Late Constable review – a thrilling enigma

Royal Academy, London
Turbulent, fervent and mostly unseen in his lifetime, the late paintings of John Constable are at once figurative, abstract and staggering to beholdA hard rain falls on a glittering grey sea. Wind harries sullen clouds across low-lying horizons. Overcast skies shed a pale glare on the churned earth below. Thunder and gloom, turbid brown rivers, corn standing solid as a wall at the field’s edge beneath squalls of paint, thick as mortar. This is summer in John Constable