Woodbridge Art Club on John Constable Hay Wain decision

The National Gallery in London will be rehanging Constable's 1821 depiction of idyllic rural Suffolk life at Flatford Mill in a new exhibition highlighting political issues within the countryside and his omission of the plight of poorer workers.

The area around Flatford has come to be known as 'Constable Country' as part of the legendary Suffolk painter's legacy.

The Discover Constable and The Hay Wain exhibition at the National Gallery, which opens in October, aims to highlight the social problems that plagued rural Britain but were omitted from landscapes created by Constable.

READ MORE: Flatford celebrates 200 years of The Hay Wain with anniversary exhibition

His own social rank and attitudes will also be examined in information accompanying the display, the Telegraph has reported.

But Jean Maxwell, chair of Woodbridge Art Club, said the museum's decision displayed a "lack of empathy" with the past.

She said: "I think there is indeed too much looking back while seeing through today’s eyes and with little real empathy towards past cultures.

"To me, it’s a shame and in danger of ignoring the beauty of the picture and the skill of the artist.

READ MORE: Anti-oil protesters attach ‘apocalyptic vision’ to Constable’s Hay Wain

The modern day Flatford Mill, scene of Constable's world-famous painting (Image: Archant) "He saw a scene, which others from all walks of life would also see, and longed to apply it to canvas.

"That’s what artists do.  Had he wanted to include the imagined missing elements that would have been a different picture."

READ MORE: John Constable’s The Hay Wain recreated at Flatford Mill by New Zealand artists

Ms Maxwell compared the museum's artistic values to expecting painters visiting Cornwall to refer in their artwork to the many houses that belong to second home owners, that locals were being priced out of, and that fishermen were struggling to survive on what they can catch.

A self-portrait by John Constable, from between 1799 and 1804 (Image: Submitted)

"But the artist sees a view and longs to paint and to express what they see in the way that is meaningful to them at that moment," she added.

Curators said the exhibition sought to explain why Constable may have left out the social ills suffered by the lower classes at the time because of his "privileged position" as the son of a wealthy corn merchant and a holder of "conservative" attitudes.

Dr Mary McMahon, the museum's curator, said Constable knew "what it looked like for people to work the fields, but would never have done that himself".

She added: “We want to talk about everything that has not been included in this painting.

“The British landscape was a contested space.

“We have the Corn Laws, we are coming out of the Napoleonic Wars, people are losing their land to enclosure.”