John Constable Quotes About Canvas

Quotes about: Canvas

• 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

• I ought to respect myself for my friends' sake, and my children's. It is time, at fifty-six, to begin, at least, to know oneself, - and I do know what I am not, and your regard for me has at least awakened me to believe in the possibility that I may yet make some impression with my "light" - my "dews" - my "breezes" - my bloom and freshness, - no one of which qualities has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world.

  John Constable

  Children, Believe, Light

  Letter to C.R. Leslie (March 1833), from "The Letters of John Constable, R.A. to C. R. Leslie, R.A. 1826-1837", p. 104, 1931.

• 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.

• I am glad you encouraged me with the 'Stoke' [his painting 'Stoke-by-Nayland', circa 1835] What say you to a summer morning? July or August, at eight or nine o'clock, after a slight shower during the night, to enhance the dews in the shadowed part of the picture, under 'Hedge row elms and hillocks green.' Then the plough, cart, horse, gate, cows, donkey, &c. are all good paintable material for the foreground, and the size of the canvas sufficient to try one's strength, and keep one at full collar.

  John Constable

  Summer, Morning, Horse

  "Constable". Book by Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Tate Gallery Publications, London, p. 380, Letter to William Purton (6 February 1836), 1993.

• 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.

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