John Constable: Thoughts on Art

"Clouds" by John Constable

"Observe that they best director, thy perfect guide, is Nature. Copy from her. In her paths is thy triumphal arch. She is above all other teachers; and ever confide in her with a bold heart, especially when thou beginnest to feel that there is a sentiment in drawing. Day after day never fail to draw something, which, however little it may be, will yet in the end be much; and do thy best."

"What were the habits of Claude and the Poussins? Though surrounded with palaces filled with pictures, they made the fields their chief places of study."

"It was at Rome Claude became the real student of Nature. He came there a confirmed mannered painter. But he soon found it necessary to 'become as a little child,' and he devoted himself to study with an ardour and a patience of labour perhaps never before equalled. He lived in the fields all day, and drew at the Academy at night, for after all art is a plant of the conservatory, not of the desert."

"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."

"A friend of Constable, expressing to him his dissatisfaction at his own progress in art, received the greatest encouragement to proceed he ever met with, in the following answer: 'If you had found painting as easy as you once thought it, you would have given it up long ago.'" 

(Excerpts from "Life and Letters of John Constable, R.A." by Charles Robert Leslie.)