Top John Constable Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

John Constable Biography

John Constable, RA (/ˈkʌnstəbəl, ˈkɒn-/; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the naturalistic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home — now known as "Constable Country" — which he invested with an intensity of affection. "I should paint my own places best", he wrote to his friend John Fisher in 1821, "painting is but another word for feeling".

Read about John Constable in Wikipedia

Random Authors

John Constable Quotes

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.

Artist, Character, Freedom, Lost, Powerful, Setting

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.

Essence, Light, Make, Mother, Royal, Scarifies

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

Communication, Humanity, Like, Pictures, Talking

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.

Attitude, Beautiful, Beauty, Light, Thing

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.

Class, Keys, Name, Organ, Sentiment, Sky

Painting is with me but another word for feeling.

Feelings, Emotion, Painting, Feeling, Word

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.

Art, Blighted, Darkness, Sunshine

The output is far from smooth, and the impact on dispatchable plant required to deal with residual demand is highly significant. Our view is that plant operating under these conditions in the support role for wind will suffer: 1) reduced availability, 2) significantly reduced efficiency, and thus 3) higher emissions per MWh generated.

Availability, Highly, Impact, Output, Role, Views

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?

Art, Court, Imitation, Nobody, Petitelieness

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

Light, Nature, Sky, Source

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.

Alive, Bears, Clear, Front, Sentiment, Solemnity

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

Gentleman, Aversion, Parks, Beauty, Park

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.

Brickwork, Escaping, Grateful, Sound, Water

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.

Art, Interpretative, Poetry, Profoundities, Response, Understanding

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

Canvas, Feet, Six, Unless, Work

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.

Boyhood, Grateful, Horse, Lies, Lying, Stour

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?

Experiments, Laws, Nature, Philosophy, Pictures, Science

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

Airy, Masters, Paint, Tinted, Turner

Connoisseurs think the art is already done.

Already, Art, Done, Think, Thinking

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.

Believe, Canvas, Children, Dews, Light, Sake

1