Joshua Reynolds Quotes

In portraits, the grace and, we may add, the likeness consists more in taking the general air than in observing the exact similitude of every feature.

But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution, inciting them on the one hand, but also their natural sloth tempting them on the other. They are terrified at the prospect before them, of the toil required to attain exactness. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted at the slow approaches of a regular siege, and desires, from mere impatience of labour, to take the citadel by storm. They wish to find some shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by other means, than those which the indispensable rules of art have prescribed.

The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.

It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.

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.

Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.

The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose

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

Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.

The young mind is pliable and imitates, but in more advanced states grows rigid and must be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep impression.

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.

Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labour.

Invention strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory; nothing can come from nothing.

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.

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.

The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it.

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.

Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.

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.

The first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what grammar is in literature, a general preparation for whatever the student may afterward choose for more particular application. The power of drawing, modeling, and using colors, is very properly called the language of the art.

If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.

Nothing is denied to well-directed labor.

All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master.

Those who, either from their own engagements and hurry of business, or from indolence, or from conceit and vanity, have neglected looking out of themselves, as far as my experience and observation reach, have from that time not only ceased to advance, and improve in their performances, but have gone backward. They may be compared to men who have lived upon their principal, till they are reduced to beggary, and left without resources.

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.

Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.

I am convinced that this is the only means of advancing science, of clearing the mind from a confused heap of contradictory observations, that do but perplex and puzzle the Student, when he compares them, or misguide him if he gives himself up to their authority; but bringing them under one general head, can alone give rest and satisfaction to an inquisitive mind.

A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.

Style in painting is the same as in writing; a power over materials, whether words or colors, by which conceptions or sentiments are conveyed.

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.

Reform is a work of time; a national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once.

There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.

A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.