Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSAwas an influential eighteenth-century English painter, specialising in portraits. He promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPainter
Date of Birth16 July 1723
Joshua Reynolds quotes about
passion blue yellow
Perhaps blue, red, and yellow strike the mind more forcibly from there not being any great union between them, as martial music, which is intended to rouse the nobler passions...
contemplation endeavor i-can
I can recommend nothing better... than that you endeavor to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others.
deeds produce combination
Nothing can be made of nothing; he who has laid up no material can produce no combination.
mind imitation resolve
He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated.
ambition evil may
One inconvenience... may attend bold and arduous attempts: frequent failure may discourage. This evil, however, is not more pernicious than the slow proficiency which is the natural consequence of too easy tasks.
mind may vain
It is vain for painters... to endeavour to invent without materials on which the mind may work.
strong memories practice
Let me recommend to you not to have too great dependence on your practice or memory, however strong those impressions may have been which are there deposited. They are forever wearing out, and will be at least obliterated, unless they are continually refreshed and repaired.
degradation painter heard
I have heard painters acknowledge, though in that acknowledgment no degradation of themselves was intended, that they could do better without nature than with her; or as they express themselves, 'that it only put them out.
distance light may
However minutely labored the picture may be in the detail, the whole will have a false and even an unfinished appearance, at whatever distance, or in whatever light it can be shown.
imitation raised contrast
By close inspection... you will discover the manner of handling the artifices of contrast, glazing, and other expedients, by which good colorists have raised the value of their tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated.
taken hands understanding
It is impossible that anything will be well understood or well done that is taken into a reluctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand.
views purpose different
Raphael and Titian seem to have looked at Nature for different purposes; they both had the power of extending their view to the whole; but one looked only for the general effect as produced by form, the other as produced by colour.
nice eye attention
An eye critically nice can only be formed by observing well-colored pictures with attention.
moving passion style
Martial music has sudden and strongly marked transitions from one note to another which that style of music requires; while in that which is intended to move the softer passions, the notes imperceptibly melt into one another.