John Constable Quotes

Quotes about:

• 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

  Beauty, Beautiful, Attitude

  Quoted in Charles Robert Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843)

  67 Copy quote

• It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment.

  John Constable

  Names, Keys, Sky

  John Walker, John Constable (1978). “John Constable”, Harry N Abrams Incorporated

  34 Copy quote

• It is the soul that sees; the outward eyes
  Present the object, but the Mind descries.
  We see nothing till we truly understand it.

  John Constable

  Eye, Soul, Mind

  John E. Thornes, John Constable (1999). “John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science”, p.173, A&C Black

  34 Copy quote

• The sky is the source of light in Nature and it governs everything.

  John Constable

  Light, Sky, Source

  John E. Thornes, John Constable (1999). “John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science”, p.96, A&C Black

  24 Copy quote

• We see nothing till we truly understand it.

  John Constable

  John Constable, Anne Gray, Dr, John Gage, Conal Shields, Ann Galbally (2006). “Constable: Impressions of Land, Sea and Sky”

  22 Copy quote

• Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate "my careless boyhood" with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful; that is, I had often thought of pictures of them before ever I touched a pencil, and your picture ['The White Horse'] is one of the strongest instance I can recollect of it.

  John Constable

  Horse, Lying, Grateful

  Letter to Rev. John Fisher, October 23, 1821.

  50 Copy quote

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

  John Constable

  Nature, Philosophy, Science

  John E. Thornes, John Constable (1999). “John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science”, p.51, A&C Black

  30 Copy quote

• 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; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from one another.

  John Constable

  Summer, Art, June

  John Constable, Anne Gray, Dr, John Gage, Conal Shields, Ann Galbally (2006). “Constable: Impressions of Land, Sea and Sky”

  16 Copy quote

• 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

  Trying, Firsts, Forget

  John E. Thornes, John Constable (1999). “John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science”, p.51, A&C Black

  22 Copy quote

• The sound of water escaping from mill-dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork.those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful.

  John Constable

  Grateful, Escaping, Water

  Letter to John Fisher, 23 October 1821, in C. R. Leslie 'Memoirs of the Life of John Constable' (1843) ch. 5

  26 Copy quote

• Painting is with me but another word for feeling.

  John Constable

  Feelings, Emotion, Painting

  John E. Thornes, John Constable (1999). “John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science”, p.51, A&C Black

  8 Copy quote

• Light - dews - breezes - bloom - and freshness; not one of which... has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world.

  John Constable

  Light, Perfection, Dew

  John E. Thornes, John Constable (1999). “John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science”, p.153, A&C Black

  36 Copy quote

• An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very ignorant person indeed.

  John Constable

  Education, Artist, Self

  20 Copy quote

• I never saw an ugly thing in my life.

  John Constable

  Ugly Things, Ugly, Shade

  Quoted in Charles Robert Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable (1843)

  9 Copy quote

• Speaking to a lawyer about pictures is something like talking to a butcher about humanity.

  John Constable

  Communication, Talking, Humanity

  John Constable (1968). “Correspondence”

  12 Copy quote

• I am anxious that the world should be inclined to look to painters for information about painting. I hope to show that ours is a regularly taught profession; that it is scientific as well as poetic; that imagination alone never did, and never can, produce works that are to stand by a comparison with realities.

  John Constable

  Reality, Imagination, Looks

  John Constable (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of John Constable (Illustrated)”, p.584, Delphi Classics

  12 Copy quote

• Turner has outdone himself; he seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy.

  John Constable

  Paint, Masters, Airy

  John E. Thornes, John Constable (1999). “John Constable's Skies: A Fusion of Art and Science”, p.181, A&C Black

  18 Copy quote

• I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas.

  John Constable

  Feet, Six, Canvas

  Letter to Rev. John Fisher, October 23, 1821.

  7 Copy quote

• My canvas soothes me into forgetfulness of the scene of turmoil and folly - and worse - of the scene around me. Every gleam of sunshine is blighted to me in the art at least. Can it therefore be wondered at that I paint continual storms? "Tempest o'er tempest roll'd" - still the "darkness" is majestic.

  John Constable

  Art, Sunshine, Darkness

  Letter to C.R. Leslie (1834), "John Constable's Correspondence," ed. R.B. Beckett, vol. 3, p. 122, 1962-1970.

  14 Copy quote

• My picture [A Boat Passing a Lock, 1823-6] is liked at the [Royal] Academy, indeed it forms a decided feature and its light can not be put out. Because it is the light of nature - the Mother of all that is valuable in poetry - painting or anything else... my execution annoys most of them and all the scholastic ones - perhaps the scarifies I make for 'lightness' and 'brightness' is too much but these things are the essence of Landscape.

  John Constable

  Mother, Light, Essence

  "Constable". Book by Conal Shields, p. 288. Letter to Rev. John Fisher (1824), 1993.

  13 Copy quote

• But You know Landscape is my mistress - 'tis to her that I look for fame - and all that the warmth of the imagination renders dear to Man.

  John Constable

  Men, Imagination, Mistress

  9 Copy quote

• Verse is a mechanism by which we can create interpretative illusions suggesting profoundities of response and understanding which far exceed the engagement or research of the writer.

  John Constable

  Art, Poetry, Understanding

  8 Copy quote

• Connoisseurs think the art is already done.

  John Constable

  Art, Thinking, Done

  John Constable (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of John Constable (Illustrated)”, p.561, Delphi Classics

  10 Copy quote

• He [the artist] ought to have 'these powerful organs of expression' - colour and chiaroscuro - entirely at his command, that he may use them in every possible form, as well as that he may do with the most perfect freedom; therefore, whether he wishes to make the subject of a joyous, solemn, or meditative character, by flinging over it the cheerful aspect which the sun bestows, by a proper disposition of shade, or by the appearances that beautify its arising or its setting, a true "General Effect" should never be lost sight of.

  John Constable

  Powerful, Character, Artist

  72 Copy quote

• A gentleman's park is my aversion. It is not beauty because it is not nature.

  John Constable

  Gentleman, Aversion, Parks

  1822 In R B Beckett (ed) Constable's Correspondence, Suffolk Records Society (1962-70).

  9 Copy quote

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