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Joshua Reynolds

Joshua Reynolds Quotes

Painter

Joshua Reynolds was an influential English painter, recognized for his portraits and landscapes. Born on July 16, 1723, and passing away on February 23, 1792, Reynolds played a significant role in the development of the English portrait school and is often considered the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts.

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Famous Joshua Reynolds Quotes

“Our studies will be forever, in a very great degree, under the direction of chance; like travelers, we must take what we can get, and when we can get it - whether it is or is not administered to us in the most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or at the exact minute when we would wish to have it.”

Wish Chance Forever Study Minutes Degrees Traveler

Book:Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses

Source: Sir Joshua Reynolds's Discourses

“It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excellence with regard to color, and light and shade, in the highest degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art. By a few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever object he attempted.”

Firsts Art Character Light Eye Turns Objects Color Masters Degrees Highest Mark Regard Excellence Shade Strokes

Book:Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, Delivered at the Royal Academy

Source: Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, Delivered at the Royal Academy

“Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe. The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this power and advantage of leading the mind on, till attention is totally engaged. What is done by Painting, must be done at one blow; curiosity has received at once all the satisfaction it can ever have.”

Source: The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds

“Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe.”

Mind Lasts Poetry Interest Events Degrees Curiosity Unexpected Surprising Catastrophe Engaging Suspended

Book:The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds

Source: The Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds

“The first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, a general preparation for whatever the student may afterward choose for more particular application. The power of drawing, modeling, and using colors, is very properly called the language of the art.”

Firsts May Art Literature Language Students Particular Color Painting Degrees Drawing Preparation Application Grammar Modeling Proficiency

Book:The Life and Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds

Source: The Life and Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds