Constable was born in 1776, one year after Turner; together with Turner, he revitalised English landscape painting in the early 19th century, helping to establish the genre. Constable has left us several landscapes portraying Salisbury Cathedral, one of the most important Gothic monuments in the United Kingdom. Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop's Grounds is one of his most famous compositions. The version on display here is usually kept at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and was used as the basis for a painting commissioned by John Fischer, the Bishop himself, who was one of the artist's closest friends. The definitive version is at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1823. Constable did not paint purely architectural views, and depicted the monument from his friend's property, rising majestically from behind a foreground of vegetation and deliberately highlighting the contrast with the almost agricultural setting. He depicted his patron walking with his wife to the left of the painting. The final composition was itself copied, as John Fischer asked the painter for a second version with a less dramatic sky.