Between Painting Room and Paradise: A Savage Fate.
Monday 29th November 2021 (Revised date)
7.00 for 7.30 pm to 9.00 pm
10A South Grove N6 6BS
Entry £5 (to include a complimentary glass of wine). Simultaneously available on Zoom for £3. Booking essential on Eventbrite (click here).
James Armstrong introduces his account of the life of John Constable using the format of a novel to imagine the memoirs of Constable’s Family Nurse.
What drove the landscape painter, John Constable, to endure many heartaches on his tortuous road to marriage and family life? Obstacles which mirrored his equally difficult professional journey, painting against the prevailing Academy dominance of historical painting. How much was sacrificed by him, his ever frail wife and their large family? Why was Hampstead so crucial to his life as an artist and family man?
Why not ask someone who lived at the heart of the Constable household?
Elizabeth Roberts was ‘Family Nurse’ for over 35 years. Her ‘fly-on-the-wall’ story, has never been told; until now that is.
“My name is Elizabeth Roberts. I was inadvertently given Constable’s Painting Journal and the Diary of Archdeacon John Fisher, the artist’s closest friend.
Reading them in retirement, I realised my singular perspective on a unique family. Inspired, I decided to write my own & Constable’s story, freely quoting from these documents and original letters as well as using memories and my imagination.”
I employed the freedoms of the techniques of a novel to look into the cracks between the established facts, to draw the reader close to the events, motives & emotions of the characters. Constable’s story is of a self divided between Family and Art.
James Armstrong.
Available on Amazon.
