Quote

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

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
Discovery
Considerable
Matter
Advantage
Acquisition
Students
Trial
Teaching
Student
Strength
Trials
Discover
Deficiencies
Least
Leaving
Undertake
Alone
Matters
Deficiency
May

More quotes by Joshua Reynolds

Image
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
Image
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
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
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
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
Image
It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excellence with regard to color, and light and shade, in the highest degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art. By a few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever object he attempted.
Joshua Reynolds
Image
Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.
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
There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.
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
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
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
Nothing is denied to well-directed labor.
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
Image
Whatever trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye.
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
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
Image
Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluctuating as well as fixed principles. It is an attentive inquiry into their difference that will enable us to determine how far we are influenced by custom and habit, and what is fixed in the nature of things.
Joshua Reynolds