Seven Discourses on Art | Page 3

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SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART
by Sir Joshua Reynolds

INTRODUCTION

It is a happy memory that associates the foundation of our Royal
Academy with the delivery of these inaugural discourses by Sir Joshua
Reynolds, on the opening of the schools, and at the first annual
meetings for the distribution of its prizes. They laid down principles of
art from the point of view of a man of genius who had made his power
felt, and with the clear good sense which is the foundation of all work
that looks upward and may hope to live. The truths here expressed
concerning Art may, with slight adjustment of the way of thought, be
applied to Literature or to any exercise of the best powers of mind for
shaping the delights that raise us to the larger sense of life. In his
separation of the utterance of whole truths from insistance upon
accidents of detail, Reynolds was right, because he guarded the
expression of his view with careful definitions of its limits. In the same
way Boileau was right, as a critic of Literature, in demanding
everywhere good sense, in condemning the paste brilliants of a style
then in decay, and fixing attention upon the masterly simplicity of

Roman poets in the time of Augustus. Critics by rule of thumb reduced
the principles clearly defined by Boileau to a dull convention, against
which there came in course of time a strong reaction. In like manner the
teaching of Reynolds was applied by dull men to much vague and
conventional generalisation in the name of dignity. Nevertheless,
Reynolds taught essential truths of Art. The principles laid down by
him will never fail to give strength to the right artist, or true guidance
towards the appreciation of good art, though here and there we may not
wholly assent to some passing application of them, where the
difference may be great between a fashion of thought in his time and in
ours. A righteous enforcement of exact truth in our day has led many
into a readiness to appreciate more really the minute imitation of a satin
dress, or a red herring, than the noblest figure in the best of Raffaelle's
cartoons. Much good should come of the diffusion of this wise little
book.
Joshua Reynolds was born on the 15th of July, 1723, the son of a
clergyman and schoolmaster, at Plympton in Devonshire. His bent for
Art was clear and strong from his childhood. In 1741 at the age of
nineteen, he began study, and studied for two yours in London under
Thomas