7. View of Salisbury Cathedral by John Constable

The V&A has over two thousand oil paintings, including the world’s largest collection of works by John Constable. Salisbury Cathedral was painted for the Royal Academy summer exhibition of 1823.  

It shows one of England’s most famous medieval buildings rising serenely out of the landscape and framed by ancient trees. The sky is dark with clouds. This might be a sign of Constable’s deep-rooted pessimism, his fear that traditional values and institutions were disappearing in the face of modernisation. Although Constable’s paintings are often seen as the essence of British identity, in fact they show a world that was disappearing before his eyes.