Two hundred and ten years ago this autumn, John Constable was sitting in a Suffolk field, painting a picture of a giant dunghill. He had been commissioned to produce a view from East Bergholt over the Stour Valley towards Dedham as a wedding present for the squire’s daughter. In the background of his picture you can see the meandering river and St Mary’s Church, but you can’t ignore the ‘dungle’, as it was known locally. It looms massively, lit up by the morning sun and frilled here and there with weeds. What the bride thought of this peculiar tribute is not recorded. 

I am writing a book about Constable, and the longer I study his letters and sketchbooks, the more extravagantly strange he seems. He passionately loved every aspect of the Suffolk farmland where he grew up and painted it with intense emotion. Other artists went looking for spectacle, but he found boundless inspiration in familiar mill ponds, tow paths and muck heaps – rather like Rembrandt, when you come to think about it, though I do not imagine my agent would welcome a proposal for a book on the dunghill in art.

Next week, a friend is visiting from New York. We shall take him to ‘Constable Country’ around East Bergholt and Flatford. I wonder what he’ll make of it. Will he feel an echo of the magic that Constable felt? Or perhaps his thoughts will be closer to those of the