Quote#Art
The first impression and a natural one is, that the fine arts have…
Quote byJohn Constable · 1776–1837
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: his lectures History of Landscape Painting (1836), Lecture, Literary and Scientific Institution, Hampstead, (25 July 1836), from notes taken by C.R. Leslie.
English (original)
The first impression and a natural one is, that the fine arts have risen or declined in proportion as patronage has been given to them or withdrawn, but it will be found that there has often been more money lavished on them in their worst periods than in their best, and that the highest honours have frequently been bestowed on artists whose names are scarcely now known.
— John Constable
More from John Constable
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, …
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.
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.
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.
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.