68 Quotes by John Constable

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I don’t mind parting with the corn, but not with the field in which it was raised.

I know very well what I am about and that my skies have not been neglected, though they often failed in execution – and often no doubt from over anxiety about them...

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

I am anxious that the world should be inclined to look to painters for information about painting.