The Hay Wain The Hay Wain The Hay Wain is a painting by John Constable, finished in 1821, which depicts a rural scene on the River Stour between the English counties of Suffolk and Essex. It hangs in the National Gallery in London and is regarded as "Constable's most famous image" and one of the greatest and most popular English paintings. Painted in oils on canvas, the work depicts as its central feature three horses pulling what in fact appears to be a wood wain or large farm cart across the river. Willy Lott's Cottage, also the subject of an eponymous painting by
Louis Wain of Wain's deteriorating mental health, arguing that "Wain experimented with patterns and cats, and even quite late in life was still producing conventional cat pictures, perhaps 10 years after his [supposedly] 'later' productions which are patterns rather than cats." In 2012 however, Dr. Kevin Van Eeckelen, in an article about psychotic patterns proposed that evidence of deterioration was found in Louis Wain's earlier (narrative) work, for instance in his "Louis Wain Kitten Book" (1903). This analysis is based on the mimetic (girardian) view on psychosis, which focuses on the continuity between 'normality' and 'madness'. In December 2012, the psychiatrist Dr