Top 17 John Constable Quotes

Landscape is my mistress – ‘tis to her I look for fame.

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.

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.

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

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

Landscape is my mistress – ’tis to her I look for fame.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.