“Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate "my careless boyhood" with all that lies on the banks of the Stour; those scenes made me a painter, and I am grateful; that is, I had often thought of pictures of them before ever I touched a pencil, and your picture ['The White Horse'] is one of the strongest instance I can recollect of it.”

— John Constable

Quote from John Constable's letter to Rev. John Fisher (23 October 1821), from John Constable's Correspondence, part 6, pp. 76-78
1820s

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Still I should paint my own places best; painting is with me but another word for feeling, and I associate "my careless…" by John Constable?

John Constable 53

English Romantic painter 1776–1837

Related quotes

“My first photo Picture? I was doing large pictures in gloss enamel... One day a photograph of Brigit Bardot fell into my hands, and I painted it into one of these pictures in shades of grey. I had had enough of bloody painting, and painting from a photograph seemed to me the most moronic.... thing that everyone could do.”

Gerhard Richter (1932) German visual artist, born 1932

Source: after 2000, Doubt and belief in painting' (2003), p. 43, note 36 : quote on his start with photography

“I paint very large pictures. I realize that historically the function of painting large pictures is painting something very grandiose and pompous. The reason I paint them however, - I think it applies to other painters I know -, is precisely because I want to be very intimate and human. To paint a small picture is to place yourself outside your experience, to look upon an experience as a stereopticon view or with a reducing glass. However you paint the larger picture, you are in it. It isn't something you command.”

Mark Rothko (1903–1970) American painter

1950's
Source: Interiors, Vol. 110, no 10, May 1951; as quoted in Abstract Expressionism Creators and Critics, ed. Clifford Ross, Abrams Publishers New York 1990, p. 172

“They [his own fantasies he made in strange pencil drawings then] hover before me now in drifting color, more beautiful than I can possibly paint them.... I yearn for the day when I will have found my color harmonies, my harmonies.”

Emil Nolde (1867–1956) German artist

Quote of Nolde's letter, 1902, to Hans Fehr; as cited in Expressionism, a German intuition, 1905-1920, Neugroschel, Joachim; Vogt, Paul; Keller, Horst; Urban, Martin; Dube, Wolf Dieter; (transl. Joachim Neugroschel); publisher: Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, 1980, p. 35
During the next few years, Nolde virtually commuted between Copenhagen and Berlin; in the fishing village of Lildstand on Jutland's northern coast, he produced strange pencil drawings, as he wrote to Fehr
1900 - 1920

“It all began with my painting a picture of an American flag. Using this design took care of a great deal for me because I didn't have to design it. So I want on to similar things like the targets things the mind already knows. That gave me room to work on other levels. For instance, I've always thought of a painting as a surface; painting it in one color made this very clear... A picture ought to be looked at the same way you look at a radiator.”

Jasper Johns (1930) American artist

His heart belong to DADA, Time 73, 4 May, 1959: 58; as quoted in Jasper Johns, Writings, sketchbook Notes, Interviews, ed. Kirk Varnedoe, Moma New York, 1996, p. 82
1950s

“As I hear, you are the possessors of one of my favorite paintings 'The children on the beach' and I can tell you that few pictures by me, have so much figures, busy in the subject. Therefore I mean that this picture is an unicum and I hope you will give it a good light and place in your gallery.”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

Israels in his letter to Amercian art-sellers Moulton & Ricketts, 27 June 1910; as cited in Jozef Israëls, 1824 – 1911, ed. Dieuwertje Dekkers; Waanders, Zwolle 1999, p. 188
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

“At the time of making a picture, I want not to know what I am doing.; a picture should me made with feeling, not with knowing.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

Quote from an interview with w:Elaine de Kooning, 'Hans Hofmann paints a picture', 1950; in Artnews, February 1950, 38 (article 38-41 and 58-59)
1950s

“Hugo [Claus], Now you should see my recent works. A drawing in ink, three pencil drawings and two sketches in oil-paint: a still-life and a landscape in the strongest colors you can imagine. I still have to work on the landscape, but I really think it will be the best of my paintings till now.... but the happiest thing is, I have acquired much more freedom.”

Roger Raveel (1921–2013) painter

version in original Flemish (citaat van Roger Raveel, in het Vlaams): Hugo [Claus], nu zoudt U eens moeten mijn laatste werk zien, een pentekening, drie potloodtekeningen en twee studies met olieverf: een stilleven en een landschap in de hevigste kleuren die Ge U kunt indenken. Aan dat landschap moet ik nog werken maar ik denk dat het mijn beste werk zal zijn, van mijn schilderwerk, en drie tekeningen vind ik mijn beste maar het gelukkigste is dat ik een veel grotere vrijheid heb verworven.
Quote of Raveel, in a letter to his friend Hugo Claus, from Machelen aan de Leie, 20-24 March 1948; as cited in Hugo Claus, Roger Raveel; Brieven 1947 – 1962, ed. Katrien Jacobs, Ludion; Gent Belgium, 2007 - ISBN 978-90-5544-665-0, p. 50 (translation: Fons Heijnsbroek)
1945 - 1960

“I guess I shoulda closed my eyes
When U drove me 2 the place
Where your horses run free.
'Cuz I felt a little ill
When I saw all the pictures
Of the jockeys that were there before me.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Song lyrics, 1999 (1982)

“I dream my picture and afterwards I paint my dream.”

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796–1875) French landscape painter and printmaker in etching

As translated in Musical Courier Vol. 57, No. 21 (18 November 1908), p. 20; in recent years a nearly identical but ultimately unsourced remark has been attributed to Vincent Van Gogh; the very earliest such attributions yet found date to the 1990s.
As translated in Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning (1918) by Thomas Troward, p. 207
As translated in Gardener's Chronicle of America (1932)
undated
Original: (fr) Je rêve mon tableau, et plus tard je peindrai mon rêve.

“The painter goes through states of fullness and evacuation. That is the whole secret of art. I go for a walk in the forest of Fontainebleau. I get 'green' indigestion. I must get rid of this sensation into a picture. Green rules it. A painter paints to unload himself of feelings and visions. People seize on painting to cover up their nakedness. They get what they can wherever they can. In the end I don't believe they get anything at all. They've simply cut a coat to the measure of their own ignorance. They make everything, from God to a picture, in their own image. That is why the picture-hook is the ruination of a painting.”

Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer

Boisgeloup, winter 1934
As quoted in Futurism, ed. Didier Ottinger; Centre Pompidou / 5 Continents Editions, Milan, 2008
Quotes, 1930's, "Conversations avec Picasso," 1934–35

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

John Constable 53

Related quotes

Related topics