John Constable Quotes

A self-taught painter is one taught by a very ignorant person.

John Constable

The Quarterly Review - 1866.

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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.

John Constable

C. R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Composed Chiefly of His Letters - 1843 - Phaidon, London, 1951.

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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 the world.

John Constable

C. R. Leslie, Memoirs of the Life of John Constable, Composed Chiefly of His Letters - 1843, Phaidon, London, 1951.

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Because he attempted to tell (his painting ['The Jewish Cemetery'] that which is outside the reach of art... there are ruins to indicate old age, a stream to signify the course of life, and rocks and...

John Constable

Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable - Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993.

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It is much to my advantage that several of my pictures should be seen together, as it displays to advantage their varieties of conception and also of execution, and what they gain by the mellowing...

John Constable

Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable - Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993.

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Only think that I am now writing in a room full of Claudes... almost of the summit of my earthly ambitions.

John Constable

Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable - Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993.

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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.

John Constable

Letter to David Lucas - 1836, on the mezzo print of the 'Salisbury Cathedral from the Meadows', quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable - Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993.

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My observations on clouds and skies are on scraps and bits of paper, and I have never yet put them together so as to form a lecture, which I shall do.. ..next summer.

John Constable

Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable - Tate Gallery Publications - London, 1993.

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Many of my Hamptstead friends may remember this 'young lady' [an ash tree] at the entrance to the village. Her fate was distressing, for it is scarcely too much to say that she died of a broken...

John Constable

Lecture, given at Hamptstead - 1836, quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams - Tate Gallery Publications, Constable, - London 1993.

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I am glad you encouraged me with the 'Stoke'. What say you to a summer morning? July or August, at eight or nine o’clock, after a slight shower during the night, to enhance the dews in the shadowed...

John Constable

Letter to William Purton - 1836, quoted in Leslie Parris and Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable - Tate Gallery Publications, London, 1993.

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