Author

John Constable

John Constable

1776 — 1837 · artist · United Kingdom

47 quotes

As I write, June 10th, 1861, John Constable stands next to Gainsborough as a painter of English landscape. Whoever passes him will paint well indeed.

John Constable

★ 4,8 ♥ 71

Only think that I am now writing in a room full of Claudes... almost of the summit of my earthly ambitions.

John Constable

★ 5,0 ♥ 82

The world is wide; no two days are alike, nor even two hours; neither were there ever two leaves of a tree alike since the creation of the world.

John Constable

★ 4,7 ♥ 244

A self-taught painter is one taught by a very ignorant person.

John Constable

★ 4,9 ♥ 72

He seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent, and so airy.

John Constable

★ 4,8 ♥ 250

It is always my endeavour however in making a picture that it should be without a companion in the world. At least such should be a painters ambition.

John Constable

★ 4,6 ♥ 138

No man who can do any one thing well will be able to any different thing equally well.

John Constable

★ 4,5 ♥ 107

But You know, Landscape is my mistress — 't is to her that I look for fame — and all that the warmth of the imagination renders dear to Man.

John Constable

★ 4,7 ♥ 163

It is so ambiguous as to be scarcely intelligible in some parts (and those the principal), yet as a whole, it is novel and affecting.

John Constable

★ 4,6 ♥ 125

When I sit down to make a sketch from nature, the first thing I try to do is to forget that I have ever seen a picture.

John Constable

★ 4,6 ♥ 218

Constable himself knew the value of such studies, for he rarely parted with them. He used to say of his studies and pictures that he had no objection to part with the corn, but not with the field that grew it.

John Constable

★ 4,8 ♥ 46

There is nothing ugly; I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may, — light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.

John Constable

★ 5,0 ♥ 248

The climax of absurdity to which the art may be carried, when led away from nature by fashion, may be best seen in the works of Boucher... His landscape, of which he was evidently fond, is pastoral; and such pastorality! the pastoral of the Opera house.

John Constable

★ 4,9 ♥ 246

Painting is a science and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not a landscape be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but experiments?

John Constable

★ 4,7 ♥ 204

We see nothing truly till we understand it.

John Constable

★ 4,7 ♥ 207

My observations on clouds and skies are on scraps and bits of paper, and I have never yet put them together so as to form a lecture, which I shall do.. ..next summer. (1836)

John Constable

★ 4,7 ♥ 142

We must bear in recollection that the sentiment of the picture is that of solemnity, not gaiety & nothing garish, but the contrary — yet it must be bright, clear, alive fresh, and all the front seen.

John Constable

★ 4,8 ♥ 156

My art flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, nobody by petitelieness without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how then can I hope to be popular?

John Constable

★ 4,7 ♥ 143

A sketch will not serve more than one state of mind & will not serve to drink at again & again — in a sketch there is nothing but the one state of mind — that which you were in at the time.

John Constable

★ 5,0 ♥ 121

Sept. 6th, 1822, looking S.E. – 12 to 1 o'clock, fresh and bright, between showers – much the look of rain all the morning, but very fine and grand all the afternoon and evening.

John Constable

★ 5,0 ♥ 214

I am most anxious to get into my London painting-room, for I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas. I have done a good deal of skying for I am determined to conquer all difficulties, and that among the rest.

John Constable

★ 4,8 ♥ 88

Painting is but another word for feeling.

John Constable

★ 5,0 ♥ 76

I paint by all the daylight we have and that is little enough, less perhaps than you have by much... imagine to yourself how a purl must look through a burnt glass.

John Constable

★ 4,8 ♥ 180

He was acquainted with Archdeacon Fisher, and painted for him 'Salisbury Cathedral', and several views in that neighbourhood. I have stood on the exact spot from which he took the cathedral, which is very like, though not sufficiently confined for his style of painting. 'Old Sarum', too, is among his most interesting productions.

John Constable

★ 4,5 ♥ 257