“THE SOUND of water escaping from mill dams, willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts and brickwork. I love such things. These scenes made me a painter.” From this famous statement sprang the romantic myth of John Constable (1776-1837) the natural-born artist who drew his inspiration direct from the River Stour. According to this version of art history, the native genius of a Suffolk miller’s son gave rise to the modern art of self-expression. The English Neo-Romantic John Piper went so far as to claim that Constable “made the Impressionist movement, and ultimately the whole of the modern movement, possible”. The French Impressionists, understandably, took a different view. “It’s true that Turner and Constable have been useful to us,” Monet g