Quote#Death
On the death of these great men [Rembrandt, Ruysdael and Cuyp]…
Quote byJohn Constable · 1776–1837
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Quote from Constable's lecture at Hampstead, 1833; as quoted in: 'A brief history of weather in European landscape art', John E. Thornes, in Weather Volume 55, Issue 10 Oct. 2000, p. 367.
English (original)
On the death of these great men [Rembrandt, Ruysdael and Cuyp] Landscape rapidly declined; and during almost the whole of the succeeding century, little was produced.. .From this degraded and fallen state it is delightful to say that landscape painting revived in our own country [England], in all its purity, simplicity, and grandeur, in the works of Wilson, Gainsborough, Cozens, and Girtin.
— John Constable
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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.
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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.
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. …
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.