Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I never saw an ugly thing in my life.
Painting is but another word for feeling.
We see nothing till we truly understand it.
Connoisseurs think the art is already done.
Painting is with me but another word for feeling.
Landscape is my mistress - 'tis to her I look for fame.
The sky is the source of light in nature - and governs everything.
The sky is the source of light in Nature and it governs everything.
I do not consider myself at work unless I am before a six-foot canvas.
An artist who is self-taught is taught by a very ignorant person indeed.
A gentleman's park is my aversion. It is not beauty because it is not nature.
The world is rid of Lord Byron, but the deadly slime of his touch still remains.
I don't mind parting with the corn, but not with the field in which it was raised.
Nature is the fountain's head, the source from whence all originality must spring.
Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature.
No man who can do any one thing well will be able to any different thing equally well.
Speaking to a lawyer about pictures is something like talking to a butcher about humanity.
Turner has outdone himself; he seems to paint with tinted steam, so evanescent and so airy.
I am anxious that the world should be inclined to look to painters for information about painting.
Only think that I am now writing in a room full of Claudes... almost of the summit of my earthly ambitions.
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.
I know dock leaves pretty well, but I should not attempt to introduce them into a picture without having them before me.
The sound of water escaping from mill dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork, I love such things.
It is the soul that sees; the outward eyes Present the object, but the Mind descries. We see nothing till we truly understand it.
My art flatters nobody by imitation; it courts nobody by smoothness, tickles nobody by petiteness... there is no finish in nature.
The climax of absurdity to which art may be carried when led away from nature by fashion, may be best seen in the works of Boucher.
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.
Light - dews - breezes - bloom - and freshness; not one of which... has yet been perfected on the canvas of any painter in the world.
There has never been a boy painter, nor can there be. The art requires a long apprenticeship, being mechanical, as well as intellectual.
But You know Landscape is my mistress - 'tis to her that I look for fame - and all that the warmth of the imagination renders dear to Man.
It will be difficult to name a class of landscape in which the sky is not the key note, the standard of scale, and the chief organ of sentiment.
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.
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.
It is always my endeavour however in making a picture that it should be without a companion in the world. At least such should be a painters ambition.
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.
The sound of water escaping from mill-dams, etc., willows, old rotten planks, slimy posts, and brickwork.those scenes made me a painter and I am grateful.
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.
I paint by all the daylight we have and that is little enough, less perhaps than you have by much... imagine to yourself how a purl must look through a burnt glass.
I know very well what I am about and that my skies have not been neglected, though they often failed in execution - and often no doubt from over anxiety about them.
My art flatters nobody by imitation, it courts nobody by smoothness, nobody by petitelieness without either fal-de-lal or fiddle-de-dee; how then can I hope to be popular?
Verse is a mechanism by which we can create interpretative illusions suggesting profoundities of response and understanding which far exceed the engagement or research of the writer.
A sketch will not serve more than one state of mind & will not serve to drink at again & again — in a sketch there is nothing but the one state of mind — that which you were in at the time.
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.
Constable himself knew the value of such studies, for he rarely parted with them. He used to say of his studies and pictures that he had no objection to part with the corn, but not with the field that grew it.
Painting is a science, and should be pursued as an inquiry into the laws of nature. Why, then, may not landscape painting be considered as a branch of natural philosophy, of which pictures are but the experiments?
When we speak of the perfection of art, we must recollect what the materials are with which a painter contends with nature. For the light of the sun he has but patent yellow and white lead - for the darkest shade, umber or soot.
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; and the genuine productions of art, like those of nature, are all distinct from one another.
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.
My canvas soothes me into forgetfulness of the scene of turmoil and folly - and worse - of the scene around me. Every gleam of sunshine is blighted to me in the art at least. Can it therefore be wondered at that I paint continual storms? "Tempest o'er tempest roll'd" - still the "darkness" is majestic.
I am anxious that the world should be inclined to look to painters for information about painting. I hope to show that ours is a regularly taught profession; that it is scientific as well as poetic; that imagination alone never did, and never can, produce works that are to stand by a comparison with realities.