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J. M. W. Turner

22 quotes

“.. [I] reprobate the mechanically systematic approach of drawing.. ..so generally diffused. I think it can produce nothing but manner and sameness.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1799 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Turner's remark, c. 1799 to his colleague Joseph Farington; as cited in the essay 'Draughtsman and Watercolourist', by David Blayney Brown on Tate.org
“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..']”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1806 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Turner, c. 1806?; told by Mr Wells' daughter, Mrs. Wheeler; included in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 55
“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.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1810 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Turner, c. 1810; as quoted in: Dennis Hugh Halloran (1970) The Classical Landscape Paintings of J.M.W. Turner. p. 75
“Hawkey - Hawkey [Mr. Fawkes of Farnley Hall, North Yorkshire, close friend of Turner] - come here - come here! Look at this thunderstorm! Isn't it grand? - Isn't it wonderful? - Isn't it sublime?. .There, Hawkey; in two years you will see this again, and call it 'Hannibal Crossing the Alps'.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1810 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote c. 1810; as quoted in 'A brief history of weather in European landscape art', John E. Thornes, in Weather Volume 55, Issue 10 Oct. 2000, p. 368
“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.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1811 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Turner's lectures, 1811; as cited in Life and Work of J.M.W. Turner, Andrew Wilton; London: Academy Editions, 1979; as quoted in 'A brief history of weather in European landscape art', John E. Thornes, in Wea…
“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.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in Turner's letter from Rome, 13 Oct. 1828 to his friend George Jones; as cited in The Life of J. M. W. Turner R.A. , Walter Thornbury - A new Edition, Revised; London Chatto & Windus, 1897, p. 101
“My dear Chantrey, - I intended long before this (but you will say, Fudge) to have written: but even now very little information have I to give you in matters of Art, for I have confined myself to the painting department at Corso; and having finished one, am about the second, and getting on with Lord E.'s, which I began the very first touch at Rome; but as the folk here talked that I would show them not, I finished a small three feet four [painting] to stop their gabbling..”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1828 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote in Turner's letter from Rome, 6 Nov. 1828, to his friend Francis Chantrey; as cited in The Life of J. M. W. Turner R.A. , Walter Thornbury - A new Edition, Revised; London Chatto & Windus, 1897, p. 10
“Dear Jones.. [I] give you some account of.. ..the last sad ceremonies paid yesterday to departed talent gone to that bourne from whence no traveller returns. Alas, only two short months Sir Thomas followed the coffin of Dawe to the same place. We then were his pall-bearers. Who will do the like for me, or when, God only knows how soon; my poor father's death [Sept. 1829] proved a heavy blow upon me, and has been followed by others of the same dark kind.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Turner's letter, London Feb. 1830, to his friend George Jones in Rome; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 233
“Chantrey [good friend of Turner] is as gay and as good as ever, ready to serve: he requests, for my benefit, that you bottle up all the yellows which may be found straying out of the right way; but what you may have told him about the old masters which you did not tell me, I can't tell, but we expected to hear a great deal from each other, but the stormy brush of Tintoretto was only to make the 'Notte' more visible.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Turner's letter, London Feb. 1830, to his friend George Jones in Rome; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 234
“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 Turner's 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.'”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1830 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Turner's remark, c. 1830's to his friend Chantry; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 244
“Painting can never show her nose in company with architecture without being snubbed.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote c. 1840; as cited by by Vol. 1, (1860), p. 208; as quoted in The Life of J. M. W. Turner - Founded on Letters and Papers Furnished by His Friends and Fellow Academicians, Walter Thornbury; Cambridge University Pre…
“He John Ruskin knows a great deal more about my pictures than I do; he puts things into my head, and points out meanings in them that I never intended.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1840 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Turner, c. 1840's; as cited by George Walter Thornbury, in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, p. 130
“If I could find anything blacker than black, I'd use it.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1842 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Turner, c. 1842-43; as cited by Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1879) The Life of J. M. W. Turner, R. A. p. 296
“No, Mr. Williams, certainly not; if Mr. Drake [a solicitor of the English Railway Company] has purchased a 'Turner', he ought to know it is a Turner; I was once silly enough to look at a picture that I was told had been painted by me, and I found myself soon after stuck up in a witness-box, giving evidence about it; I then said I'll never be so silly again.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Turner's remark c. Jan, 1849, to financial agent Mr. Williams; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, pp. 248-249
“..indistinctness is my forte.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) said by 1851 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From: Walter Thornbury. The Life of J.M.W. Turner,: ... Founded on Letters and Papers Furnished by His Friends and Fellow Academicians. By Walter Thornbury. In Two Volumes, Volume 2. (1862), p. 243
“It is necessary to mark the greater from the lesser truth: namely the larger and more liberal idea of nature from the comparatively narrow and confined; namely that which addresses itself to the imagination from that which is solely addressed to the eye.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) said by 1851 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quoted in: Eric Shanes (2012) The Life and Masterworks of J.M.W. Turner, p. 23
“My business is to paint what I see, not what I know is there.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) said by 1851 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Turner, quoted in: Donald B. MacCulloch (1927) The Wondrous Isle of Staffa, p. 160
“Then you will do away with the only social meetings [at the Art Academy in London ] we have, the only occasion on which we all come together in an easy, unrestrained manner. When we have no varnishing days, we shall not know one another.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) said by 1851 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote of Turner, told by Mr. C?. Leslie; as cited in 'The life of J.M.W. Turner', Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, pp. 186-87
“I never in my whole life could make a drawing like that; I would at any time have given one of my little fingers to have made such a one [one of Girtin's yellow drawings].”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) said by 1851 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: remark of Turner to Chambers Hall, (before 1855); as cited in The Life of J. M. W. Turner R.A. , Walter Thornbury - A new Edition, Revised; London Chatto & Windus, 1897, p. 61
“My dear Sir, [Mr. Trimmer] - I lament that all hope of the pleasure of seeing you, or getting to Heston, must for the present probably vanish. My father told me.. ..that you and Mrs. Trimmer would leave Heston for Suffolk as tomorrow, Wednesday.. ..In looking forward to a Continental excursion, and poor Daddy seems as much plagued with weeds as I am with disappointment - that if Miss ... would but waive bashfulness, or, in other words, make an offer instead of expecting one, the same might change occupiers; but not to trouble you further, allow me, with most sincere respect to Mrs. Trimmer and family, to consider myself - Yours most truly obliged, 'J. M. W. Turner.'”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) said by 1851 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Turner's letter to Mr. Trimmer; as cited in The Life of J. M. W. Turner R.A., George Walter Thornbury - A new Edition, Revised; London Chatto & Windus, 1897, pp. 225-26
“Dear Sir, - I have truly, I must say, written three times, and now hesitate; for did I know your son's works, or, as you say, his gifted merits yet even then I would rather advise you to think well, and not be carried away by the admiration which any friendly hopes (which ardent friends to early talent) may assume: they know not the difficulties or the necessities of the culture of the Fine Arts generally speaking. In regard to yourself, it is you alone can judge how far you are inclined to support him during perhaps a long period of expense; and particularly if you look towards tuition, the more so; for it cannot insure success (however much it may facilitate practice), and therefore it behooves you to weigh well the means in your power before you embark in a profession which requires more care, assiduity, and perseverance than any person can guarantee.”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1848 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Turner's letter 4 Dec. 1848 to James Astbury Hammersley; as cited in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, pp. 115-16
“Dear Hawkesworth, Mother Goose came to a rehearsal before Christmas day, having arrived on Saturday for the knife.. .Many thanks for the brace of pheasants and hares—by the same train—indeed, I think it fortunate, for with all the strife and strike of pokers and stokers for the railroads - their commons every day growing worse - in shareholders and directors squabbling about the winding up the last Bill, to come to some end for those lines known or supposed to be in difficulty.. .I am sorry to say my health is much on the wain. I cannot bear the same fatigue, or have the same bearing against it, I formerly had - but time and tide stop not - but I must stop writing for today..”
J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851) first seen 1849 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Quote from Turner's letter to Mr. Hawkesworth, 24 December, 1849; as quoted in The life of J.M.W. Turner, Volume II, George Walter Thornbury; Hurst and Blackett Publishers, London, 1862, pp. 90-91