Sir Joshua Reynolds, Painter - Timeline Index Timeline Index Sir Joshua Reynolds, Painter Sir Joshua Reynolds, English portrait painter and aesthetician who dominated English artistic life in the middle and late 18th century. Through his art and teaching, he attempted to lead British painting away from the indigenous anecdotal pictures of the early 18th century toward the formal rhetoric of the continental Grand Style. With the founding of the Royal Academy in 1768, Reynolds was elected its first president and knighted by King George III. More on this Website Sir Joshua Reynolds | British painter | Britannica.com Sir Joshua Reynolds William Hogarth Sir Joshua Reynolds, (born July 16, 1723, Plympton, Devon , England —died February 23, 1792, London ), portrait painter and aesthetician who dominated English artistic life in the middle and late 18th century. Through his art and teaching, he attempted to lead British painting away from the indigenous anecdotal pictures of the early 18th century toward the formal rhetoric of the continental Grand Style. With the founding of the Royal Academy in 1768, Reynolds was elected its first president and knighted by King George III .

Sir Joshua Reynolds, detail of self-portrait, oil on panel, 1780; in the Royal Academy of Arts, … Royal Academy of Arts, London Early life Reynolds attended the Plympton grammar school of which his father, a clergyman, was master. The young Reynolds became well read in the writings of classical antiquity and throughout his life was to be much interested in literature, counting many of the finest British authors of the 18th century among his closest friends. Reynolds early aspired to become an artist, and in 1740 he was apprenticed for four years in London to Thomas Hudson , a conventional portraitist and the pupil and son-in-law of Jonathan Richardson. In 1743 he returned to Devon and began painting at Plymouth naval portraits that reveal his inexperience. Returning to London for two years in 1744, he began to acquire a knowledge of the old masters and an independent style marked by bold brushwork and the use of impasto, a thick surface texture of paint, such as in his portrait of Captain the Honourable John Hamilton (1746).

Back in Devon in 1746, he painted a large group portrait of the Eliot family (c. 1746/47), which clearly indicates that he had studied the large-scale portrait of the Pembroke family (1634–35) by the Flemish Baroque painter Sir Anthony Van Dyck , whose style of portrait painting influenced English portraiture throughout the 18th century. In 1749 Reynolds sailed with his friend Augustus Keppel to Minorca, one of the Balearic Islands off the Mediterranean coast of Spain. A fall from a horse detained him for five months and permanently scarred his lip—the scar being a prominent feature in his subsequent self-portraits. From Minorca he went to Rome, where he remained for two years, devoting himself to studying the great masterpieces of ancient Greco-Roman sculpture and of Italian painting. The impressions that he retained from this visit were to inspire his paintings and his Discourses for the rest of his life, for he felt that it was by allying painting with scholarship that he could best achieve his ambition of raising the status of his profession back in England.

While returning home via Florence, Bologna, and Venice, he became absorbed by the compositions and colour of the great Renaissance Venetian painters of the 16th century: Titian, Jacopo Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese . The Venetian tradition’s emphasis on colour and the effect of light and shading had a lasting influence on Reynolds, and, although all his life he preached the need for young artists to study the sculptural definition of form characteristic of Florentine and Roman painters, his own works are redolent of the Venetian style. Later years Leap Second In 1753 Reynolds settled in London, where he was to live for the rest of his life. His success was assured from the first, and by 1755 he was employing studio assistants to help him execute the numerous portrait commissions he received. The early London portraits have a vigour and naturalness about them that is perhaps best exemplified in a likeness of Honourable Augustus Keppel (1753–54). The pose is not original, being a reversal of the Apollo Belvedere , an ancient Roman copy of a mid-4th-century-bc Hellenistic statue Reynolds had seen in the Vatican.

But the fact that the subject (who was a British naval officer) is shown striding along the seashore introduced a new kind of vigour into the tradition of English portraiture. In these first years in London, Reynolds’s knowledge of Venetian painting is very apparent in such works as the portraits of Lord Cathcart (1753/54) and Lord Ludlow (1755). Of his domestic portraits, those of Nelly O’Brien (1760–62) and of Georgiana, Countess Spencer, and her daughter (1761) are especially notable for their tender charm and careful observation. Art & Architecture: Fact or Fiction? After 1760 Reynolds’s style became increasingly classical and self-conscious. As he fell under the influence of the classical Baroque painters of the Bolognese school of the 17th century and the archaeological interest in Greco-Roman antiquity that was sweeping Europe at the time, the pose and clothes of his sitters took on a more rigidly antique pattern, in consequence losing much of the sympathy and understanding of his earlier works.

Britannica Lists & Quizzes Editor Picks: Exploring 10 Types of Basketball Movies There were no public exhibitions of contemporary artists in London before 1760, when Reynolds helped found the Society of Artists and the first of many successful exhibitions was held. The patronage of George III was sought, and in 1768 the Royal Academy was founded. Although Reynolds’s painting had found no favour at court, he was the obvious candidate for the presidency, and the king confirmed his election and knighted him. Reynolds guided the policy of the academy with such skill that the pattern he set has been followed with little variation ever since. The yearly Discourses that he delivered at the academy clearly mirrored many of his own thoughts and aspirations , as well as his own problems of line versus colour and public and private portraiture, and gave advice to those beginning their artistic careers. From 1769 nearly all of Reynolds’s most important works appeared in the academy. In certain exhibitions he included historical pieces, such as Ugolino (1773), which were perhaps his least successful works. Many of his child studies are tender and even amusing, though now and again the sentiment tends to be excessive.

Two of the most enchanting are Master Crewe as Henry VIII (1775–76) and Lady Caroline Scott as ‘Winter’ (1778). His most ambitious portrait commission was the Family of the Duke of Marlborough (1777). Lady Elizabeth Delmé and Her Children, oil on canvas by Sir … Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Andrew W. Mellon Collection, 1937.1.95 In 1781 Reynolds visited Flanders and Holland, where he studied the work of the great Flemish Baroque painter Peter Paul Rubens . This seems to have affected his own style, for in the manner of Rubens’s later works the texture of his picture surface becomes far richer. This is particularly true of his portrait of the duchess of Devonshire and her daughter (1786). Reynolds was never a mere society painter or flatterer. It has been suggested that his deafness gave him a clearer insight into the character of his sitters, the lack of one faculty sharpening the use of his eyes.

His vast learning allowed him to vary his poses and style so often that the well-known remark of Thomas Gainsborough , “Damn him, how various he is!” is entirely understandable. In 1782 Reynolds had a paralytic stroke, and about the same time he was saddened by bickerings within the Royal Academy. Seven years later his eyesight began to fail, and he delivered his last Discourse at the academy in 1790. He died in 1792 and was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Portrait of Charlotte Grote, oil on canvas by Joshua Reynolds, 18th century. 75 × 62 cm. In a private collection Facebook Twitter YouTube Instagram Pinterest Reynolds preferred the company of men of letters to that of his fellow artists and was friends with Samuel Johnson , Edmund Burke , and Oliver Goldsmith , among others. He never married, and his house was kept for him by his sister Frances. Sir Joshua Reynolds, oil on canvas by Gilbert Stuart, 1784; in the National Gallery of Art, … Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Andrew W.

Mellon Collection, 1942.8.21 Reynolds’s state portraits of the king and queen were never considered a success, and he seldom painted for them; but the prince of Wales patronized him extensively, and there were few distinguished families or individuals who did not sit for him. Nonetheless, some of his finest portraits are those of his intimate friends and of fashionable women of questionable reputation. Unfortunately, Reynolds’s technique was not always entirely sound, and many of his paintings have suffered as a result. After his visit to Italy, he tried to produce the effects of Tintoretto and Titian by using transparent glazes over a monochrome underpainting, but the pigment he used for his flesh tones was not permanent and even in his lifetime began to fade, causing the overpale faces of many surviving portraits. In the 1760s Reynolds began to use more extensively bitumen or coal substances added to pigments. This practice proved to be detrimental to the paint surface. Though a keen collector of old-master drawings, Reynolds himself was never a draftsman, and indeed few of his drawings have any merit whatsoever.

Trending Topics Sir Joshua Reynolds on ArtStack - art online Early life[ edit ] Joshua Reynolds, self-portrait, aged around 24 Reynolds was born in Plympton , Devon , on 16 July 1723 [1] the third son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, master of the Free Grammar School in the town. Samuel Reynolds had been a fellow of Balliol College , Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university. [2] One of his sisters was Mary Palmer (1716–1794), seven years his senior, author of Devonshire Dialogue, whose fondness for drawing is said to have had much influence on him when a boy. In 1740 she provided £60, half of the premium paid to Thomas Hudson the portrait-painter, for Joshua's pupilage, and nine years later advanced money for his expenses in Italy. [3] His other siblings included Frances Reynolds and Elizabeth Johnson . As a boy, he came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge , whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life.

Reynolds made extracts in his commonplace book from Theophrastus , Plutarch , Seneca , Marcus Antonius , Ovid , William Shakespeare , John Milton , Alexander Pope , John Dryden , Joseph Addison , Richard Steele , Aphra Behn , and passages on art theory by Leonardo da Vinci , Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy , and André Félibien . [1] The work that came to have the most influential impact on Reynolds was Jonathan Richardson 's An Essay on the Theory of Painting (1715). Reynolds' annotated copy was lost for nearly two hundred years until it appeared in a Cambridge bookshop, inscribed with the signature ‘J. Reynolds Pictor’, and is now in the collection of the Royal Academy of Arts, London. [1] Career[ edit ] Self-portrait, aged 17, entitled, Uffizi Self-portrait Having shown an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable London portrait painter Thomas Hudson , who had been born in Devon. [2] Hudson had a collection of old master drawings, including some by Guercino, of which Reynolds made copies.

[2] Although apprenticed to Hudson for four years, Reynolds only remained with him until summer 1743. [2] Having left Hudson, Reynolds worked for some time as a portrait-painter in Plymouth Dock (now Devonport ). He returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his father's death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters. [2] In 1749, Reynolds met Commodore Augustus Keppel , who invited him to join HMS Centurion , of which he had command, on a voyage to the Mediterranean. While with the ship he visited Lisbon, Cadiz, Algiers, and Minorca. From Minorca he travelled to Livorno in Italy, and then to Rome, [4] where he spent two years, [5] studying the Old Masters and acquiring a taste for the "Grand Style".[ citation needed ] Lord Edgcumbe, who had known Reynolds as a boy and introduced him to Keppel, suggested he should study with Pompeo Batoni , the leading painter in Rome, but Reynolds replied that he had nothing to learn from him.

[2] While in Rome he suffered a severe cold, which left him partially deaf, and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, [6] and Paris. [7] He was accompanied by Giuseppe Marchi , then aged about 17. [8] Apart from a brief interlude in 1770, Marchi remained in Reynolds' employment as a studio assistant for the rest of the artist's career. [8] Following his arrival in England in October 1752, Reynolds spent three months in Devon, [9] before establishing himself in London, where remained for the rest of his life. He took rooms in St Martin's Lane , before moving to Great Newport Street, his sister Frances acted as his housekeeper. [9] He achieved success rapidly, and was extremely prolific.

[10] Lord Edgecumbe recommended the Duke of Devonshire and Duke of Grafton to sit for him, and other peers followed, including the Duke of Cumberland, third son of George II, [11] in whose portrait, according to Nicholas Penny "bulk is brilliantly converted into power". [11] In 1760 Reynolds moved into a large house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants, on the west side of Leicester Fields (now Leicester Square). [12] Self-portrait Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works. In the late 1750s, at the height of the social season, he received five or six sitters a day, each for an hour. [13] By 1761 Reynolds could command a fee of 80 guineas for a full-length portrait; in 1764 he was paid 100 guineas for a portrait of Lord Burghersh .

[14] The clothing of Reynolds' sitters was usually painted either by one of his pupils, [15] his studio assistant Giuseppe Marchi, [16] or the specialist drapery painter Peter Toms . [15] James Northcote, his pupil, wrote of this arrangement that "the imitation of particular stuffs is not the work of genius, but is to be acquired easily by practice, and this was what his pupils could do by care and time more than he himself chose to bestow; but his own slight and masterly work was still the best." [15] Lay figures were used to model the clothes. [11] The Age of Innocence c. 1785/8. Reynolds emphasized the natural grace of children in his paintings Reynolds often adapted the poses of his subjects from the works of earlier artists, a practice mocked by Nathaniel Hone in a painting called The Conjuror submitted to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1775, and now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland . It shows a figure representing, though not resembling, Reynolds, seated in front of a cascade of prints from which Reynolds had borrowed with varying degrees of subtlety.

[17] > Although not principally known for his landscapes, Reynolds did paint in this genre. He had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House , on Richmond Hill , and painted the view in about 1780. [18] Reynolds also was recognized for his portraits of children. He emphasized the innocence and natural grace of children when depicting them. His 1788 portrait, Age of Innocence , is his best known character study of a child. The subject of the painting is not known, although conjecture includes Theophila Gwatkin, his great niece, and Lady Anne Spencer, the youngest daughter of the fourth Duke of Marlborough. The Club[ edit ] Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was gregarious and keenly intellectual, with many friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson , Oliver Goldsmith , Edmund Burke , Giuseppe Baretti , Henry Thrale , David Garrick , and artist Angelica Kauffman . Johnson said in 1778: "Reynolds is too much under Fox and Burke at present. He is under the Fox star and the Irish constellation [meaning Burke]. He is always under some planet".

[19] Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who brought together the figures of "The" Club . It was founded in 1764 and met in a suite of rooms on the first floor of the Turks Head at 9 Gerrard Street, now marked by a plaque. Original members included Burke, Langton, Beauclerk, Goldsmith, Chamier, Hawkins, and Nugent, to be joined by Garrick, Boswell, and Sheridan. In ten years the membership had risen to 35. The Club met every Monday evening for supper and conversation and continued into the early hours of Tuesday morning. In later years, it met fortnightly during Parliamentary sessions. When in 1783 the landlord of the Turks Head died and the property was sold, The Club moved to Sackville Street. [20] Royal Academy[ edit ] The hall at Loton Park , c. 1870. Showing, in situ, on the far wall Reynolds' Frances Anne Crewe (miss Greville), as St. Genevieve , c. 1773.

Reynolds was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Arts , helped found the Society of Artists of Great Britain , and in 1768 became the first President of the Royal Academy of Arts , a position he was to hold until his death. In 1769, he was knighted by George III , only the second artist to be so honored. [21] His Discourses, a series of lectures delivered at the Academy between 1769 and 1790, are remembered for their sensitivity and perception. In one lectures he expressed the opinion that "invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory." William Jackson in his contemporary essays said of Reynolds ' there is much ingenuity and originality in all his academic discourses, replete with classical knowledge of his art, acute remarks on the works of others, and general taste and discernment'. [22] Reynolds and the Royal Academy received a mixed reception. Critics included William Blake who published the vitriolic Annotations to Sir Joshua Reynolds' Discourses in 1808. J. M. W.

Turner and James Northcote were fervent acolytes: Turner requested he be laid to rest at Reynolds' side, and Northcote, who spent four years as Reynolds' pupil, wrote to his family "I know him thoroughly, and all his faults, I am sure, and yet almost worship him." Lord Keppel (1779) In the Battle of Ushant against the French in 1778, Lord Keppel commanded the Channel Fleet and the outcome resulted in no clear winner; Keppel ordered the attack be renewed and was obeyed except by Sir Hugh Palliser , who commanded the rear, and the French escaped bombardment. A dispute between Keppel and Palliser arose and Palliser brought charges of misconduct and neglect of duty against Keppel and the Admiralty decided to court-martial him. On 11 February 1779 Keppel was acquitted of all charges and became a national hero. One of Keppel's lawyers commissioned Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland to paint a portrait of Keppel but Keppel redirected it to Reynolds.

Reynolds alluded to Keppel's trial in the painting by painting his hand on his sword, reflecting the presiding officer's words at the court-martial: "In delivering to you your sword, I am to congratulate you on its being restored to you with so much honour". [23] Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King[ edit ] On 10 August 1784 Allan Ramsay died and the office of Principal Painter in Ordinary to the king became vacant. Gainsborough felt that he had a good chance of securing it, but Reynolds felt he deserved it and threatened to resign the presidency of the Royal Academy if he did not receive it. Reynolds noted in his pocket book: "Sept. 1, 2½, to attend at the Lord Chancellor's Office to be sworn in painter to the King". [24] It did not make Reynolds happy, however, as he wrote to Boswell: "If I had known what a shabby miserable place it is, I would not have asked for it; besides as things have turned out I think a certain person is not worth speaking to, nor speaking of", presumably meaning the king.

[25] Reynolds wrote to Jonathan Shipley , Bishop of St Asaph , a few weeks later: "Your Lordship congratulation on my succeeding Mr. Ramsay I take very kindly, but it is a most miserable office, it is reduced from two hundred to thirty-eight pounds per annum, the Kings Rat catcher I believe is a better place, and I am to be paid only a fourth part of what I have from other people, so that the Portraits of their Majesties are not likely to be better done now, than they used to be, I should be ruined if I was to paint them myself". [25] Lord Heathfield (1787) In 1787 Reynolds painted the portrait of Lord Heathfield , who became a national hero for the successful defence of Gibraltar in the Great Siege from 1779 to 1783 against the combined forces of France and Spain. Heathfield is depicted against a background of clouds and cannon smoke, wearing the uniform of the 15th Light Dragoons and clasping the key of the Rock, its chain wrapped twice around his right hand.

[26] John Constable said in the 1830s that it was "almost a history of the defence of Gibraltar". [1] Desmond Shawe-Taylor has claimed that the portrait may have a religious meaning, Heathfield holding the key similar to St. Peter (Jesus' "rock") possessing the keys to Heaven, Heathfield "the rock upon which Britannia builds her military interests". [1] [27] Later life[ edit ] In 1789 Reynolds lost the sight of his left eye, which forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds agreed with Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and, writing in early 1791, expressed his belief that the ancien régime of France had fallen due to spending too much time tending, as he puts it; "to the splendor of the foliage, to the neglect of the stirring the earth about the roots.

They cultivated only those arts which could add splendor to the nation, to the neglect of those which supported it – They neglected Trade & substantial Manufacture...but does it follow that a total revolution is necessary that because we have given ourselves up too much to the ornaments of life, we will now have none at all". [28] When attending a dinner at Holland House, Fox's niece Caroline was sat next to Reynolds and "burst out into glorification of the Revolution – and was grievously chilled and checked by her neighbour's cautious and unsympathetic tone". [29] On 4 June 1791 at a dinner at the Freemasons' Tavern to mark the king's birthday, Reynolds drank to the toasts "GOD save the KING!" and "May our glorious Constitution under which the arts flourish, be immortal!", in what was reported by the Public Advertiser as "a fervour truly patriotick". Reynolds "filled the chair with a most convivial glee".

[30] He returned to town from Burke's house in Beaconsfield and Edmond Malone wrote that "we left his carriage at the Inn at Hayes, and walked five miles on the road, in a warm day, without his complaining of any fatigue". [30] Later that month Reynolds suffered from a swelling over his left eye and had to be purged by a surgeon. In October he was too ill to take the president's chair and in November Fanny Burney recorded that "I had long languished to see that kindly zealous friend, but his ill health had intimidated me from making the attempt": "He had a bandage over one eye, and the other shaded with a green half-bonnet. He seemed serious even to sadness, though extremely kind. ‘I am very glad,’ he said, in a meek voice and dejected accent, ‘to see you again, and I wish I could see you better! but I have only one eye now, and hardly that.’ I was really quite touched".

[31] On 5 November Reynolds, fearing he might not have an opportunity to write a will, wrote a memorandum intended to be his last will and testament, with Edmund Burke , Edmond Malone , and Philip Metcalfe named as executors. On 10 November Reynolds wrote to Benjamin West to resign the presidency, but the General Assembly agreed he should be re-elected, with Sir William Chambers and West to deputise for him. [32] Doctors Richard Warren and Sir George Baker believed Reynolds' illness to be psychological and they bled his neck "with a view of drawing the humour from his eyes" but the effect, in the view of his niece, was that it seemed "as if the 'principle of life' were gone" from Reynolds. On New Year's Day 1792 Reynolds became "seized with sickness" and from that point could not keep down food. [32] Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 at his house in Leicester Fields in London between eight and nine in the evening.

Burke was present on the night Reynolds died, and was moved within hours to write a eulogy of Reynolds starting with the following sentiments: "Sir Joshua Reynolds was on very many accounts one of the most memorable men of his Time. He was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant Arts to the other Glories of his Country. In Taste, in grace, in facility, in happy invention, and in the richness and Harmony of colouring, he was equal to the great masters of the renowned Ages." Burke's tribute was well received and one journalist called it "the eulogium of Apelles pronounced by Pericles ". [33] Reynolds was buried at St Paul's Cathedral . In 1903, a statue , by Alfred Drury , was erected in his honour in Annenberg Courtyard of Burlington House , home of the Royal Academy. [34] Around the statue are fountains and lights, installed in 2000, arranged in the pattern of a star chart at midnight on the night of Reynolds' birth. The planets are marked by granite discs, and the Moon by a water recess.

[35] [36] Reynolds painted by American artist Gilbert Stuart , oil on canvas, 1784 Enamel Miniature Portrait of Sir Joshua Reynolds by William Grimaldi. Dated 1811 In appearance Reynolds was not striking. Slight, he was about 5'6" with dark brown curls, a florid complexion and features which James Boswell thought were "rather too largely and strongly limned." He had a broad face and a cleft chin, and the bridge of his nose was slightly dented; his skin was scarred by smallpox and his upper lip disfigured as a result of falling from a horse as a young man. Edmond Malone asserted that "his appearance at first sight impressed the spectator with the idea of a well-born and well-bred English gentleman." Renowned for his placidity, Reynolds often claimed that he "hated nobody".

Never quite losing his Devonshire accent, he was not only an amiable and original conversationalist, but a friendly and generous host, so that Fanny Burney recorded in her diary that he had "a suavity of disposition that set everybody at their ease in his society", and William Makepeace Thackeray believed "of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman." Dr. Johnson commented on the inoffensiveness of his nature; Edmund Burke noted his "strong turn for humor". Thomas Bernard, who later became Bishop of Killaloe , wrote in his closing verses on Reynolds stating: "Thou say'st not only skill is gained/ But genius too may be attained/ By studious imitation; Thy temper mild, thy genius fine I'll copy till I make them mine By constant application. Some, such as Hester Lynch Piozzi , construed Reynolds' equable calm as cool and unfeeling. It is to this luke-warm temperament that Frederick W. Hilles , Bodman Professor of English Literature at Yale attributes Reynolds' never having married.

In the editorial notes of his compendium Portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds, Hilles theorizes that "as a corollary one might say that he [Reynolds] was somewhat lacking in a capacity for love", and cites Boswell's notary papers: "He said the reason he would never marry was that every woman whom he liked had grown indifferent to him, and he had been glad he did not marry her." Reynolds' own sister, Frances, who lived with him as housekeeper, took her own negative opinion further still, thinking him "a gloomy tyrant". The presence of family compensated Reynolds for the absence of a wife; he wrote on one occasion to his friend Bennet Langton , that both his sister and niece were away from home "so that I am quite a bachelor". Biographer Ian McIntyre discusses the possibility of Reynolds having enjoyed sexual rendezvous with certain clients, such as Nelly O'Brien (or "My Lady O'Brien", as he playfully dubbed her) and Kitty Fisher , who visited his house for more sittings than were strictly necessary. Claims to this end are, however, purely speculative.

References[ edit ] James Boswell, Life of Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Charles Robert Leslie and Tom Taylor, Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds (London: John Murray, 1865, 2 volumes). Ian McIntyre, Joshua Reynolds. The Life and Times of the First President of the Royal Academy (London: Allen Lane, 2003). Martin Postle, ‘ Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1723–1792) ’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Oct 2009. Retrieved 24 Sep 2010. Further reading[ edit ] J. Blanc, Les Écrits de Sir Joshua Reynolds (Théorie de l'art (1400-1800) / Art Theory (1400-1800), 4), Turnhout, 2016, ISBN 978-2-503-54337-6 John Barrell, The Political Theory of Painting from Reynolds to Hazlitt (1986). A.

Graves and W. V. Cronin, A History of the Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1899–1901, 4 volumes). F. W. Hilles, The Literary Career of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1936). Derek Hudson, Sir Joshua Reynolds: A Personal Study (1958). J. Ingamells and J. Edgcumbe (eds.), The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds (2000). E. Malone (ed.), The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1798, 3 volumes). D. Mannings, Sir Joshua Reynolds PRA, 1723–92 (1992). H. Mount (ed.), Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Journey to Flanders and Holland (1996) J. Northcote, Memoirs of Sir Joshua Reynolds, knt. (1813–15). J. Northcote, The Life of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1818, 2nd edition, 2 volumes). Martin Postle (ed.), Joshua Reynolds: The Creation of Celebrity (London: Tate , 2005).

ISBN 1-85437-564-4 Martin Postle, Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Subject Pictures (1995). Martin Postle, Drawings of Joshua Reynolds. R. Prochno, Joshua Reynolds (1990). S. Smiles (ed.), Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Acquisition of Genius (2009). E. K. Waterhouse, Reynolds (1941). E. K. Waterhouse, Reynolds (1973). 1000+ images about Joshua Reynolds - English Painter on Pinterest | Charles spencer, Oil on canvas and Portrait Pinterest • The world’s catalog of ideas Joshua Reynolds - English Painter Joshua Reynolds was born in Devon in 1723. After the Grand Tour of Europe he settled in London. He specialised in portraits using the "Grand Style" to idealize the imperfect. He founded “The Club” in 1764, a group of the leading intellectuals of London who met weekly. He was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy and was knighted by King George III in 1769.

In 1784 he became Principal Painter in Ordinary to the King but found it to be a miserable position. He died in 1792. 123 Pins30.91k Followers Schwarz Gallery - Sir Joshua Reynolds Sir Joshua Reynolds British Biography: Sir Joshua Reynolds was the leading British portraitist of his generation. He operated a large studio in London and became extremely wealthy. He was appointed first president of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1768, knighted by King George III in 1769, and named court painter in 1784. He was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral in London. copyright © 2017 Schwarz Gallery There are no pictures by this artist currently in stock. We are always interested in seeing photographs of things you may have for sale. Attach snapshots of the painting to an email. Please indicate anything of interest written on the front or back of the painting. Be sure to include a telephone number. Contact information is located on our contact page.

Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) | Art UK Art UK | Discover Artists Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) View all 614 (Born Plympton [now a suburb of Plymouth], Devon, 16 July 1723; died London, 23 February 1792). English painter and writer on art. Reynolds was the leading portraitist of his day, the first president of the Royal Academy, a major art theorist, and perhaps the most important figure in the history of British painting, for through his social and intellectual eminence he raised his profession to a new level of dignity. Read more He was the son of a scholarly clergyman, and was brought up in an atmosphere of learning (he said he owed his ‘first fondness’ for art to Jonathan Richardson the Elder's Essay on the Theory of Painting, which he read in his father's library).

From 1740 to 1743 he studied painting in London under Hudson (likewise a Devonshire man), then set up independently as a portraitist a year before his apprenticeship was due to end (the parting was amicable—he and Hudson remained on good terms). In 1750–2 he spent two and a half years in Italy (mainly Rome), where he made an intensive study of the antique and the great masters of the 16th and 17th centuries (whilst copying Raphael in the wintry chill of the Vatican he caught a cold that left him hard of hearing for the rest of his life). He not only absorbed the formal language of his models, but also developed a deliberate cult of learning and classical allusion that coloured his whole approach to art. In tune with established art theory, he thought that history painting was the highest branch of art, but he believed that portraiture could rise above its traditional status as mere ‘face-painting’ by making reference to the great art of the past. Thus, in the work that established his reputation after he settled in London in 1753—Commodore Keppel (1753–4, Nat.

Maritime Mus., London)—the sitter's heroic attitude is based directly (albeit in reverse) on that of the Apollo Belvedere, regarded at the time as the matchless ideal of male beauty. However, his approach involved far more than simply borrowing poses from approved models, for he tried to create an image that was in keeping with the character and status of each particular sitter. In the Keppel portrait, for example, he not only alludes to an ancient statue, but also depicts a contemporary man of action with great verve. Reynolds quickly achieved a leading position in his profession. He had 150 sitters a year by 1758, and by 1764 was earning the enormous annual sum of £6,000 (his career is exceptionally well documented, as many of his ‘sitter books’ and financial ledgers survive). His success was achieved through hard work and careful business management as well as talent: he sometimes worked on Sundays (to the dismay of his pious relatives) and on the day he was knighted (21 April 1769) his visit to St James's Palace was fitted in between two sittings with clients.

Moreover, although he always retained traces of his provincial origins (notably his Devonshire accent), he was completely at home with his eminent sitters. His pupil James Northcote said that ‘His general manner, deportment and behaviour were amiable and prepossessing; his disposition was naturally courtly. He…contrived to move in a higher sphere of society than any other English artist had done before. Thus he procured for the Professors of the Arts a consequence, dignity and reception which they never possessed in this country.’ Reynolds's elevation of the status of the artist depended, then, not only on the intellectual quality of his work, but also on his social acceptability, and it is significant that his friends were mainly men of letters—notably Samuel Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith—rather than other painters (James Boswell dedicated his celebrated Life of Johnson to Reynolds). On the foundation of the Royal Academy in 1768, he was the clear choice for president (even though George III preferred the work of Gainsborough and Ramsay), and he arranged for Johnson and Goldsmith to be appointed to the honorary positions of professors of ancient history and literature.

Between 1769 and 1790 he delivered a series of lectures to the Academy's students, and these fifteen Discourses are one of the most impressive bodies of writing ever made by a practising artist, forming the classic expression of the academic doctrine of the Grand Manner (each Discourse was published separately and the first collected edition appeared in 1797). In 1789 failing eyesight forced Reynolds to give up painting and by the time of his death he was almost completely blind. He bore his final illness with what his friend Edmund Burke (see Sublime) called a ‘mild and cheerful fortitude’ and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral with ceremonial never before accorded a British painter: his ten pallbearers were made up of three dukes, three earls, two marquesses, a viscount and a baron. As a portraitist Reynolds is remarkable above all for his versatility—his inexhaustible range of response to the individuality of each sitter: man, woman, or child. The famous remark of his rival Gainsborough, ‘Damn him!

How various he is!’, is echoed in the praise of Ruskin: ‘Considered as a painter of individuality in the human form and mind, I think him the prince of portrait painters. Titian paints nobler pictures and van Dyck had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of human heart and temper.’ His huge output necessitated the employment of assistants and drapery painters, and his experimentation with bitumen has resulted in some of his pictures being in poor condition, but there is nevertheless much beauty of handling in his work, and his finest pictures rank among the great masterpieces of British portraiture. On the other hand, his history paintings, dating mainly from the end of his career, are generally considered ponderous failures (Hester Thrale—a friend of Dr Johnson—said he had ‘a rage for sublimity ill-understood’). Reynolds's work is in numerous public collections, great and small, in Britain and elsewhere, and many of his best pictures are still in the possession of the families for which they were painted. His output was so varied that no single collection can be regarded as fully representative.

Frances Reynolds (1729–1807), Sir Joshua's sister and for many years his housekeeper, was an amateur painter, but evidently not a very good one, for he said of her copies of his work: ‘They make other people laugh and me cry.’ Text Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford University Press) Share this page

Question: Painter Joshua Reynolds was knighted by which British monarch?
Answer: King George III