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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

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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
Practice
Sufficient
Character
Arise
Deserving
Ever
Pictures
Produced
Never
Finished
Correct
Memory
Manner
Works
Production
Memories
Productions
Alone
Excellent

More quotes by Joshua Reynolds

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A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.
Joshua Reynolds
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He who resolves never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon reduced, from mere barrenness, to the poorest of all imitations he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to repeat what he has before often repeated.
Joshua Reynolds
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The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose
Joshua Reynolds
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The distinct blue, red, and yellow colors... though they have not the kind of harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and transparent colors, have the effect of grandeur.
Joshua Reynolds
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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
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Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward of labor. It argues no small strength of mind to persevere in habits of industry without the pleasure of perceiving those advances, which, like the hand of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation.
Joshua Reynolds
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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
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A passion for his art, and an eager desire to excel, will more than supply an artist with the place of method.
Joshua Reynolds
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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
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Style in painting is the same as in writing a power over materials, whether words or colors, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.
Joshua Reynolds
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The great end of all arts is to make an impression on the imagination and the feeling. The imitation of nature frequently does this. Sometimes it fails and something else succeeds.
Joshua Reynolds
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Though colour may appear at first a part of painting merely mechanical, yet it still has its rules, and those grounded upon that presiding principle which regulates both the great and the little in the study of a painter.
Joshua Reynolds
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Our studies will be forever, in a very great degree, under the direction of chance like travelers, we must take what we can get, and when we can get it - whether it is or is not administered to us in the most commodious manner, in the most proper place, or at the exact minute when we would wish to have it.
Joshua Reynolds
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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
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It is impossible that anything will be well understood or well done that is taken into a reluctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand.
Joshua Reynolds
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Poetry operates by raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to take an interest in the event, keeping that event suspended, and surprising at last with an unexpected catastrophe.
Joshua Reynolds
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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
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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
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Gardening as far as Gardening is Art, or entitled to that appellation, is a deviation from nature for if the true taste consists, as many hold, in banishing every appearance of Art, or any traces of the footsteps of man, it would then be no longer a Garden.
Joshua Reynolds
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By leaving a student to himself he may... be led to undertake matters above his strength, but the trial will at least have this advantage: it will discover to himself his own deficiencies and this discovery alone is a very considerable acquisition.
Joshua Reynolds