criticism of Constable). There are several possible reasons for Ruskin's opinion of Constable's work).