Quotes from John Constable

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

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

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.

Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature.

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.

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

The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.

I know dock leaves pretty well, but I should not attempt to introduce them into a picture without having them before me.

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.

Whatever may be thought of my art, it is my own; and I would rather possess a freehold, though but a cottage, than live in a palace belonging to another.

Nature is the fountain's head, the source from whence all originality must spring.

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 all the world; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from each other.

I never saw an ugly thing in my life.

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.

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

Painting is with me but another word for feeling.

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

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.

Painting is but another word for feeling.

Landscape is my mistress - 'tis to her I look for fame.

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.

The sky is the source of light in nature - and governs everything.

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.

All my indispositions have their source in my mind. It is when I am restless and unhappy that I become susceptible of cold, damp, heats, and such nonsense.