John Constable Quotes

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

- John Constable

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

- John Constable

The landscape painter must walk in the fields with a humble mind. No arrogant man was ever permitted to see Nature in all her beauty.

- John Constable

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

- John Constable

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

- John Constable

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

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

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.

- John Constable

My art flatters nobody by imitation; it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness... there is no finish in nature.

- John Constable

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

- John Constable

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

- John Constable

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.

- John Constable

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.

- John Constable

Painting is but another word for feeling.

- John Constable