Discourses on art
By: Sir Joshua Reynolds ; edited by Robert R. Wark.
Contributors: Wark, Robert R.; Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.
Publisher: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (London) Ltd. by Yale University Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: New Haven
Language: eng
Number of pages: 349
Subjects: Art.
Description: The Discourses on Art of Sir Joshua Reynolds form one of the most eloquent literary documents in the history of European art. Composed as lectures to the students at the Royal Academy in the late eighteenth century, they both summarize the art theory of the previous three hundred years and point towards attitudes prevalent in the nineteenth century. Reynolds' general topic is the education of the artist.

He is concerned with the essentials of the problem: the purpose of art, the nature of the creative process, and the artist's relation to tradition. He treats these questions with a breadth and clarity that won the immediate admiration of his contemporaries and have continued to hold the attention of readers ever since. No other body of art criticism by an Englishman has enjoyed such sustained respect.

This standard edition of the Discourses is now reissued in a new format and with improved illustrations. It has long been recognized as a fundamental text for the study of eighteenth-century English painting, and this edition is generally considered to be the definitive one.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 337-341) and index.
Text of the 1797 ed. of the author's Discourses.
"This standard edition of the Discourses is now reissued in a new format and with improved illustrations"--Cover p. 4.
Originally published: 1975.