Charles John Holmes

“ Leslie's admirable biography must always remain the great authority on Constable's personal history, yet no book, however accurate and sympathetic, which dates from the forties, could foresee the enormous change which has taken place in landscape painting since Constable's death. Whatever his responsibility for the artistic revolution with which his name is associated, Constable undoubtedly stands at the parting of the ways between the old masters and the moderns, for he was the first to prove that a landscape might be a good picture, and also be really like nature. ”

“ The aim of his great predecessors had been to make noble compositions, with just as much resemblance to nature as was convenient. The aim of his successors has been to get a sincere likeness to nature, while pictorial quality seems too often to be regarded as a subordinate matter. ”