John Constable Quotes
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I have likewise made many 'skies' and effects - for I wish it could be said of me as Fuselli says of Rembrandt, 'he followed nature in her calmest abodes and could pluck a flower on every hedge - yet he was born to cast a steadfast eye on the bolder phenomena of nature'... We have had noble clouds & effects of light & dark & color.
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The climax of absurdity to which the art may be carried, when led away from nature by fashion, may be best seen in the works of Boucher... His landscape, of which he was evidently fond, is pastoral; and such pastorality! the pastoral of the Opera house.
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My art flatters nobody by imitation; it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness... there is no finish in nature.
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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.
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England, with her climate of more than vernal freshness, and in whose summer skies, and rich autumnal clouds, the observer of Nature may daily watch her endless varieties of effect.. ..to one brief moment caught by the artist from fleeting time..
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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.
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The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.
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A self-taught painter is one taught by a very ignorant person.
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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.
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It is so ambiguous as to be scarcely intelligible in some parts (and those the principal), yet as a whole, it is novel and affecting.
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Our little drawing Room Constable's lodgings at Hamptstead with a view on London commands a view unequalled in Europe - from Westminster Abbey to Gravesend - the dome of St Paul's in the Air - realizes Michael Angelo's Idea on seeing that of the Pantheon - 'I will build such a thing in the Sky.'
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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.
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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. (1836)