John Constable

I know very well what I am about, & that my skies have not been neglected, though they often failed in execution — and often, no doubt, from an over-anxiety about them — which will alone destroy that easy appearance which nature always has …

This appearance of the Evening was... just after a very heavy rain — more rain in the night and very — [?light] wind which continued all the — day following while making – this sketch observed the Moon easing – very beautifully... [in the] …

How sweet and beautifull is every place & I visit my old Haunts with renewed delight... nothing can exceed the beautiful green of the meadows which are beginning to fill with butter Cups — & various flowers — the birds are singing from …

Painting is but another word for feeling.

But You know, Landscape is my mistress — 't is to her that I look for fame — and all that the warmth of the imagination renders dear to Man.

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.

I have been living a hermit-life, though always with my pencil in my hand.. .How much real delight have I had with the study of landscape this summer! Either I am myself improved in the art of seeing nature, which Sir Joshua call painting, …

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.

There is room enough for a natural 'painture'. The great vice of the present day is bravura, an attempt to do something beyond the truth. In endeavouring to do something better than well, they do what in reality is good for nothing. …

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.