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Common observation and a plain understanding is the source of all art.

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
Source
Understanding
Common
Art
Plain
Observation

More quotes by 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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The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose
Joshua Reynolds
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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
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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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Art in its perfection is not ostentatious it lies hid and works its effect, itself unseen.
Joshua Reynolds
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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
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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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The mind is but a barren soil a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.
Joshua Reynolds
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An eye critically nice can only be formed by observing well-colored pictures with attention.
Joshua Reynolds
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Certainly, nothing can be more simple than monotony.
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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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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Whatever trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye.
Joshua Reynolds
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By close inspection... you will discover the manner of handling the artifices of contrast, glazing, and other expedients, by which good colorists have raised the value of their tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated.
Joshua Reynolds
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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
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Nothing is denied to well-directed labor.
Joshua Reynolds
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Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.
Joshua Reynolds
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The painter of genius will not waste a moment upon those smaller objects which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the attention, and to counteract his great design of speaking to the heart.
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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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