J. M. W. Turner

"To select, combine and concentrate that which is beautiful in nature and admirable in art is as much the business of the landscape painter in his line as in the other departments of art."

"Well, Gaffer [his early friend Mr. Wells, artist] I see there will be no peace till I comply; so give me a piece of paper. There, now, rule the size for me, and tell me what I am to do. [Mr. Wells told him: Well divide your subject into classes, say: Pastoral, Marine, Elegant Pastoral, and so forth..]"

"In our variable climate where [all] the seasons are recognizable in one day, where all the vapoury turbulence involves the face of things, where nature seems to sport in all: her dignity and dispensing incidents for the artist’s study.. ..how happily is the landscape painter situated, how roused by every change in nature in every moment, that allows no languor even in her effects which she places before him, and demands most peremptorily every moment his admiration and investigation, to store his mind with every change of time and place."

"Dear Jones, - Two months nearly in getting to this Terra Pictura, and at work; but the length of time is my own fault. [because] I must see the South of France, which almost knocked me up, the heat was so intense, particularly at Nismes and Avignon; and until I got a plunge into the sea at Marseilles, I felt so weak that nothing but the change of scene kept me onwards to my distant point. Genoa, and all the sea-coast from Nice to Spezzia, is remarkably rugged and fine; so is Massa.. .Hope that you have been better than usual, and that the pictures go on well."

"I have appointed you [ his friend, the sculptor Francis Chantry ] one of my executors. Will you promise to see me rolled up in it [in Turners painting Carthage? (Yes, responded his friend and I promise you also that, as soon as you are buried, I will see you taken up and unrolled."

".. [I] reprobate the mechanically systematic approach of drawing.. ..so generally diffused. I think it can produce nothing but manner and sameness."