Joshua Reynolds

“ The very early work painted in Devonshire is of little worth. Italy opened the eyes of Joshua Reynolds as it has opened the eyes of so many British artists since his time. Fortunate in his life the painter was; in a certain sense, unfortunate in his art. The beauty he has committed to canvas had begun to pass before the artist's days were numbered, and many of his most successful works are to-day no more than a pale reflection of their former selves, a remnant most forlorn of what they were. ”

“ Some such simple incident as this Sir Joshua Reynolds must have had in mind when painting the portrait of Miss Bowles; for every picture of his seems to carry a story with it, each one thought out to fit the circumstances and character of the sitter. The lively Miss Bowles, as we see, is totally unlike the demure Miss Boothby. They are both charming children; but, while Penelope would love to nestle in her mother's arms, Miss Bowles would dance coyly away. ”

“ Few men have been so much admired by such a diversity of people as was Sir Joshua Reynolds. The testimony of his friends presents him to us as a man of admirable character. Perhaps no one knew him more intimately than James Northcote, who was received into his family as a poor Devonshire lad; he remained with Sir Joshua five years, and left him a prosperous painter. ”

“ COSTUME OF REYNOLDS’S PORTRAITS. Sir Joshua Reynolds has done more than any one else to vindicate the art of portrait-painting as indigenous to our country—he has started it afresh from its lethargy and recovered it from its errors—placed himself at once above all his countrymen who had preceded him, and has remained above all who have followed. Like Holbein and Vandyke, Sir Joshua put his stamp upon the times; or rather, like a true artist and philosopher, he took that aggregate impression which the times gave. Each has doubtless given his sitters a character of his own ”

“ In this definition of genius, Reynolds fully concurred with Dr. Johnson; and he was himself an instance in proof of its truth. He had a sound natural capacity, and, by observation and long-continued labour, always discriminating with judgment, he obtained universal applause, and established his claim to be ranked amongst those to whom the highest praise is due; for his productions exhibited perfect originality. No artist ever consulted the works of eminent predecessors more than Sir Joshua Reynolds. ”

“ How pleasant it is to remember that Nature so careless of the individual is so careful of the type that it blossoms anew with every generation!
Having written, however briefly, of the children in Reynolds' picture, it seems unnecessary to say more of his charm; they will stand for it until the end comes, the hour when the pigments can endure no longer and the labour of the master is ended.
There is little to add to the story of Sir Joshua after he became President of the Royal Academy. ”

“ The North Room is occupied by them alone. Have we reason to think our estimate of Sir Joshua Reynolds, as a painter, not borne out by this exhibition? By no means. Our first impression from the whole collection, not seeing any particular picture, is of colour. And here Sir Joshua appears inventive; for though he not unfrequently imitated Rembrandt, there is, on the whole, a style that is far from Rembrandt, and is not like any other old master; yet we believe, for it was the character of his mind so to do, that he always had some great master in view in all he did. ”

“ There is one error which we wish to correct at setting out, because we think it important. There is not a greater or more unaccountable mistake than the supposition that Sir Joshua Reynolds owed his success or excellence in his profession, to his having been the first who introduced into this country more general principles of the art, and who raised portrait to the dignity of history from the low drudgery of copying the peculiarities, meannesses, and details of individual 397nature, which was all that had been attempted by his immediate predecessors. ”

“ On leaving Sir Joshua he went to Ireland as a portrait-painter, but was not successful, although highly recommended by his master. He returned to London much dispirited, and occupied himself in engraving in mezzotint heads after Sir Joshua Reynolds, most of which are dated 1779, the year in which he exhibited at the Royal Academy a picture of ‘Circe.’ In 1780 he married Margaret Joy, a servant girl in Sir Joshua's house, and with her started for Bengal; but the ship in which he sailed was captured by the combined squadrons of France and Spain. He was taken to Lisbon, where he died in 1782. ”

“ I am inclined to think that, considering all the disadvantages of circumstances and education under which his genius was developed, there was perhaps hardly ever born a man with a more intense and innate gift of insight into nature than our own Sir Joshua Reynolds. Considered as a painter of individuality in the human form and mind, I think him, even as it is, the prince of portrait painters. Titian paints nobler pictures, and Vandyke had nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did into the minor varieties of human heart and temper ”

“ Sir Joseph Reynolds owed his vast superiority over his contemporaries to incessant practice, and habitual attention to nature, to quick organic sensibility, to considerable power of observation, and still greater taste in perceiving and availing himself of those excellences of others, which lay within his own walk of art. We can by no means look upon Sir Joshua as having a claim to the first rank of genius. He would hardly have been a great painter, if other greater painters had not lived before him. ”

“ A man who can do things well should assume a modesty, even if he has it not. If you can write well, do not talk—leave that to the man who can do nothing else. If you can paint, let your work speak for you.
Joshua Reynolds was young, but he was an artist in diplomacy. His talent, his modesty, his youth, his beauty, won the hearts of the entire Edgecumbe household.
He painted portraits of all the family; and of course all the visitors were called upon to admire, not only the pictures, but the painter as well. ”

“ The man who advanced slowly to meet the strangers, making use of his maul-stick as a cane, while in the other he carried a silver ear-trumpet, was none other than Sir Joshua Reynolds himself, the greatest painter of women that the world has ever known. ”

“ We have observed, in the commencement of these remarks upon the Discourses, that painters do not usually paint beyond themselves, either power or feeling—beyond their own grasp and sentiments; it was the habitual good sense and refinement of moral feeling that made Sir Joshua Reynolds so admirable a portrait-painter. ”

“ Then Joshua's head was thrust upwards.
"Biermeister!" he called. "You, Biermeister of the 3rd Prussian Guard, come away below here! There is one, Sir Joshua Reynolds, an artist, would have a word with you."
I shook my head sadly. Another of my little jokes had proved a dud. But I did not go below. Joshua is so rough sometimes.
Siccis Oculis.
To weep for the fallen who saved us is meet,
But it causes no kind of surprise
That RAMSAY MacDONALD'S and SNOWDEN'S defeat
Has dried many millions of eyes.
PIVOTAL INDUSTRIES. Sergeant. "LET YOUR 'AIR GROW ON SICK LEAVE, 'AVE YER, LITTLE GOLDILOCKS? ”

“ The genius of Sir Joshua Reynolds is of a totally different order. In the sense of consisting in the sentiment of effect and the masterly arrangement of tones it is essentially picturesque, and presents such a boldness of character as engravers could easily appreciate and reproduce. There is no far-fetched significance, no accessories tending to destroy the unity of the whole. ”

“ The Charm of Reynolds
I. HIS ART AND CHARACTER
Portraits painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds are a national asset, and appeal to the general public in this light almost as strongly as they appeal to the smaller section that takes a definite interest in pictures. The value of the portraits varies considerably; it is probable that the artist produced between four and five thousand in his time, sometimes completing three or four in a week for years on end, and even in his more leisured times producing six or seven per month, so it was of course inevitable that their value should not be equal. ”

“ SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS When Benjamin West, a native of Pennsylvania, was elected President of the Royal Academy, on the death of Reynolds in 1792, he found the arts in a state of prosperity which could hardly have been predicted when Reynolds began painting in London just half a century earlier. ”

“ The painter's popularity depended by no means on his artistic talents alone; his opinions were worth hearing on many subjects. He was fond of books and literary discussions, and his friendship was valued by such men of intellect as Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, and others of that charmed circle making the Literary Club. He had a genial, kindly nature, and his manners were exquisitely courteous. Thackeray once wrote that "of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman." ”

“ They have, indeed, their own great interest. They enable us to realise, more vividly than anything else I can think of, the limitations and one-sidedness of art in England in the days before Reynolds’s own painting achievements had helped to lay the basis of a truer standard in criticism than any he himself possessed or could possess. Here their interest is unique. But as criticism we may pass them by. No one, indeed, has refuted them more ably than Sir Joshua himself. His real and genuine estimate of colour is to be found, not in what he said, but in what he did. ”

“ Somewhat over a century ago, at the time when our American colonies were struggling for liberty, lived the great English portrait painter, Sir Joshua Reynolds. In those days photography had not been invented, and portrait painting was a profession patronized by all classes of people. There were many portrait studios in London, but none were so fashionable as that of Reynolds. ”

“ To a painter, this Life is of incalculable interest and value. The account of his manner of handling "the vehicles" is minute and faithful; and if, as Northcote complained, who was a pupil of Reynolds, Sir Joshua could not teach, he could only show you how he worked,—many an artist can gather from these pages what Northcote gathered by looking from palette to canvas. The descriptions of some of the paintings are rich in color, and are worthy of the highest praise.
Sir Joshua Reynolds is one of the few men of genius who have been also men of society. ”

“ If a work should be inscribed to one who is master of the subject of it, and whose approbation, therefore, must ensure it credit and success, the Life of Dr. Johnson is, with the greatest propriety, dedicated to Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was the intimate and beloved friend of that great man; the friend, whom he declared to be "the most invulnerable man he knew; whom, if he should quarrel with him, he should find the most difficulty how to abuse." ”

“ From Hogarth to Sir Joshua Reynolds is a wide step. Sir Joshua is well represented here by some thirty pictures; and Gainsborough is at his side with perhaps half as many. If Sir Joshua had not been a man of genius, he would have been ruined by his academic principles. He laid down rules which he constantly violated. He praised the Bolognese masters, and advised all students of Art in Italy to study at Bologna; but he did not confine himself to the study of other men's works, but sometimes gave himself, with honest sincerity and affection, to the study of Nature ”

“ Sir Joshua Reynolds was his friend and adviser; he early attracted the attention of the King and Queen, whose portraits he painted when but twenty-two years old. He was elected to the Academy in 1794; after Sir Joshua's death he was appointed painter to the King; he was knighted in 1815, and five years later he was elected president of the Academy. He was also a member of many foreign academies and a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. Rarely is the path to honor and fame made so easy as it was to Sir Thomas Lawrence. ”

“ Mechanics and labouring people never know what to do with themselves on a Sunday, though they return to their work with greater spirit for the relief, and look forward to it with pleasure all the week. Sir Joshua Reynolds was never comfortable out of his painting-room, and died of chagrin and regret, because he could not paint on to the last moment of his life. ”

“ The modern market carefully nursed by a ring of astute professionals will give almost any price for portraits of fair women by Sir Joshua, though it may be suggested that his greatest success was in the treatment of men or at least that he saw far more in men than in women. But Reynolds had not studied classic figures for nothing, he could give his fair sitters some suggestion of direct association with those goddesses of old time whom he had admired in Italy, and to this treatment no exception was taken. It is very rarely that Reynolds makes his women human. ”

“ Favourable circumstances, in conjunction with their real merit, have permanently added the discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds to the standard literature of our country. They have been transferred from the artist to the scholar; and so it has happened, that while few of any pretension to scholarship have not read the "The Discourses," they have not, as they should have, been continually in the hands of artists themselves. ”