Quote

It is vain for painters... to endeavour to invent without materials on which the mind may work.

Joshua Reynolds

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Joshua Reynolds
Age: 69 †
Born: 1723
Born: January 1
Died: 1792
Died: January 1
Painter
Plympton St Mary
Sir Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynold
Sir Joshua Raynolds
Sir Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA
Joshua Reynolds Sir
J.
Sir Reynolds
Joshua
Sir Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds (Sir)
sir j. reynolds
S. J. Reynolds
Sir J. Reynods
j. reynolds
Sir J. Reynold
Sir J. Reynoulds
S.J. Reynolds
Sir Jos Reynolds
[Sir Joshua Reynolds]
Mr. Reynolds
Mind
Painters
Invent
Painter
Vain
Materials
May
Without
Work
Endeavour

More quotes by Joshua Reynolds

Image
You are never to lose sight of nature the instant you do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of every gust of fashion, without knowing or seeing the point to which you ought to steer.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
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
Image
Martial music has sudden and strongly marked transitions from one note to another which that style of music requires while in that which is intended to move the softer passions, the notes imperceptibly melt into one another.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
Common observation and a plain understanding is the source of all art.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
The great use of copying, if it be at all useful, should seem to be in learning color yet even coloring will never be perfectly attained by servilely copying the model before you.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
A painter must not only be of necessity an imitator of the works of nature... but he must be as necessarily an imitator of the works of other painters. This appears more humiliating, but is equally true and no man can be an artist, whatever he may suppose, upon any other terms.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
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
Image
Let me recommend to you not to have too great dependence on your practice or memory, however strong those impressions may have been which are there deposited. They are forever wearing out, and will be at least obliterated, unless they are continually refreshed and repaired.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
Nothing is denied to well-directed labor.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose
Joshua Reynolds
Image
A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or historian, expatiate, and impress the mind.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
Our Exhibitions [The Royal Academy] have... a mischievous tendency, by seducing the Painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who resort to them.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
Reform is a work of time a national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
And he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
The art of seeing nature, or, in other words, the art of using models, is in reality the great object, the point to which all our studies are directed.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excellences which are put of the reach of the rules of art: a power which no precepts can teach, and which no industry can acquire.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
I do not see in what manner practice alone can be sufficient for the production of correct, excellent, and finished pictures. Works deserving this character never were produced, nor ever will arise, from memory alone.
Joshua Reynolds