This oil on canvas painting of Hove Beach was created by John Constable in c. 1824.
It reveals Constable’s enduring fascination with sky and sea. It also shows the interaction between nature and society on the Brighton and Hove seafront two centuries ago. Seafront development was beginning to spread west into Hove from Brighton. But at this point the beach and low cliff were essentially unmanaged, being left to natural processes of change. The remainder of the nineteenth century was a remarkable period when the seafront was increasingly fixed in place by groynes and seawalls. The cliff is still there, of course, but is now hidden by stone, brick and concrete.
The precise location of this view is unknown, although it is possibly close to where, four decades later, the West Pier was constructed.
Image Copyright Syndics of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.
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