John Constable

There has never been a boy painter, nor can there be. The art requires a long apprenticeship, being mechanical, as well as…

— John Constable

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

— John Constable

We see nothing till we truly understand it.

— John Constable

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

— John Constable

Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not landscape painting…

— John Constable

I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas.

— John Constable

The climax of absurdity to which art may be carried when led away from nature by fashion, may be best seen in…

— John Constable

It is much to my advantage that several of my pictures should be seen together, as it displays to advantage their varieties…

— John Constable

When we speak of the perfection of art, we must recollect what the materials are with which a painter contends with nature.…

— John Constable

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

— John Constable

But the sound of water escaping from mill-dams, &c., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things. Shakespeare…

— John Constable

It is always my endeavour however in making a picture that it should be without a companion in the world. At least…

— John Constable

Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate "my careless…

— John Constable

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

— John Constable

I paint by all the daylight we have and that is little enough, less perhaps than you have by much... imagine to…

— 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

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

— John Constable

He [the artist] ought to have 'these powerful organs of expression' - colour and chiaroscuro - entirely at his command, that he…

— John Constable

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

— John Constable

I am glad you encouraged me with the 'Stoke' [his painting 'Stoke-by-Nayland', circa 1835] What say you to a summer morning? July…

— John Constable

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

— John Constable

I have likewise made many 'skies' and effects - for I wish it could be said of me as Fuselli says of…

— John Constable

Verse is a mechanism by which we can create interpretative illusions suggesting profoundities of response and understanding which far exceed the engagement…

— John Constable

Connoisseurs think the art is already done.

— John Constable

I know very well what I am about and that my skies have not been neglected, though they often failed in execution…

— John Constable