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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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All Art Mind May Painter Men Excellence Color Produce Taste Wells Degrees Effects Eye Ifs Industry Labor Littles Observation Painting Art Is

Famous Joshua Reynolds Quotes

“Though colour may appear at first a part of painting merely mechanical, yet it still has its rules, and those grounded upon that presiding principle which regulates both the great and the little in the study of a painter.”

Firsts May Littles Stills Principles Study Painting Painter Colour Grounded

Book:Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, delivered at the Royal Academy. With a portrait

Source: Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, delivered at the Royal Academy. With a portrait

“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

“In portraits, the grace and, we may add, the likeness consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact similitude of every feature.”

May Grace Air Painting Add Features Portraits Observing

Book:The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds

Source: The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds

“Style in painting is the same as in writing; a power over materials, whether words or colors, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.”

Writing Art Style Color Painting Materials Sentiments Conception

Book:The discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds: Illustr. by explanatory notes & plates by John Burnet

Source: The discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds: Illustr. by explanatory notes & plates by John Burnet

“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