Joshua Reynolds Quotes - Page 4

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• From a slight, undetermined drawing, where the ideas of the composition and character are just touched upon, the imagination supplies more than the painter himself, probably, could produce. And we accordingly often find that the finished work disappoints the expectation that was raised from the sketch.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Character, Ideas, Drawing

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1824). “The Complete Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds: First President of the Royal Academy : with an Original Memoir, and Anecdotes of the Author”, p.217

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• 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.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Distance, Light, Finishing

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1850). “Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, Delivered at the Royal Academy”, p.72

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• The painter of genius will not waste a moment upon those smaller objects which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Heart, Design, Attention

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1850). “Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, Delivered at the Royal Academy”, p.15

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• 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.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Imitation, Inspection, Raised

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1860). “The Life and Writings of Sir Joshua Reynolds: First President of the Royal Academy”

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• The spectator, as he walks the gallery, will stop, or pass along. To give a general air of grandeur at first view, all trifling, or artful play of little lights, or an attention to a variety of tints is to be avoided; a quietness and simplicity must reign over the whole work, to which a breadth of uniform and simple color will very much contribute.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Simple, Light, Air

  Joshua Reynolds (1835). “The Literary works of sir Joshua Reynolds, first President of the Royal Academy”, p.349

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• Grandeur of effect is produced by two different ways which seem entirely opposed to each other. One is by reducing the colors to little more than chiaroscuro... and the other, by making the colors very distinct and forcible... but still, the presiding principle of both those manners is simplicity.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Color, Two, Simplicity

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• 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.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Principles, May, Littles

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1837). “Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, delivered at the Royal Academy. With a portrait”, p.52

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• 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.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Views, Different, Purpose

  Sir Joshua Reynolds, Thomas Gray, Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy, William Mason (1851). “The literary works of Sir Joshua Reynolds”, p.67

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• A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.

  Joshua Reynolds

  Heart, Produce, Raises

  Sir Joshua Reynolds (1837). “Discourses on Painting and the Fine Arts, delivered at the Royal Academy. With a portrait”, p.30

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