Encyclopedia:
Joshua Reynolds,
Talk:Joshua Reynolds,
R.J. Reynolds,
Image:Hester thrale by joshua reynolds 1781 small.jpg,
Image:Joshua Reynolds; Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney, 'The Archers', 1769.jpg
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA (
July 16,
1723 –
February 23,
1792) was the most important and influential of
18th century English painters, specialising in
portraits and promoting the "
Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the
Royal Academy.
George III appreciated his merits and knighted him in
1769.
Reynolds was born in
Plympton St Maurice,
Devon, on
16 July 1723, and apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter
Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in
Italy, mainly in
Rome, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". From 1753 on, he lived and worked in
London. He became a close friend of
Dr Johnson,
Oliver Goldsmith,
Edmund Burke,
Henry Thrale,
David Garrick and fellow artist
Angelica Kauffmann. He was one of the earliest members of the
Royal Society of Arts. He encouraged that society's interest in contemporary art and, with Gainsborough, established the Royal Academy as a spin-out organisation.
With his rival
Thomas Gainsborough, he was the dominant English portraitist of the second half of the 18th century. Reynolds painted in more of an idealized fashion than his rival. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits.
Reynolds was an accomplished academic. His lectures (
Discourses) on art, delivered at the
Royal Academy between 1769 and 1790, are remembered for their sensitivity and perception. In one of these lectures he was of 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." In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, and on
23 February 1792 he died in his house in
Leicester Fields, London. He was buried in
St. Paul's Cathedral.
See also
*
English school of paintingExternal links
Commonscat|Joshua
Books
*
http://www.yale.edu/yup/books/085338.htm Sir Joshua Reynolds, A Complete Catalogue of His Paintings*
http://www.yale.edu/yup/books/087330.htm The Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds*
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/pubreyn.asp Sir Joshua Reynolds: The Painter in Society* gutenberg author| id=Reynolds+Joshua+Sir | name=Joshua
** gutenberg|no=2176|name=Seven Discourses on
*
http://www.npg.org.uk/live/search/person.asp?LinkID=mp03755&page=2&role=art National Portrait Gallery Collection*
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/collections/18cportraits.asp Reynolds portraits from the
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ladylever/index.asp Lady Lever Art Gallery collection
*
http://www.nga.gov/cgi-bin/pbio?26400 National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.: Sir Joshua Reynolds*
http://cgfa.sunsite.dk/reynolds/reynolds_bio.htm Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792)*
http://www.j-m-w-turner.co.uk/artist/turner-reynolds.htm Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92)*
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/reynolds_sir_joshua.html Artcyclopedia: Sir Joshua Reynolds*
http://www.thrale.com/history/english/hester_and_henry/hesters_writings/reynolds_portraits.php Twelve Joshua Reynolds portraits in Henry Thrale's library.
*
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19009 Sir Joshua Reynolds - a 1900 biography by Estelle M. Hurll, from Project Gutenberg
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title=President of the Royal Academy|
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Benjamin West|
years=1768–1792|
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Reynolds, JoshuaReynolds, JoshuaReynolds, JoshuaReynolds, JoshuaReynolds, JoshuaReynolds, JoshuaReynolds, JoshuaReynolds, Joshuada:Joshua Reynoldsde:Joshua Reynoldsfr:Joshua Reynoldsit:Joshua Reynoldsnl:Joshua Reynoldsja:ジョシュア・レノルズpl:Joshua Reynoldspt:Joshua Reynoldssv:Joshua Reynolds
