7b 
 
 85-B 
 
 4485 
 
 DISCOURSES 
 
 ON 
 
 THE FINE ARTS 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS. 
 
 1840. 
 
EDINBURGH : 
 PRINTED BV XV. AND R. CHAMBERS. 
 
MEMOIR OF SIR J 
 
 OSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 Joshua Reynolds was bom at Plympton in Devonshire, on the 
 Kith of July 1723. He was the seventh of the eleven children of 
 the Rev. Samuel Reynolds, master of the grammar-school at 
 Plympton, to whose parental care he was indebted for his first 
 instructions in classical literature, and the other branches of a 
 respectable education. It is said, that, during his boyhood, he 
 was not distinguished by assiduity or success in his studies, being 
 chiefly diverted from them by an incipient passion for the art in 
 which he subsequently gained such celebrity. Mr Farington, 
 indeed, one of the biographers of Sir Joshua, censures his prede- 
 cessor in the task, Mr Edmond Malone, for ascribing too much 
 importance to these early exhibitions of a turn for painting, but 
 Mr Malone seems to have truth on his side. Reynolds himself 
 stated in after life, that when a mere child he could not refrain 
 from copying every print that came in his way ; and various speci- 
 mens of these juvenile essays still exist. One of them presents a 
 perspective view of a book-case, executed on the back of a Latin 
 exercise, and below the sketch are these words, in his father's 
 handwriting, "Done by Joshua out of pure idleness;" a com- 
 ment Avhich satisfactorily proves that Mr Reynolds conceived his 
 son's painting propensities to be somewhat detrimental to his 
 progress in his studies. We may fairly hold, therefore, that these 
 tendencies of young Reynolds were not simply ' ' something com- 
 mon among boys of his age," but that he, like Lawrence and so 
 many others, gave early and decided proofs of his possessing the 
 peculiar organisation fitting him for the career of an artist. This 
 point is at once of some practical importance (as it bears upon the 
 choice of a profession by young men), and interesting as con- 
 nected with the philosophy of mind. 
 
 Observing every day more and more decided indications of the 
 particular bent of the lad's genius, Mr Reynolds at length thought 
 proper to gratify his son's inclinations, and placed him, at the age of 
 seventeen, under the care of Mr Thomas Hudson, then one of the 
 leading portrait-painters of the British metropolis. At this period 
 ( 1741 ) , art was at a low ebb in the country. The success of the Van- 
 dykes, Lelys, and Knellers, who had brought to Britain all the 
 6kill and finish of continental art, appears to have exercised a de- 
 pressing influence upon native genius, by rendering the artists of 
 the land hopeless of competition. And now, though the day of the 
 foreigners had passed away, native art had not as yet had time to 
 raise itself above its former mean estate, and the country possessed 
 no great painters. Under Hudson, Reynolds perhaps received as 
 good instructions in portrait-painting as any school of the day 
 could have afforded. But after studying only two years out of the 
 four agreed upon between him and his master, Reynolds left 
 the house of the latter, in consequence of a quarrel. The old 
 painter, it is said, became jealous of his pupil, who had displayed 
 an unpleasing degree of promise in the execution of various por- 
 traits. Hudson accordingly seized a flimsy pretext for dismissing 
 him. The young man wrote an account of the circumstances to 
 his father, who directed him to come down to Devonshire. Partly 
 in that county, and partly in London, Reynolds spent the next 
 six years of his life, engaged in study and in practice. He had the 
 good fortune to obtain the patronage of Lord Edgecumbe and 
 Lord Keppel, and for these employers, as well as others to whom 
 they recommended him, he executed many of his earliest essays 
 in art. 
 
 On the appointment of Lord Keppel to a small squadron in the 
 Mediterranean, Reynolds found an opportunity of visiting Italy. 
 In December of the year 1749, he arrived in Rome. It is curious 
 that on first beholding the master-pieces there, and more espe- 
 cially those of Raffaelle, he could not discern their far-famed 
 beauties. But did he therefore conceive them to be unworthy of 
 their repute? No; his conclusions on the occasion were very 
 different, and ought to afford a lesson to critics. " My not relish- 
 ing these works (says he), as I was conscious I ought to have 
 done, was one of the most humiliating circumstances that ever 
 happened to me. I found myself in the midst of works, executed 
 upon principles with which I was unacquainted— I felt my igno- 
 rance, and stood abashed." Ere he had seen them often, however, 
 he began fully to appreciate these great productions, and during 
 his three years' stay in Italy occupied himself in unwearied con- 
 templation and imitation of their beauties. " By his well-directed 
 studies at this time (says his pupil Northcote) , he acquired that 
 grace of thinking to which he was principally indebted for his 
 
 subsequent excellence as a portrait -painter." In the autumn of 
 1752, he returned to England. 
 
 Reynolds now hired a respectable house in Newport Street, and 
 launched himself on the metropolitan world as a portrait-painter. 
 His first productions were severely criticised by his brethren. Ho 
 commenced by resolutely throwing off the trammels of custom, 
 and guided himself solely by his own elegant taste and well- 
 weighed principles. The artists of the day had a set of attitudes 
 and draperies, which they bestowed indiscriminately on all 
 sitters. If they merely effected a likeness, they attained their 
 wish, and sought no more. Reynolds was the first British artist 
 who gave to portraits a poetic and historic cast. Not content with 
 executing a simple fac-simile of the features, he endeavoured to 
 seize on the characteristic air, attitude, or actions of the 6itter, 
 to catch him at the most graceful moment, and to relieve and 
 ennoble the portrait in every way compatible with the preserva- 
 tion of its verisimilitude. Notwithstanding the jealous condem- 
 nation of other artists, Reynolds persisted in the style of art 
 which mature consideration had led him to adopt, and soon 
 obtained his reward. The force and felicity (says Northcote) 
 of his portraits, not only drew around him the opulence and 
 beauty of the nation, but happily gained him the merited honour 
 of perpetuating the features of all the eminent and distinguished 
 men of learning then living." Before he had been ten years in 
 practice he had set up his carriage, and was in the enjoyment of 
 an income of not less than £6000 a-year. In 1761, he removed to 
 Leicester Square, where he spent the greater part of his after 
 life, and where he received and entertained as familiar friends 
 many of the most noted men of the day. Shortly after his return 
 from Italy, he had formed an acquaintance with Dr Johnson at 
 the house of the Misses Cotterell, daughters of Admiral CotterelL 
 Boswell relates that Reynolds was first induced to long for John- 
 son's acquaintance by falling in with his Life of Savage. Tho 
 painter began accidentally to read this production whilo ' ' stand- 
 ing with his arm leaning against a chimney-piece. It seized his 
 attention so strongly, that, not being able to lay down the book 
 till he finished it, when he attempted to move he found his arm 
 totally benumbed." The importance to him of Johnson's long- 
 continued friendship has been thus candidly stated by Reynolds 
 himself. Alluding to his Discourses, he says, M Whatever merit 
 they have, must be imputed in a great measure to the education 
 which I may be said to have had under Dr Johnson. He qualified 
 my mind to think justly." An honourable 6ense of gratitude has 
 probably caused the artist rather to overstate his obligations here, 
 though he certainly received powerful aid from the great moralist 
 in repairing the deficiencies of his early education. At the same 
 time, the influence of the society and friendship of Burke, Gold- 
 smith, and Garrick, ought not to be overlooked in estimating 
 such an acknowledgment. Besides his private intercourse with 
 these famous men, the Literary Club, of which he was the origi- 
 nal proposer, brought Reynolds into constant contact with them 
 in their most easy and unreserved moments. 
 
 Among the distinguished persons whose portraits Reynolds 
 painted about this time, reciprocally giving and gaining fame by 
 60 doing, were Garrick, Johnson, Burke, Goldsmith, Lord Cam- 
 den, Mason, Foote, Gibbon, Sterne, Lord Mansfield, Lord Thur- 
 low, Windham, and many others. By means of engravings, theso 
 productions were made familiar, to a certain extent, to the coun- 
 try; but, in 1760, an Exhibition of Paintings was opened in 
 London, which gave the public a view of the paintings them- 
 selves, and which was followed by consequences most important 
 to the future career of tho subject of our memoir. He sent his 
 well-known likeness of Sterne, and his magnificent portrait of 
 Lord Ligonier on horseback, to the exhibition of 1761, and con- 
 tinued afterwards to adorn it with numerous productions of the 
 like merit Finding the scheme to succeed, the associated artists 
 sought and obtained a charter of incorporation in 1765 ; but divi- 
 sions took place among them, to compose which the recently 
 incorporated body was abolished, and a new institution established 
 in 1768, under the title of the Royal Academy of Painting, Sculp- 
 ture, and Architecture. Professorships were attached to it, and, 
 among others, Oliver Goldsmith received the chair of ancient 
 history. But these appointments were nominal and unproduc- 
 tive ; and Goldsmith humorously observed, that such an honour to 
 one in his situation was 1 1 something like ruffles to a man that 
 
4 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 wanted a shirt." Reynolds, now admittedly at the head of British 
 art, was appointed president of the academy. From this nomina- 
 tion, so well merited, sprang those admirable Discourses, fifteen 
 in number, which Sir Thomas Lawrence has truly described as 
 " golden precepts, now acknowledged as canons of universal 
 taste." It was not officially incumbent upon the president to 
 deliver such prelections, but he voluntarily imposed the task upon 
 himself, in his enthusiasm for the art. Impelled by the same 
 spirit, he sent not less than 244 pictures to the academical exhi- 
 bitions, from their commencement in 1760, up till 1790 inclusive. 
 About the same time with his presidency he received the honour 
 of knighthood, and soon afterwards the University of Oxford 
 honoured him with the degree of doctor of civil law. 
 
 Hitherto we have only alluded to Sir Joshua as a portrait-painter. 
 Indeed, he did not step out of this comparatively inferior line of 
 art, until his powers were felt by him to be fully matured by 
 practice. Garrick between the Muses of Comedy and Tragedy 
 (painted in 1762) , and A Lady Sacrificing to the Graces (1765), were 
 among the first great works of fancy which he produced. In 1773, 
 he exhibited one of his most famous historical pictures, The 
 Ugolino, representing the Italian Count of that name starving 
 with his children in a dungeon, in accordance with the descrip- 
 tion of Dante. Critics differ much in their estimation of this 
 picture, excepting as regards the execution, which all admit to 
 be splendid. Allan Cunningham terms the Ugolino of the picture 
 "a famished mendicant, "deficient in dignity and intellectuality of 
 aspect ; whereas Horace Walpole, at least an equally good judge, 
 gives the figure the highest praise, inquiring " in what age were 
 paternal despair and the horrors of death pronounced with more 
 expressive accents than in the picture of Count Ugolino ?" It is 
 unnecessary to point out the particular dates of the other great 
 productions of Sir Joshua's pencil, or even to name more than a 
 few. In the course of his presidency he graced the exhibitions 
 with such pieces as The Nativity (valued at 1200 guineas), The 
 Death of Cardinal Beaufort, The Infant Jupiter, The Death of 
 Dido, The Gipsy For tune-Teller, Robin Goodfellow, The In- 
 fant Academy, Virgin and Child, Venus and Cupid, Cupid and 
 Psyche, Witches in Macbeth, Hope Nursing Love, Holy Family, 
 Infant Samuel, The Gleaners, Sleeping Child, Scipio, Sleeping 
 Girl, Infant Hercules, &c; almost all of which are fami- 
 liarised to the country by the numerous engravings of them 
 which have been published from time to time. Mr Malone 
 enumerates 110 pictures, of an historical and miscellaneous order, 
 as being merely the most considerable of the pieces which Sir 
 Joshua executed, exclusive of his numberless portraits. In seve- 
 ral instances he received upwards of £1000 for single pictures. 
 The Empress of Russia gave £1500 for the picture of Hercules 
 Strangling the Serpents, and, moreover, sent to the artist amagni- . 
 ficent gold box, studded with diamonds, as a testimony of the 
 satisfaction which she had received from the perusal of his Dis- 
 courses. It may be interesting to some readers to know that his 
 price for a head, as it is called, in 1755, was twelve guineas ; in 
 1758, twenty; in 1760, twenty-five; in 1770, thirty-five; and, 
 finally, in 1781, rose to the fixed amount of fifty guineas. When 
 at the height of his fame, the painter charged 100 guineas for a 
 half length, and for a whole length 200 guineas. 
 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, though ever practising his art with acti- 
 vity, and retaining all his early enthusiasm for its advancement 
 and welfare, spent much of his middle life in the society of his 
 many distinguished friends. He was not less admired as a man 
 than as an artist. Almost every reader will remember 
 cinct and excellent sketch of him by Goldsmith :— 
 
 " Here Reynolds is laid, and to tell you my mind, 
 He has not left a wiser or better behind : 
 His pencil was striking, resistless, and grand, 
 His manners were gentle, complying, and bland ; 
 Still born to improve us in every part, 
 His pencil our faces, his manners our heart ; 
 
 To coxcombs averse, yet most civilly steering, 
 When they judged without skill, he was still hard of hearing ; 
 When they talked of their Raphaels, Correggios, and stuff, 
 He shifted his trumpet, and only took snuff." 
 The last line alludes to his deafness, which caused him to use an 
 ear-trumpet. Mr Malone says of Sir Joshua, " He was in stature 
 rather under the middle size; of a florid complexion, and a lively 
 and pleasing aspect; well made, and extremely active. His 
 appearance at first sight impressed the spectator with the idea of 
 a well-born and well-bred English gentleman. He appeared to me 
 the happiest man I have ever known. His mind was never torpid, 
 but always at work on some topic or other. He had a strong turn 
 and relish for humour, in all its various forms, and very quickly 
 saw the weak sides of things. He had an ardent love of truth, 
 and was perfectly free from all artifice and affectation." He was 
 "a firm and faithful friend; and in mixed life an honourable 
 and benevolent man." From some strong prepossession, Mr 
 Allan Cunningham has charged him with " coldness and sordid- 
 ness," and has even used, with reference to some of his actions, the 
 words "cautious malignity ;" but in the very work where these 
 reflections appear, proofs are given of conduct totally inconsistent 
 with them. Sir Henry Raeburn, for example, when he went to 
 London in his youth, is stated to have visited Reynolds. The 
 latter treated him most kindly, and after advising him to go to 
 Rome, took him aside, and whispered, " Yoimg man, I know 
 nothing about your circumstances; but painters are seldom rich, 
 and if money be necessary for your studies abroad, say so, and 
 you shall not want it." In truth, Mr Cunningham's strictures 
 are so utterly at variance with all that is recorded of Sir Joshua 
 by Boswell and others who knew him well, that unless they had 
 appeared in one of the most popular modern works upon art and 
 artists (Lives of the Painters), they would have been unworthy 
 of even this brief notice. Regarding Sir Joshua's merits as an 
 artist, however, we cannot do better than quote the same writer's 
 words. "Certainly in character and expression, and in manly 
 ease, he has never been surpassed. He is always equal, always 
 natural, graceful, unaffected. His boldness of posture and singu- 
 lar freedom of colouring are so supported by all the grace of art, 
 by all the sorcery of skill, that they appear natural and noble. 
 Over the meanest heads he sheds the halo of dignity." This is 
 said of his portraits. Mr Cunningham does not value his histori- 
 cal pieces so highly, yet a critic of exquisite taste, Edmund 
 Burke, declares, with reference to them, that "in grace, faci- 
 lity, in happy invention, and in the richness and harmony of 
 colouring, he was equal to the greatest masters of the renowned 
 ages." 
 
 After holding the presidency with universal honour and esteem 
 for twenty years, Sir Joshua felt, when painting, a sudden affec- 
 tion in the left eye. " He laid down the pencil, sat awhile in 
 mute consideration, and never lifted it more." His eyesight con- 
 tinued to fail, and in 1791 he resigned the presidency. On the 
 23d of February of the following year, he paid the great debt of 
 nature, at the age of sixty-nine. A public funeral testified the 
 regret not only of the followers of art in Britain, but of the noble 
 and the great— of all, in short, who loved the arts, and honoured 
 virtue. Sir Joshua Reynolds left the bulk of his fortune, which 
 was very considerable, to his favourite niece, Miss Palmer, after- 
 wards Marchioness of Thomond. He was never married. 
 
 Regarding the Discourses which are republished in the follow- 
 ing pages, it is scarcely necessary to add any thing, after the 
 brief but expressive eulogium quoted from Sir Thomas Law- 
 rence. To the artist they are indeed " canons of taste," and 
 invaluable rules of guidance, while the sound sense and discrimi- 
 nation in which they abound, render them almost equally inte- 
 resting to the general reader. Many of the maxims bear not 
 merely upon art, but are applicable to all the ordinary affairs of 
 life. It is hoped, therefore, that this re-issue of them will prove 
 an acceptable boon to the public. 
 
 AUTHOR'S DEDICATION. 
 
 TO THE KI N G. 
 
 The regular progress of cultivated life is from necessaries to 
 accommodations, from accommodations to ornaments. By your 
 illustrious predecessors were established marts for manufactures, 
 and colleges for science ; but for the arts of elegance, those arts 
 by which manufactures are embellished, and science is refined, 
 to found an academy was reserved for your majesty. 
 
 Had such patronage been without effect, there had been reason 
 to believe that nature had, by some insurmountable impediment, 
 obstructed out proficiency ; but the annual improvement of the 
 
 exhibitions which your majesty has been pleased to encourage, 
 shows that only encouragement had been wanting. 
 
 To give advice to those who are contending for royal liberality, 
 has been for some years the duty of my station in the academy ; 
 and these Discourses hope for your majesty's acceptance, as well- 
 intended endeavours to incite that emulation which your notice 
 has kindled, and direct those studies which your bounty has 
 rewarded.— May it please your majesty, your majesty's most 
 dutiful servant, and most faithful subject, Joshua Reynolds. 
 
DISCOURSES OF SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. 
 
 DISCOURSE I. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, 
 JANUARY 2, 1769. 
 The Advantages proceeding from the Institution of a Royal Aca- 
 demy. Hints offered to the consideration of the Professors and 
 "Visitors. That an implicit obedience to the Rules of Art be 
 exacted from the Young Students. That a premature disposi- 
 tion to a masterly dexterity be repressed. That diligence be 
 constantly recommended, and (that it may be effectual) directed 
 to its proper object. 
 
 Gentlemen — An academy in which the Polite Arts 
 may be regularly cultivated, is at last opened among us 
 by royal munificence. This must appear an event in 
 the highest degree interesting, not only to the artist, 
 but to the whole nation. 
 
 It is indeed difficult to give any other reason why 
 an empire like that of Britain should so long have 
 wanted an ornament so suitable to its greatness, than 
 that slow progression of things, which naturally makes 
 elegance and refinement the last effect of opulence and 
 power. 
 
 An institution like this has often been recommended 
 upon considerations merely mercantile; but an academy 
 founded upon such principles, can never effect even its 
 own narrow purposes. If it has an origin no higher, 
 no taste can ever be formed in manufactures ; but if the 
 higher arts of design flourish, these inferior ends will 
 be answered of course. 
 
 We are happy in having a prince, who has conceived 
 the design of such an institution according to its true 
 dignity, and who promotes the arts, as the head of a 
 great, a learned, a polite, and a commercial nation ; and 
 I can now congratulate you, gentlemen, on the accom- 
 plishment of your long and ardent wishes. 
 
 The numberless and ineffectual consultations which 
 I have had with many in this assembly to form plans 
 and concert schemes for an academy, afford a sufficient 
 proof of the impossibility of succeeding but by the in- 
 fluence of Majesty. But there have, perhaps, been 
 times when even the influence of Majesty would have 
 been ineffectual ; and it is pleasing to reflect, that we 
 are thus embodied, when every circumstance seems to 
 concur from which honour and prosperity can probably 
 arise. 
 
 There are at this time a greater number of excellent 
 artists than were ever known before at one period in 
 this nation ; there is a general desire among our nobi- 
 lity to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the 
 arts ; there is a greater superfluity of wealth among the 
 people to reward the professors ; and, above all, we are 
 patronised by a monarch, who, knowing the value of 
 science and of elegance, thinks every art worthy of his 
 notice that tends to soften and humanise the mind. 
 
 After so much has been done by his Majesty, it will 
 be wholly our fault, if our progress is not in some de- 
 gree correspondent to the wisdom and generosity of 
 the institution ; let us show our gratitude in our dili- 
 gence, that, though our merit may not answer his ex- 
 pectations, yet at least our industry may deserve his 
 protection. 
 
 But whatever may be our proportion of success, of 
 this we may be sure, that the present institution will at 
 least contribute to advance our knowledge of the arts, 
 
 and bring us nearer to that ideal excellence which it is 
 the lot of genius always to contemplate and never to 
 attain. 
 
 The principal advantage of an academy is, that be- 
 sides furnishing able men to direct the student, it will 
 be a repository for the great examples of the art. These 
 are the materials on which genius is to work, and with- 
 out which the strongest intellect may be fruitlessly or 
 deviously employed. By studying these authentic 
 models, that idea of excellence which is the result of the 
 accumulated experience of past ages may be at once 
 acquired ; and the tardy and obstructed progress of our 
 predecessors may teach us a shorter and easier way. 
 The student receives at one glance the principles which 
 many artists have spent their whole lives in ascertain- 
 ing ; and, satisfied with their effect, is spared the pain- 
 ful investigation by which they came to be known and 
 fixed. How many men of great natural abilities have 
 been lost to this nation, for want of these advantages ! 
 They never had an opportunity of seeing those masterly 
 efforts of genius, which at once kindle the whole soul, 
 and force it into sudden and irresistible approbation. 
 
 llafiaelle, it is true, had net the advantage of studying 
 in an academy ; but all Rome, and the works of Michael 
 Angelo in particular, were to him an academy. On the 
 sight of the Capella Sistina, he immediately, from a dry, 
 Gothic, and even insipid manner, which attends to the 
 minute accidental discriminations of particular and in- 
 dividual objects, assumed that grand style of painting, 
 which improves partial representation by the general 
 and invariable ideas of nature. 
 
 Every seminary of learning may be said to be sur- 
 rounded with an atmosphere of floating knowledge, 
 where every mind may imbibe somewhat congenial to 
 its own original conceptions. Knowledge thus obtained 
 has always something more popular and useful than 
 that which is forced upon the mind by private precepts 
 or solitary meditation. Besides, it is generally found 
 that a youth more easily receives instruction from the 
 companions of his studies, whose minds are nearly on a 
 level with his own, than from those who are much his 
 superiors ; and it is from his equals only that he catches 
 the fire of emulation. 
 
 One advantage, I will venture to affirm, we shall 
 have in our academy, which no other nation can boast. 
 We shall have nothing to unlearn. To this praise the 
 present race of artists have a just claim. As far as 
 they have yet proceeded, they are right. With us, the 
 exertions of genius will henceforward be directed to 
 their proper objects. It will not be as it has been in 
 other schools, where he that travelled fastest, only 
 wandered farthest from the right way. 
 
 Impressed as I am, therefore, with such a favourable 
 opinion of my associates in this undertaking, it would 
 ill become me to dictate to any of them. But as these 
 institutions have so often failed in other nations, and as 
 it is natural to think with regret how much might have 
 been done, I must take leave to offer a few hints, by 
 which those errors may be rectified and those defects 
 supplied. These the professors and visitors may reject 
 or adopt as they shall think proper. 
 
 I would chiefly recommend, that an implicit obe- 
 dience to the rules of art, as established by the practice 
 of the great masters, should be exacted from the young 
 
6 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 students. That those models which have passed through 
 the approbation of ages, should be considered by them 
 as perfect and infallible guides — as subjects for their 
 imitation, not their criticism. 
 
 I am confident that this is the only efficacious 
 method of making a progress in the arts, and that he 
 who sets out with doubting, will find life finished 
 before he becomes master of the rudiments ; for it may 
 be laid down as a maxim, that he who begins by pre- 
 suming on his own sense, has ended his studies as soon 
 as he has commenced them. Every opportunity, 
 therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false 
 and vulgar opinion, that rules are the fetters of genius ; 
 they are fetters only to men of no genius; as that 
 armour, which upon the strong is an ornament and a 
 defence, upon the weak and mis-shapen becomes a 
 load, and cripples the body which it was made to 
 protect. 
 
 How much liberty may be taken to break through 
 those rules, and, as the poet expresses it, 
 
 " To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art," 
 may be a subsequent consideration, when the pupils 
 become masters themselves. It is then, when their 
 genius has received its utmost improvement, that rules 
 may possibly be dispensed with. But let us not destroy 
 the scaffold until we have raised the building. 
 
 The directors ought more particularly to watch over 
 the genius of those students, who, being more advanced, 
 are arrived at that critical period of study, on the nice 
 management of which their future turn of taste depends. 
 At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated 
 with what is brilliant than with what is solid, and to 
 prefer splendid negligence to painful and humiliating 
 exactness. 
 
 A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called 
 a masterly, handling of the chalk or pencil, are, it must 
 be confessed, captivating qualities to young minds, and 
 become of course the objects of their ambition. They 
 endeavour to imitate these dazzling excellences, which 
 they will find no great labour in attaining. After much 
 time spent in these frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will 
 be to retreat ; but it will be then too late ; and there 
 is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour, 
 after the mind has been debauched and deceived by 
 this fallacious mastery. 
 
 By this useless industry, they are excluded from all 
 power of advancing in real excellence. Whilst boys, 
 they are arrived at their utmost perfection ; they have 
 taken the shadow for the substance ; and make the 
 mechanical felicity the chief excellence of the art, which 
 is only an ornament, and of the merit of which few but 
 painters themselves are judges. 
 
 This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous 
 sources of corruption ; and I speak of it from expe- 
 rience, not as an error which may possibly happen, but 
 which has actually infected all foreign academies. The 
 directors were probably pleased with this premature 
 dexterity in their pupils, and praised their dispatch at 
 the expense of their correctness. 
 
 But young men have not only this frivolous ambition 
 of being thought masters of execution, inciting them on 
 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. 
 They must therefore be told again and again, that labour 
 is the only price of solid fame, and that whatever their 
 force of genius may be, there is no easy method of be- 
 coming a good painter. 
 
 When we read the lives of the most eminent painters, 
 every page informs us that no part of their time was 
 spent in dissipation. Even an increase of fame served 
 only to augment their industry. To be convinced with 
 what persevering assiduity they pursued their studies, 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 we need only reflect on their method of proceeding in 
 their most celebrated works. When they conceived a 
 subject, they first made a variety of sketches ; then a 
 finished drawing of the whole ; after that a more cor- 
 rect drawing of every separate part— heads, hands, feet, 
 and pieces of drapery ; they then painted the picture, 
 and after all retouched it from the life. The pictures, 
 thus wrought with such pains, now appear like the effect 
 of enchantment, and as if some mighty genius had 
 struck them off at a blow. 
 
 But whilst diligence is thus recommended to the 
 students, the visitors will take care that their diligence 
 be effectual ; that it be well directed, and employed on 
 the proper object. A student is not always advancing 
 because he is employed ; he must apply his strength to 
 that part of the art where the real difficulties lie ; to 
 that part which distinguishes it as a liberal art ; and 
 not by mistaken industry lose his time in that which is 
 merely ornamental. The students, instead of vieing with 
 each other which shall have the readiest hand, should 
 be taught to contend who shall have the purest and 
 most correct outline; instead of striving which shall 
 produce the brightest tint, or, curiously trifling, shall 
 give the gloss of stuffs so as to appear real, let their 
 ambition be directed to contend which shall dispose 
 his drapery in the most graceful folds, which shall give 
 the most grace and dignity to the human figure. 
 
 I must beg leave to submit one thing more to the 
 consideration of the visitors, which appears to me a 
 matter of very great consequence, and the omission of 
 which I think a principal defect in the method of edu- 
 cation pursued in all the academies I have ever visited. 
 The error I mean is, that the students never draw 
 exactly from the living models which they have before 
 them. It is not indeed their intention ; nor are they 
 directed to do it. Their drawings resemble the model 
 only in the attitude. They change the form according 
 to their vague and uncertain ideas of beauty, and make 
 a drawing rather of what they think the figure ought 
 to be, than of what it appears. I have thought this 
 the obstacle that has stopped the progress of many 
 young men of real genius; and I very much doubt 
 whether a habit of drawing correctly what we see will 
 not give a proportionable power of drawing correctly 
 what we imagine. He who endeavours to copy nicely 
 the figure before him, not only acquires a habit of 
 exactness and precision, but is continually advancing in 
 his knowledge of the human figure ; and though he 
 seems to superficial observers to make a slower pro- 
 gress, he will be found at last capable of adding (with- 
 out running into capricious wildness) that grace and 
 beauty, which is necessary to be given to his more 
 finished works, and which cannot be got by the moderns, 
 as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an atten- 
 tive and well-compared study of the human form. 
 
 What I think ought to enforce this method is, that it 
 has been the practice (as may be seen by their draw- 
 ings) of the great masters in the art. I will mention a 
 drawing of Raffaelle, The Dispute of the Sacrament, the 
 print of which, by Count Cailus, is in every hand. It 
 appears that he made his sketch from one model ; and 
 the habit he had of drawing exactly from the form 
 before him, appears by his making all the figures with 
 the same cap, such as his model then happened to wear ; 
 — so servile a copyist was this great man, even at a 
 time when he was allowed to be at his highest pitch of 
 excellence. 
 
 I have seen also academy figures by Annibale Ca- 
 racci, though he was often sufficiently licentious in his 
 finished works, drawn with all the peculiarities of an 
 individual model. 
 
 This scrupulous exactness is so contrary to the 
 practice of the academies, that it is not without great 
 deference that I beg leave to recommend it to the con- 
 sideration of the visitors ; and submit to them, whether 
 the neglect of this method is not one of the reasons 
 why students so often disappoint expectation, and, being 
 more than boys at sixteen, become less than men at 
 thirty. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 7 
 
 In short, the method I recommend can only be detri- 
 mental where there are but few living forms to copy ; 
 for then students, by always drawing from one alone, 
 will by habit be taught to overlook defects, and mistake 
 deformity for beauty. But of this there is no danger ; 
 since the Council has determined to supply the academy 
 with a variety of subjects ; and indeed those laws which 
 they have drawn up, and which the secretary will pre- 
 sently read for your confirmation, have in some measure 
 precluded me from saying more upon this occasion. 
 Instead, therefore, of offering my advice, permit me to 
 indulge my wishes, and express my hope, that this 
 institution may answer the expectation of its royal 
 founder; that the present age may vie in arts with 
 that of Leo the Tenth ; and that the dignity of the dying 
 art (to make use of an expression of Pliny) may be 
 revived under the reign of George the Third. 
 
 DISCOURSE II. 
 
 IJI.UVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 11, 1769. 
 
 The Course and Order of Study. The different Stages of Art. 
 Much copying discountenanced. The Artist at all times and in 
 all places should be employed in laying up materials for the 
 exercise of his Art. 
 
 Gentlemen — I congratulate you on the honour which 
 you have just received. I have the highest opinion of 
 your merits, and could wish to show my sense of them 
 in something which possibly may be more useful to you 
 than barren praise. I could wish to lead you into such 
 a course of study as may render your future progress 
 answerable to your past improvement ; and, whilst I 
 applaud you for what has been done, remind you how 
 much yet remains to attain perfection. 
 
 I flatter myself, that from the long experience I have 
 had, and the unceasing assiduity with which I have 
 pursued those studies, in which, like you, I have been 
 engaged, I shall be acquitted of vanity in offering some 
 hints to your consideration. They are indeed in a great 
 degree founded upon my own mistakes in the same 
 pursuit. But the history of errors, properly managed, 
 often shortens the road to truth. And although no 
 method of study that I can offer, will of itself conduct 
 to excellence, yet it may preserve industry from being 
 misapplied. 
 
 In speaking to you of the theory of the art, I shall 
 only consider it as it has a relation to the method of 
 your studies. 
 
 Dividing the study of painting into three distinct pe- 
 riods, I shall address you as having passed through the 
 first of them, which is confined to the rudiments ; in- 
 cluding a facility of drawing any object that presents 
 itself, a tolerable readiness in the management of colours, 
 and an acquaintance with the most simple and obvious 
 rules of composition. 
 
 This first degree of proficiency is, in painting, what 
 grammar is in literature, a general preparation for what- 
 ever species of the art the student may afterwards 
 choose for his more particular application. The power 
 of di'awing, modelling, and using colours, is very pro- 
 perly called the language of the art ; and in this lan- 
 guage, the honours you have just received prove you to 
 have made no inconsiderable progress. 
 
 When the artist is once enahled to express himself 
 with some degree of correctness, he must then endea- 
 vour to collect subjects for expression ; to amass a stock 
 of ideas, to be combined and varied as occasion may 
 require. He is now in the second period of study, in 
 which his business is to learn all that has been known 
 and done before his own time. Having hitherto re- 
 ceived instructions from a particular master, he is now 
 to consider the Art itself as his master. He must ex- 
 tend his capacity to more sublime and general instruc- 
 tions. Those perfections which lie scattered among 
 various masters, are now united in one general idea, 
 which is henceforth to regulate his taste and enlarge 
 
 his imagination. With a variety of models thus before 
 him, he will avoid that narrowness and poverty of con- 
 ception which attends a bigoted admiration of a single 
 master, and will cease to follow any favourite where he 
 ceases to excel. This period is, however, still a time of 
 subjection and discipline. Though the student will not 
 resign himself blindly to any single authority, when he 
 may have the advantage of consulting many, he must 
 still be afraid of trusting his own judgment, and of de- 
 viating into any track where he cannot find the foot- 
 steps of some former master. 
 
 The third and last period emancipates the student 
 from subjection to any authority but what he shall 
 himself judge to be supported by reason. Confiding 
 now in his own judgment, he will consider and sepa- 
 rate those different principles to which different modes 
 of beauty owe their original. In the former period he 
 sought only to know and combine excellence, wherever 
 it was to be found, into one idea of perfection : in this 
 he learns what requires the most attentive survey, and 
 the most subtle disquisition, to discriminate perfections 
 that are incompatible with each other. 
 
 He is from this time to regard himself as holding the 
 same rank with those masters whom he before obeyed 
 as teachers; and as exercising a sort of sovereignty 
 over those rules which have hitherto restrained him. 
 Comparing now no longer the performances of art with 
 each other, but examining the art itself by the standard 
 of nature, he corrects what is erroneous, supplies what 
 is scanty, and adds, by his own observation, what the 
 industry of his predecessors may have yet left wanting 
 to perfection. Having well established his judgment, 
 and stored his memory, he may now without fear try 
 the power of his imagination. The mind that has been 
 thus disciplined, may be indulged in the warmest en- 
 thusiasm, and venture to" play on the borders of the 
 wildest extravagance. The habitual dignity which long 
 converse with the greatest minds has imparted to him, 
 will display itself in all his attempts ; and he will stand 
 among his instructors, not as an imitator, but a rival. 
 
 These are the different stages of the art. But as I 
 now address myself particularly to those students who 
 have been this day rewarded for their happy passage 
 through the first period, I can with no propriety sup- 
 pose they want any help in the initiatory studies. My 
 present design is to direct your view to distant excel- 
 lence, and to show you the readiest path that leads to 
 it. Of this I shall speak with such latitude as may 
 leave the province of the professor uninvaded, and 
 shall not anticipate those precepts which it is his busi- 
 ness to give and your duty to understand. 
 
 It is indisputably evident that a great part of every 
 man's life must be employed in collecting materials for 
 the exercise of genius. Invention, strictly speaking, is 
 Utile more than a new combination of those images 
 which have been previously gathered and deposited in 
 the memory ; nothing can come of nothing ; he who has 
 laid up no materials can produce no combinations. 
 
 A student unacquainted with the attempts of former 
 adventurers, is always apt to overrate his own abilities ; 
 to mistake the most trifling excursions for discoveries 
 of moment, and every coast new to him for a new-found 
 country. If by chance he passes beyond his usual 
 limits, he congratulates his own arrival at those regions 
 which they who have steered a better course have long 
 left behind them. 
 
 The productions of such minds are seldom distin- 
 guished by an air of originality ; they are anticipated 
 in their happiest efforts ; and if they are found to differ 
 in any thing from their predecessors, it is only in irre- 
 gular sallies and trifling conceits. The more extensive, 
 therefore, your acquaintance is with the works of those 
 who have excelled, the more extensive will be your 
 powers of invention ; and what may appear still more 
 like a paradox, the more original will be your concep- 
 tions. But the difficulty on this occasion is to deter- 
 mine what ought to be proposed as models of excellence, 
 and who ought to be considered as the properest guides. 
 To a young mau just arrived in Italy, many of the 
 
8 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 present painters of that country are ready enough to 
 obtrude their precepts, and to offer their own perform- 
 ances as examples of that perfection which they affect 
 to recommend. The modern, however, who recom- 
 mends himself as a standard, may justly be suspected 
 as ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the 
 proper object, of the art which he professes. To follow 
 such a guide, will not only retard the student, but mis- 
 lead him. 
 
 On whom, then, can he rely, or who shall show him 
 the path that leads to excellence ? The answer is ob- 
 vious : those great masters who have travelled the same 
 road with success, are the most likely to conduct others. 
 The works of those who have stood the test of ages have 
 a claim to that respect and veneration to which no 
 modern can pretend. The duration and stability of 
 their fame is sufficient to evince that it has not been 
 suspended upon the slender thread of fashion and 
 caprice, but bound to the human heart by every tie 
 of sympathetic approbation. 
 
 There is no danger of studying too much the works 
 of those great men ; but how they may be studied to 
 advantage, is an inquiry of great importance. 
 
 Some who have never raised their minds to the con- 
 sideration of the real dignity of the art, and who rate 
 the works of an artist in proportion as they excel or 
 are defective in the mechanical parts, look on theory 
 as something that may enable them to talk but not to 
 paint better ; and confining themselves entirely to me- 
 chanical practice, very assiduously toil on in the drud- 
 gery of copying, and think they make a rapid progress 
 while they faithfully exhibit the minutest part of a 
 favourite picture. This appears to me a very tedious, 
 and, I think, a very erroneous method of proceeding. 
 Of every large composition, even of those which are 
 most admired, a great part may be truly said to be 
 commonplace. This, though it takes up much time in 
 copying, conduces little to improvement. I consider 
 general copying as a delusive kind of industry ; the 
 student satisfies himself with the appearance of doing 
 something ; he falls into the dangerous habit of imitat- 
 ing without selecting, and of labouring without any 
 determinate object : as it requires no effort of the mind, 
 he sleeps over his work : and those powers of invention 
 and composition which ought particularly to be called 
 out and put in action, lie torpid, and lose their energy 
 for want of exercise. 
 
 How incapable those are of producing any thing of 
 their own, who have spent much of their time in making 
 finished copies, is well known to all who are conversant 
 with our art. 
 
 To suppose that the complication of powers, and va- 
 riety of ideas necessary to that mind which aspires to 
 the first honours in the art of painting, can be obtained 
 by the frigid contemplation of a few single models, is 
 no less absurd than it would be in him who wishes to 
 be a poet, to imagine that by translating a tragedy he 
 can acquire to himself sufficient knowledge of the appear- 
 ances of nature, the operations of the passions, and the 
 incidents of life. 
 
 The great use in copying, if it be at all useful, should 
 seem to be in learning to colour ; yet even colouring 
 will never be perfectly attained by servilely copying the 
 model before you. An eye critically nice can only be 
 formed by observing well-coloured pictures with atten- 
 tion : and by close inspection and minute examination, 
 you will discover, at last, the manner of handling, the 
 artifices of contrast, glazing, and other expedients, by 
 which good colourists have raised the value of their 
 tints, and by which nature has been so happily imitated. 
 
 I must inform you, however, that old pictures, de- 
 servedly celebrated for their colouring, are often so 
 changed by dirt and varnish, that we ought not to 
 wonder if they do not appear equal to their reputation 
 in the eyes of inexperienced painters or young students. 
 An artist whose judgment is matured by long observa- 
 tion, considers rather what the picture once was, than 
 what it is at present. He has by habit acquired a power 
 of seeing the brilliancy of tints through the cloud by 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 which it is obscured. An exact imitation, therefore, 
 of those pictures, is likely to fill the student's mind with 
 false opinions, and to send him back a colourist of his 
 own formation, with ideas equally remote from nature 
 and from art, from the genuine practice of the masters, 
 and the real appearances of things. 
 
 Following these rules, and using these precautions, 
 when you have clearly and distinctly learned in what 
 good colouring consists, you cannot do better than have 
 recourse to nature herself, who is always at hand, and 
 in comparison of whose true splendour the best coloured 
 pictures are but faint and feeble. 
 
 However, as the practice of copying is not entirely 
 to be excluded, since the mechanical practice of paint- 
 ing is learned in some measure by it, let those choice 
 parts only be selected which have recommended the 
 work to notice. If its excellence consists in its general 
 effect, it would be proper to make slight sketches of 
 the machinery and general management of the picture. 
 Those sketches should be kept always by you for the 
 regulation of your style. Instead of copying the touches 
 of those great masters, copy only their conceptions. 
 Instead of treading in their footsteps, endeavour, only 
 to keep the same road. Labour to invent on their 
 general principles and way of thinking. Possess your- 
 self with their spirit. Consider with yourself how a 
 Michael Angelo or a Raffaelle would have treated this 
 subject ; and work yourself into a belief that your pic- 
 ture is to be seen and criticised by them when com- 
 pleted. Even an attempt of this kind will rouse your 
 powers. 
 
 But as mere enthusiasm will carry you but a little 
 way, let me recommend a practice that may be equiva- 
 lent to, and will perhaps more efficaciously contribute 
 to your advancement, than even the verbal corrections 
 of those masters themselves, could they be obtained. 
 What I would propose is, that you should enter into a 
 kind of competition, by painting a similar subject, and 
 making a companion to any picture that you consider 
 as a model. After you have finished your work, place 
 it near the model, and compare them carefully together. 
 You will then not only see but feel your own deficien- 
 cies more sensibly than by precepts or any other means 
 of instruction. The true principles of painting will 
 mingle with your thoughts. Ideas thus fixed by sen- 
 sible objects, will be certain and definitive ; and sinking 
 deep into the mind, will not only be more just but 
 more lasting than those presented to you by precepts 
 only ; which will always be fleeting, variable, and un- 
 determined. 
 
 This method of comparing your own efforts with 
 those of some great master, is indeed a severe and 
 mortifying task, to which none will submit but such as 
 have great views, with fortitude sufficient to forego 
 the gratifications of present vanity for future honour. 
 When the student has succeeded in some measure to 
 his own satisfaction, and has felicitated himself on his 
 success, to go voluntarily to a tribunal where he knows 
 his vanity must be humbled, and all self-approbation 
 must vanish, requires not only great resolution but 
 great humility. To him, however, who has the ambi- 
 tion to be a real master, the solid satisfaction which 
 proceeds from a consciousness of his advancement (of 
 which seeing his own faults is the first step), will very 
 abundantly compensate for the mortification of present 
 disappointment. There is, besides, this alleviating cir- 
 cumstance. Every discovery he makes, every acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge he attains, seems to proceed from his 
 own sagacity ; and thus he acquires a confidence in him- 
 self sufficient to keep up the resolution of perseverance. 
 
 We all must have experienced how lazily, and con- 
 sequently how ineffectually, instruction is received when 
 forced upon the mind by others. Few have been taught 
 to any purpose, who have not been their own teachers. 
 We prefer those instructions which we have given our- 
 selves, from our affection to the instructor ; and they 
 are more effectual, from being received into the mind 
 at the very time when it is most open and eager to 
 receive them. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 9 
 
 With respect to the pictures that you are to choose 
 for your models, I could wish that you would take the 
 world's opinion rather than your own. In other words, 
 I would have you choose those of established reputa- 
 tion, rather than follow your own fancy. If you should 
 not admire them at first, you will, by endeavouring to 
 imitate them, find that the world has not been mistaken. 
 
 It is not an easy task to point out those various 
 excellences for your imitation, which lie distributed 
 amongst the various schools. An endeavour to do this 
 may perhaps be the subject of some future discourse. 
 I will, therefore, at present only recommend a model 
 for style in painting, which is a branch of the art more 
 immediately necessary to the young student. Style in 
 painting is the same as in writing, a power over mate- 
 rials, whether words or colours, by which conceptions 
 or sentiments are conveyed. And in this Ludovico 
 Caracci (I mean in his best works) appears to me to 
 approach the nearest to perfection. His unaffected 
 breadth of light and shadow, the simplicity of colour- 
 ing, which, holding its proper rank, does not draw aside 
 the least part of the attention from the subject, and the 
 solemn effect of that twilight which seems diffused over 
 his pictures, appear to me to correspond with grave 
 and dignified subjects, better than the more artificial 
 brilliancy of sunshine which enlightens the pictures of 
 Titian : though Tintoret thought that Titian's colour- 
 ing was the model of perfection, and would correspond 
 even with the sublime of Michael Angelo ; and that if 
 Angelo had coloured like Titian, or Titian designed 
 like Angelo, the world would once have had a perfect 
 painter. 
 
 It is our misfortune, however, that those works of 
 Caracci which I would recommend to the student, are 
 not often found out of Bologna. The St Francis in the 
 midst of his Friars, the Transfiguration, the Birth of St 
 John the Baptist, the Calling of St Matthew, the St 
 Jerome, the Fresco Paintings in the Zampieri palace, 
 are all worthy the attention of the student. And I 
 think those who travel would do well to allot a much 
 greater portion of their time to that city, than it has 
 been hitherto the custom to bestow. 
 
 In this art, as in others, there are many teachers who 
 profess to show the nearest way to excellence ; and 
 many expedients have been invented by which the toil 
 of study might be saved. But let no man be seduced 
 to idleness by specious promises. Excellence is never 
 granted to man but as the reward of labour. It argues, 
 indeed, no small strength of mind to persevere inhabits 
 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. A facility of drawing, 
 like that of playing upon a musical instrument, cjyinot 
 be acquired but by an infinite number of acts. I need 
 not, therefore, enforce by many words the necessity of 
 continual application, nor tell you that the port-crayon 
 ought to be for ever in your hands. Various methods 
 will occur to you by which this power may be acquired. 
 I would particularly recommend, that after your return 
 from the academy (where I suppose your attendance to 
 be constant), you would endeavour to draw the figure 
 by memory. I will even venture to add, that by per- 
 severance in this custom, you will become able to draw 
 the human figure tolerably correct, with as little effort 
 of the mind as is required to trace with a pen the let- 
 ters of the alphabet. 
 
 That this facility is not unattainable, some members 
 in this academy give a sufficient proof. And be assured, 
 that if this power is not acquired whilst you are young, 
 there will be no time for it afterwards ; at least the 
 attempt will be attended with as much difficulty as those 
 experience who learn to read or write after they have 
 arrived at the age of maturity. 
 
 But while I mention the port-crayon as the student's 
 constant companion, he must still remember, that the 
 pencil is the instrument. by which he must hope to ob- 
 tain eminence. What, therefore, I wish to impress 
 upon you is, that whenever an opportunity offers, you 
 
 paint your studies instead of drawing them. This 
 will give you such a facility in using colours, that in 
 time they will arrange themselves under the pencil, 
 even without the attention of the hand that conducts it. 
 If one act excluded the other, this advice could not 
 with any propriety be given. But if painting comprises 
 both drawing and colouring, and if by a short struggle 
 of resolute industry the same- expedition is attainable 
 in painting as in drawing on paper, I cannot see what 
 objection can justly be made to the practice, or why 
 that should be done by parts w hich may be done alto- 
 gether. 
 
 If we turn our eyes to the several schools of painting, 
 and consider their respective excellences, we shall find 
 that those who excel most in colouring pursued this 
 method. The Venetian and Flemish schools, which 
 owe much of their fame to colouring, have enriched 
 the*cabinets of the collectors of drawings with very few 
 examples. Those of Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoret, 
 and the Bassans, are in general slight and undetermined. 
 Their sketches on paper are as rude as their pictures are 
 excellent in regard to harmony of colouring. Correggio 
 and Baroccio have left few, if any, finished drawings 
 behind them. And in the Flemish school, Rubens and 
 Vandyck made their designs for the most part either in 
 colours, or in chiaro-oscuro. It is as common to find 
 studies of the Venetian and Flemish painters on canvass, 
 as of the schools of Rome and Florence on paper. Not 
 but that many finished drawings are sold under the 
 names of those masters. Those, however, are undoubt- 
 edly the productions eit her of engravers or their scholars, 
 who copied their works. 
 
 These instructions I have ventured to offer from my 
 own experience ; but as they deviate widely from re- 
 ceived opinions, I offer them with diffidence, and when 
 better are suggested, shall retract them without regret. 
 
 There is one precept, however, in which I shall only 
 be opposed by the vain, the ignorant, and the idle. I 
 am not afraid that I shall repeat it too often. You 
 must have no dependence on your own genius. 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 labour ; 
 nothing is to be obtained without it. Not to enter into 
 metaphysical discussions on the nature or essence of 
 genius, I will venture to assert, that assiduity unabated 
 by difficulty, and a disposition eagerly directed to the 
 object of its pursuit, will produce effects similar to those 
 which some call the result of natural powers. 
 
 Though a man cannot at all times and in all places 
 paint or draw, yet the mind can prepare itself by laying 
 in proper materials at all times aud in all places. Both 
 Livy and Plutarch, in describing Philopoemeu, one of 
 the ablest generals of antiquity, have given us a strik- 
 ing picture of a mind always intent on its profession, 
 and by assiduity attaining those excellences which 
 some all their lives vainly expect from nature. I shall 
 quote the passage in Livy at length, as it runs parallel 
 with the practice I would recommend to the painter, 
 sculptor, and architect. 
 
 " Philopoemen was a man eminent for his sagacity 
 and experience in choosing ground and in leading 
 armies, to which he formed his mind by perpetual 
 meditation in times of peace as well as war. When in 
 any occasional journey he came to a strait difficult 
 passage, if he was alone he considered with himself, 
 and if he was in company he asked his friends, what it 
 would be best to do it in this place they had found an 
 enemy, either in the front or in the rear, on the one 
 side or on the other. ' It might happen,' says he, 1 that 
 the enemy to be opposed might come on drawn up in 
 regular lines, or in a tumultuous body, formed only by 
 the nature of the place.' He then considered a little 
 what ground he should take ; what number of soldiers 
 he should use, and what arms he should give them ; 
 where he should lodge his carriages, his baggage, and 
 the defenceless followers ol his camp ; how many guards, 
 and of what kind, he should send to defend them ; and 
 whether it would be better to press forward along the 
 
10 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 pass, or recover by retreat his former station : he would 
 consider likewise where his camp could most com- 
 modiously be formed ; how much ground he should 
 enclose within his trenches ; where he should have the 
 convenience of water, and where he might find plenty 
 of wood and forage ; and when he should break up his 
 camp on the following day, through what road he could 
 most safely pass, and in what form he should dispose 
 his troops. With such thoughts and disquisitions he 
 had from his early yeai*s so exercised his mind, that on 
 these occasions nothing could happen which he had not 
 been already accustomed to consider." 
 
 I cannot help imagining that I see a promising young 
 painter equally vigilant, whether at home or abroad, in 
 the streets or in the fields. Every object that presents 
 itself is to him a lesson. He regards all nature with 
 a view to his profession, and combines her beauties, or 
 corrects her defects. He examines the countenance of 
 men under the influence of passion, and often catches 
 the most pleasing hints from subjects of turbulence or 
 deformity. Even bad pictures themselves supply him 
 with useful documents ; and, as Lionardo da Vinci has 
 observed, he improves upon the fanciful images that are 
 sometimes seen in the fire, or are accidentally sketched 
 upon a discoloured wall. 
 
 The artist who has his mind thus filled with ideas, 
 and his hand made expert by practice, works with ease 
 and readiness ; whilst he who would have you believe 
 that he is waiting for the inspirations of genius, is in 
 reality at a loss how to begin, and is at last delivered of 
 his monsters with difficulty and pain. 
 
 The well-grounded painter, on the contrary, has only 
 maturely to consider his subject, and all the mechanical 
 parts of his art follow without his exertion. Conscious 
 of the difficulty of obtaining what he possesses, he 
 makes no pretensions to secrets, except those of closer 
 application. Without conceiving the smallest jealousy 
 against others, he is contented that all shall be as great 
 as himself who have undergone the same fatigue ; and 
 as his pre-eminence depends not upon a trick, he is free 
 from the painful suspicions of a juggler, who lives in 
 perpetual fear lest his trick should be discovered. 
 
 DISCOURSE III. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 14, 1770. 
 
 The great leading principles of the Grand Style. Of Beauty. 
 The genuine habits of Nature to be distinguished from those of 
 Fashion. 
 
 Gentlemen — It is not easy to speak with propriety to so 
 many students of different ages and different degrees of 
 advancement. The mind requires nourishment adapted 
 to its growth ; and what may have promoted our earlier 
 efforts, might retard us in our nearer approaches to 
 perfection. 
 
 The first endeavours of a young painter, as I have 
 remarked in a former discourse, must be employed in 
 the attainment of mechanical dexterity, and confined to 
 the mere imitation of the object before him. Those who 
 have advanced beyond the rudiments may perhaps find 
 advantage in reflecting on the advice which I have 
 likewise given them, when I recommended the diligent 
 study of the works of our great predecessors ; but I at 
 the same time endeavoured to guard them against an 
 implicit submission to the authority of any one master, 
 however excellent ; or by a strict imitation of his 
 manner, precluding themselves from the abundance 
 and variety of nature. I will now add that nature 
 herself is not to be too closely copied. There are excel- 
 lences in the art of painting beyond what is commonly 
 called the imitation of nature, and these excellences 
 I wish to point out. The students who, having passed 
 through the initiatory exercises, are more advanced in 
 the art, and who, sure of their hand, have leisure to 
 exert their understanding, must now be told that 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. 
 
 The wish of the genuine painter must be more exten- 
 sive : instead of endeavouring to amuse mankind with 
 the minute neatness of his imitations, he must endea- 
 vour to improve them by the grandeur of his ideas ; 
 instead of seeking praise, by deceiving the superficial 
 sense of the spectator, he must strive for fame by cap- 
 tivating the imagination. 
 
 The principle now laid down, that tne perfection of 
 this art does not consist in mere imitation, is far from 
 being new or singular. It is, indeed, supported by the 
 general opinion of the enlightened part of mankind. 
 The poets, orators, and rhetoricians of antiquity, are 
 continually enforcing this position — that all the arts re- 
 ceive their perfection from an ideal beauty, superior to 
 what is to be found in individual nature. They are 
 ever referring to the practice of the painters and sculp- 
 tors of their times, particularly Phidias (the favourite 
 artist of antiquity), to illusti'ate their assertions. As if 
 they could not sufficiently express their admiration of 
 his genius by what they knew, they have recourse to 
 poetical enthusiasm : they call it inspiration — a gift 
 from heaven. The artist is supposed to have ascended 
 the celestial regions, to furnish his mind with this per- 
 fect idea of beauty. " He," says Proclus,* " who takes 
 for his model such forms as nature produces, and con- 
 fines himself to an exact imitation of them, will never 
 attain to what is perfectly beautiful ; for the works of 
 nature are full of disproportion, and fall very short of 
 the true standai-d of beauty. So that Phidias, when he 
 formed his Jupiter, did not copy any object ever pre- 
 sented to his sight, but contemplated only that image 
 which he had conceived in his mind from Homer's de- 
 scription." And thus Cicero, speaking of the same 
 Phidias : " Neither did this artist," says he, " when he 
 carved the image of J upiter or Minerva, set before him 
 any one human figure as a pattern, which he was to 
 copy ; but having a more perfect idea of beauty fixed 
 in his mind, this he steadily contemplated, and to the 
 imitation of this all his skill and labour were directed." 
 
 The moderns are no less convinced than the ancients 
 of this superior power existing in the art, nor less sen- 
 sible of its effects. Every language has adopted terms 
 expressive of this excellence. The gusto grande of the 
 Italians, the beau ideal of the French, and the great 
 style, genius, and taste among the English, are but dif- 
 ferent appellations of the same thing. It is this intel- 
 lectual dignity, they say, that ennobles the painter's 
 art ; that lays the line between him and the mere me- 
 chanic ; and produces those great effects in an instant, 
 which eloquence and poetry, by slow and repeated 
 efforts, are scarcely able to attain. 
 
 Such is the warmth with which both the ancients 
 and moderns speak of this divine principle of the art ; 
 but, as I have formerly observed, enthusiastic admira- 
 tion seldom promotes knowledge. Though a student by 
 such praise may have his attention roused, and a desire 
 excited of running in this great career, yet it is possible 
 that what has been said to excite may only serve to 
 deter him. He examines his own mind, and perceives 
 there nothing of that divine inspiration with which he 
 is told so many others have been favoured. He never 
 travelled to heaven to gather new ideas, and he finds 
 himself possessed of no other qualifications than what 
 mere common observation and a plain understanding 
 can confer. Thus he becomes gloomy amidst the splen- 
 dour of figurative declamation, and thinks it hopeless to 
 pursue an object which he supposes out of the reach of 
 human industry. 
 
 But on this, as upon many other occasions, we ought 
 to distinguish how much is to be given to enthusiasm, 
 and how much to reason. We ought to allow for, and 
 we ought to commend, that strength of vivid expres- 
 sion which is necessary to convey, in its full force, the 
 highest sense of the most complete effect of art ; taking 
 
 * Lib. 2. in TiniEeum Platonis, as cited by Junius de Pictura 
 VeteiHira. R. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 11 
 
 care, at the same time, not to lose in terms of vague 
 idmiration that solidity and truth of principle upon 
 vvhich alone we can reason, and may be enabled to 
 practise. 
 
 It is not easy to define in what this great style con- 
 sists, nor to describe by words the proper means of 
 acquiring it, if the mind of the student should be at all 
 capable of such an acquisition. Could we teach taste 
 or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and 
 genius. But though there neither are, nor can be, any 
 precise invariable rules for the exercise or the acquisi- 
 tion of these great qualities, yet we may truly say 
 that they always operate in proportion to our attention 
 in observing the works of nature, to our skill in select- 
 ing, and to our care in digesting, methodising, and com- 
 paring our observations. There are many beauties in 
 our art, that seem at first to lie without the reach of 
 precept, and yet may easily be reduced to practical 
 principles. Experience is all in all, but it is not every 
 one who profits by experience ; and most people err, 
 not so much from want of capacity to find their object, 
 as from not knowing what object to pursue. This great 
 ideal perfection and beauty are not to be sought in the 
 heavens, but upon the earth. They are about us, and 
 upon every side of us. But the power of discovering 
 what is deformed in nature, or, in other words, what is 
 particular and uncommon, can be acquired only by ex- 
 perience ; and the whole beauty and grandeur of the 
 art consists, in my opinion, in being able to get above 
 all singular forms, local customs, particularities, and 
 details of every kind. 
 
 All the objects which are exhibited to our view by 
 nature, upon close examination will be found to have 
 their blemishes and defects. The most beautiful forms 
 have something about them like weakness, minuteness, 
 or imperfection. But it is not every eye that perceives 
 these blemishes. It must be an eye long used to the 
 contemplation and comparison of these forms ; and 
 which, by a long habit of observing what any set of ob- 
 jects of the same kind have in common, has acquired 
 the power of discerning what each wants in particular. 
 This long laborious comparison should be the first study 
 of the painter who aims at the greatest style. By this 
 means he acquires a just idea of beautiful forms; he 
 corrects nature by herself, her imperfect state by her 
 more perfect. His eye being enabled to distinguish the 
 accidental deficiencies, excrescences, and deformities of 
 things, from their general figures, he makes out an ab- 
 stract idea of their forms more perfect than any one origi- 
 nal ; and, what may seem a paradox, he learns to design 
 naturally, by drawing his figures unlike to any one 
 object. This idea of the perfect state of nature, which 
 the artist calls the ideal beauty, is the great leading 
 principle by which works of genius are conducted. By 
 this, Phidias acquired his fame. He wrought upon a 
 sober principle what has so much excited the enthusiasm 
 of the world ; and by this method, you, who have courage 
 to tread the same path, may acquire equal reputation. 
 
 This is the idea which has acquired, and which seems 
 to have a right to, the epithet of divine ; as it may be 
 said to preside, like a supreme judge, over all the pro- 
 ductions of nature, appearing to be possessed of the 
 will and intention of the Creator, as far as they regard 
 the external form of living beings. When a man once 
 possesses this idea in its perfection, there is no danger 
 but that he will be sufficiently warmed by it himself, 
 and be able to warm and ravish every one else. 
 
 Thus it is from a reiterated experience, and a close 
 comparison of the objects in nature, that an artist be- 
 comes possessed of the idea of that central form, if I 
 may so express it, from which every deviation is defor- 
 mity. But the investigation of this form, I giant, is 
 painful ; and I know but of one method of shortening 
 the road — this is, by a careful study of the works of the 
 ancient sculptors, who, being indefatigable in the school 
 of nature, have left models of that perfect form behind 
 them, which an artist would prefer as supremely beau- 
 tiful, who had spent his whole life in that single con- 
 templation. But if industry carried them thus far, 
 
 may not you also hope for the same reward from the 
 same labour? We have the same school opened to us 
 that was opened to them ; for nature denies her in- 
 structions to none who desire to become her pupils. 
 
 This laborious investigation, I am aware, must appear 
 superfluous to those who think every thing is to be done 
 by felicity and the powers of native genius. Even the 
 great Bacon treats with ridicule the idea of confining 
 proportion to rules, or of producing beauty by selection. 
 " A man cannot tell," says he, " whether Apelles or 
 Albert Durer were the more trifler : whereof the one 
 
 would make a personage by geometrical proportions 
 
 the other, by taking the best parts out of divers faces, 
 to make one excellent. The painter," he adds, " must 
 do it by a kind of felicity, and not by rule."* 
 
 It is not safe to question any opinion of so great a 
 writer, and so profound a thinker, as undoubtedly Bacon 
 was. But he studies brevity to excess ; and therefore 
 his meaning is sometimes doubtful. If he means that 
 beauty has nothing to do with rule, he is mistaken. 
 There is a rule, obtained out of general nature, to con- 
 tradict which is to fall into deformity. Whenever any 
 thing is done beyond this rule, it is in virtue of some 
 other rule which is followed along with it, but which 
 does not contradict it. Every thing which is wrought 
 with certainty, is wrought upon some principle. If it 
 is not, it cannot be repeated. If by felicity is meant 
 any thing of chance or hazard, or something born with 
 a man, and not learned, I cannot agree with this great 
 philosopher. Every object which pleases must give us 
 pleasure upon some certain principles : but as the ob- 
 jects of pleasure are almost infinite, so their principles 
 vary without end ; and every man finds them out, not 
 by felicity or successful hazard, but by care and saga- 
 city. 
 
 To the principle I have laid down, that the idea of 
 beauty in each species of beings is an invariable one, it 
 may be objected, that in every particular species there 
 are various central forms, which are separate and dis- 
 tinct from each other, and yet are undeniably beautiful 
 — that in the human figure, for instance, the beauty of 
 Hercules is one, of the Gladiator another, of the Apollo 
 another, which makes so many different ideas of beauty. 
 
 It is true, indeed, that these figures are each perfect 
 in their kind, though of different characters and pro- 
 portions ; but still none of them is the representation of 
 an individual, but of a class. And as there is one 
 general form, which, as I have said, belongs to the 
 human kind at large, so in each of these classes there 
 is one common ideal and central form, which is the 
 abstract of the various individual forms belonging to 
 that class. Thus, though the forms of childhood and 
 age differ exceedingly, there is a common form in child- 
 hood, and a common form in age, which is the more 
 perfect, as it is more remote from all peculiarities. 
 But I must add further, that though the most perfect 
 forms of each of the general divisions of the human 
 figure are ideal, and superior to any individual form 
 of that class, yet the highest perfection of the human 
 figure is not to be found in any one of them. It is not 
 in the Hercules, nor in the Gladiator, nor in the Apollo, 
 but in that form which is taken from all, and which 
 partakes equally of the activity of the Gladiator, of the 
 delicacy of the Apollo, and of the muscular strength of 
 the Hercules. For perfect beauty in any species must 
 combine all the characters which are beautiful in that 
 species. It cannot consist in any one to the exclusion 
 of the rest : no one, therefore, must be predominant, 
 that no one may be deficient. 
 
 The knowledge of these different characters, and the 
 power of separating and distinguishing them, is un- 
 doubtedly necessary to the painter who is to vary his 
 compositions with figures of various forms and propor- 
 tions, though he is never to lose sight of the general 
 idea of perfection in each kind. 
 
 There is, likewise, a kind of symmetry, or proportion, 
 which may properly be said to belong to deformity. A 
 
 * Essays, p. 252, edit. 1625. 
 
12 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 figure lean or corpulent, tall or short, though deviating 
 from beauty, may still have a certain union of the 
 various parts, which may contribute to make them on 
 the whole not unpleasing. 
 
 When the artist has by diligent attention acquired a 
 clear and distinct idea of beauty and symmetry — when 
 he has reduced the variety of nature to the abstract 
 idea, his next task will be to become acquainted with 
 the genuine habits of nature, as distinguished from 
 those of fashion. For in the same manner, and on the 
 same principles, as he has acquired the knowledge of 
 the real forms of nature, distinct from accidental defor- 
 mity, he must endeavour to separate simple chaste 
 nature from those adventitious, those affected and forced 
 airs or actions, with which she is loaded by modern 
 education. 
 
 Perhaps I cannot better explain what I mean, than 
 by reminding you of what was taught us by the Pro- 
 fessor of Anatomy, in respect to the natural position 
 and movement of the feet. He observed, that the fashion 
 of turning them outwards was contrary to the intent 
 of nature, as might be seen from the structure of the 
 bones, and from the weakness that proceeded from that 
 manner of standing. To this we may add the erect 
 position of the head, the projection of the chest, the 
 walking with straight knees, and many such actions, 
 which we know to be merely the result of fashion, and 
 what nature never warranted, as we are sure that we 
 have been taught them when children. 
 
 I have mentioned but a few of those instances in 
 which vanity or capi'ice has contrived to distort and 
 disfigure the human form ; your own recollection will 
 add to these a thousand more of ill-understood methods, 
 which have been practised to disguise nature among 
 our dancing-masters, hair-dressers, and tailors, in their 
 various schools of deformity.* 
 
 However the mechanical and ornamental arts may 
 sacrifice to fashion, she must be entirely excluded from 
 the art of painting; the painter must never mistake 
 this capricious changeling for the genuine offspring of 
 nature; he must divest himself of all prejudices in 
 favour of his age or country; he must disregard all 
 local and temporary ornaments, and look only on those 
 general habits which are everywhere and always the 
 same ; he addresses his works to the people of every 
 country and every age, he calls upon posterity to be 
 his spectators, and says with Zeuxis, in cetemitatem 
 pingo. 
 
 The neglect of separating modern fashions from the 
 habits of nature, leads to that ridiculous style which 
 has been practised by some painters, who have given 
 to Grecian heroes the airs and graces practised in the 
 court of Louis the Fourteenth ; an absurdity almost as 
 great as it would have been to have dressed them after 
 the fashion of that court. 
 
 To avoid this error, however, and to retain the true 
 simplicity of nature, is a task more difficult than at 
 first sight it may appear. The prejudices in favour of 
 the fashions and customs that we have been used to, 
 and which are justly called a second nature, make it 
 too often difficult to distinguish that which is natural 
 from that which is the result of education ; they fre- 
 quently even give a predilection in favour of the arti- 
 ficial mode ; and almost every one is apt to be guided 
 by those local prejudices, who has not chastised his 
 mind and regulated the instability of his affections by 
 the eternal invariable idea of nature. 
 
 Here, then, as before, we must have recourse to the 
 ancients as instructors. It is from a careful study of 
 their works that you will be enabled to attain to the 
 real simplicity of nature ; they will suggest many obser- 
 vations which would probably escape you, if your study 
 were confined to nature alone. And, indeed, I cannot 
 help suspecting, that in this instance the ancients had 
 
 * " Those," says Quintilian, " who are taken with the out- 
 ward show of things, think that there is more beauty in persons 
 who are trimmed, cm-led, and painted, than uncorrupt nature 
 can give ; as if beauty were merely the effect of the corruption of 
 manners." R. 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 an easier task than the moderns. They had, probably, 
 little or nothing to unlearn, as their manners were 
 nearly approaching to this desirable simplicity ; while 
 the modern artist, before he can see the truth of things, 
 is obliged to remove a veil, with which the fashion of 
 the times has thought proper to cover her. 
 
 Having gone thus far in our investigation of the great 
 style in painting — if we now should suppose that the 
 artist has found the true idea of beauty, which enables 
 him to give his works a correct and perfect design — if 
 we should suppose, also, that he has acquired a know- 
 ledge of the unadulterated habits of nature, which gives 
 him simplicity — the rest of his task is perhaps less than 
 is generally imagined. Beauty and simplicity have so 
 great a share in the composition of a great style, that 
 he who has acquired them has little else to learn. It 
 must not, indeed, be forgotten, that there is a nobleness 
 of conception, which goes beyond any thing in the mere 
 exhibition even of perfect form; there is an art of 
 animating and dignifying the figures with intellectual 
 grandeur, of impressing the appearance of philosophic 
 wisdom or heroic virtue. This can only be acquired 
 by him who enlarges the sphere of his understanding 
 by a variety of knowledge, and warms his imagination 
 with the best productions of ancient and modern poetry. 
 
 A hand thus exercised, and a mind thus instructed, 
 will bring the art to a higher degree of excellence than 
 perhaps it has hitherto attained in this country. Such 
 a student will disdain the humbler walks of painting, 
 which, however profitable, can never assure him a per- 
 manent reputation. He will leave the meaner artist 
 servilely to suppose that those are the best pictures 
 which are most likely to deceive the spectator. He will 
 permit the lower painter, like the florist or collector of 
 shells, to exhibit the minute discriminations which 
 distinguish one object of the same species from another ; 
 while he, like the philosopher, will consider nature in 
 the abstract, and represent in every one of his figures 
 the character of its species. 
 
 If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art, 
 there is no doubt, indeed, but the minute painter would 
 be more apt to succeed ; but it is not the eye, it is the 
 mind, which the painter of genius desires to address ; 
 nor will he waste a moment upon those smaller objects 
 which only serve to catch the sense, to divide the at- 
 tention, and to counteract his great design of speaking 
 to the heart. 
 
 This is the ambition which I wish to excite in your 
 minds ; and the object I have had in my view, through- 
 out this discourse, is that one great idea which gives to 
 painting its true dignity, which entitles it to the name 
 of a liberal art, and ranks it as a sister of poetry. 
 
 It may possibly have happened to many young 
 students, whose application was sufficient to overcome 
 all difficulties, and whose minds were capable of em- 
 bracing the most extensive views, that they have, by a 
 wrong direction originally given, spent their lives in 
 the meaner walks of painting, without ever knowing 
 there was a nobler to pursue. Albert Durer, as Vasari 
 has justly remarked, would probably have been one of 
 the first painters of his age (and he lived in an era of 
 great artists), had he been initiated into those great 
 principles of the art which were so well understood 
 and practised by his contemporaries in Italy. But 
 unluckily, having never seen or heard of any other 
 manner, he without doubt considered his own as 
 perfect. 
 
 As for the various departments of painting which do 
 not presume to make such high pretensions, they are 
 many. None of them are without their merit, though 
 none enter into competition with this universal presid- 
 ing idea of the art. The painters who have applied 
 themselves more particularly to low and vulgar cha- 
 racters, and who express with precision the various 
 shades of passion, as they are exhibited by vulgar 
 minds (such as we see in the works of Hogarth), de- 
 serve great praise ; but as their genius has been em- 
 ployed on low and confined subjects, the praise which 
 we give must be as limited as its object. The merry- 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 13 
 
 making or quarrelling of the boors of Tenters, the 
 same sort of productions of Brouwer or Ostade, are 
 excellent in their kind ; and the excellence and its 
 praise will be in proportion, as in those limited subjects 
 and peculiar forms, they introduce more or less of the 
 expression of those passions, as they appear in general 
 and more enlarged nature. This principle may be ap- 
 plied to the battle-pieces of Bourgognone, the French 
 gallantries of Watteau, and even beyond the exhibition 
 of animal life, to the landscapes of Claude Lorraine and 
 the sea-views of Vandervelde. All these painters have 
 in general the same right, in different degrees, to the 
 name of a painter, which a satirist, an epigrammatist, 
 a sonnetteer, a writer of pastorals or descriptive poetry, 
 has to that of a poet. 
 
 In the same rank, and perhaps of not so great merit, 
 is the cold painter of portraits. But his correct and just 
 imitation of his object has its merit. Even the painter 
 of still life, whose highest ambition is to give a minute 
 representation of every part of those low objects which 
 he sets before him, deserves praise in proportion to his 
 attainment ; because no part of this excellent art, so 
 much the ornament of polished life, is destitute of value 
 and use. These, however, are by no means the views 
 to which the mind of the student ought to be primarily 
 directed. Having begun by aiming at better things, if 
 from particular inclination, or from the taste of the 
 time and place he lives in, or from necessity, or from 
 failure in the highest attempts, he is obliged to descend 
 lower, he will bring into the lower sphere of art a 
 grandeur of composition and character that will raise 
 and ennoble his works far above their natural rank. 
 
 A man is not weak, though he may not be able to 
 wield the club of Hercules ; nor does a man always 
 practise that which he esteems the best, but does that 
 which he can best do. In moderate attempts there are 
 many walks open to the artist. But as the idea of 
 beauty is of necessity but one, so there can be but one 
 great mode of painting, the leading principle of which 
 I have endeavoured to explain. 
 
 I should be sorry if what is here recommended 
 should be at all understood to countenance a careless 
 or indetermined manner of painting ; for though the 
 painter is to overlook the accidental discriminations of 
 nature, he is to exhibit distinctly and with precision 
 the general forms of things. A firm and determined 
 outline is one of the characteristics of the great style in 
 painting ; and let me add, that he who possesses the 
 knowledge of the exact form which every part of 
 nature ought to have, will be fond of expressing that 
 knowledge with correctness and precision in all his 
 works. 
 
 To conclude. I have endeavoured to reduce the idea 
 of beauty to general principles ; and I had the pleasure 
 to observe that the professor of painting proceeded in 
 the same method, when he showed you that the artifice 
 of contrast was founded but on one principle. 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 mis- 
 guide him if he gives himself up to their authority ; 
 bringing them under one general head, can alone give 
 rest and satisfaction to an inquisitive mind. 
 
 DISCOURSE IV. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1771. 
 
 General ideas, the presiding principle which regulates every 
 part of Art, Invention, Expression, Colouring, and Drapery. 
 Two distinct styles in History-Painting, the Grand and the 
 Ornamental. The schools in which each is to he found. The 
 Composite style. The style formed on local customs and hahits, 
 or a partial view of nature. 
 
 Gentlemen — The value and rank of every art is in 
 proportion to the mental labour employed in it, or the 
 mental pleasure produced by it. As this principle is 
 
 observed or neglected, our profession becomes either a 
 liberal art or a mechanical trade. In the hands of one 
 man it makes the highest pretensions, as it is addressed 
 to the noblest faculties ; in those of another it is reduced 
 to a mere matter of ornament, and the painter has but 
 the humble province of furnishing our apartments with 
 elegance. 
 
 This exertion of mind, which is the only circumstance 
 that truly ennobles our art, makes the great distinction 
 between the Roman and Venetian schools. I have 
 formerly observed, that perfect form is produced by 
 leaving out particularities, and retaining only general 
 ideas. I shall now endeavour to show that this prin- 
 ciple, which I have proved to be metaphysically just, 
 extends itself to every part of the art ; that it gives 
 what is called the grand style to Invention, to Com- 
 position, to Expression, and even to Colouring and 
 Drapery. 
 
 Invention in painting does not imply the invention of 
 the subject, for that is commonly supplied by the poet 
 or historian. With respect to the choice, no subject 
 can be proper that is not generally interesting. It 
 ought to be either some eminent instance of heroic 
 action or heroic suffering. There must be something 
 either in the action or in the object in which men are 
 universally concerned, and which powerfully strikes 
 upon the public sympathy. 
 
 Strictly speaking, indeed, no subject can be of uni- 
 versal, hardly can it be of general concern ; but there 
 are events and characters so popularly known in those 
 countries where our art is in request, that they may be 
 considered as sufficiently general for all our purposes. 
 Such arc the great events of Greek and Roman fable 
 and history, which early education and the usual course 
 of reading have made familiar and interesting to all 
 Europe, without being degraded by the vulgarism of 
 ordinary life in any country. Such, too, are the capital 
 subjects of Scripture history, which, besides their gene- 
 ral notoriety, become venerable by their connection 
 with our religion. 
 
 As it is required that the subject selected should be 
 a general one, it is no less necessary that it should be 
 kept unembarrassed with whatever may any way serve 
 to divide the attention of the spectator. Whenever a 
 story is related, every man forms a picture in his mind 
 of the action and expression of the persons employed. 
 The power of representing this mental picture on canvass 
 is what we call invention in a painter. And as in the 
 conception of this ideal picture the mind does not enter 
 into the minute peculiarities of the dress, furniture, or 
 scene of action, so when the painter comes to represent 
 it, he contrives those little necessary concomitant cir- 
 cumstances in such a manner that they shall strike the 
 spectator no more than they did himself in his first con- 
 ception of the story. 
 
 I am very ready to allow, that some circumstances 
 of minuteness and particularity frequently tend to give 
 an air of truth to a piece, and to interest the spectator 
 in an extraordinary manner. Such circumstances, there- 
 fore, cannot wholly be rejected : but if there be any 
 thing in the art which requires peculiar nicety of dis- 
 cernment, it is the disposition of these minute cir- 
 cumstantial parts ; which, according to the judgment 
 employed in the choice, becomes so useful to truth, or 
 so injurious to grandeur. 
 
 However, the usual and most dangerous error is on 
 the side of minuteness ; and therefore I think caution 
 most necessary where most have faded. The general 
 idea constitutes real excellence. All smaller things, 
 however perfect in their way, are to be sacrificed with- 
 out mercy to the greater. The painter will not inquire 
 what things may be admitted without much censure ; 
 he will not think it enough to show that they may be 
 there ; he will show that they must be there ; that 
 their absence would render his picture maimed and 
 defective. 
 
 Thus, though to the principal group a second or third 
 be added, and a second and third mass of light, care 
 must be taken that these subordinate actions and lights, 
 
14 
 
 REYNOLDS'^ DISCOURSES. 
 
 neither each in particular, nor all together, come into 
 any degree of competition with the principal : they 
 should merely make a part of that whole which would 
 be imperfect without them. To every kind of painting 
 this rule may be applied. Even 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. 
 
 Thus, figures must have a ground whereon to stand; 
 they must be clothed; there must be a back-ground; 
 there must be light and shadow ; but none of these 
 ought to appear to have taken up any part of the artist's 
 attention. They should be so managed as not even to 
 catch that of the spectator. We know well enough, 
 when we analyse a piece, the difficulty and the subtlety 
 with which an artist adjusts the back-ground, drapery, 
 and masses of light ; we know that a considerable part 
 of the grace and effect of his picture depends upon them ; 
 but this art is so much concealed, even to a judicious 
 eye, that no remains of any of these subordinate parts 
 occur to the memory when the picture is not present. 
 
 The great end of the art is to strike the imagination. 
 The painter, therefore, is to make no ostentation of the 
 means by which this is done ; the spectator is only to 
 feel the result in his bosom. An inferior artist is un- 
 willing that any part of his industry should be lost upon 
 the spectator. He takes as much pains to discover, as 
 the greater artist does to conceal, the marks of his sub- 
 ordinate assiduity. In works of the lower kind, every- 
 thing appears studied and encumbered ; it is all boast- 
 ful art and open affectation. The ignorant often part 
 from such pictures with wonder in their mouths and 
 indifference in their hearts. 
 
 But it is not enough in invention that the artist should 
 restrain and keep under all the inferior parts of his sub- 
 ject ; he must sometimes deviate from vulgar and strict 
 historical truth, in pursuing the grandeur of his design. 
 
 How much the great style exacts from its professors 
 to conceive and represent their subjects in a poetical 
 manner, not confined to mere matter of fact, may be 
 seen in the Cartoons of Raffaelle. In all the pictures 
 in which that painter has represented the apostles, he 
 has drawn them with great nobleness ; he has given 
 them as much dignity as the human figure is capable of 
 receiving ; yet we are expressly told in scripture they 
 had no such respectable appearance ; and of St Paul in 
 particular, we are told by himself that his bodily pre- 
 sence was mean. Alexander is said to have been of a 
 low stature : a painter ought not so to represent him. 
 Agesilaus was low, lame, and of a mean appearance : 
 none of these defects ought to appear in a piece of which 
 he is the hero. In conformity to custom, I call this 
 part of the art History-Painting : it ought to be called 
 Poetical, as in reality it is. 
 
 All this is not falsifying any fact ; it is taking an al- 
 lowed poetical licence. A painter of portraits retains 
 the individual likeness ; a painter of history shows the 
 man by showing his actions. A painter must compen- 
 sate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one 
 sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He can- 
 not, like the poet or historian, expatiate, and impress 
 the mind with great veneration for the character of the 
 hero or saint he represents, though he lets us know, at 
 the same time, that the saint was deformed, or the hero 
 lame. The painter has no other means of giving an 
 idea of the dignity of the mind, but by that external 
 appearance which grandeur of thought does generally, 
 though not always, impress on the countenance ; and 
 by that correspondence of figure to sentiment and situ- 
 ation, which all men wish, but cannot command. The 
 painter who may in this one particular attain with ease 
 what others desire in vain, ought to give all that he 
 possibly can, since there are so many circumstances of 
 true greatness that he cannot give at all. He cannot 
 make his hero talk like a great man ; he must make 
 him look like one. For which reason, he ought to be 
 well studied in the analysis of those circumstances which 
 constitute dignity of appearance in real life. 
 
 As in invention, so likewise in expression, care must 
 
 be taken not to run into particularities. Those expres- 
 sions alone should be given to the figures which their 
 respective situations generally produce. Nor is this 
 enough ; each person should also have that expression 
 which men of his rank generally exhibit. The joy or 
 the grief of a character of dignity is not to be expressed 
 in the same manner as a similar passion in a vulgar 
 face. Upon this principle, Bernini, perhaps, may be 
 subject to censure. This sculptor, in many respects 
 admirable, has given a very mean expression to his 
 statue of David, who is represented as just going to 
 throw the stone from the sling ; and in order to give it 
 the expression of energy, he has made him biting his 
 under-lip. This expression is far from being general, 
 and still further from being dignified. He might have 
 seen it in an instance or two, and he mistook accident 
 for generality. 
 
 With respect to colouring, though it 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. By this, the first effect of 
 the picture is produced ; and as this is performed, 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 colour will very much 
 contribute. Grandeur of effect is produced by two 
 different ways, which seem entirely opposed to each 
 other. One is, by reducing the colours to little more 
 than chiaro-oscuro, which was often the practice of the 
 Bolognian schools ; and the other, by making the colours 
 very distinct and forcible, such as we see in those of 
 Rome and Florence ; but still, the presiding principle 
 of both those manners is simplicity. Certainly, nothing 
 can be more simple than monotony ; and the distinct 
 blue, red, and yellow colours which are seen in the 
 draperies of the Roman and Florentine schools, though 
 they have not that kind of harmony which is produced 
 by a variety of broken and transparent colours, have 
 that effect of grandeur which was intended. Perhaps 
 these distinct colours strike the mind more forcibly, 
 from there not being any great union between them ; 
 as martial music, which is intended to rouse the nobler 
 passions, has its effect from the sudden and strongly 
 marked transitions from one note to another, which 
 that style of music requires ; whilst in that which is 
 intended to move the softer passions, the notes imper- 
 ceptibly melt into one another. 
 
 In the same manner as the historical painter never 
 enters into the detail of colours, so neither does he 
 debase his conceptions with minute attention to the dis- 
 criminations of drapery. It is the inferior style that 
 marks the variety of stuffs. With him, the clothing is 
 neither woollen, nor linen, silk, satin, nor velvet : it is 
 drapery ; it is nothing more. The art of disposing the 
 foldings of the drapery makes a very considerable part of 
 the painter's study. To make it merely natural is a me- 
 chanical operation, to which neither genius nor taste is 
 required ; whereas, it requires the nicest judgment to 
 dispose the drapery, so that the folds shall have an easy 
 communication and gracefully follow each other, with 
 such natural negligence as to look like the effect of 
 chance, and at the same time show the figure under it 
 to the utmost advantage. 
 
 Carlo Maratti was of opinion, that the disposition of 
 drapery was a more difficult art than even that of draw- 
 ing the human figure ; that a student might be more 
 easily taught the latter than the former ; as the rules 
 of drapery, he said, could not be so well ascertained as 
 those for delineating a correct form. This, perhaps, is 
 a proof how willingly we favour our own peculiar ex- 
 cellence. Carlo Maratti is said to have valued himself 
 particularly upon his skill in this part of his art ; yet 
 in him the disposition appears so ostentatiously artifi- 
 cial, that he is inferior to Raffaelle even in that which 
 gave him his best claim to reputation. 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 Such is the great principle by which we must be 
 directed in the nobler branches of our art. Upon this 
 principle, the Roman, the Florentine, the Bolognese 
 schools, have formed their practice, and by this they 
 have deservedly obtained the highest praise. These 
 are the three great schools of the world in the epic style. 
 The best of the French school, Poussin, Le Sueur, and 
 Le Brun, have formed themselves upon these models, 
 and consequently may be said, though Frenchmen, to 
 be a colony from the Roman school. Next to these, 
 but in a very different style of excellence, we may rank 
 the Venetian, together with the Flemish and the Dutch 
 schools — all professing to depart from the great pur- 
 poses of painting, and catching at applause by inferior 
 qualities. 
 
 I am not ignorant that some will censure me for 
 placing the Venetians in this inferior class, and many 
 of the warmest admirers of painting will think them 
 unjustly degraded ; but I wish not to be misunderstood. 
 Though I can by no means allow them to hold any rank 
 with the nobler schools of painting, they accomplished 
 perfectly the thing they attempted. But as mere ele- 
 gance is their principal object, as they seem more 
 willing to dazzle than to affect, it can be no injury to 
 them to suppose that their practice is useful only to its 
 proper end. But what may heighten the elegant may 
 degrade the sublime. There is a simplicity, and, I may 
 add, severity, in the great manner, which is, I am afraid, 
 almost incompatible with this comparatively sensual 
 style. 
 
 Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and others of the Venetian 
 school, seem to have painted with no other purpose than 
 to be admired for their skill and expertness in the me- 
 chanism of painting, and to make a parade of that art 
 which, as I before observed, the higher style requires 
 its followers to conceal. 
 
 In a conference of the French Academy, at which 
 were present Le Brun, Sebastian, Bourdon, and all the 
 eminent artists of that age, one of the academicians 
 desired to have their opinion on the conduct of Paul 
 Veronese, who, though a painter of great consideration, 
 had, contrary to the strict rules of art, in his picture 
 of Perseus and Andromeda, represented the principal 
 figure in shade. To this question no satisfactory answer 
 was then given. But I will venture to say, that if they 
 had considered the class of the artist, and ranked him 
 as an ornamental painter, there would have been no 
 difficulty in answering — " It was unreasonable to expect 
 what was never intended. His intention was solely to 
 produce an effect of light and shadow : every thing was 
 to be sacrificed to that intent, and the capricious com- 
 position of that picture suited very well with the style 
 which he professed." 
 
 Young minds are indeed too apt to be captivated by 
 this splendour of style, and that of the Venetians is 
 particularly pleasing ; for by them, all those parts of 
 the art that gave pleasure to the eye or sense, have been 
 cultivated with care, and carried to the degree nearest 
 to perfection. The powers exerted in the mechanical 
 part of the art have been called the language of painters ; 
 but we may say that it is but poor eloquence which only 
 shows that the orator can talk. Words should be 
 employed as the means, not as the end : language is the 
 instrument, conviction is the work. 
 
 The language of painting must indeed be allowed 
 these masters ; but even in that, they have shown more 
 copiousness than choice, and more luxuriancy than judg- 
 ment. If we consider the uninteresting subjects of their 
 invention, or at least the uninteresting manner in which 
 they are treated ; if we attend to their capricious com- 
 position, their violent and affected contrasts, whether 
 of figures, or of light and shadow, the richness of their 
 drapery, and, at the same time, the mean effect which 
 the discrimination of stuffs gives to their pictures — if to 
 these we add their total inattention to expression ; and 
 then reflect on the conceptions and the learning of 
 Michael Angelo, or the simplicity of Raffaelle, we can 
 no longer dwell on the comparison. Even in colouring, 
 if we compare the quietness and chastity of the Bolog- 
 
 DISCOURSES. 15 
 
 nese pencil to the bustle and tumult that fills every part 
 of a Venetian picture, without the least attempt to in- 
 terest the passions, their boasted art will appear a mere 
 struggle without effect ; " a tale told by an idiot, full of 
 sound and fury, signifying nothing." 
 
 Such as suppose that the great style might happily 
 be blended with the ornamental — that the simple, grave, 
 and majestic dignity of Raffaelle could unite with the 
 glow and bustle of a Paolo or Tintoret — are totally mis- 
 taken. The principles by which each is attained are so 
 contrary to each other, that they seem, in my opinion, 
 incompatible, and as impossible to exist together as 
 that in the mind the most sublime ideas and the lowest 
 sensuality should at the same time be united. 
 
 The subjects of the Venetian painters are mostly such 
 as give them an opportunity of introducing a great num- 
 ber of figures ; such as feasts, marriages, and proces- 
 sions, public martyrdoms, or miracles. I can easily 
 conceive that Paul Veronese, if he were asked, would 
 say that no subject was proper for an historical picture, 
 but such as admitted at least forty figures ; for in a less 
 number, he would assert, there could be no opportu- 
 nity of the painter's showing his art in composition, 
 his dexterity of managing and disposing the masses of 
 light and groups of figures, and of introducing a variety 
 of eastern dresses and characters in their rich stuffs. 
 
 But the thing is very different with a pupil of the 
 greater schools. Annibale Caracci thought twelve figures 
 sufficient for any story ; he conceived that more would 
 contribute to no end but to fill space ; that they would 
 be but cold spectators of the general action, or, to use 
 his own expression, that they would be figures to be let. 
 Besides, it is impossible for a picture composed of so 
 many parts to have that effect so indispensably neces- 
 sary to grandeur, that of one complete whole. How- 
 ever contradictory it may be in geometry, it is true in 
 taste, that many little things will not make a great 
 one. The sublime impresses the mind at once with one 
 great idea ; it is a single blow : the elegant indeed may 
 be produced by repetition, by an accumulation of many 
 minute circumstances. 
 
 However great the difference is between the compo- 
 sition of the Venetian and the rest of the Italian schools, 
 there is full as great a disparity in the effect of their 
 pictures as produced by colours. And though in this 
 respect the Venetians must be allowed extraordinary 
 skill, yet even that skill, as they have employed it, will 
 but ill correspond with the great style. Their colour- 
 ing is not only too brilliant, but, I will venture to say, 
 too harmonious, to produce that solidity, steadiness, 
 and simplicity of effect, which heroic subjects require, 
 and which simple or grave colours only can give to a 
 work. That they are to be cautiously studied by those 
 who are ambitious of treading the great walk of history, 
 is confirmed, if it wants confirmation, by the greatest 
 of all authorities, Michael Angelo. This wonderful man, 
 after having seen a picture by Titian, told Vasari, who 
 accompanied him,* " that he liked much his colouring 
 and manner ;" but then he added, " that it was a pity 
 the Venetian painters did not learn to draw correctly in 
 their early youth, and adopt a better manner of study" 
 
 By this it appears, that the principal attention of the 
 Venetian painters, in the opinion of Michael Angelo, 
 seemed to be engrossed by the study of colours, to the 
 neglect of the ideal beauty of form, or propriety of ex- 
 pression. But if general censure was given to that 
 school from the sight of a picture of Titian, how much 
 more heavily and more justly would the censure fall on 
 Paolo Veronese, and more especially on Tintoret ! And 
 here I cannot avoid citing Vasari's opinion of the style 
 and manner of Tintoret. " Of all the extraordinary 
 geniuses," + says he, " that have practised the art of 
 
 * " Dicendo, che molto gli piaceva il colorito suo, e la maniera ; 
 ma che era un peccato, cbe a Venezia non s' imparasse da prin- 
 cipio a disegnare bene, e che non havessano que' pittori miglior 
 mc-do nello studio."— Fas. torn. Hi. p. 226. Vita di Tiziano. 
 
 t ** Nellecose della pittura, stravagante, capriccioso, presto, o 
 resolute, ct il piu terrible cervello, che liabbia havuto raai la pit- 
 tura, come si pu6 vedere in tuttc le sue opere; o nti* oomponi- 
 
ip REYNOLDS'S 
 
 painting, for wild, capricious, extravagant, and fantas- 
 tical inventions, for furious impetuosity and boldness in 
 the execution of his work, thei-e is none like Tintoret ; 
 his strange whimsies are even beyond extravagance, 
 and his works seem to be produced rather by chance 
 than in consequence of any previous design, as if he 
 wanted to convince the world that the art was a trifle, 
 and of the most easy attainment." 
 
 For my own part, when I speak of the Venetian 
 painters, I wish to be understood to mean Paolo Vero- 
 nese and Tintoret, to the exclusion of Titian ; for though 
 his style is not so pure as that of many other of the 
 Italian schools, yet there is a sort of senatorial dignity 
 about him, which, however awkward in his imitators, 
 seems to become him exceedingly. His portraits alone, 
 from the nobleness and simplicity of character which 
 he always gave them, will entitle him to the greatest 
 respect, as he undoubtedly stands in the first rank in 
 this branch of the art. 
 
 It is not with Titian, but with the seducing qualities 
 of the two former, that I could wish to caution you 
 against being too much captivated. These are the per- 
 sons who may be said to have exhausted all the powers 
 of florid eloquence, to debauch the young and inexpe- 
 rienced, and have, without doubt, been the cause of 
 turning off the attention of the connoisseur, and of the 
 patron of art, as well as that of the painter, from those 
 higher excellences of which the art is capable, and 
 which ought to be required in every considerable pro- 
 duction. By them, and their imitators, a style merely 
 ornamental has been disseminated throughout all Eu- 
 rope. Rubens carried it to Flanders, Voet to France, 
 and Lucca Giordano to Spain and Naples. 
 
 The Venetian is indeed the most splendid of the 
 schools of elegance ; and it is not without reason that 
 the best performances in this lower school are valued 
 higher than the second-rate performances of those above 
 them, for every picture has - alue when it has a decided 
 character, and is excellent in its kind. But the student 
 must take care not to be so much dazzled with this 
 splendour, as to be tempted to imitate what must ulti- 
 mately lead from perfection. Poussin, whose eye was 
 always steadily fixed on the sublime, has been often 
 heard to say, " That a particular attention to colouring 
 was an obstacle to the student, in his progress to the 
 great end and design of the art; and that he who 
 attaches himself to this principal end, will acquire by 
 practice a reasonably good method of colouring."* 
 
 Though it be allowed that elaborate harmony of 
 colouring, a brilliancy of tints, a soft and gradual tran- 
 sition from one to another, present to the eye what an 
 harmonious concert of music does to the ear, it must be 
 remembered that painting is not merely a gratification 
 of the sight. Such excellence, though properly culti- 
 vated, where nothing higher than elegance is intended, 
 is weak and unworthy of regard, when the work aspires 
 to grandeur and sublimity. 
 
 The same reasons that have been urged to show that 
 a mixture of the Venetian style cannot improve the 
 great style, will hold good in regard to the Flemish and 
 Dutch schools. Indeed, the Flemish school, of which 
 Rubens is the head, was formed upon that of the Ve- 
 netian ; like them, he took his figures too much from 
 the people befox'e him. But it must be allowed in favour 
 of the Venetians, that he was more gross than they, 
 and carried all their mistaken methods to a far greater 
 excess. In the Venetian school itself, where they all 
 err from the same cause, there is a difference in the 
 effect. The difference between Paolo and Bassano 
 seems to be only, that one introduced Venetian gentle- 
 
 menti delle storie, fantasticlie, e fatte da lui diversamente, e 
 fuori dell' uso degli altri pittori : anzi ha superato la stravaganza, 
 con lc nuove, e capricciose invention!, e strani ghiribizzi del suo 
 intelleto, che ha lavorato a caso, e senza disegno, quasi monstrando 
 che quest' arte e una baia." 
 
 * " Que cette application singuliere n'etoit qu'un obstacle pour 
 empecher de parvenir au veritable but de la peinture, et celui qui 
 s'attache au principal, acquiert par la pratique une assez belle 
 maniere de peindre."— Coherence de I'Acad. Franc. 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 men into his pictures, and the other the boors of the 
 district of Bassano, and called them patriarchs and 
 prophets. 
 
 The painters of the Dutch school have still more 
 locality. With them, a history piece is properly a 
 portrait of themselves ; whether they describe the inside 
 or outside of their houses, we have their own people 
 engaged in their own peculiar occupations ; working or 
 drinking, playing or fighting. The circumstances that 
 enter into a picture of this kind, are so far from giving 
 a general view of human life, that they exhibit all the 
 minute particularities of a nation differing in several 
 respects from the rest of mankind. Yet let them have 
 their share of more humble praise. The painters of 
 this school are excellent in their own way ; they are only 
 ridiculous when they attempt general history on their 
 own narrow principles, and debase great events by the 
 meanness of their characters. 
 
 Some inferior dexterity, some extraordinary mecha- 
 nical power, is apparently that from which they seek 
 distinction. Thus, we see, that school alone has the 
 custom of representing candle-light not as it really ap- 
 pears to us by night, but red, as it would illuminate 
 objects to a spectator by day. Such tricks, however 
 pardonable in the little style, where petty effects are 
 the sole end, are inexcusable in the greater, where the 
 attention should never be drawn aside by trifles, but 
 should be entirely occupied by the subject itself. 
 
 The same local principles which characterise the 
 Dutch school, extend even to their landscape-painters ; 
 and Rubens himself, who has painted many landscapes, 
 has sometimes transgressed in this particular. Their 
 pieces in this way are, I think, always a representation 
 of an individual spot, and each in its kind a very faith- 
 ful but a very confined portrait. Claude Lorraine, on 
 the contrary, was convinced, that taking nature as he 
 found it, seldom produced beauty. His pictures are a 
 composition of the various draughts which he had pre- 
 viously made from various beautiful scenes and pro- 
 spects. However, Rubens in some measure has made 
 amends for the deficiency with which he is charged ; he 
 has contrived to raise and animate his otherwise unin- 
 teresting views, by introducing a rainbow, storm, or 
 some particular accidental effect of light. That the 
 practice of Claude Lorraine, in respect to his choice, is 
 to be adopted by landscape-painters in opposition to 
 that of the Flemish and Dutch schools, there can be no 
 doubt, as its truth is founded upon the same principle 
 as that by which the historical painter acquires perfect 
 form. But whether landscape-painting has a right to 
 aspire so far as to reject what the painters call acci- 
 dents of nature, is not easy to determine. It is certain 
 Claude Lorraine seldom, if ever, availed himself of those 
 accidents ; either he thought that such peculiarities were 
 contrary to that style of general nature which he pro- 
 fessed, or that it would catch the attention too strongly, 
 and destroy that quietness and repose which he thought 
 necessary to that kind of painting. 
 
 A portrait-painter, likewise, when he attempts his- 
 tory, unless he is upon his guard, is likely to enter too 
 much into the detail. He too frequently makes his his- 
 torical heads look like portraits ; and this was once the 
 custom amongst those old painters, who revived the art 
 before general ideas were practised or understood. 
 An history-painter paints man in general ; a portrait- 
 painter a particular man, and consequently a defective 
 model. 
 
 Thus an habitual practice in the lower exercises of 
 the art will prevent many from attaining the greater. 
 But such of us who move in these humbler walks of the 
 profession, are not ignorant that, as the natural dignity 
 of the subject is less, the more all the little ornamental 
 helps are necessary to its embellishment. It would be 
 ridiculous for a painter of domestic scenes, of portraits, 
 landscapes, animals, or still life, to say that he despised 
 those qualities which have made the subordinate 
 schools so famous. The art of colouring, and the skilful 
 management of light and shadow, are essential requisites 
 in his confined labours. If we descend still lower, what 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 17 
 
 is the painter of fruit and flowers without the utmost | 
 art in colouring, and what the painters call handling ; 
 that is, a lightness of pencil that implies great practice, 
 and gives the appearance of being done with ease I 
 Some here, I believe, must remember a flower-painter 
 whose boast it was, that he scorned to paint for the 
 million: no, he professed to paint in the true Italian 
 taste ; and, despising the crowd, called strenuously upon 
 the few to admire him. Hi3 idea of the Italian taste 
 was to paint as black and dirty as he could, and to 
 leave all clearness and brilliancy of colouring to those 
 who were fonder of money than immortality. The con- 
 sequence was such as might be expected. For these 
 petty excellences are here essential beauties ; and with- 
 out this merit the artist's work will be more short-lived 
 than the objects of his imitation. 
 
 From what has been advanced, we must now be 
 convinced that there are two distinct styles in history- 
 painting ; the grand, and the splendid or ornamental. 
 
 The great style stands alone, and does not require, 
 perhaps does not so well admit, any addition from in- 
 ferior beauties. The ornamental style also possesses its 
 own peculiar merit. However, though the union of the 
 two may make a sort of composite style, yet that style 
 is likely to be more imperfect than either of those which 
 go to its composition. Both kinds have merit, and may 
 be excellent though in different ranks, if uniformity be 
 preserved, and the general and particular ideas of na- 
 ture be not mixed. Even the meanest of them is diffi- 
 cult enough to attain ; and the first place being already 
 occupied by the great artists in each department, some 
 of those who followed thought there was less room for 
 them ; and feeling the impulse of ambition and the de- 
 sire of novelty, and being at the same time perhaps 
 willing to take the shortest way, endeavoured to make 
 for themselves a place between both. This they have 
 effected by forming an union of the different orders. But 
 as the grave and majestic style would suffer by an union 
 with the florid and gay, so also has the Venetian orna- 
 ment in some respects been injured by attempting an 
 alliance with simplicity. 
 
 It may be asserted, that the great style is always 
 more or less contaminated by any meaner mixture. But 
 it happens in a few instances, that the lower may be 
 improved by borrowing from the grand. Thus if a 
 porti'ait- painter is desirous to raise and improve his 
 subject, he has no other means than by approaching it 
 to a general idea. He leaves out all the minute breaks 
 and peculiarities in the face, and changes the dress 
 from a temporary fashion to one moi'e permanent, 
 which has annexed to it no ideas of meanness from its 
 being familiar to us. But if an exact resemblance of 
 an individual be considered as the sole object to be 
 aimed at, the portrait-painter will be apt to lose more 
 than he gains by the acquired dignity taken from gene- 
 ral nature. It is very difficult to ennoble the character 
 of a countenance but at the expense of the likeness, 
 which is what is most generally required by such as sit 
 to the painter. 
 
 Of those who have practised the composite style, and 
 have succeeded in this perilous attempt, perhaps the 
 foremost is Correggio. His style is founded upon 
 modern grace and elegance, to which is superadded 
 something of the simplicity of the grand style. A 
 breadth of light and colour, the general ideas of the 
 drapery, an uninterrupted flow of outline — all conspire 
 to this effect. Next to him (perhaps equal to him) 
 Parmegiano has dignified the genteelness of modern 
 effeminacy, by uniting it with the simplicity of the 
 ancients and the grandeur and severity of Michael 
 Angelo. It must be confessed, however, that these 
 two extraordinary men, by endeavouring to give the 
 utmost degree of grace, have sometimes perhaps ex- 
 ceeded its boundaries, and have fallen into the most 
 hateful of all hateful qualities, affectation. Indeed, it 
 is the peculiar characteristic of men of genius to be 
 afraid of coldness and insipidity, from which they think 
 the}' never can be too far removed. It particularly 
 happens to these great masters of grace and elegance. 
 B 
 
 They often boldly drive on to the very verge of ridi- 
 cule ; the spectator is alarmed, but at the same timo 
 admires their vigour and intrepidity : 
 
 Strange graces still, and stranger flights they had, 
 
 ***** 
 
 Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create, 
 
 As when they touch'd the brink of all we hate. 
 
 The errors of genius, however, are pardonable, and 
 none even of the more exalted painters are wholly free 
 from them ; but they have taught us, by the rectitude 
 of their general practice, to correct their own affected 
 or accidental deviation. The very first have not been 
 always upon their guard, and perhaps there is not a 
 fault but what may take shelter under the most vene- 
 rable authorities ; yet that style only is perfect in which 
 the noblest principles are uniformly pursued ; and those 
 masters only are entitled to the first rank in our esti- 
 mation, who have enlarged the boundaries of their art, 
 and have raised it to its highest dignity, by exhibiting 
 the general ideas of nature. 
 
 On the whole, it seems to me that there is but one 
 presiding principle, which regulates and gives stability 
 to every art. The works, whether of poets, painters, 
 moralists, or historians, which are built upon general 
 nature, live for ever; while those which depend for 
 their existence on particular customs and habits, a par- 
 tial view of nature, or the fluctuation of fashion, can 
 only be coeval with that which first raised them from 
 obscurity. Present time and future may be considered 
 as rivals, and he who solicits the one must expect to 
 be discountenanced by the other. 
 
 DISCOURSE V. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, 0!» 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1772. 
 
 Circumspection required in endeavouring to unite contrary excel- 
 lences. The expression of a mixed passion not to be attempted. 
 Examples of those who excelled in the great style. Raffaelle, 
 Michael Angelo, those two extraordinary men, compared with 
 each other. The Characteristical style. Salvator Rosa men- 
 tioned as an example of that style, and opposed to Carlo Ma- 
 ratti. Sketch of the characters of Poussin and Rubens. These 
 two Painters entirely dissimilar, but consistent with themselves. 
 This consistency required in all parts of the Art. 
 
 Gentlemen — I purpose to carry on in this discourse the 
 subject which I began in my last. It was my wish 
 upon that occasion to incite you to pursue the higher 
 excellences of the art ; but I fear that in this parti- 
 cular I have been misunderstood. Some are ready to 
 imagine, when any of their favourite acquirements in 
 the art are properly classed, that they are utterly dis- 
 graced. This is a very great mistake : nothing has its 
 proper lustre but in its proper place. That which is 
 most worthy of esteem in its allotted sphere, becomes 
 an object, not of respect, but of derision, when it is 
 forced into a higher, to which it is not suited ; and there 
 it becomes doubly a source of disorder, by occupying a 
 situation which is not natural to it, and by putting down 
 from the first place what is in reality of too much mag- 
 nitude to become with grace and proportion that subor- 
 dinate station, to which something of less value would 
 be much better suited. 
 
 My advice, in a word, is this : keep your principal 
 attention fixed upon the higher excellences. If you 
 compass them, and compass nothing more, you are still 
 in the first class. We may regret the innumerable 
 beauties which you may want ; you may be very im- 
 perfect — but still you are an imperfect artist of the 
 highest order. 
 
 If, when you have got thus far, you can add any, or 
 all, of the subordinate qualifications, it is my wish and 
 advice that you should not neglect them. But this is 
 as much a matter of circumspection and caution at least, 
 as of eagerness and pursuit. 
 
 The mind is apt to be distracted by a multiplicity of 
 objects ; and that scale of perfection which I wish always 
 
18 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 to be preserved, is in the greatest danger of being totally 
 disordered, and even inverted. 
 
 Some excellences bear to be united, and are improved 
 by union ; others are of a discordant nature ; and the 
 attempt to join them only produces a harsh jarring of 
 incongruent principles. The attempt to unite contrary 
 excellences (of form, for instance) in a single figure, 
 can never escape degenerating into the monstrous, but 
 by sinking into the insipid ; by taking away its marked 
 character, and weakening its expression. 
 
 This remark is true to a certain degree with regard 
 to the passions. If you mean to preserve the most 
 perfect beauty in its most perfect state, you cannot ex- 
 press the passions, all of which produce distortion and 
 deformity more or less in the most beautiful faces. 
 
 Guido, from want of choice in adapting his subject to 
 his ideas and his powers, or from attempting to preserve 
 beauty where it could not be preserved, has in this 
 respect succeeded very ill. His figures are often en- 
 gaged in subjects that required great expression : yet 
 his Judith and Holofernes, the Daughter of Ilerodias 
 with the Baptist's Head, the Andromeda, and some even 
 of the Mothers of the Innocents, have little more ex- 
 pression than his Venus attired by the Graces. 
 
 Obvious as these remarks appear, there are many 
 writers on our art, who, not being of the profession, and 
 consequently not knowing what can or cannot be done, 
 have been very liberal of absurd praises in their descrip- 
 tions of favourite works. They always find in them 
 what they are resolved to find. They praise excellences 
 that can hardly exist together; and above all things 
 are fond of describing with great exactness the expres- 
 sion of a mixed passion, which more particularly appears 
 to me out of the reach of our art. 
 
 Such are many disquisitions which I have read on 
 some of the Cartoons and other pictures of Raffaelle, 
 where the critics have described their own imagina- 
 tions ; or indeed where the excellent master himself 
 may have attempted this expression of passions above 
 the powers of the art ; and has, therefore, by an indis- 
 tinct and imperfect marking, left room for every ima- 
 gination, with equal probability to find a passion of his 
 own. What has been and what can be done in the 
 art, is sufficiently difficult ; we need not be mortified or 
 discouraged at not being able to execute the concep- 
 tions of a romantic imagination. Art has its boundaries, 
 though imagination has none. We can easily, like the 
 ancients, suppose a Jupiter to be possessed of all those 
 powers and perfections which the subordinate deities 
 were endowed with separately. Yet when they em- 
 ployed their art to represent him, they confined his 
 character to majesty alone. Pliny, therefore, though 
 we are under great obligations to him for the informa- 
 tion he has given us in relation to the works of the 
 ancient artists, is very frequently wrong when he speaks 
 of them, which he does very often in the style of many 
 of our modern connoisseurs. He observes, that in a 
 statue of Paris by Euphranor, you might discover at 
 the same time three different characters ; the dignity 
 of a judge of the goddesses, the lover of Helen, and the 
 conqueror of Achilles. A statue in which you endea- 
 vour to unite stately dignity, youthful elegance, and 
 stern valour, must surely possess none of these to any 
 eminent degree. 
 
 From hence it appears, that there is much difficulty 
 as well as danger, in an endeavour to concentrate in a 
 single subject those various powers, which, rising from 
 different points, naturally move in different directions. 
 
 The summit of excellence seems to be an assemblage 
 of contrary qualities, but mixed in such proportions, 
 that no one part is found to counteract the other. How 
 hard this is to be attained in every art, those only know 
 who have made the greatest progress in their respec- 
 tive professions. 
 
 To conclude what I have to say on this part of the 
 subject, which I think of great importance, I wish you 
 to understand, that I do not discourage the younger 
 students from the noble attempt of uniting all the ex- 
 cellences of art ; but suggest to them that, besides the 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 difficulties which attend every arduous attempt, there 
 is a peculiar difficulty in the choice of the excellences 
 which ought to be united. I wish you to attend to this, 
 that you may try yourselves, whenever you are capable 
 of that trial, what you can, and what you cannot do : 
 and that, instead of dissipating your natural faculties 
 over the immense field of possible excellence, you may 
 choose some particular walk in which you may exercise 
 all your powers ; in order that each of you may become 
 the first in his way. If any man shall be master of 
 such a transcendant, commanding, and ductile genius, as 
 to enable him to rise to the highest, and to stoop to the 
 lowest, flights of art, and to sweep over all of them 
 unobstructed and secure, he is fitter to give example 
 than to receive instruction. 
 
 Having said thus much on the union of excellences, 
 I will next say something of the subordination in which 
 various excellences ought to be kept. 
 
 I am of opinion, that the ornamental style, which in 
 my discourse of last year I cautioned you against, con- 
 sidering it as principal, may not be wholly unworthy 
 the attention even of those who aim at the grand style, 
 when it is properly placed and properly reduced. 
 
 But this study will be used with far better effect, if 
 its principles are employed in softening the harshness 
 and mitigating the rigour of the great style, than if it 
 attempt to stand forward with any pretensions of its 
 own to positive and original excellence. It was thus 
 Ludovico Caracci, whose example I formerly recom- 
 mended to you, employed it. He was acquainted with 
 the works both of Correggio and the Venetian painters, 
 and knew the principles by which they produced those 
 pleasing effects which at the first glance prepossess us 
 so much in their favour ; but he took only as much 
 from each as would embellish, but not overpower, that 
 manly strength and energy of style which is his pecu- 
 liar character. 
 
 Since I have already expatiated so largely in my 
 former discourse, and in my present, upon the styles 
 and characters of painting, it will not be at all unsuit- 
 able to my subject if I mention to you some particulars 
 relative to the leading principles and capital works of 
 those who excelled in the great style ; that I may bring 
 you from abstraction nearer to practice, and by exem- 
 plifying the positions which I have laid down, enable 
 you to understand more clearly what I would enforce. 
 
 The principal works of modern art are in fresco, a 
 mode of painting which excludes attention to minute 
 elegances ; yet these works in fresco are the produc- 
 tions on which the fame of the greatest masters depends : 
 such are the pictures of Michael Angelo and Raffaelle 
 in the Vatican ; to which we may add the Cartoons ; 
 which, though not strictly to be called fresco, yet may 
 be put under that denomination; and such are the 
 works of Giulio Romano at Mantua. If these perfor- 
 mances were destroyed, with them would be lost the 
 best part of the reputation of those illustrious painters ; 
 for these are justly considered as the greatest efforts of 
 our art which the world can boast. To these, therefore, 
 we should principally direct our attention for higher 
 excellences. As for the lower arts, as they have been 
 once discovered, they may be easily attained by those 
 possessed of the former. 
 
 Raffaelle, who stands in general foremost of the first 
 painters, owes his reputation, as I have observed, to 
 his excellence in the higher parts of the art ; his works 
 in fresco, therefore, ought to be the first object of our 
 study and attention. His easel- works stand in a lower 
 degree of estimation ; for though he continually, to the 
 day of his death, embellished his performances more 
 and more with the addition of those lower ornaments 
 which entirely make the merit of some painters, yet he 
 never arrived at such perfection as to make him an 
 object of imitation. He never was able to conquer 
 perfectly that dryness, or even littleness, of manner 
 which he inherited from his master. He never acquired 
 that nicety of taste in colours, that breadth of light and 
 shadow, that art and management of uniting light to 
 light, and shadow to shadow, so as to make the object 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 rise out of the ground with the plenitude of effect so 
 much admired in the works of Correggio. When he 
 painted in oil, his hand seemed to be so cramped and 
 confined, that he not only lost that facility and spirit, 
 but I think even that correctness of form, which is so 
 perfect and admirable in his fresco works. I do not recol- 
 lect any pictures of his of this kind, except perhaps The 
 Transfiguration, in which there are some parts that 
 appear to be even feebly drawn. That this is not a 
 necessary attendant on oil-painting, we have abundant 
 instances in more modern painters. Ludovico Caracci, 
 for instance, preserved in his works in oil the same 
 spirit, vigour, and correctness, which he had in fresco. 
 I have no desire to degrade Raffaelle from the high 
 rank which he deservedly holds ; but by comparing him 
 with himself, he does not appear to me to be the same 
 man in oil as in fresco. 
 
 From those who have ambition to tread in this great 
 walk of the art, Michael Angelo claims the next atten- 
 tion. He did not possess so many excellences as 
 Raffaelle, but those which he had were of the highest 
 kind. He considered the art as consisting of little 
 more than what may be attained by sculpture — correct- 
 ness of form and energy of character. We ought not 
 to expect more than an artist intends in his work. He 
 never attempted those lesser elegances and graces in 
 the art. Vasari says he never painted but one picture 
 in oil, and resolved never to paint another, saying it 
 was an employment only fit for women and children. 
 
 If any man had a right to look down upon the lower 
 accomplishments as beneath his attention, it was cer- 
 tainly Michael Angelo ; nor can it be thought strange 
 that such a mind should have slighted or have been 
 withheld from paying due attention to all those graces 
 and embellishments of art which have diffused such 
 lustre over the works of other painters. 
 
 It must be acknowledged, however, that together 
 with these, which we wish he had more attended to, he 
 has rejected all the false though specious ornaments 
 which disgrace the works even of the most esteemed 
 artists ; and I will venture to say, that when those 
 higher excellences are more known and cultivated by 
 the artists and the patrons of arts, his fame and credit 
 will increase with our increasing knowledge. His name 
 will then be held in the same veneration as it was in 
 the enlightened age of Leo X. ; and it is remarkable 
 that the reputation of this truly great man has been 
 continually declining as the art itself has declined. For 
 1 must remark to you, that it has long been much on 
 the decline, and that our only hope of its revival will 
 consist in your being thoroughly sensible of its deprava- 
 tion and decay. It is to Michael Angelo that we owe 
 even the existence of Raffaelle ; it is to him Raffaelle 
 owes the grandeur of his style. He was taught by him 
 to elevate his thoughts, and to conceive his subjects 
 with dignity. His genius, however, formed to blaze and 
 to shine, might, like fire in combustible matter, for ever 
 have lain dormant, if it had not caught a spark by its 
 contact with Michael Angelo ; and though it never 
 burst out with his extraordinary heat and vehemence, 
 yet it must be acknowledged to be a more pure, regular, 
 and chaste flame. Though our judgment must, upon 
 the whole, decide in favour of Raffaelle, yet he never 
 takes such a firm hold and entire possession of the mind 
 as to make us desire nothing else, and to feel nothing 
 wanting. The effect of the capital works of Michael 
 Angelo perfectly corresponds to what Bouchardon said 
 he felt from reading Homer ; his whole frame appeared 
 to himself to be enlarged, and all nature which sur- 
 rounded him diminished to atoms. 
 
 If we put these great artists in a light of comparison 
 with each other, Raffaelle had more taste and fancy ; 
 Michael Angelo had more genius and imagination. The 
 one excelled in beauty, the other in energy. Michael 
 Angelo has more of the poetical inspiration ; his ideas 
 are vast and sublime ; his people are a superior order 
 of beings ; there is nothing about them, nothing in the 
 air of their actions or their attitudes, or the style and 
 cast of their limbs or features, that reminds us of their 
 
 DISCOURSES. 19 
 
 belonging to our own species. Raffaelle's imagination is 
 not so elevated ; his figures are not so much disjoined 
 from our own diminutive race of beings, though his 
 ideas are chaste, noble, and of great conformity to their 
 subjects. Michael Angelo's works have a strong, pecu- 
 liar, and marked character ; they seem to proceed from 
 his own mind entirely ; and that mind so rich and 
 abundant, that he never needed, or seemed to disdain, 
 to look abroad for foreign help. Raffaelle's materials 
 are generally borrowed, though the noble structure is 
 his own. The excellency of this extraordinary man 
 lay in the propriety, beauty, and majesty of his cha- 
 racters, the judicious contrivance of his composition, 
 his correctness of drawing, purity of taste, and skilful 
 accommodation of other men's conceptions to his own 
 purpose. Nobody excelled him in that judgment, with 
 which he united to his own observations on nature the 
 energy of Michael Angelo, and the beauty and simpli- 
 city of the antique. To the question, therefore, which 
 ought to hold the first rank, Raffaelle or Michael 
 Angelo, it must be answered, that if it is to be given to 
 him who possessed a greater combination of the higher 
 qualities of the art than any other man, there is no 
 doubt but Raffaelle is the first. But if, as Longinus 
 thinks, the sublime, being the highest excellence that 
 human composition can attain to, abundantly compen- 
 sates the absence of every other beauty, and atones for 
 all other deficiencies, then Michael Angelo demands the 
 preference. 
 
 These two extraordinary men carried some of the 
 higher excellences of the art to a greater degree of 
 perfection than probably they ever arrived at before. 
 They certainly have not been excelled nor equalled 
 since. Many of their successors were induced to leave 
 this great road as a beaten path, endeavouring to sur- 
 prise and please by something uncommon or new. When 
 this desire of novelty has proceeded from mere idleness 
 or caprice, it is not worth the trouble of criticism ; but 
 when it has been the result of a busy mind of a peculiar 
 complexion, it is always striking and interesting, never 
 insipid. 
 
 Such is the great style, as it appears in those who 
 possessed it at its height : in this, search after novelty 
 in conception, or in treating the subject, has no place. 
 
 But there is another style, which, though inferior to 
 the former, has still great merit, because it shows that 
 those who cultivated it were men of lively and vigorous 
 imagination. This, which may be called the original or 
 characteristical style, being less referred to any true 
 archetype existing either in general or particular na- 
 ture, must be supported by the painter s consistency 
 in the principles which he has assumed, and in the 
 union and harmony of his whole design. The excel- 
 lence of every style, but of the subordinate styles more 
 especially, will very much depend on preserving that 
 union and harmony between all the component parts, 
 that they may appear to hang well together, as if the 
 whole proceeded from one mind. It is in the works of 
 art as in the characters of men. The faults or defects 
 of some men seem to become them, when they appear 
 to be the natural growth and of a piece with the rest of 
 their character. A faithful picture of a miud, though 
 it be not of the most elevated kind, though it be irregu- 
 lar, wild, and incorrect, yet if it be marked with that 
 spirit and firmness which characterise works of genius, 
 will claim attention, and be more striking than a com- 
 bination of excellences that do not seem to unite well 
 together ; or, we may say, than a work that possesses 
 even all excellences, but those in a moderate degree. 
 
 One of the strongest marked characters of this kind, 
 which must be allowed to be subordinate to the great 
 style, is that of Salvator Rosa. He gives us a peculiar 
 cast of nature, which, though void of all grace, elegance, 
 and simplicity, though it has nothing of that elevation 
 and dignity which belongs to the grand style, yet has 
 that sort of dignity which belongs to savage and uncul- 
 tivated nature : but what is most to be admired in him 
 is the perfect correspondence which he observed be- 
 tween the subjects which he chose and his manner of 
 
20 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 treating them. Every thing is of a piece : his rocks, 
 trees, sky, even to his handling, have the same rude and 
 wild character which animates his figures. 
 
 With him we may contrast the character of Carlo 
 Maratti, who, in my opinion, had no great vigour of 
 mind or strength of original genius. He rarely seizes 
 the imagination by exhibiting the higher excellences, 
 nor does he captivate us by that originality which at- 
 tends the painter who thinks for himself. He knew 
 and practised all the rules of art, and from a composi- 
 tion of Raffaelle, Caracci, and Guido, made up a style 
 of which the only fault was, that it had no manifest de- 
 fects and no striking beauties ; and that the principles 
 of his composition are never blended together so as to 
 form one uniform body, original in its kind, or excellent 
 in any view. 
 
 I will mention two other painters, who, though en- 
 tirely dissimilar, yet being each consistent with him- 
 self, and possessing a manner entirely his own, have 
 both gained reputation, though for very opposite ac- 
 complishments. The painters I mean are Rubens and 
 Poussin. Rubens I mention in this place, as I think 
 him a remarkable instance of the same mind being seen 
 in all the various parts of the art. The whole is so 
 much of a piece, that one can scarce be brought to be- 
 lieve but that if any one of the qualities he possessed 
 had been more correct and perfect, his works would not 
 have been so complete as they now appear. If we 
 should allow him a greater purity and correctness of 
 drawing, his want of simplicity in composition, colour- 
 ing, and drapery, would appear more gross. 
 
 In his composition his art is too apparent. His 
 figures have expression, and act with energy, but with- 
 out simplicity or dignity. His colouring, in which he 
 is eminently skilled, is, notwithstanding, too much of 
 what we call tinted. Throughout the whole of his 
 works there is a proportionable want of that nicety of 
 distinction and elegance of mind which is required in 
 the higher walks of painting ; and to this want it may 
 be in some degree ascribed that those qualities which 
 make the excellency of this subordinate style, appear 
 in him with their greatest lustre. Indeed, the facility 
 with which he invented, the richness of his composition, 
 the luxuriant harmony and brilliancy of his colouring, 
 so dazzle the eye, that whilst his works continue before 
 us, we cannot help thinking that all his deficiencies are 
 fully supplied. 
 
 Opposed to this florid, careless, loose, and inaccurate 
 style, that of the simple, careful, pure, and correct style 
 of Poussin, seems to be a complete contrast. Yet how- 
 ever opposite their characters, in one thing they agreed; 
 both of them always preserving a perfect correspon- 
 dence between all the parts of their respective manners, 
 insomuch that it may be doubted whether any alteration 
 of what is considered as defective in either, would not 
 destroy the effect of the whole. 
 
 Poussin lived and conversed with the ancient statues 
 so long, that he may be said to have been better ac- 
 quainted with them than with the people who were 
 about him. I have often thought that he carried his 
 veneration for them so far as to wish to give his works 
 the air of ancient paintings. It is certain he copied 
 some of the antique paintings, particularly The Mar- 
 riage in the Aldobrandini Palace at Rome, which I 
 believe to be the best relique of those remote ages that 
 has yet been found. 
 
 No works of any modern have so much of the air of 
 antique painting as those of Poussin. His best per- 
 formances have a remarkable dryness of manner, which, 
 though by no means to be recommended for imitation, 
 yet seems perfectly correspondent to that ancient sim- 
 plicity which distinguishes his style. Like Polidoro, 
 he studied the ancients so much that he acquired a 
 habit of thinking in their way, and seemed to know 
 perfectly the actions and gestures they would use on 
 every occasion. 
 
 Poussin in the latter part of his life changed from 
 his dry manner to one much softer and richer, where 
 there is a greater union between the figures and ground, 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 as in The Seven Sacraments in the Duke of Orleans's 
 collection ; but neither these, nor any of his other pic- 
 tures in this manner, are at all comparable to many in 
 his dry manner which we have in England. 
 
 The favourite subjects of Poussin were ancient fables ; 
 and no painter was ever better qualified to paint such 
 subjects, not only from his being eminently skilled in 
 the knowledge of the ceremonies, customs, and habits 
 of the ancients, but from his being so well acquainted 
 with the different characters which those who invented 
 them gave to their allegorical figures. Though Rubens 
 has shown great fancy in his Satyrs, Sylenuses, and 
 Fauns, yet they are not that distinct separate class of 
 beings, which is carefully exhibited by the ancients 
 and by Poussin. Certainly, when such objects of anti- 
 quity are represented, nothing in the picture ought to 
 remind us of* modern times. The mind is thrown back 
 into antiquity, and nothing ought to be introduced that 
 may tend to awaken it from the illusion. 
 
 Poussin seemed to think that the style and the lan- 
 guage in which such stories are told, is not the worse 
 for preserving some relish of the old way of painting, 
 which seemed to give a general uniformity to the whole, 
 so that the mind was thrown back into antiquity not 
 only by the subject but the execution. 
 
 If Poussin, in imitation of the ancients, represents 
 Apollo driving his chariot out of the sea by way of 
 representing the sun rising, if he personifies lakes and 
 rivers, it is nowise offensive in him, but seems perfectly 
 of a piece with the general air of the picture. On the 
 contrary, if the figures which people his pictures had 
 a modern air or countenance, if they appeared like our 
 countrymen, if the draperies were like cloth or silk of 
 our manufacture, if the landscape had the appearance 
 of a modern view, how ridiculous would Apollo appear 
 instead of the sun ; an old man, or a nymph with an 
 urn, to represent a river or a lake ! 
 
 I cannot avoid mentioning here a circumstance in 
 portrait-painting, which may help to confirm what has 
 been said. When a portrait is painted in the historical 
 style, as it is neither an exact minute representation of 
 an individual, nor completely ideal, every circumstance 
 ought to correspond to this mixture. The simplicity 
 of the antique air and attitude, however much to be 
 admired, is ridiculous when joined to a figure in a 
 modern dress. It is not to my purpose to enter into 
 the question at present whether this mixed style ought 
 to be adopted or not ; yet if it is chosen, it is necessary 
 it should be complete and all of a piece : the difference 
 of stuffs, for instance, which make the clothing, should 
 be distinguished in the same degree as the head deviates 
 from a genex-al idea. Without this union, which I have 
 so often recommended, a work can have no marked and 
 determined character, which is the peculiar and con- 
 stant evidence of genius. But when this is accomplished 
 to a high degree, it becomes in some sort a rival to that 
 style which we have fixed as the highest. 
 
 Thus I have given a sketch of the characters of 
 Rubens and Salvator Rosa, as they appear to me to 
 have the greatest uniformity of mind throughout their 
 whole work. But we may add to these all those artists 
 who are at the head of a class, and have had a school 
 of imitators, from Michael Angelo down to Watteau. 
 Upon the whole, it appears that, setting aside the orna- 
 mental style, there are two different modes, either of 
 which a student may adopt, without degrading the dig- 
 nity of his art. The object of the first is, to combine 
 the higher excellences and embellish them to the 
 greatest advantage — of the other, to carry one of these 
 excellences to the highest degree. But those who 
 possess neither, must be classed with the men who, 
 as Shakspeare says, are u of no mark or likelihood." 
 
 I inculcate as frequently as I can, your forming 
 yourselves upon great principles and great models. 
 Your time will be much misspent in every other pur- 
 suit. Small excellences should be viewed, not studied : 
 they ought to be viewed, because nothing ought to 
 escape a painter's observation, but for no other reason. 
 
 There is another caution which I wish to give you. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 2! 
 
 Be as select in those whom you endeavour to please, 
 as in those whom you endeavour to imitate. Without 
 the love of fame you can never do any thing excellent ; 
 but by an excessive and undistinguishing thirst after 
 it, you will come to have vulgar views — you will degrade 
 your style, and your taste will be entirely corrupted. 
 It is certain that the lowest style will be the most 
 popular, as it falls within the compass o^ ignorance 
 itself; and the vulgar will always be pleased with what 
 is natural, in the confined and misunderstood sense of 
 the word. 
 
 One would wish that such depravation of taste should 
 be counteracted with that manly pride which actuated 
 Euripides when he said to the Athenians who criticised 
 his works, " I do not compose my works in order to be 
 corrected by you, but to instruct you." It is true, to 
 have a right to speak thus, a man must be an Euripides. 
 However, this much may be allowed, that when an 
 artist is sure that he is upon firm ground, supported by 
 the authority and practice of his predecessors of the 
 greatest reputation, he may then assume the boldness 
 and intrepidity of genius ; at any rate, he must not be 
 tempted out of the right path by any allurement of 
 popularity, which always accompanies the lower styles 
 of painting. 
 
 I mention this, because our exhibitions, while they 
 produce such admirable effects by nourishing emulation, 
 and calling out genius, have also a mischievous tendency, 
 by seducing the painter to an ambition of pleasing 
 indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who 
 resort to them. 
 
 DISCOURSE VI. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, OX 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1774. 
 
 Imitation. Genius begins where rules end. Invention, acquired 
 by being conversant with the inventions of others. The true 
 method of imitating. Borrowing, how far allowable. Some- 
 thing to be gathered from every school. 
 
 Gentlemen — When I have taken the liberty of address- 
 ing you on the course and order of your studies, I 
 never proposed to enter into a minute detail of the art. 
 This I have always left to the several professors, who 
 pursue the end of our institution with the highest honour 
 to themselves, and with the greatest advantage to the 
 students. 
 
 My purpose in the discourses I have held in the Aca- 
 demy, has been to lay down certain general positions, 
 which seem to me proper for the formation of a sound 
 taste — principles necessary to guard the pupils against 
 those errors into which the sanguine temper, common 
 to their time of life, has a tendency to lead them, and 
 which have rendered abortive the hopes of so many 
 successions of promising young men in all parts of 
 Europe. I wished also to intercept and suppress 
 those prejudices which particularly prevail, when the 
 mechanism of painting is come to its perfection ; and 
 which, when they do prevail, are certain utterly to de- 
 stroy the higher and more valuable parts of this literate 
 and liberal profession. 
 
 These two have been my principal purposes- — they 
 are still as much my concern as ever ; and if I repeat 
 my own notions on the subject, you who know how fast 
 mistake and prejudice, when neglected, gain ground 
 upon truth and reason, will easily excuse me. I only 
 attempt to set the same thing in the greatest variety 
 of lights. 
 
 The subject of this discourse will be Imitation, as far 
 as a painter is concerned in it. By imitation, I do not 
 mean imitation in its largest sense, but simply the fol- 
 lowing of other masters, and the advantage to be drawn 
 from the study of their works. 
 
 Those who have undertaken to write on our art, and 
 have represented it as a kind of inspiration, as a gift 
 bestowed upon peculiar favourites at their birth, seem 
 to ensure a much more favourable disposition from their 
 
 readers, and have a much more captivating and liberal 
 air, than he who attempts to examine coldly whether 
 there are any means by which this art may be acquired 
 — how the mind may be strengthened and expanded — 
 and what guides will show the way to eminence. 
 
 It is very natural for those who are unacquainted 
 with the cause of any thing extraordinary, to be asto- 
 nished at the effect, and to consider it as a kind of magic. 
 They who have never observed the gradation by which 
 art is acquired, who see only what is the full result of 
 long labour and application of an infinite number and 
 infinite variety of acts, are apt to conclude, from their 
 entire inability to do the same at once, that it is not 
 only inaccessible to themselves, but can be done by 
 those only who have some gift of the nature of inspira- 
 tion bestowed upon them. 
 
 The travellers into the east tell us, that when the 
 ignorant inhabitants of those countries are asked con- 
 cerning the ruins of stately edifices yet remaining 
 amongst them, the melancholy monuments of their 
 former grandeur and long-lost science, they always 
 answer, that they were built by magicians. The un- 
 taught mind finds a vast gulf between its own powers, 
 and those works of complicated art, which it is utterly 
 unable to fathom, and it supposes that such a void can 
 be passed only by supernatural powers. 
 
 And, as for artists themselves, it is by no means their 
 interest to undeceive such judges, however conscious 
 they may be of the very natural means by which their 
 extraordinary powers were acquired : though our art, 
 being intrinsically imitative, rejects this idea of inspi- 
 ration more perhaps than any other. 
 
 It is to avoid this plain confession of truth, as it 
 should seem, that this imitation of masters, indeed, 
 almost all imitation, which implies a more regular and 
 progressive method of attaining the ends of painting, 
 has ever been particularly inveighed against with great 
 keenness, both by ancient and modern writers. 
 
 To derive all from native power, to owe nothing to 
 another, is the praise which men, who do not much 
 think on what they are saying, bestow sometimes upon 
 others, and sometimes on themselves ; and their ima- 
 ginary dignity is naturally heightened by a supercilious 
 censure of the low, the barren, the grovelling, the servile, 
 imitator. It would be no wonder if a student, fright- 
 ened by these terrific and disgraceful epithets, with 
 which the poor imitators are so often loaded, should let 
 fall his pencil in mere despair (conscious as he must be 
 how much he has been indebted to the labours of others, 
 how little, how very little, of his art was born with him), 
 and consider it as hopeless to set about acquiring by the 
 imitation of any human master, what he is taught to 
 suppose is matter of inspiration from Heaven. 
 
 Some allowance must be made for what is said in the 
 gaiety of rhetoric. We cannot suppose that any one 
 can really mean to exclude all imitation of others. A 
 position so wild would scarce deserve a serious answer ; 
 for it is apparent, if we were forbid to make use of the 
 advantages which our predecessors afford us, the art 
 would be always to begin, and consequently remain 
 always in its infant state ; and it is a common obser- 
 vation, that no art was ever invented and carried to per- 
 fection at the same time. 
 
 But to bring us entirely to reason and sobriety, let it 
 be observed that a painter must not only be of neces- 
 sity an imitator of the works of nature, which alone is 
 sufficient to dispel this phantom of inspiration, 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. 
 
 However, those who appear more moderate and rea- 
 sonable, allow that our study is to begin by imitation, 
 but maintain that we should no longer use the thoughts 
 of our predecessors when we are become able to think 
 for ourselves. They hold that imitation is as hurtful 
 to the more advanced student, as it was advantageous 
 to the beginner. 
 
 For my own part, I confess, I am not only very mueh 
 
22 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 disposed to maintain the absolute necessity of imitation 
 in the first stages of the art, but am of opinion that the 
 study of other masters, which I here call imitation, may 
 be extended throughout our whole lives, without any 
 danger of the inconveniences with which it is charged, 
 of enfeebling the mind, or preventing us from giving 
 that original, air which every work undoubtedly ought 
 always to have. 
 
 I am, on the contrary, persuaded that by imitation 
 only, variety, and even originality of invention, is pro- 
 duced. I will go farther ; even genius, at least what 
 generally is so called, is the child of imitation. But as 
 this appears to be contrary to the general opinion, I 
 must explain my position before I enforce it. 
 
 Genius is supposed to be a power of producing excel- 
 lences which are out of the reach of the rules of art 
 — a power which no precepts can teach, and which no 
 industry can acquire. 
 
 This opinion of the impossibility of acquiring those 
 beauties which stamp the work with the character of 
 genius, supposes that it is something more fixed than 
 in reality it is ; and that we always do, and ever did, 
 agree in opinion with respect to what should be con- 
 sidered as the characteristic of genius. But the truth 
 is, that the degree of excellence which proclaims genius, 
 is different in different times and different places ; and 
 what shows it to be so is, that mankind have often 
 changed their opinion upon this matter. 
 
 When the arts were in their infancy, the power of 
 merely drawing the likeness of any object was con- 
 sidered as one of its greatest efforts. The common 
 people, ignorant of the principles of art, talk the same 
 language even to this day. But when it was found that 
 every man could be taught to do this, and a great deal 
 more, merely by the observance of certain precepts, 
 the name of genius then shifted its application, and was 
 given only to him who added the peculiar character of 
 the object he represented — to him who had invention, 
 expression, grace, or dignity ; in short, those qualities 
 or excellences, the power of producing which could not 
 then be taught by any known or promulgated rules. 
 
 We are very sure that the beauty of form, the ex- 
 pression of the passions, the art of composition, even 
 the power of giving a general air of grandeur to a work, 
 is at present very much under the dominion of rules. 
 These excellences were, heretofore, considered merely 
 as the effects of genius, and justly, if genius is not taken 
 for inspiration, but as the effect of close observation 
 and experience. 
 
 He who first made any of these observations, and 
 digested them, so as to form an invariable principle for 
 himself to work by, had that merit, but probably no 
 one went very far at once ; and generally, the first who 
 gave the hint, did not know how to pursue it steadily 
 and methodically, at least not in the beginning. He 
 himself worked on it and improved it, others worked 
 more and improved farther, until the secret was dis- 
 covered, and the practice made as general as refined 
 practice can be made. How many more principles may 
 be fixed and ascertained, we cannot tell ; but as criti- 
 cism is likely to go hand in hand with the art which is 
 its subject, we may venture to say, that as that art shall 
 advance, its powers will be still more and more fixed 
 by rules. 
 
 But by whatever strides criticism may gain ground, 
 we need be under no apprehension that invention will 
 ever be annihilated or subdued, or intellectual energy 
 be brought entirely within the restraint of written law. 
 Genius will still have room enough to expatiate, and 
 keep always at the same distance from narrow compre- 
 hension and mechanical performance. 
 
 What we now call genius, begins not where rules, 
 abstractedly taken, end, but where known vulgar and 
 trite rules have no longer any place. It must of neces- 
 sity be that even works of genius, like every other 
 effect, as they must have their cause, must likewise 
 have their rules : it cannot be by chance that excellences 
 are produced with any constancy or any certainty, 
 for this is not the nature of chance ; but the rules by 
 
 which men of extraordinary parts, and such as are called 
 men of genius, work, are either such as they discover by 
 their own peculiar observations, or of such a nice tex- 
 ture as not easily to admit being expressed in words, 
 especially as artists are not very frequently skilful in 
 that mode of communicating ideas. Unsubstantial, how- 
 ever, as these rules may seem, and difficult as it may 
 be to convey them in writing, they are still seen and felt 
 in the mind of the artist, and he works from them with 
 as much certainty as if they were embodied, as I may 
 say, upon paper. It is true, these refined principles 
 cannot be always made palpable like the more gross 
 rules of art, yet it does not follow but that the mind 
 may be put in such a train that it shall perceive, by a 
 kind of scientific sense, that propriety which words, 
 particularly words of unpractised writers, such as we 
 are, can but very feebly suggest. 
 
 Invention is one of the great marks of genius ; but if 
 we consult experience, we shall find that it is by being 
 conversant with the inventions of others that we learn 
 to invent, as by reading the thoughts of others we learn 
 to think. 
 
 Whoever has so far formed his taste as to be able to 
 relish and feel the beauties of the great masters, has gone 
 a great way in his study, for, merely from a conscious- 
 ness of this relish of the right, the mind swells with an 
 inward pride, and is almost as powerfully affected as if 
 it had itself produced what it admires. Our hearts, 
 frequently warmed in this manner by the contact of 
 those whom we wish to resemble, will undoubtedly 
 catch something of their way of thinking, and we shall 
 receive in our own bosoms some radiation at least of 
 their fire and splendour. That disposition which is so 
 strong in children still continues with us, of catching 
 involuntarily the general air and manner of those with 
 whom we are most conversant, with this difference only, 
 that a young mind is naturally pliable and imitative, 
 but in a more advanced state it grows rigid, and must 
 be warmed and softened before it will receive a deep 
 impression, 
 
 From these considerations, which a little of your own 
 reflection will carry a great way farther, it appears of 
 what great consequence it is that our minds should be 
 habituated to the contemplation of excellence, and that 
 far from being contented to make such habits the disci- 
 pline of our youth only, we should, to the last moment 
 of our lives, continue a settled intercourse with all the 
 true examples of grandeur. Their inventions are not 
 only the food of our infancy, but the substance which 
 supplies the fullest maturity of our vigour. 
 
 The mind is but a barren soil — a soil which is soon 
 exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, un- 
 less it be continually fertilised and enriched with foreign 
 matter. 
 
 When we have had continually before us the great 
 works of art to impregnate our minds with kindred 
 ideas, we are then, and not till then, fit to produce 
 something of the same species. We behold all about 
 us with the eyes of those penetrating observers whose 
 works we contemplate, and our minds, accustomed to 
 think the thoughts of the noblest and brightest intel- 
 lects, are prepared for the discovery and selection of all 
 that is great and noble in nature. The greatest natural 
 genius cannot subsist on its own stock. He who resolves 
 never to ransack any mind but his own, will be soon 
 reduced from mere barrenness to the poorest of all 
 imitation ; he will be obliged to imitate himself, and to 
 repeat what he has before often repeated. When we 
 know the subject designed by such men, it will never 
 be difficult to guess what kind of work is to be produced. 
 
 It is vain for painters or poets to endeavour to invent 
 without materials on which the mind may work, and 
 from which invention must originate. Nothing can como 
 of nothing. 
 
 Homer is supposed to be possessed of all the learning 
 of his time, and we are certain that Michael Angelo and 
 Raffaelle were equally possessed of all the knowledge in 
 the art which had been discovered in the works of their 
 
 predece&sors. 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 A mind enriched by an assemblage of all the trea- 
 sures of ancient and modern art, will be more elevated 
 and fruitful in resources in proportion to the number of 
 ideas which have been carefully collected and thoroughly 
 digested. There can be no doubt but that he who has 
 the most materials has the greatest means of invention; 
 and if he has not the power of using them, it must pro- 
 ceed from a feebleness of intellect, or from the confused 
 manner in which those collections have been laid up in 
 his mind. 
 
 The addition of other men's judgment is so far from 
 weakening our own, as is the opinion of many, that it 
 will fashion and consolidate those ideas of excellence 
 which lay in embryo, feeble, ill-shaped, and confused, 
 but which are finished and put in order by the autho- 
 rity and practice of those whose works may be said to 
 have been consecrated by having stood the test of ages. 
 
 The mind, or genius, has been compared to a spark 
 of fire which is smothered by a heap of fuel and pre- 
 vented from blazing into a flame. This simile, which 
 is made use of by the younger Pliny, may be easily 
 mistaken for argument or proof. But there is no danger 
 of the mind being overburdened with knowledge, or 
 the genius extinguished by any addition of images ; on 
 the contrary, these acquisitions may as well, perhaps 
 better, be compared, if comparisons signified any thing 
 in reasoning, to the supply of living embers, which will 
 contribute to strengthen the spark, that without the 
 association of more fuel would have died away. The 
 truth is, he whose feebleness is such as to make other 
 men's thoughts an encumbrance to him, can have no 
 very great strength of mind or genius of his own to be 
 destroyed, so that not much harm will be done at worst. 
 
 We may oppose to Pliny the greater authority of 
 Cicero, who is continually enforcing the necessity of this 
 method of study. In his dialogue on oratory, he makes 
 Crassus say, that one of the first and most important 
 precepts is to choose a proper model for our imitation. 
 Hoc sit primum in prceceplis meis, ut demonstremus quern 
 imilemur. 
 
 When I speak of the habitual imitation and continued 
 study of masters, it is not to be understood that I advise 
 any endeavour to copy the exact peculiar colour and 
 complexion of another man's mind ; the success of such 
 an attempt must always be like his who imitates exactly 
 the air, manner, and gestures of him whom he admires. 
 His model may be excellent, but the copy will be ridi- 
 culous. This ridicule does not arise from his having 
 imitated, but from his not having chosen the right mode 
 of imitation. 
 
 It is a necessary and warrantable pride to disdain to 
 walk servilely behind any individual, however elevated 
 his rank. The true and liberal ground of imitation is 
 an open field, where, though he who precedes has had 
 the advantage of starting before you, you may always 
 propose to overtake him. It is enough, however, to 
 pursue his course ; you need not tread in his footsteps ; 
 and you certainly have a right to outstrip him if you 
 can. 
 
 Nor, whilst I recommend studying the art from 
 artists, can I be supposed to mean that nature is to be 
 neglected. I take this study in aid and not in exclusion 
 of the other. Nature is and must be the fountain which 
 alone is inexhaustible, and from which all excellences 
 must originally flow. 
 
 The great use of studying our predecessors is, to 
 open the mind, to shorten our labour, and to give us 
 the result of the selection made by those great minds 
 of what is grand or beautiful in nature. Her rich 
 stores are all spread out before us ; but it is an art, 
 and no easy art, to know how or what to choose, and 
 how to attain and secure the object of our choice. 
 Thus the highest beauty of form must be taken from 
 nature ; but it is an art of long deduction and great 
 experience to know how to find it. We must not con- 
 tent ourselves with merely admiring and relishing ; 
 we must enter into the principles on which the work 
 is wrought ; these do not swim on the superficies, and 
 consequently are not open to superficial observers. 
 
 DISCOURSES. 23 
 
 Art in its perfection is not ostentatious ; it lies hid, 
 and works its effect itself unseen. It is the proper 
 study and labour of an artist to uncover and find out 
 the latent cause of conspicuous beauties, and from 
 thence form principles of his own conduct : such an 
 examination is a continual exertion of the mind, as 
 great perhaps as that of the artist whose works he is 
 thus studying. 
 
 The sagacious imitator does not content himself with 
 merely remarking what distinguishes the different 
 manner or genius of each master : he enters into the 
 contrivance in the composition how the masses of lights 
 are disposed — the means by which the effect is pro- 
 duced — how artfully some parts are lost in the ground 
 — others boldly relieved — and how all these are mutu- 
 ally altered and interchanged according to the reason 
 and scheme of the work. He admires not the harmony 
 of colouring alone, but examines by what artifice one 
 colour is a foil to its neighbour. He looks close into 
 the tints, examines of what colours they are composed, 
 till he has formed clear and distinct ideas, and has 
 learned to see in what harmony and good colouring 
 consists. What is learned in this manner from the 
 works of others becomes really our own, sinks deep, 
 and is never forgotten ; nay, it is by seizing on this 
 clue that we proceed forward, and get farther and 
 farther in enlarging the principles and improving the 
 practice of our art. 
 
 There can be no doubt but the art is better learnt 
 from the works themselves than from the precepts 
 which are formed upon those works ; but if it is diffi- 
 cult to choose proper models for imitation, it requires 
 no less circumspection to separate and distinguish what 
 in those models we ought to imitate. 
 
 I cannot avoid mentioning here, though it is not my 
 intention at present to enter into the art and method of 
 study, an error which students are too apt to fall into. 
 He that is forming himself must look with great caution 
 and wariness on those peculiarities or prominent parts 
 which at first force themselves upon view, and are the 
 marks, or what is commonly called the manner, by 
 which that individual artist is distinguished. 
 
 Peculiar marks I hold to be generally if not always 
 defects, however difficult it may be wholly to escape 
 them. 
 
 Peculiarities in the works of art are like those in the 
 human figure ; it is by them that we are cognisable, and 
 distinguished one from another ; but they are always 
 so many blemishes, which, however, both in real life 
 and in painting, cease to appear deformities to those 
 who have them continually before their eyes. In the 
 works of art, even the most enlightened mind, when 
 warmed by beauties of the highest kind, will by degrees 
 find a repugnance within him to acknowledge any 
 defects ; nay, his enthusiasm will carry him so far as 
 to transform them into beauties and objects of imita- 
 tion. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that a peculiarity of style, 
 either from its novelty, or by seeming to proceed from 
 a peculiar turn of mind, often escapes blame ; on the 
 contrary, it is sometimes striking and pleasing ; but this 
 it is a vain labour to endeavour to imitate, because 
 novelty and peculiarity being its only merit, when it 
 ceases to be new it ceases to have value. 
 
 A manner, therefore, being a defect, and every 
 painter, however excellent, having a manner, it seems 
 to follow that all kinds of faults as well as beauties 
 may be learned under the sanction of the greatest 
 authoi'ities. Even the great name of Michael Angelo 
 may be used, to keep in countenance a deficiency or 
 rather neglect of colouring, and every other ornamental 
 part of the art. If the young student is dry and hard, 
 Poussin is the same. If his work has a careless and 
 unfinished air, he has most of the Venetian school to 
 support him. If he makes no selection of objects, but 
 takes individual nature just as he finds it, he is like 
 Rembrandt. If he is incorrect in the proportions 
 of his figures, Correggio was likewise incorrect. If 
 his colours are not blended and united, Rubens w;i£ 
 
24 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 equally crude. In short, there is no defect that may 
 not be excused, if it is a sufficient excuse that can be 
 imputed to considerable artists. But it must be re- 
 membered that it was not by these defects they acquired 
 their reputation ; they have a right to our pardon, but 
 not to our admiration. 
 
 However, to imitate peculiarities, or mistake defects 
 for beauties, that man will be most liable who confines 
 his imitation to one favourite master ; and even though 
 he chooses the best, and is capable of distinguishing the 
 real excellences of his model, it is not by such narrow 
 practice that a genius or mastery in the art is acquired. 
 A man is as little likely to form a true idea of the per- 
 fection of the art by studying a single artist, as he 
 would be to produce a perfectly beautiful figure by an 
 exact imitation of any individual living model. And 
 as the painter, by bringing together in one piece those 
 beauties which are dispersed among a great variety of 
 individuals, produces a figure more beautiful than can 
 be found in nature, so that artist, who can unite in 
 himself the excellences of the various great painters, 
 will approach nearer to perfection than any one of his 
 masters. He who confines himself to the imitation of an 
 individual, as he never proposes to surpass, so he is not 
 likely to equal, the object of his imitation. He professes 
 only to follow ; and he that follows must necessarily be 
 behind. 
 
 We should imitate the conduct of the great artists in 
 the course of their studies, as well as the works which 
 they produced, when they were perfectly formed. 
 Raffaelle began by imitating implicitly the manner of 
 Pietro Perugino, under whom he studied : hence his 
 first works are scarce to be distinguished from his 
 master's ; but soon forming higher and more extensive 
 views, he imitated the grand outline of Michael Angelo 
 — he learned the manner of using colours from the 
 works of Lionardo da Vinci and Fratre Bartolomeo : 
 to all this he added the contemplation of all the remains 
 of antiquity that were within his reach, and employed 
 others to draw for him what was in Greece and distant 
 places. And it is from his having taken so many models, 
 that he became himself a model for all succeeding 
 painters — always imitating, and always original. 
 
 If your ambition, therefore, be to equal Raffaelle, 
 you must do as Raffaelle did — take many models, and 
 not even him for your guide alone, to the exclusion of 
 others.* And yet the number is infinite of those who 
 seem, if one may j udge by their style, to have seen no 
 other works but those of their master, or of some favou- 
 rite, whose manner is their first wish and their last. 
 
 I will mention a few that occur to me of this narrow, 
 confined, illiberal, unscientific, and servile kind of imi- 
 tators. Guido was thus meanly copied by Elizabetta, 
 Sirani, and Simone Cantarini ; Poussin by Verdier and 
 Cheron ; Parmeggiano by Jeronimo Mazzuoli. Paolo 
 Veronese, and Iacomo Bassan, had for their imitators 
 their brothers and sons. Pietro da Cortona was fol- 
 lowed by Ciro Ferri and Romanelli ; Rubens by Jacques 
 Jordaensand Diepenbeke ; Guercino by his own family, 
 the Gennari. Carlo Maratti was imitated by Giuseppe 
 Chiari and Pietro de Pietri ; and Rembrandt by Bra- 
 mer, Eeckhout, and Flink. All these, to whom may 
 be added a much longer list of painters, whose works 
 among the ignorant pass for those of their masters, are 
 justly to be censured for barrenness and servility. 
 
 To oppose to this list a few that have adopted a more 
 liberal style of imitation: — Pellegrino Tibaldi Rosso, 
 and Primaticcio, did not coldly imitate, but caught 
 something of the fire that animates the works of Michael 
 Angelo. The Caraccis formed their style from Pelle- 
 grino Tibaldi, Correggio, and the Venetian school. 
 Domenichino, Guido, Lanfranco, Albano, Guercino, 
 Cavidone, Schidone, Tiarini, though it is sufficiently 
 apparent that they came from the school of the Caraccis, 
 have yet the appearance of men who extended their 
 views beyond the model that lay before them, and have 
 
 * Sed non qui maxime imitandus, etiam solus imitandus est 
 — Quintilian. 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 shown that they had opinions of their own, and thought 
 for themselves, after they had made themselves masters 
 of the general principles of their schools. 
 
 Le Sueur's first manner resembles very much that of 
 his master Voiiet ; but as he soon excelled him, so he 
 differed from him in every part of the art. Carlo 
 Maratti succeeded better than those I have first named, 
 and I think owes his superiority to the extension of his 
 views ; besides his master Andrea Sacchi, he imitated 
 Raffaelle, Guido, and the Caraccis. It is true, there is 
 nothing very captivating in Carlo Maratti; but this 
 proceeded from a want which cannot be completely 
 supplied — that is, want of strength of parts. In this, 
 certainly, men are not equal ; and a man can bring 
 home wares only in proportion to the capital with which 
 he goes to market. Carlo, by diligence, made the most 
 of what he had ; but there was undoubtedly a heavi- 
 ness about him, which extended itself, uniformly, to his 
 invention, expression, his drawing, colouring, and the 
 general effect of his pictures. The truth is, he never 
 equalled any of his patterns in any one thing, and he 
 added little of his own. 
 
 But we must not rest contented even in this general 
 study of the moderns ; we must trace back the art to 
 its fountain head, to that source from whence they 
 drew their principal excellences — the monuments of 
 pure antiquity. All the inventions and thoughts of the 
 ancients, whether conveyed to us in statues, bas-reliefs, 
 intaglios, cameos, or coins, are to be sought after and 
 carefully studied; the genius that hovers over these 
 venerable relics may be called the father of modern art. 
 
 From the remains of the works of the ancients, the 
 modern arts were revived, and it is by their means that 
 they must be restored a second time. However it may 
 mortify our vanity, we must be forced to allow them 
 our masters; and we may venture to prophesy, that 
 when they shall cease to be studied, arts will no longer 
 flourish, and we shall again relapse into barbarism. 
 
 The fire of the artist's own genius, operating upon 
 those materials which have been thus diligently col- 
 lected, will enable him to make new combinations, 
 perhaps superior to what had ever before been in the 
 possession of the art, as in the mixture of the variety 
 of metals, which are said to have been melted and run 
 together at the burning of Corinth, a new, and till then 
 unknown, metal was produced, equal in value to any of 
 those that had contributed to its composition. And 
 though a curious refiner should come with his crucibles, 
 analyse and separate its various component parts, yet 
 Corinthian brass would still hold its rank amongst the 
 most beautiful and valuable of metals. 
 
 We have hitherto considered the advantages of imi- 
 tation as it tends to form the taste, and as a practice by 
 which a spark of that genius may be caught, which 
 illumines those noble works that ought always to be 
 present to our thoughts. 
 
 We come now to speak of another kind of imitation 
 — the borrowing a particular thought, an action, atti- 
 tude, or figure, and transplanting it into your own 
 work ; this will either come under the charge of plagi- 
 arism, or be warrantable, and deserve commendation, 
 according to the address with which it is performed. 
 There is some difference, likewise, whether it is upon 
 the ancients or moderns that these depredations are 
 made. It is generally allowed, that no man need be 
 ashamed of copying the ancients ; their works are con- 
 sidered as a magazine of common property, always open 
 to the public, whence every man has a right to take 
 what materials he pleases ; and if he has the art of 
 using them, they are supposed to become to all intents 
 and purposes his own property. The collection of the 
 thoughts of the ancients which Raffaelle made with so 
 much trouble, is a proof of his opinion on this subject. 
 Such collections may be made with much more ease, by 
 means of an art scarce known in his time — I mean that 
 of engraving, by which, at an easy rate, every man may 
 now avail himself of the inventions of antiquity. 
 
 It must be acknowledged that the works of the 
 moderns are more the property of their authors. He 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 who borrows an idea from an ancient, or even from a 
 modern artist, not his contemporary, and so accommo- 
 dates it to his own work, that it makes a part of it, with 
 no seam or join appearing, can hardly be charged with 
 plagiarism : poets practise this kind of borrowing with- 
 out reserve. But an artist should not be contented 
 with this only ; he should enter into a competition with 
 his original, and endeavour to improve what he is ap- 
 propriating to his own work. Such imitation is so far 
 from having any thing in it of the servility of plagi- 
 arism, that it is a perpetual exercise of the mind, a 
 continual invention. Borrowing or stealing with such 
 art and caution, will have a right to the same lenity as 
 was used by the Lacedemonians, who did not punish 
 theft, but the want of artifice to conceal it. 
 
 In order to encourage you to imitation to the utmost 
 extent, let me add, that very finished artists in the 
 inferior branches of the art, will contribute to furnish 
 the mind, and give hints, of which a skilful painter, who 
 is sensible of what he wants, and is in no danger of 
 being infected by the contact of vicious models, will 
 know how to avail himself. He will pick up from dung- 
 hills, what by a nice chemistry, passing through his 
 own mind, shall be converted into pure gold ; and under 
 the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, 
 rational, and even sublime inventions. 
 
 The works of Albert Durer, Lucas Van Leyden, the 
 numerous inventions of Tobias Stimmer and Jost Am- 
 mon, afford a rich mass of genuine materials, which, 
 wrought up and polished to elegance, will add copious- 
 ness to what, perhaps, without such aid, could have 
 aspired only to justness and propriety. 
 
 In the luxuriant style of Paul Veronese, in the capri- 
 cious compositions of Tintoret, he will find something 
 that will assist his invention, and give points, from 
 which his own imagination shall rise and take flight, 
 when the subject which he treats will with propriety 
 admit of splendid effects. 
 
 In every school, whether Venetian, French, or Dutch, 
 he will find either ingenious compositions, extraordinary 
 effects, some peculiar expressions, or some mechanical 
 excellence, well worthy of his attention, and, in some 
 measure, of his imitation. Even in the lower class of 
 the French painters, great beauties are often found, 
 united with great defects. Though Coypel wanted a 
 simplicity of taste, and mistook a presumptuous and 
 assuming air for what is grand and majestic, yet he 
 frequently has good sense and judgment in his manner 
 of telling his stories, great skill in his compositions, and 
 is not without a considerable power of expressing the 
 passions. The modern affectation of grace in his works, 
 as well as in those of Bosch and Watteau, may be said 
 to be separated by a very thin partition from the more 
 simple and pure grace of Correggio and Parmeggiano. 
 
 Among the Dutch painters, the correct, firm, and de- 
 termined pencil, which was employed by Bamboccio 
 and Jean Miel on vulgar and mean subjects, might 
 without any change be employed on the highest, to 
 which indeed it seems more properly to belong. The 
 greatest style, if that style is confined to small figures, 
 such as Poussin generally painted, would receive an 
 additional grace by the elegance and precision of pencil 
 so admirable in the works of Teniers ; and though the 
 school to which he belonged more particularly excelled 
 in the mechanism of painting, yet it produced many who 
 have shown great abilities in expressing what must be 
 ranked above mechanical excellences. In the works of 
 Frank Hals, the portrait-painter may observe the com- 
 position of a face, the features well put together, as the 
 painters express it, from whence proceeds that strong- 
 marked character of individual nature which is so re- 
 markable in his portraits, and is not found in an equal 
 degree in any other painter. If he had joined to this 
 most difficult part of the art, a patience in finishing what 
 he had so correctly planned,he might justly have claimed 
 the place which Vandyck, all things considered, so justly 
 holds as the first of portrait-painters. 
 
 Others of the same school have shown great power in 
 expressing the character and passions of those vulgar 
 
 people which were the subjects of their study and atten- 
 tion. Among those, Jan Steen seems to be one of the 
 most diligent and accurate observers of what passed in 
 those scenes which he frequented, and which were to 
 him an academy. I can easily imagine, that if this ex- 
 traordinary man had had the good fortune to have been 
 born in Italy instead of Holland — had he lived in 
 Rome instead of Leyden, and been blessed with Michael 
 Angelo and Raffaelle for his masters instead of Brouwer 
 and Van Goyen — the same sagacity and penetration 
 which distinguish so accurately the different characters 
 and expression in his vulgar figures, would, when 
 exerted in the selection and imitation of what was great 
 and elevated in nature, have been equally successful, 
 and he now would have ranged with the great pillars 
 and supporters of our art. 
 
 Men who, although thus bound down by the almost 
 invincible powers of early habits, have still exerted 
 extraordinary abilities within their narrow and confined 
 circle, and have, from the natural vigour of their mind, 
 given a very interesting expression and great force and 
 energy to their works — though they cannot be recom- 
 mended to be exactly imitated, may yet invite an artist 
 to endeavour to transfer, by a kind of parody, their 
 excellences to his own performances. Whoever has 
 acquired the power of making this use of the Flemish, 
 Venetian, and French schools, is a real genius, and has 
 sources of knowledge open to him which were wanting to 
 the great artists who lived in the great age of painting. 
 
 To find excellences, however dispersed ; to discover 
 beauties, however concealed by the multitude of defects 
 with which they are surrounded — can be the work only 
 of him who, having a mind always alive to his art, has 
 extended his views to all ages and to all schools, and 
 has acquired from that comprehensive mass which he 
 has thus gathered to himself, a well-digested and perfect 
 idea of his art, to which every thing is referred. Like 
 a sovereign judge and arbiter of art, he is possessed of 
 that presiding power which separates and attracts every 
 excellence from every school ; selects both from what is 
 great and what is little ; brings home knowledge from 
 the east and from the west ; making the universe tri- 
 butary towards furnishing his mind and enriching his 
 works with originality and variety of inventions. 
 
 Thus I have ventured to give my opinion of what 
 appears to me the true and only method by which an 
 artist makes himself master of his profession, which I 
 hold ought to be one continued course of imitation that 
 is not to cease but with his life. 
 
 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 reaches, 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. 
 
 I can recommend nothing better, therefore, than 
 that you endeavour to infuse into your works what you 
 learn from the contemplation of the works of others.. 
 To recommend this has the appearance of needless and 
 superfluous advice ; but it has fallen within my own 
 knowledge that artists, though they were not wanting 
 in a sincere love for their art, though they had great 
 pleasure in seeing good pictures, and were well skilled 
 to distinguish what was excellent or defective in 
 them, yet have gone on in their own manner, without 
 any endeavour to give a little of those beauties which 
 they admired in others to their own works. It is diffi- 
 cult to conceive how the present Italian painters, who 
 live in the midst of the treasures of art, should be con- 
 tented with their own style. They proceed in their 
 commonplace inventions, and never think it worth while 
 to visit the works of those great artists with which they 
 are surrounded. 
 
 I remember, several years ago, to have conversed at 
 Rome with an artist of great fame throughout Europe ; 
 he was not without a considerable degree of abilities, 
 
26 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 but those abilities were by no means equal to his own 
 opinion of them. From the reputation he had acquired, 
 he too fondly concluded that he stood in the same rank 
 when compared with his predecessors, as he held with 
 regard to his miserable contemporary rivals. In con- 
 versation about some particulars of the works of Raf- 
 faelle, he seemed to have, or to affect to have, a very 
 obscure memory of them. He told me that he had not 
 set his foot in the Vatican for fifteen years together ; 
 that he had been in treaty to copy a capital picture of 
 Raffaelle, but that the business had gone off ; however, 
 if the agreement had held, his copy would have greatly 
 exceeded the original. The merit of this artist, how- 
 ever great we may suppose it, I am sure would have 
 been far greater, and his presumption would have been 
 far less, if he had visited the Vatican, as in reason he 
 ought to have done, at least once every month of his 
 life. 
 
 I address myself, gentlemen, to you who have made 
 some progress in the art, and are to be, for the future, 
 under the guidance of your own judgment and discre- 
 tion. I consider you as arrived at that period when 
 you have a right to think for yourselves, and to presume 
 that every man is fallible ; to study the masters with 
 a suspicion that great men are not always exempt from 
 great faults ; to criticise, compare, and rank their works 
 in your own estimation, as they approach to, or recede 
 from, that standard of perfection which you have formed 
 in your own minds, but which those masters themselves, 
 it must be remembered, have taught you to make, and 
 which you will cease to make with correctness when 
 you cease to study them. It is their excellences which 
 have taught you their defects. 
 
 I would wish you to forget where you are, and who 
 it is that speaks to you : I only direct you to higher 
 models and better advisers. We can teach you here 
 but very little ; you are henceforth to be your own 
 teachers. Do this justice, however, to the English 
 Academy ; to bear in mind, that in this place you con- 
 tracted no narrow habits, no false ideas, nothing that 
 could lead you to the imitation of any living master, 
 who may be the fashionable darling of the day. As you 
 have not been taught to flatter us, do not learn to flatter 
 yourselves. We have endeavoured to lead you to the 
 admiration of nothing but what is truly admirable. If 
 you choose inferior patterns, or if you make your own 
 former works your patterns for your latter, it is your 
 own fault. 
 
 The purport of this discourse, and, indeed, of most 
 of my other discourses, is to caution you against that 
 false opinion but too prevalent among artists, of the 
 imaginary powers of native genius, and its sufficiency 
 in great works. This opinion, according to the temper 
 of mind it meets with, almost always produces either 
 a vain confidence or a sluggish despair, both equally 
 fatal to all proficiency. 
 
 Study, therefore, the great works of the great mas- 
 ters for ever. Study, as nearly as you can, in the order, 
 in the manner, and on the principles, on which they 
 studied. Study nature attentively, but always with 
 those masters in your company; consider them as 
 models which you are to imitate, and at the same time 
 as rivals with whom you are to contend. 
 
 DISCOURSE VII. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1776. 
 
 The reality of a Standard of Taste, as well as of corporal Beauty. 
 Besides this immutable Truth, there are secondary Truths, 
 which are variable ; both requiring the attention of the Artist, 
 in proportion to their stability or their influence. 
 
 Gentlemen — It has been my uniform endeavour, since 
 1 first addressed you from this place, to impress you 
 strongly with one ruling idea. I wished you to be per- 
 suaded, that success in your art depends almost entirely 
 on your own industry ; but the industry which I prin- 
 
 cipally recommended is not the industry of the hands, 
 
 but of the mind. 
 
 As our art is not a divine gift, so neither is it a me- 
 chanical trade. Its foundations are laid in solid science ; 
 and practice, though essential to perfection, can never 
 attain that to which it aims, unless it works under the 
 direction of principle. 
 
 Some writers upon art carry this point too far, and 
 suppose that such a body of universal and profound 
 learning is requisite, that the very enumeration of its 
 kinds is enough to frighten a beginner. Vitruvius, 
 after going through the many accomplishments of 
 nature and the many acquirements of learning neces- 
 sary to an architect, proceeds with great gravity to 
 assert that he ought to be well skilled in the civil law, 
 that he may not be cheated in the title of the ground 
 he builds on. But without such exaggeration, we may 
 go so far as to assert, that a painter stands in need of 
 more knowledge than is to be picked off his palette, or 
 collected by looking on his model, whether it be in life 
 or in picture. He can never be a great artist who is 
 grossly illiterate. 
 
 Every man whose business is description, ought to 
 be tolerably conversant with the poets, in some language 
 or other, that he may imbibe a poetical spirit, and 
 enlarge his stock of ideas. He ought to acquire a habit 
 of comparing and digesting his notions. He ought not 
 to be wholly unacquainted with that part of philosophy 
 which gives an insight into human nature, and relates 
 to the manners, characters, passions, and affections. 
 He ought to know something concerning the mind, as 
 well as a great deal concerning the body, of man. For 
 this purpose, it is not necessary that he should go into 
 such a compass of reading as must, by distracting his 
 attention, disqualify him for the practical part of his 
 profession, and make him sink the performer in the 
 critic. Reading, if it can be made the favourite recrea- 
 tion of his leisure hours, will improve and enlarge his 
 mind without retarding his actual industry. What such 
 partial and desultory reading cannot afford, may be 
 supplied by the conversation of learned and ingenious 
 men, which is the best of all substitutes for those who 
 have not the means or opportunities of deep study. 
 There are many such men in this age ; and they will 
 be pleased with communicating their ideas to artists, 
 when they see them curious and docile, if they are 
 treated with that respect and deference which is so 
 justly their due. Into such society, young artists, if 
 they make it the point of their ambition, will by degrees 
 be admitted. There, without formal teaching, they will 
 insensibly come to feel and reason like those they live 
 with, and find a rational and systematic taste impercep- 
 tibly formed in their minds, which they will know how 
 to reduce to a standard, by applying general truth to 
 their own purposes, better, perhaps, than those to whom 
 they owned the original sentiment. 
 
 Of these studies and this conversation, the desire and 
 legitimate offspring is a power of distinguishing right 
 from wrong — which power, applied to works of art, 
 is denominated taste. Let me, then, without further 
 introduction, enter upon an examination, whether taste 
 be so far beyond our reach as to be unattainable by 
 care ; or be so very vague and capricious, that no care 
 ought to be employed about it. 
 
 It has been the fate of arts to be enveloped in myste- 
 rious and incomprehensible language, as if it was thought 
 necessary that even the terms should correspond to the 
 idea entertained of the instability and uncertainty of 
 the rules which they expressed. 
 
 To speak of genius and taste as in any way connected 
 with reason or common sense, would be, in the opinion 
 of some towering talkers, to speak like a man who pos- 
 sessed neither — who had never felt that enthusiasm, or, 
 to use their own inflated language, was never warmed 
 by that Promethean fire which animates the canvass and 
 vivifies the marble. 
 
 If, in order to be intelligible, I appear to degrade art, 
 by bringing her down from her visionary situation in 
 the clouds, it is only to give her a more solid mansion 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 27 
 
 upon the earth. It is necessary that at some time or 
 other we should see things as they really are, and not 
 impose on ourselves hy that false magnitude with which 
 objects appear when viewed indistinctly as through a 
 mist. 
 
 We will allow a poet to express his meaning, when 
 his meaning is not well known to himself, with a certain 
 degree of obscurity, as it is one source of the sublime. 
 But when, in plain prose, we gravely talk of courting 
 the Muse in shady bowers — waiting the call and in- 
 spiration of genius — finding out where he inhabits, and 
 where he is to be invoked with the greatest success — 
 of attending to times and seasons when the imagination 
 shoots with the greatest vigour, whether at the summer 
 solstice or the vernal equinox — sagaciously observing 
 how much the wild freedom and liberty of imagination 
 is cramped by attention to established rules, and how 
 this same imagination begins to grow dim in advanced 
 age, smothered and deadened by too much judgment — 
 when we talk such language, or entertain such senti- 
 ments as these, we generally rest contented with mere 
 words, or at best entertain notions not only groundless 
 but pernicious. 
 
 If all this means, what it is very possible was origi- 
 nally intended only to be meant, that in order to culti- 
 vate an art a man secludes himself from the commerce 
 of the world, and retires into the country at particular 
 seasons ; or that at one time of the year his body is in 
 better health, and consequently his mind fitter for the 
 business of hard thinking than at another time ; or that 
 the mind may be fatigued and grow confused by long 
 and unremitted application — this I can understand. I 
 can likewise believe that a man eminent when young 
 for possessing poetical imagination, may, from having 
 taken another road, so neglect its cultivation as to show 
 less of its powers in his latter life. But I am persuaded 
 that scarce a poet is to be found, from Homer down to 
 Dryden, who preserved a sound mind in a sound body, 
 and continued practising his profession to the very last, 
 whose latter works are not as replete with the fire of 
 imagination as those which were produced in his more 
 youthful days. 
 
 To understand literally these metaphors, or ideas ex- 
 pressed in poetical language, seems to be equally absurd 
 as to conclude that because painters sometimes repre- 
 sent poets writing from the dictates of a little winged 
 boy or genius, that this same genius did really inform 
 him in a whisper what he was to write, and that he is 
 himself but a mere machine, unconscious of the opera- 
 tions of his own mind. 
 
 Opinions generally received and floating in the world, 
 whether true or false, we naturally adopt and make our 
 own : they may be considered as a kind of inheritance 
 to which we succeed and are tenants for life, and which 
 we leave to our posterity very nearly in the condition 
 in which we received it — it not being much in any one 
 man's power either to impair or improve it. The greatest 
 part of these opinions, like current coin in its circulation, 
 we are used to take without weighing or examining ; 
 but by this inevitable inattention many adulterated 
 pieces are received, which, when we seriously estimate 
 our wealth, we must throw away. So the collector of 
 popular opinions, when he embodies his knowledge and 
 forms a system, must separate those which are true 
 from those which are only plausible. But it becomes 
 more peculiarly a duty to the professors of art not to 
 let any opinions relating to that art pass unexamined. 
 The caution and circumspection required in such ex- 
 amination we shall presently have an opportunity of 
 explaining. 
 
 Genius and taste, in their common acceptation, ap- 
 pear to be very nearly related : the difference lies only 
 in this, that genius has superadded to it a habit or 
 power of execution ; or, we may say, that taste, when 
 this power is added, changes its name and is called 
 genius. They both, in the popular opinion, pretend to 
 an entire exemption from the restraint of rules. It is 
 supposed that their powers are intuitive ; that under 
 the name of genius great works are produced ; and 
 
 under the name of taste an exact judgment is given, 
 without our knowing why, and without our being under 
 the least obligation to reason, precept, or experience. 
 
 One can scarce state these opinions without exposing 
 their absurdity, yet they are constantly in the mouths 
 of men, and particularly of artists. They who have 
 thought seriously on this subject do not carry the point 
 so far ; yet I am persuaded that even among those few 
 who may be called thinkers, the prevalent opinion al- 
 lows less than it ought to the powers of reason, and 
 considers the principles of taste, which give all their 
 authority to the rules of art, as more fluctuating, and 
 as having less solid foundations, than we shall find upon 
 examination they really have. 
 
 The common saying, that tastes are not to he disputed, 
 owes its influence and its general reception to the same 
 error which leads us to imagine this faculty of too high 
 an original to submit to the authority of an earthly tri- 
 bunal. It likewise corresponds with the notions of 
 those who consider it as a mere phantom of the imagi- 
 nation, so devoid of substance as to elude all criticism. 
 
 We often appear to differ in sentiments from each 
 other, merely from the inaccuracy of terms, as we are 
 not obliged to speak always with critical exactness. 
 Something of this, too, may arise from want of words 
 in the language in which we speak, to express the more 
 nice discriminations which a deep investigation dis- 
 covers. A great deal, however, of this difference 
 vanishes, when each opinion is tolerably explained and 
 understood by constancy and precision in the use of 
 terms. 
 
 We apply the term taste to that act of the mind by 
 which we like or dislike whatever be the subject. Our 
 judgment upon an airy nothing, a fancy which has no 
 foundation, is called by the same name which we give 
 to our determination concerning those truths which re- 
 fer to the most general and most unalterable principles 
 of human nature — to the works which are only to be 
 produced by the greatest efforts of the human under- 
 standing. However inconvenient this may be, we are 
 obliged to take words as we find them : all we can do 
 is to distinguish the TniNGS to which they are applied. 
 
 We may let pass those things which are at once sub- 
 jects of taste and sense, and which having as much 
 certainty as the senses themselves, give no occasion to 
 inquiry or dispute. The natural appetite or taste of the 
 human mind is for Truth — whether that truth results 
 from the real agreement or equality of original ideas 
 among themselves — from the agreement of the repre- 
 sentation of any object with the thing represented — or 
 from the correspondence of the several parts of any 
 arrangement with each other. It is the very same 
 taste which relishes a demonstration in geometry, that 
 is pleased with the resemblance of a picture to an ori- 
 ginal, and touched with the harmony of music. 
 
 All these have unalterable and fixed foundations in 
 nature, and are therefore equally investigated by reason, 
 and known by study, some with more, some with less 
 clearness, but all exactly in the same way. A picture 
 that is unlike is false. Disproportionate ordonnance 
 of parts is not right, because it cannot be true, until it 
 ceases to be a contradiction to assert, that the parts 
 have no relation to the whole. Colouring is true, when 
 it is naturally adapted to the eye, from brightness, from 
 softness, from harmony, from resemblance, because 
 these agree with their object nature, and therefore are 
 true, as true as mathematical demonstration, but known 
 to be true only to those who study these things. 
 
 But besides real, there is also apparent truth, or opi- 
 nion, or prejudice. With regard to real truth, when it 
 is known, the taste which conforms to it is, and must 
 be, uniform. With regard to the second sort of truth, 
 which may be called truth upon sufferance, or truth by 
 courtesy, it is not fixed, but variable. However, whilst 
 these opinions and prejudices on which it is founded 
 continue, they operate as truth ; aud the art, whose 
 office it is to please the mind as well as instruct it, must 
 direct itself according to opinion, or it will not attain 
 its end. 
 
28 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 In proportion as these prejudices are known to be 
 generally diffused or long received, the taste which con- 
 forms to them approaches nearer to certainty, and to a 
 sort of resemblance to real science, even where opinions 
 are found to be no better than prejudices. And since 
 they deserve, on account of their duration and extent, 
 to be considered as really true, they become capable of 
 no small degree of stability and determination, by their 
 permanent and uniform nature. 
 
 As these prejudices become more narrow, more local, 
 more transitory, this secondary taste becomes more and 
 more fantastical — recedes from real science — is less to 
 be approved by reason, and less followed in practice — 
 though in no case, perhaps, to be wholly neglected, 
 where it does not stand, as it sometimes does, in direct 
 defiance of the most respectable opinions received 
 amongst mankind. 
 
 Having laid down these positions, I shall proceed 
 with less method, because less will serve to explain and 
 apply them. 
 
 We will take it for granted that reason is something 
 invariable and fixed in the nature of things ; and with- 
 out endeavouring to go back to an account of first 
 principles, which for ever will elude our search, we will 
 conclude, that whatever goes under the name of taste, 
 which we can fairly bring under the dominion of reason, 
 must be considered as equally exempt from change. If, 
 therefore, in the course of this inquiry, we can show 
 that there are rules for the conduct of the artist which 
 are fixed and invariable, it follows, of course, that the 
 art of the connoisseur, or, in other words, taste, has 
 likewise invariable principles. 
 
 Of the judgment which we make on the works of 
 art, and the preference that we give to one class of art 
 over another, if a reason be demanded, the question is 
 perhaps evaded by answering, I judge from my taste ; 
 but it does not follow that a better answer cannot be 
 given, though, for common gazers, this may be suffi- 
 cient. Every man is not obliged to investigate the 
 cause of his approbation or dislike. 
 
 The arts would lie open for ever to caprice and 
 casualty, if those who are to judge of their excellences 
 had no settled principles by which they are to regulate 
 their decisions, and the merit or defect of performances 
 were to be determined by unguided fancy. And, indeed, 
 we may venture to assert, that whatever speculative 
 knowledge is necessary to the artist, is equally and in- 
 dispensably necessary to the connoisseur. 
 
 The first idea that occurs in the consideration of what 
 is fixed in art or in taste, is that presiding principle of 
 which I have so frequently spoken in former discourses 
 — the general idea of nature. The beginning, the middle, 
 and the end, of every thing that is valuable in taste, is 
 comprised in the knowledge of what is truly nature ; 
 for whatever notions are not conformable to those of 
 nature or universal opinion, must be considered as 
 more or less capricious. 
 
 My notion of nature comprehends not only the forms 
 which nature produces, but also the nature and internal 
 fabric and organisation, as I may call it, of the human 
 mind and imagination. The terms beauty or nature, 
 which are generally ideas, are but different modes of 
 expressing the same thing, whether we apply these 
 terms to statues, poetry, or pictures. Deformity is not 
 nature, but an accidental deviation from her accustomed 
 practice. This general idea, therefore, ought to be 
 called nature ; and nothing else, correctly speaking, has 
 a right to that name. But we are so far from speak- 
 ing, in common conversation, with any such accuracy, 
 that, on the contrary, when we criticise Rembrandt and 
 other Dutch painters who introduced into their histo- 
 rical pictures exact representations of individual objects, 
 with all their imperfections, we say — though it is not 
 in a good taste, yet it is nature. 
 
 This misapplication of terms must be very often per- 
 plexing to the young student. Is not art, he may say, 
 an imitation of nature % Must he not, therefore, who 
 imitates her with the greatest fidelity, be the best 
 artist ? By this mode of reasoning, Rembrandt has a 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 higher place than Raffaelle. But a very little reflec- 
 tion will serve to show us that these particularities can- 
 not be nature ; for how can that be the nature of man 
 in which no two individuals are the same ? 
 
 It plainly appears, that as a work is conducted under 
 the influence of general ideas, or partial, it is princi- 
 pally to be considered as the effect of a good or a bad 
 taste. 
 
 As beauty, therefore, does not consist in taking what 
 lies immediately before you, so neither, in our pursuit 
 of taste, are those opinions which we first received and 
 adopted, the best choice, or the most natural to the 
 mind and imagination. In the infancy of our knowledge, 
 we seize with greediness the good that is within our 
 reach : it is by after consideration, and in consequence 
 of discipline, that we refuse the present for a greater 
 good at a distance. The nobility or elevation of all 
 arts, like the excellence of virtue itself, consists in 
 adopting this enlarged and comprehensive idea ; and all 
 criticism built upon the more confined view of what is 
 natural, may properly be called shallow criticism rather 
 than false : its defect is, that the truth is not sufficiently 
 extensive. 
 
 It has sometimes happened, that some of the greatest 
 men in our art have been betrayed into errors by this 
 confined mode of reasoning. Poussin, who, upon the 
 whole, may be produced as an artist strictly attentive 
 to the most enlarged and extensive ideas of nature, from 
 not having settled principles on this point, has, in one 
 instance at least, I think, deserted truth for prejudice. 
 He is said to have vindicated the conduct of Julio 
 Romano for his inattention to the masses of light and 
 shade, or grouping the figures, in The Battle of Constan- 
 tine, as if designedly neglected, the better to correspond 
 with the hurry and confusion of a battle. Poussin's 
 own conduct in many of his pictures makes us more 
 easily give credit to this report. That it was too much 
 his own practice, The Sacrifice to Silenus, and The 
 Triumph of Bacchus and Ariadne,* may be produced 
 as instances ; but this principle is still more apparent, 
 and may be said to be even more ostentatiously dis- 
 played, in his Perseus and Medusa's head.\ 
 
 This is undoubtedly a subject of great bustle and 
 tumult, and that the first effect of the picture may cor- 
 respond to the subject, every principle of composition 
 is violated : there is no principal figure, no principal 
 light, no groups ; every thing is dispersed, and in such 
 a state of confusion that the eye finds no repose any 
 where. In consequence of the forbidding appearance, I 
 remember turning from it with disgust, and should not 
 have looked a second time, if I had not been called back 
 to a closer inspection. I then indeed found, what we 
 may expect always to find in the works of Poussin, cor- 
 rect drawing, forcible expression, and just character ; 
 in short, all the excellences which so much distinguish 
 the works of this learned painter. 
 
 This conduct of Poussin I hold to be entirely impro- 
 per to imitate. A picture should please at first sight, 
 and appear to invite the spectator's attention : if, on 
 the contrary, the general effect offends the eye, a second 
 view is not always sought, whatever more substantial 
 and intrinsic merit it may possess. 
 
 Perhaps no apology ought to be received for offences 
 committed against the vehicle (whether it be the organ 
 of seeing or of hearing) by which our pleasures are 
 conveyed to the mind. We must take care that the 
 eye be not perplexed and distracted by a confusion of 
 equal parts, or equal lights, or offended by an inhar- 
 monious mixture of colours, as we should guard against 
 offending the ear by inharmonious sounds. We may 
 venture to be more confident of the truth of this obser- 
 vation, since we find that Shakspeare, on a parallel 
 occasion, has made Hamlet recommend to the players 
 a precept of the same kind — never to offend the ear by 
 harsh sounds : " In the very torrent, tempest, and 
 whirlwind of your passion," says he, "you must acquire 
 
 * In the cabinet of the Earl of Ashburnham. 
 t In the cabinet of Sir Peter IJurrel. 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness." 
 And yet, at the same time, he very justly observes, 
 " The end of playing, both at the first, and now, was 
 and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature." 
 No one can deny, that violent passions will naturally 
 emit harsh and disagreeable tones ; yet this great poet 
 and critic thought that this imitation of nature would 
 cost too much, if purchased at the expense of disagree- 
 able sensations, or, as he expresses it, of " splitting the 
 ear." The poet and actor, as well as the painter of 
 genius, who is well acquainted with all the variety and 
 sources of pleasure in the mind and imagination, has 
 little regard or attention to common nature, or creeping 
 after common sense. By overleaping those narrow 
 bounds, he more effectually seizes the whole mind, and 
 more powerfully accomplishes his purpose. This suc- 
 cess is ignorantly imagined to proceed from inattention 
 to all rules, and a defiance of reason and judgment; 
 whereas it is in truth acting according to the best rules 
 and the justest reason. 
 
 He who thinks nature, in the narrow sense of the 
 word, is alone to be followed, will produce but a scanty 
 entertainment for the imagination : every thing is to be 
 done with which it is natural for the mind to be pleased, 
 whether it proceeds from simplicity or variety, uni- 
 formity or irregularity ; whether the scenes are familiar 
 or exotic ; rude and wild, or enriched and cultivated ; 
 for it is natural for the mind to be pleased with all these 
 in their turn. In short, whatever pleases has in it what 
 is analogous to the mind, and is, therefore, in the high- 
 est and best sense of the word, natural. 
 
 It is the sense of nature or truth which ought more 
 particularly to be cultivated by the professors of art ; 
 and it may be observed, that many wise and learned 
 men, who have accustomed their minds to admit nothing 
 for truth but what can be proved by mathematical 
 demonstration, have seldom any relish for those arts 
 which address themselves to the fancy, the rectitude 
 and truth of which is known by another kind of proof: 
 and we may add, that the acquisition of this knowledge 
 requires as much circumspection and sagacity as is 
 necessary to attain those truths which are more capable 
 of demonstration. Reason must ultimately determine 
 our choice on every occasion ; but this reason may still 
 be exerted ineffectually, by applying to taste, principles 
 which, though right as far as they go, yet do not reach 
 the object. No man, for instance, can deny, that it 
 seems at first view very reasonable, that a statue 
 which is to carry down to posterity the resemblance of 
 an individual, should be dressed in the fashion of the 
 times, in the dress which he himself wore. This would 
 certainly be true, if the dress were part of the man ; 
 but after a time, the dress is only an amusement for 
 an antiquary, and if it obstructs the general design 
 of the piece, it is to be disregarded by the artist. Com- 
 mon sense must here give way to a higher sense. In 
 the naked form, and in the disposition of the drapery, 
 the difference between one artist and another is prin- 
 cipally seen. But if he is compelled to exhibit the 
 modern dress, the naked form is entirely hid, and the 
 drapery is already disposed by the skill of the tailor. 
 Were a Phidias to obey such absurd commands, he 
 would please no more than an ordinary sculptor ; since, 
 in the inferior parts of every art, the learned and the 
 ignorant are nearly upon a level. 
 
 These were probably among the reasons that induced 
 the sculptor of that wonderful figure of Laocoon to ex- 
 hibit him naked, notwithstanding he was surprised in 
 the act of sacrificing to Apollo, and consequently ought 
 to have been shown in his sacerdotal habits, if those 
 greater reasons had not preponderated. Art is not yet 
 in so high estimation with us as to obtain so great a 
 sacrifice as the ancients made, especially the Grecians : 
 who suffered themselves to be represented naked, whe- 
 ther they were generals, lawgivers, or kings. 
 
 Under this head of balancing and choosing the 
 greater reason, or of two evils taking the least, we may 
 consider the conduct of Rubens in the Luxembourg 
 gallery, where he has mixed allegorical figures with 
 
 DISCOURSES. 29 
 
 the representations of real personages, which must be 
 acknowledged to be a fault ; yet if the artist considered 
 himself as engaged to furnish this gallery with a rich, 
 various, and splendid ornament, this could not be done, 
 at least in an equal degree, without peopling the air and 
 water with these allegorical figures ; he therefore accom- 
 plished all that he purposed. In this case, all lesser 
 considerations, which tend to obstruct the great end of 
 the work, must yield and give way. 
 
 The variety which portraits and modern dresses, 
 mixed with allegorical figures, produce, is not to be 
 slightly given up upon a punctilio of reason, when that 
 reason deprives the art, in a manner, of its very exist- 
 ence. It must always be remembered that the business 
 of a great painter is to produce a great picture ; he must 
 therefore take special care not to be cajoled by specious 
 arguments out of his materials. 
 
 What has been so often said to the disadvantage of 
 allegorical poetry — that it is tedious and uninteresting 
 — cannot, with the same propriety, be applied to paint- 
 ing, where the interest is of a different kind. If alle- 
 gorical painting produces a greater variety of ideal 
 beauty, a richer, a more various and delightful compo- 
 sition, and gives to the artist a greater opportunity of 
 exhibiting his skill, all the interest he wishes for is 
 accomplished ; such a picture not only attracts, but 
 fixes the attention. 
 
 If it be objected that Rubens judged ill at first in 
 thinking it necessary to make his work so very orna- 
 mental, this puts the question upon new ground. It 
 was his peculiar style ; he could paint in no other ; and 
 he was selected for that work, probably because it was 
 his style. Nobody will dispute but some of the best of 
 the Roman or Bolognian schools would have produced 
 a more learned and more noble work. 
 
 This leads us to another important province of taste, 
 that of weighing the value of the different classes of the 
 art, and of estimating them accordingly. 
 
 All arts have means within them of applying them- 
 selves with success both to the intellectual and sensitive 
 part of our natures. It cannot be disputed, supposing 
 both these means put in practice with equal abilities, 
 to which we ought to give the preference ; to him who 
 represents the heroic arts and more dignified passions 
 of man, or to him who, by the help of meretricious orna- 
 ments, however elegant and graceful, captivates the 
 sensuality, as it may be called, of our taste. Thus the 
 Roman and Bolognian schools are reasonably preferred 
 to the Venetian, Flemish, or Dutch schools, as they 
 address themselves to our best and noblest faculties. 
 
 Well-turned periods in eloquence, or harmony of 
 numbers in poetry, which are in those arts what colour- 
 ing is in painting, however highly we may esteem them, 
 can never be considered as of equal importance with 
 the art of unfolding truths that are useful to mankind, 
 and which make us better or wiser. Nor can those 
 works which remind us of the poverty and meanness 
 of our nature, be considered as of equal rank with 
 what excites ideas of grandeur, or raises and dignifies 
 humanity ; or, in the words of a late poet, which makes 
 the beholder " learn to venerate himself as man."* 
 
 It is reason and good sense, therefore, which ranks 
 and estimates every art, and every part of that art, 
 according to its importance, from the painter of ani- 
 mated down to inanimated nature. We will not allow 
 a man who shall prefer the inferior style, to say it is 
 his taste ; taste here has nothing, or at least ought to 
 have nothing, to do with the question. He wants not 
 taste, but sense and soundness of judgment. 
 
 Indeed, perfection in an inferior style may be reason- 
 ably preferred to mediocrity in the highest walks of 
 art. A landscape of Claude Lorrain may be preferred 
 to a history by Luca Giordano ; but hence appears the 
 necessity of the connoisseur's knowing in what consists 
 the excellence of each class, in order to judge how near 
 it approaches to perfection. 
 
 Even in works of the same kind, as in history-paint- 
 
 * Pr Goldsmith. 
 
30 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 ing, which is composed of various parts, excellence of 
 an inferior species carried to a very high degree, will 
 make a work very valuable, and in some measure com- 
 pensate for the absence of the higher kinds of merit. 
 It is the duty of the connoisseur to know and esteem, as 
 much as it may deserve, every part of painting : lie will 
 not then think even Bassano unworthy of his notice ; 
 who, though totally devoid of expression, sense, grace, or 
 elegance, may be esteemed on account of his admirable 
 taste of colours, which, in his best works, are little 
 inferior to those of Titian. 
 
 Since I have mentioned Bassano, we must do him 
 likewise the justice to acknowledge that though he did 
 not aspire to the dignity of expressing the characters 
 and passions of men, yet with respect to facility and 
 truth in his manner of touching animals of all kinds, 
 and giving them what painters call their character, few 
 have excelled him. 
 
 To Bassano we may add Paul Veronese and Tintoret, 
 for their entire inattention to what is justly thought 
 the most essential part of our art, the expression of the 
 passions. Notwithstanding these glaring deficiencies, 
 we justly esteem their works ; but it must be remem- 
 bered, that they do not please from those defects, but 
 from their great excellences of another kind, and in 
 spite of such transgressions. These excellences, too, as 
 far as they go, are founded in the truth of general 
 nature — they tell the truth, though not the whole truth. 
 
 By these considerations, which can never be too fre- 
 quently impressed, may be obviated two errors, which 
 I observed to have been formerly at least the most 
 prevalent, and to be the most injurious to artists ; that 
 ■of thinking taste and genius to have nothing to do with 
 reason, and that of taking particular living objects for 
 nature. 
 
 I shall now say something on that part of taste, which, 
 as I have hinted to you before, does not belong so much 
 to the external form of things, but is addressed to the 
 mind, and depends on its original frame, or, to use the 
 expression, the organisation of the soul — I mean the 
 imagination and the passions. The principles of these 
 are as invariable as the former, and are to be known 
 and reasoned upon in the same manner, by an appeal to 
 common sense, deciding upon the common feelings of 
 mankind. This sense and these feelings appear to me 
 of equal authority, and equally conclusive. Now, this 
 appeal implies a general uniformity and agreement in 
 the minds of men. It would be else an idle and vain 
 endeavour to establish rules of art ; it would be pur- 
 suing a phantom to attempt to move affections with 
 which we were entirely unacquainted. We have no 
 reason to suspect there is a greater difference between 
 our minds than between our forms, of which, though 
 there are no two alike, yet there is a general similitude 
 that goes through the whole race of mankind ; and 
 those who have cultivated their taste can distinguish 
 what is beautiful or deformed, or, in other words, what 
 agrees with or deviates from the general idea of nature, 
 in one case as well as in the other. 
 
 The internal fabric of our minds as well as the 
 external form of our bodies being nearly uniform, it 
 seems then to follow of course, that as the imagination 
 is incapable of producing any thing originally of itself, 
 and can only vary and combine those ideas with which 
 it is furnished by means of the senses, there will be 
 necessarily an agreement in the imaginations, as in the 
 senses, of men. There being this agreement, it follows, 
 that in all cases, in our lightest amusements as well as 
 in our most serious actions and engagements of life, we 
 must regulate our affections of every kind by that of 
 others. The well-disciplined mind acknowledges this 
 authority, and submits its own opinion to the public 
 voice. It is from knowing what are the general feel- 
 ings and passions of mankind that we acquire a true 
 idea of what imagination is, though it appears as if we 
 had nothing to do but to consult our own particular 
 sensations, and these were sufficient to ensure us from 
 all error and mistake. 
 
 A knowledge of the disposition and character of the 
 
 human mind can be acquired only by experience ; a 
 great deal will be learned, I admit, by a habit of 
 examining what passes in our bosoms, what are our 
 own motives of action, and of what kind of sentiments 
 we are conscious on any occasion. We may suppose an 
 uniformity, and conclude that the same effect will be 
 produced by the same cause in the minds of others. 
 This examination will contribute to suggest to us 
 matters of inquiry ; but we can never be sure that our 
 own sentiments are true and right till they are con- 
 firmed by more extensive observation. One man 
 opposing another determines nothing ; but a general 
 union of minds, like a general combination of the forces 
 of all mankind, makes a strength that is irresistible. 
 In fact, as 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. 
 
 A man who thinks he is guarding himself against 
 prejudices by resisting the authority of others, leaves 
 open every avenue to singularity, vanity, self-conceit, 
 obstinacy, and many other vices, all tending to warp 
 the judgment, and prevent the natural operation of his 
 faculties. This submission to others is a deference 
 which we owe, and indeed are forced involuntarily to 
 pay. In fact, we never are satisfied with our opinions, 
 whatever we may pretend, till they are ratified and 
 confirmed by the suffrages of the rest of mankind. We 
 dispute and wrangle for ever ; we endeavour to get men 
 to come to us, when we do not go to them. 
 
 He, therefore, who is acquainted with the works which 
 have pleased different ages and different countries, and 
 has formed his opinion on them, has more materials 
 and more means of knowing what is analogous to the 
 mind of man, than he who is conversant only with the 
 works of his own age or country. What has pleased, 
 and continues to please, is likely to please again ; hence 
 are derived the rules of art, and on this immoveable 
 foundation they must ever stand. 
 
 This search and study of the history of the mind ought 
 not to be confined to one art only. It is by the analogy 
 that one art bears to another, that many things are 
 ascertained, which either were but faintly seen, or, 
 perhaps, would not have been discovered at all, if the 
 inventor had not received the first hints from the prac- 
 tices of a sister art on a similar occasion.* The fre- 
 quent allusions which every man who treats of any art 
 is obliged to make to others, in order to illustrate and 
 confirm his principles, sufficiently show their near con- 
 nection and inseparable relation. 
 
 All arts having the same general end, which is to 
 please, and addressing themselves to the same faculties 
 through the medium of the senses, it follows that their 
 rules and principles must have as great affinity as the 
 different materials and the different organs or vehicles 
 by which they pass to the mind will permit them to 
 retain. f 
 
 We may therefore conclude, that the real substance, 
 as it may be called, of what goes under the name of 
 taste, is fixed and established in the nature of things ; 
 that there are certain and regular causes by which the 
 imagination and passions of men are affected ; and that 
 the knowledge of these causes is acquired by a labo- 
 rious and diligent investigation of nature, and by the 
 same slow progress as wisdom or knowledge of every 
 kind, however instantaneous its operations may appear 
 when thus acquired. 
 
 It has been often observed, that the good and virtu- 
 ous man alone can acquire this true or just relish even 
 of works of art. This opinion will not appear entirely 
 without foundation, when we consider that the same 
 habit of mind which is acquired by our search after 
 truth in the more serious duties of life, is only trans- 
 ferred to the pursuit of lighter amusements. The same 
 
 * Nulla ars, non alterius artis, aut mater, aut propinqua est.— 
 Tertullian as cited by Junius. 
 
 ■f Omnes artes quaB ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quod- 
 dam commune vinculum, et quasi cognatione inter secontinentur. 
 —Cicero. 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 disposition, the same desire to find something steady, 
 substantial, and durable, on which the mind can lean, 
 as it were, and rest with safety, actuates us in both 
 cases. The subject only is changed. We pursue the 
 same method in our search after the idea of beauty 
 and perfection in each ; of virtue, by looking forwards 
 beyond ourselves to society and to the whole ; of arts, 
 by extending our views in the same manner to all ages 
 and all times. 
 
 Every art, like our own, has in its composition fluc- 
 tuating as well as. fixed principles. It is an attentive 
 inquiry into their difference that will enable us to de- 
 termine how far we are influenced by custom and habit, 
 and what is fixed in the nature of things. 
 
 To distinguish how much has solid foundation, we 
 may have recourse to the same proof by which some 
 hold that wit ought to be tried, whether it preserves 
 itself when translated. That wit is false which can 
 subsist only in one language, and that picture which 
 pleases only one age or one nation, owes its reception to 
 some local or accidental association of ideas. 
 
 We may apply this to every custom and habit of life. 
 Thus the general principles of urbanity, politeness, or 
 civility, have been the same in all nations, but the mode 
 in which they are dressed is continually varying. The 
 general idea of showing respect is by making yourself 
 less ; but the manner, whether by bowing the body, 
 kneeling, prostration, pulling off the upper part of our 
 dress, or taking away the lower,* is a matter of custom. 
 
 Thus, in regard to ornaments, it would be unjust to 
 conclude that because they were at first arbitrarily con- 
 trived, they are therefore undeserving of our attention ; 
 on the contrary, he who neglects the cultivation of those 
 ornaments acts contrary to nature and reason. As life 
 would be imperfect without its highest ornaments, the 
 arts, so these arts themselves would be imperfect with- 
 out their ornaments. Though we by no means ought 
 to rank these with positive and substantial beauties, yet 
 it must be allowed, that a knowledge of both is essen- 
 tially requisite towards forming a complete, whole, and 
 perfect taste. It is in reality from the ornaments that 
 arts receive their peculiar character and complexion : 
 we may add, that in them we find the characteristical 
 mark of a national taste, as by throwing up a feather in 
 the air we know which way the wind blows, better than 
 by a more heavy matter. 
 
 The striking distinction between the works of the 
 Roman, Bolognian, and Venetian schools, consists more 
 in that general effect which is produced by colours than 
 in the more profound excellences of the art, at least it 
 is from thence that each is distinguished and known at 
 first sight. Thus it is the ornaments, rather than the 
 proportions of architecture, which at the first glance dis- 
 tinguish the different orders from each other ; the Doric 
 is known by its triglyphs, the Ionic by its volutes, and 
 the Corinthian by its acanthus. 
 
 What distinguishes oratory from a cold narration is 
 a more liberal though chaste use of those ornaments 
 which go under the name of figurative and metaphorical 
 expressions ; and poetry distinguishes itself from ora- 
 tory by words and expressions still more ardent and 
 glowing. What separates and distinguishes poetry is 
 more particularly the ornament of verse; it is this which 
 gives it its character, and is an essential without which 
 it cannot exist. Custom has appropriated different 
 metre to different kinds of composition, in which the 
 world is not perfectly agreed. In England the dispute 
 is not yet settled, which is to be preferred, rhyme or 
 blank verse. But however we disagree about what 
 these metrical ornaments shall be, that some metre is 
 essentially necessary is universally acknowledged. 
 
 In poetry or eloquence, to determine how far figura- 
 tive or metaphorical language may proceed, and when 
 it begins to be affectation or beside the truth, must be 
 determined by taste ; though this taste, we must never 
 forget, is regulated and formed by the presiding feel- 
 
 * Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou 
 standest is holy ground.— Exodus, iii. 5. 
 
 DISCOURSES. 31 
 
 ings of mankind — by those works which have approved 
 themselves to all times and all persons. Thus, though 
 eloquence has undoubtedly an essential and intrinsic 
 excellence, and immoveable principles common to all 
 languages, founded in the nature of our passions and 
 affections, yet it has its ornaments and modes of address, 
 which are merely arbitrary. What is approved in the 
 eastern nations as grand and majestic, would be con- 
 sidered by the Greeks and Romans as turgid and inflated; 
 and they in x-eturn would be thought by the orientals 
 to express themselves in a cold and insipid manner. 
 
 We may add likewise to the credit of ornaments, that 
 it is by their means that art itself accomplishes its pur- 
 pose. Fresnoy calls colouring, which is one of the chief 
 ornaments of painting, lena sororis, that which procures 
 lovers and admirers to the more valuable excellences of 
 the art. 
 
 It appears to be the same right turn of mind which 
 enables a man to acquire the truth, or the just idea of 
 what is right in the ornaments as in the more stable 
 principles of art. It has still the same centre of perfec- 
 tion, though it is the centre of a smaller circle. 
 
 To illustrate this by the fashion of dress, in which 
 there is allowed to be a good or bad taste. The com- 
 ponent parts of dress are continually changing from 
 great to little, from short to long ; but the general form 
 still remains — it is still the same general dress, which 
 is comparatively fixed, though on a very slender foun- 
 dation ; but it is on this which fashion must rest. He 
 who invents with the most success, or dresses in the 
 best taste, would probably, from the same sagacity em- 
 ployed to greater purposes, have discovered equal skill, 
 or have formed the same correct taste, in the highest 
 labours of art. 
 
 I have mentioned taste in dress, which is certainly one 
 of the lowest subjects to which this word is applied ; yet, 
 as I have before observed, there is a right even here 
 however narrow its foundation, respecting the fashion 
 of any particular nation. But we have still more 
 slender means of determining to which of the different 
 customs of different ages or countries we ought to give 
 the preference, since they seem to be all equally re- 
 moved from nature. If an European, when he has cut 
 off his beard, and put false hair on his head, or bound 
 up his own natural hair in regular hard knots, as unlike 
 nature as he can possibly make it ; and after having 
 rendered them immoveable by the help of the fat of 
 hogs, has covered the whole with flour, laid on by a 
 machine with the utmost regularity; if, when thus 
 attired, lie issues forth, and meets a Cherokee Indian, 
 who has bestowed as much time at his toilet, and laid 
 on with equal care and attention his yellow and red 
 ochre on particular parts of his forehead or cheeks, as 
 he judges most becoming — whichever of these two de- 
 spises the other for this attention to the fashion of his 
 country, whichever first feels himself provoked to 
 laugh, is the barbarian. 
 
 All these fashions are very innocent, neither worth 
 disquisition, nor any endeavour to alter them ; as the 
 change would, in all probability, be equally distant from 
 nature. The only circumstance against which indig- 
 nation may reasonably be moved, is, where the opera- 
 tion is painful or destructive of health ; such as some 
 of the practices at Otaheite, and the strait lacing of the 
 English ladies — of the last of which practices, how de- 
 structive it must be to health and long life, the professor 
 of anatomy took an opportunity of proving a few days 
 since in this academy. 
 
 It is in dress as in things of greater consequence. 
 Fashions originate from those only who have the high 
 and powerful advantages of rank, birth, and fortune. 
 Many of the ornaments of art, those at least for which 
 no reason can be given, are transmitted to us, are 
 adopted, and acquire their consequence from the com- 
 pany in which we have been used to see them. As 
 Greece and Rome are the fountains from whence have 
 flowed all kinds of excellence, to that veneration which 
 they have a right to claim for the pleasure and know- 
 ledge which they have afforded us, we voluntarily add 
 
32 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 our approbation of every ornament and every custom 
 that belonged to them, even to the fashion of their dress. 
 For it may be observed, that, not satisfied with them 
 in their own place, we make no difficulty of dressing 
 statues of modern heroes or senators in the fashion of 
 the Roman armour or peaceful robe : we go so far as 
 hardly to bear a statue in any other drapery. 
 
 The figures of the great men of those nations have 
 come down to us in sculpture. In sculpture remain 
 almost all the excellent specimens of ancient art. We 
 have so far associated personal dignity to the persons 
 thus represented, and the truth of art to their manner 
 of representation, that it is not in our power any longer 
 to sepai-ate them. This is not so in painting, because 
 having no excellent ancient portraits, that connection 
 was never formed. Indeed, we could no more venture 
 to paint a general officer in a Roman military habit, 
 than we could make a statue in the present uniform. 
 But since we have no ancient portraits (to show how 
 ready we are to adopt those kind of prejudices), we 
 make the best authority among the moderns serve the 
 same purpose. The great variety of excellent portraits 
 with which Vandyck has enriched this nation, we are 
 not content to admire for their real excellence, but 
 extend our approbation even to the dress which hap- 
 pened to be the fashion of that age. We all very well 
 remember how common it was a few years ago for por- 
 traits to be drawn in this fantastic dress; and this 
 custom is not yet entirely laid aside. By this means it 
 must be acknowledged very ordinary pictures acquired 
 something of the air and effect of the works of Vandyck, 
 and appeared therefore at first sight to be better pictures 
 than they really were ; they appeared so, however, to 
 those only who had the means of making this associa- 
 tion ; and when made, it was irresistible. But this asso- 
 ciation is nature, and refers to that secondary truth 
 that comes from conformity to general prejudice and 
 opinion : it is therefore not merely fantastical. Besides 
 the prejudice which Ave have in favour of ancient dresses, 
 there may be likewise other reasons for the effect which 
 they produce ; among which we may justly rank the 
 simplicity of them, consisting of little more than one 
 single piece of drapery, without those whimsical capri- 
 cious forms by which all other dresses are embarrassed. 
 
 Thus, though it is from the prejudice we have in 
 favour of the ancients, who have taught us architecture, 
 that we have adopted likewise their ornaments, and 
 though we are satisfied that neither nature nor reason 
 is the foundation of those beauties which we imagine 
 we see in that art, yet if any one, persuaded of this 
 truth, should therefore invent new orders of equal 
 beauty, which we will suppose to be possible, they would 
 not please ; nor ought he to complain, since the old has 
 that great advantage of having custom and prejudice 
 on its side. In this case we leave what has every pre- 
 judice in its favour, to take that which will have no 
 advantage over what we have left but novelty, which 
 soon destroys itself, and at any rate is but a weak anta- 
 gonist against custom. 
 
 Ancient ornaments, having the right of possession, 
 ought not to be removed, unless to make room for that 
 which not only has higher pretensions, but such pre- 
 tensions as will balance the evil and confusion which 
 innovation always brings with it. 
 
 To this we may add, that even the durability of the 
 materials will often contribute to give a superiority to 
 one object above another. Ornaments in buildings, 
 with which taste is principally concerned, are composed 
 of materials which last longer than those of which dress 
 is composed : the former, therefore, make higher pre- 
 tensions to our favour and prejudice. 
 
 Some attention is surely due to what we can no more 
 get rid of, than we can go out of ourselves. We are 
 creatures of prejudice; we neither can nor ought to 
 eradicate it, we must only regulate it by reason — which 
 kind of regulation is indeed little more than obliging 
 the lesser, the local and temporary prejudices, to give 
 way to those which are more durable and lasting. 
 
 He, therefore, who in his practice of portrait-painting 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 wishes to dignify his subject, which we will suppose to 
 be a lady, will not paint her in the modern dress, the 
 familiarity of which alone is sufficient to destroy all 
 dignity. He takes care that his work shall correspond 
 to those ideas and that imagination which he knows 
 will regulate the judgment of others; and therefore 
 dresses his figure something with the general air of the 
 antique for the sake of dignity, and preserves something 
 of the modern for the sake of likeness. By this con- 
 duct his works correspond with those prejudices which 
 we have in favour of what we continually see ; and the 
 relish of the antique simplicity corresponds with what 
 we may call the more learned and scientific prejudice. 
 
 There was a statue made not long since of Voltaire, 
 which the sculptor, not having that respect for the pre- 
 judices of mankind which he ought to have had, made 
 entirely naked, and as meagre and emaciated as the 
 original is said to be. The consequence was what might 
 have been expected : it remained in the sculptor's shop, 
 though it was intended as a public ornament and a 
 public honour to Voltaire, for it was procured at the 
 expense of his contemporary wits and admirers. 
 
 Whoever would reform a nation, supposing a bad 
 taste to prevail in it, will not accomplish his purpose by 
 going directly against the stream of their prejudices. 
 Men's minds must be prepared to receive what is new 
 to them. Reformation is a work of time. A national 
 taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally 
 changed at once : we must yield a little to the prepos- 
 session which has taken hold on the mind, and we may 
 then bring people to adopt what would offend them, if 
 endeavoured to be introduced by violence. When Bat- 
 tista Franco was employed, in conjunction with Titian, 
 Paul Veronese, and Tintoret, to adorn the library of 
 St Mark, his work, Vasari says, gave less satisfaction 
 than any of the others : the dry manner of the Roman 
 school was very ill calculated to please eyes that had 
 been accustomed to the luxuriancy, splendoux', and rich- 
 ness of Venetian colouring. Had the Romans been the 
 judges of this work, probably the determination would 
 have been just contrary; for in the more noble parts 
 of the art, Battista Franco was perhaps not inferior to 
 any of his rivals. 
 
 Gentlemen, it has been the main scope and principal 
 end of this discourse to demonstrate the reality of a 
 standard in taste, as well as in corporeal beauty ; that 
 a false or depraved taste is a thing as well known, as 
 easily discovered, as any thing that is deformed, mis- 
 shapen, or wrong, in our form or outward make ; and 
 that this knowledge is derived from the uniformity of 
 sentiments among mankind, from whence proceeds the 
 knowledge of what are the general habits of nature — 
 the result of which is an idea of perfect beauty. 
 
 If what has been advanced be true — that besides this 
 beauty or truth, which is formed on the uniform, eter- 
 nal, and immutable laws of nature, and which of neces- 
 sity can be but one — that besides this one immutable 
 verity, there are likewise what we have called apparent 
 or secondary truths, proceeding from local and tempo- 
 rary prejudices, fancies, fashions, or accidental connec- 
 tion of ideas — if it appears that these last have still their 
 foundation, however slender, in the original fabric of 
 our minds — it follows that all these truths or beauties 
 deserve and require the attention of the artist, in pro- 
 portion to their stability or duration, or as their influ- 
 ence is more or less extensive. And let me add, that 
 as they ought not to pass their just bounds, so neither 
 do they, in a well-regulated taste, at all prevent or 
 weaken the influence of those general principles which 
 alone can give to art its true and permanent dignity. 
 
 To form this just taste is undoubtedly in your own 
 power, but it is to reason and philosophy that you must 
 have recoui'se ; from them you must borrow the balance 
 by which is to be weighed and estimated the value of 
 every pretension that intrudes itself on your notice. 
 
 The general objection which is made to the introduc- 
 tion of philosophy into the regions of taste, is, that it 
 checks and restrains the flights of the imagination, and 
 gives that timidity which an over-carefulness not to 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 33 
 
 err or act contrary to reason is likely to produce. It is 
 not so. Fear is neither reason nor philosophy. The 
 true spirit of philosophy, by giving knowledge, gives a 
 manly confidence, and substitutes rational firmness in 
 the place of vain presumption. A man of real taste is 
 always a man of judgment in other respects, and those 
 inventions which either disdain or shrink from reason, 
 are generally, I fear, more like the dreams of a distem- 
 pered brain than the exalted enthusiasm of a sound and 
 true genius. In the midst of the highest flights of fancy 
 or imagination, reason ought to preside from first to 
 last, though I admit her more powerful operation is 
 upon reflection. 
 
 Let me add, that some of the greatest names of anti- 
 quity, and those who have most distinguished them- 
 selves in works of genius and imagination, were equally 
 eminent for their critical skill. Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, 
 and Horace, and among the moderns, Boileau, Cor- 
 neille, Pope, and Dryden, are at least instances of genius 
 not being destroyed by attention or subjection to rules 
 and science. I should hope, therefore, that the natural 
 consequence of what has been said would be to excite 
 in you a desire of knowing the principles and conduct 
 of the great masters of our art, and respect and vene- 
 ration for them when known. 
 
 DISCOURSE VIII. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1778. 
 
 Theprinciples of art, whether Poetry or Tainting, have their foun. 
 dation in the mind, such as novelty, variety, and contrast ; these 
 in their excess become defects. Simplicity ; its excess disagree 
 able. Rules not to be always observed in their literal sense : 
 sufficient to preserve the spirit of the law. Observations on the 
 Prize Pictures. 
 
 Gentlemen — I have recommended in former discourses* 
 that artists should learn their profession by endeavour- 
 ing to form an idea of perfection from the different ex- 
 cellences which lie dispersed in the various schools of 
 painting. Some difficulty will still occur to know what 
 is beauty, and where it may be found : one would wish 
 not to be obliged to take it entirely on the credit of 
 fume, though to this, I acknowledge, the younger 
 students must unavoidably submit. Any suspicion in 
 them of the chance of their being deceived will have 
 more tendency to obstruct their advancement than even 
 an enthusiastic confidence in the perfection of their 
 models. But to the more advanced in the art, who wish 
 to stand on more stable or firmer ground, and to esta- 
 blish principles on a stronger foundation than authority, 
 however venerable or powerful, it may be safely told 
 that there is still a higher tribunal to which those great 
 masters themselves must submit, and to which, indeed, 
 every excellence in art must be ultimately referred. 
 He who is ambitious to enlarge the boundaries of his 
 art, must extend his views beyond the precepts which 
 are found in books, or may be drawn from the practice 
 of his predecessors, to a knowledge of those precepts in 
 the mind, those operations of intellectual nature, to 
 which every thing that aspires to please must be pro- 
 portioned and accommodated. 
 
 Poetry having a more extensive power than our art, 
 exerts its influence over almost all the passions : among 
 those may be reckoned one of our most prevalent dis- 
 positions—anxiety for the future. Poetry operates by 
 raising our curiosity, engaging the mind by degrees to 
 take an interest in the event, keeping that event sus- 
 pended, and surprising at last with an unexpected 
 catastrophe. 
 
 The painter's art is more confined, and has nothing 
 that corresponds with, or perhaps is equivalent to, this 
 power and advantage of leading the mind on, till atten- 
 tion is totally engaged. What is done by painting must 
 be done at one blow : curiosity has received at once all 
 
 * Discourses II. and VI. 
 C 
 
 the satisfaction it can ever have. There are, however 
 other intellectual qualities and dispositions which the* 
 painter can satisfy and affect as powerfully as the poet : 
 among those, we may reckon our love of novelty, variety", 
 and contrast ; these qualities, on examination, will be' 
 found to refer to a certain activity and restlessness 
 which has a pleasure and delight in being exercised and 
 put in motion— art, therefore, only administers to those 
 wants and desires of the mind. 
 
 It requires no long disquisition to show, that the dis- 
 positions which I have stated actually subsist in the 
 human mind. Variety reanimates the attention, which 
 is apt to languish under a continual sameness. Novelty 
 makes a more forcible impression on the mind than can 
 be made by the representation of what we have often 
 seen before ; and contrasts rouse the power of compari- 
 son by opposition. All this is obvious; but, on the 
 other hand, it must be remembered, that the mind 
 though an active principle, has likewise a disposition to 
 indolence ; and though it loves exercise, loves it only to 
 a certain degree, beyond which it is very unwilling to 
 be led or driven : the pursuit, therefore, of novelty and 
 variety may be carried to excess. When variety en- 
 tirely destroys the pleasure proceeding from uniformity 
 and repetition, and when novelty counteracts and shuts 
 out the pleasure arising from old habits and customs, 
 they oppose too much the indolence of our disposition • 
 the mind, therefore, can bear with pleasure but a small 
 portion of novelty at a time. The main part of the 
 work must be in the mode to which we have been used 
 An affection for old habits and customs I take to be the 
 predominant disposition of the mind, and novelty comes 
 as an exception : where all is novelty, the attention, the 
 exercise of the mind, is too violent. Contrast, in the 
 same manner, when it exceeds certain limits, is as dis- 
 agreeable as a violent and perpetual opposition ; it gives 
 to the senses, in their progress, a more sudden change 
 than they can bear with pleasure. 
 
 It is then apparent that those qualities, however they 
 contribute to the perfection of art when kept within 
 certain bounds, if they are carried to excess become 
 defects and require correction ; a work consequently 
 will not proceed better and better as it is more varied • 
 variety can never be the groundwork and principle of 
 the performance J it must be only emploved to recreate 
 and relieve. 
 
 To apply those general observations which belong 
 equally to all arts, to ours in particular. In a compo- 
 sition, when the objects are scattered and divided into 
 many equal parts, the eye is perplexed and fatigued 
 from not knowing where to rest, where to find the 
 principal action, or which is the principal figure : for 
 where all are making equal pretensions to notice, all 
 are in equal danger of neglect. 
 
 The expression which is used very often on these 
 occasions is, the piece wants repose ; a word which 
 perfectly expresses a relief of the mind from that state 
 of hurry and anxiety which it suffers when looking at 
 a work of this character. 
 
 On the other hand, absolute unity, that is, a large 
 work consisting of one group or mass of light only, 
 would be as defective as an heroic poem without 
 episode, or any collateral incidents to recreate the 
 mind with that variety which it always requires 
 
 An instance occurs to me of two painters (Rembrandt 
 and Poussin), of characters totally opposite to each 
 other in every respect, but in nothing more than in 
 their mode of composition and management of light and 
 shadow. Rembrandt's manner is absolute unity • he 
 often has but one group, and exhibits little more than 
 one spot of light in the midst of a large quantity of 
 shadow ; if he has a second mass, that second bears no 
 proportion to the principal. Poussin, on the contrarv 
 has scarce any principal mass of light at all, and his 
 figures are often too much dispersed, without sufficient 
 attention to place them in groups. 
 
 The conduct of these two painters is entirely the 
 reverse of what might be expected from their general 
 style and character; the works of Poussin being as 
 
34 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 much distinguished for simplicity as those of Rem- 
 brandt for combination. Even this conduct of Poussin 
 might proceed from too great an affection to simplicity 
 of another kind; too great a desire to avoid that osten- 
 tation of art, with regard to light and shadow, on which 
 Rembrandt so much wished to draw the attention ; 
 however, each of them ran into contrary extremes, and 
 it is difficult to determine which is the most reprehen- 
 sible, both being equally distant from the demands of 
 nature and the purposes of art. 
 
 The same just moderation must be observed in 
 regard to ornaments ; nothing will contribute more 
 to destroy repose than profusion, of whatever kind, 
 whether it consists in the multiplicity of objects or the 
 variety and brightness of colours. On the other hand, 
 a work without ornament, instead of simplicity, to which 
 it makes pretensions, has rather the appearance of 
 poverty. The degree to which ornaments are admissible, 
 must be regulated by the professed style of the work ; 
 but we may be sure of this truth — that the most orna- 
 mental style requires repose to set off even its orna- 
 ments to advantage. I cannot avoid mentioning here 
 an instance of repose, in that faithful and accurate 
 painter of nature, Shakspeare — the short dialogue 
 between Duncan and Banquo, whilst they are approach- 
 ing the gates of Macbeth's castle. Their conversation 
 very naturally turns upon the beauty of its situation, 
 and the pleasantness of the air ; and Banquo observing 
 the martlets' nests in every recess of the cornice, 
 remarks that where those birds most breed and haunt, 
 the air is delicate. The subject of this quiet and easy 
 conversation gives that repose so necessary to the 
 mind, after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding 
 scenes, and perfectly contrasts the scene of horror that 
 immediately succeeds. It seems as if Shakspeare asked 
 himself — What is a prince likely to say to his attend- 
 ants on such an occasion ? The modern writers seem, 
 on the contrary, to be always searching for new 
 thoughts, such as never could occur to men in the 
 situation represented. This is also frequently the 
 practice of Homer, who, from the midst of battles and 
 horrors, relieves and refreshes the mind of the reader, 
 by introducing some quiet rural image, or picture of 
 familiar domestic life. The writers of every age and 
 country, where taste has begun to decline, paint and 
 adorn every object they touch ; are always on the 
 stretch ; never deviate or sink a moment from the 
 pompous and the brilliant. Lucan, Statius, and Claudian 
 (as a learned critic has observed), are examples of this 
 bad taste and want of judgment ; they never soften 
 their tones, or condescend to be natural ; all is exagge- 
 ration and perpetual splendour, without affording re- 
 pose of any kind. 
 
 As we are speaking of excesses, it will not be remote 
 from our purpose to say a few words upon simplicity, 
 which, in one of the senses in which it is used, is con- 
 sidered as the general corrector of excess. We shall 
 at present forbear to consider it as implying that exact 
 conduct which proceeds from an intimate knowledge of 
 6imple unadulterated nature, as it is then only another 
 word for perfection, which neither stops short of nor 
 oversteps reality and truth. 
 
 In our inquiry after simplicity, as in many other 
 inquiries of this nature, we can best explain what is 
 right by showing what is wrong ; and, indeed, in this 
 case it seems to be absolutely necessary ; simplicity, 
 being only a negative virtue, cannot be described or 
 defined. We must therefore explain its nature, and 
 show the advantage and beauty which is derived from 
 it, by showing the deformity which proceeds from its 
 neglect. 
 
 Though instances of this neglect might be expected 
 to be found in practice, we should not expect to find in 
 the works of critics precepts that bid defiance to sim- 
 plicity and every thing that relates to it. De Piles 
 recommends to us portrait-painters to add grace and 
 dignity to the characters of those whose pictures we 
 draw ; so far he is undoubtedly right ; but unluckily 
 he descends to particulars, and gives his own idea of 
 
 grace and dignity. " If," says he, « you draw persons 
 of high character and dignity, they ought to be drawn 
 in such an attitude that the portraits must seem to 
 speak to us of themselves, and, as it wex-e, to say to us, 
 < Stop, take notice of me ; I am that invincible king, 
 surrounded by majesty ; I am that valiant commander, 
 who struck terror every where ; I am that great 
 minister, who knew all the springs of politics ; I am 
 that magistrate of consummate wisdom and probity.' " 
 He goes on in this manner with all the characters he 
 can think on. We may contrast the tumour of this 
 presumptuous loftiness with the natural unaffected air 
 of the portraits of Titian, where dignity, seeming to be 
 natural and inherent, draws spontaneous reverence, 
 and instead of being thus vainly assumed, has the 
 appearance of an unalienable adjunct, whereas such 
 pompous and laboured insolence of grandeur is so far 
 from creating respect, that it betrays vulgarity and 
 meanness and new-acquired consequence. 
 
 The painters, many of them at least, have not been 
 backward in adopting the notions contained in these 
 precepts. The portraits of Rigaud are perfect examples 
 of an implicit observance of these rules of De Piles, so 
 that though he was a painter of great merit in many 
 respects, yet that merit is entirely overpowered by a 
 total absence of simplicity in every sense. 
 
 Not to multiply instances, which might be produced 
 for this purpose, from the works of history-painters, I 
 shall mention only one — a picture which I have seen of 
 the Supreme Being, by Coypell. 
 
 This subject the Roman Catholic painters have taken 
 the liberty to represent, however indecent the attempt, 
 and however obvious the impossibility of any approach 
 to an adequate representation ; but here the air and 
 character which the painter has given — and he has 
 doubtless given the highest he could conceive — are so 
 degraded by an attempt at such dignity as De Piles has 
 recommended, that we are enraged at the folly and pre- 
 sumption of the artist, and consider it as little less than 
 profanation. 
 
 As we have passed to a neighbouring nation for in- 
 stances of want of this quality, we must acknowledge, 
 at the same time, that they have produced great ex- 
 amples of simplicity, in Poussin and Le Sueur. But as 
 we are speaking of the most refined and subtle notion 
 of perfection, may we not inquire whether a curious eye 
 cannot discern some faults even in those great men ? 
 I can fancy, that even Poussin, by abhorring that affec- 
 tation and that want of simplicity which he observed 
 in his countrymen, has in certain particulars fallen into 
 the contrary extreme, so far as to approach to a kind 
 of affectation — to what, in writing, would be called 
 pedantry. 
 
 When simplicity, instead of being a corrector, seems 
 to set up for herself, that is, when an artist seems to 
 value himself solely upon this quality, such an osten- 
 tatious display of simplicity becomes then as disagree- 
 able and nauseous as any other kind of affectation. He 
 is, however, in this case, likely enough to sit down con- 
 tented with his own work ; for though he finds the 
 world look at it with indifference or dislike, as being 
 destitute of every quality that can recreate or give plea- 
 sure to the mind, yet he consoles himself that it has 
 simplicity, a beauty of too pure and chaste a nature to 
 be relished by vulgar minds. 
 
 It is in art as in morals ; no character would inspire 
 us with an enthusiastic admiration of his virtue, if that 
 virtue consisted only in an absence of vice ; something 
 more is required — a man must do more than merely his 
 duty to be a hero. 
 
 Those works of the ancients which ai*e in the highest 
 esteem, have something besides mere simplicity to re- 
 commend them. The Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, 
 the Gladiator, have a certain composition of action, have 
 contrasts sufficient to give grace and energy in a high 
 degree ; but it must be confessed of the many thousand 
 antique statues which we have, that their general cha- 
 racteristic is bordering at least on inanimate insipi- 
 dity. 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 Simplicity, when so very inartificial as to seem to 
 evade the difficulties of art, is a very suspicious vir- 
 tue. 
 
 I do not, however, wish to degrade simplicity from 
 the high estimation in which it has been ever justly 
 held. It is our barrier against that great enemy to truth 
 and nature, affectation, which is ever clinging to the 
 pencil, and ready to drop in and poison every thing it 
 touches. 
 
 Our love and affection for simplicity proceeds in a great 
 measure from our aversion to every kind of affectation. 
 There is likewise another reason why so much stress is 
 laid upon this virtue — the propensity which artists have 
 to fall into the contrary extreme ; we therefore set a 
 guard on that side which is most assailable. When a 
 young artist is first told that his composition and his 
 attitudes must be contrasted, that he must turn the head 
 contrary to the position of the body, in order to produce 
 grace and animation, that his outline must be undulat- 
 ing and swelling to give grandeur, and that the eye 
 must be gratified with a variety of colours — when he 
 is told this, with certain animating words of spirit, dig- 
 nity, energy, grace, greatness of style, and brilliancy of 
 tints, he becomes suddenly vain of his newly-acquired 
 knowledge, and never thinks he can carry those rules 
 too far. It is then that the aid of simplicity ought to 
 be called in to correct the exuberance of youthful 
 ardour. 
 
 The same may be said in regard to colouring, which 
 in its pre-eminence is particularly applied to flesh. An 
 artist in his first essay of imitating nature, would make 
 the whole mass of one colour, as the oldest painters did; 
 till he is taught to observe not only the variety of tints 
 which are in the object itself, but the differences pro- 
 duced by the gradual decline of light to shadow; he then 
 immediately puts his instruction in practice, and intro- 
 duces a variety of distinct colours. He must then be 
 again corrected, and told, that although there is this 
 variety, yet the effect of the whole upon the eye must 
 have the union and simplicity of the colouring of 
 nature. 
 
 And here we may observe, that the progress of an 
 individual student bears a great resemblance to the pro- 
 gress and advancement of the art itself. Want of sim- 
 plicity would probably be not one of the defects of an 
 artist who had studied nature only, as it was not of the 
 old masters who lived in the time preceding the great 
 art of painting ; on the contrary, their works are too 
 simple and too inartificial. 
 
 The art in its infancy, like the first work of a student, 
 was dry, hard, and simple ; but this kind of barbarous 
 simplicity would be better named penury, as it proceeds 
 from mere want — from want of knowledge, want of re- 
 sources, want of abilities to be otherwise ; their simpli- 
 city was the offspring, not of choice, but necessity. 
 
 In the second stage they were sensible of this poverty ; 
 and those who were the most sensible of the want, were 
 the best judges of the measure of the supply. There 
 were painters who emerged from poverty without falling 
 into luxury. Their success induced others, who pro- 
 bably never would of themselves have had strength of 
 mind to discover the original defect, to endeavour at 
 the remedy by an abuse ; and they ran into the con- 
 trary extreme. But however they may have strayed, 
 we cannot recommend to them to return to that sim- 
 plicity which tfiey have justly quitted ; but to deal out 
 their abundance with a moi'e sparing hand, with that 
 dignity which makes no parade, either of its riches, or 
 of its art. It is not easy to give a rule which may serve 
 to fix this just and correct medium ; because when we 
 may have fixed, or nearly fixed, the middle point, taken 
 as a general principle, circumstances may oblige us to 
 depart from it, either on the side of simplicity, or on 
 that of variety and decoration. 
 
 I thought it necessary in a former discourse, speaking 
 of the difference of the sublime and ornamental style 
 of painting — in order to excite your attention to the 
 more manly, noble, and dignified manner — to leave 
 perhaps an impression too contemptuous of those orna- 
 
 DISCOURSES. 35 
 
 mental parts of our art, for which many have valued 
 themselves, and many works are much valued and 
 esteemed. 
 
 I said then, what I thought it was right at that time 
 to say — I supposed the disposition of young men more 
 inclinable to splendid negligence, than perseverance in 
 laborious application to acquire correctness ; and there- 
 fore did as we do in making what is crooked straight, 
 by bending it the contrary way, in order that it may 
 remain straight at last. 
 
 For this purpose, then, and to correct excess or 
 neglect of any kind, we may here add, that it is not 
 enough that a work be learned — it must be pleasing ; 
 the painter must add grace to strength, if he desires to 
 secure the first impression in his favour. Our taste 
 has a kind of sensuality about it, as well as a love of the 
 sublime ; both these qualities of the mind are to have 
 their proper consequence, as far as they do not coun- 
 teract each other ; for that is the grand error which 
 much care ought to be taken to avoid. 
 
 There are some rules, whose absolute authority, like 
 that of our nurses, continues no longer than while we 
 are in a state of childhood. One of the first rules, for 
 instance, that I believe every master would give to a 
 young pupil respecting his conduct and management 
 of light and shadow, would be what Lionardo da Vinci 
 has actually given ; that you must oppose a light ground 
 to the shadowed side of your figure, and a dark ground 
 to the light side. If Lionardo had lived to see the 
 superior splendour and effect which has been since 
 produced by the exactly contrary conduct — by joining 
 light to light and shadow to shadow — though without 
 doubt he would have admired it, yet as it ought not, so 
 probably it would not, be the first rule with which he 
 would have begun his instructions. 
 
 Again ; — in the artificial management of the figures, 
 it is directed that they shall contrast each other ac- 
 cording to the rules generally given ; that if one figure 
 opposes his front to the spectator, the next figure is to 
 have his back turned, and that the limbs of each indi- 
 vidual figure be contrasted ; that is, if the right leg be 
 put forward, the right arm is to be drawn back. 
 
 It is very proper that those rules should be given in 
 the academy ; it is proper the young students should 
 be informed that some research is to be made, and that 
 they should be habituated to consider every excellence 
 as reducible to principles. Besides, it is the natural 
 progress of instruction to teach first what is obvious 
 and perceptible to the senses, and from hence proceed 
 gradually to notions large, liberal, and complete, such 
 as comprise the more refined and higher excellences in 
 art. But when students are more advanced, they will 
 find that the greatest beauties of character and expres- 
 sion are produced without contrast ; nay, more, that this 
 contrast would ruin and destroy that natural energy of 
 men engaged in real action, unsolicitous of grace. St 
 Paul Preaching at Athens, in one of the Cartoons, far 
 from any affected academical contrast of limbs, stands 
 equally on both legs, and both hands are in the same 
 attitude : add contrast, and the whole energy and unaf- 
 fected grace of the figure is destroyed. Elymas the 
 Sorcerer stretches both hands forward in the same 
 direction, which gives perfectly the expression intended. 
 Indeed, you never will find in the works of Raffaelle any 
 of those schoolboy affected contrasts. Whatever con- 
 trast there is, appears without any seeming agency of 
 art, by the natural chance of things. 
 
 What has been said of the evil of excesses of all 
 kinds, whether of simplicity, variety, or contrast, natu- 
 rally suggests to the painter the necessity of a general 
 inquiry into the true meaning and cause of rules, and 
 how they operate on those faculties to which they are 
 addressed : by knowing their general purpose and 
 meaning, he will often find that he need not confine 
 himself to the literal sense ; it will be sufficient if he 
 preserve the spirit of the law. 
 
 Critical remarks are not always understood without 
 examples : it may not be improper, therefore, to give 
 instances where the rule itself, though generally re- 
 
36 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 ceived, is false, or where a narrow conception of it may 
 lead the artist into great errors. 
 
 It is given as a rule by Fresnoy, that the principal 
 figure of a subject must appear in the midst of the pic- 
 ture under the principal light, to distinguish it from the 
 rest. A painter who should think himself obliged 
 strictly to follow this rule, would encumber himself 
 with needless difficulties ; he would be confined to great 
 uniformity of composition, and be deprived of many 
 beauties which are incompatible with its observance. 
 The meaning of this rule extends, or ought to extend, 
 no farther than this — that the principal figure should 
 be immediately distinguished at the first glance of the 
 eye ; but there is no necessity that the principal light 
 should fall on the principal figure, or that the principal 
 figure should be in the middle of the picture. It is 
 sufficient that it be distinguished by its place, or by the 
 attention of other figures pointing it out to the spec- 
 tator. So far is this rule from being indispensable, 
 that it is very seldom practised, other considerations 
 of greater consequence often standing in the way. 
 Examples in opposition to this rule are found in the 
 Cartoons, in Christ's Charge to Peter, the Preaching of 
 St Paul, and Elymas the Sorcerer, who is undoubtedly 
 the principal object in that picture. In none of those 
 compositions is the principal figure in the midst of the 
 picture. In the very admirable composition of the Tent 
 of Darius, by Le Brun, Alexander is not in the middle 
 of the picture, nor does the principal light fall on him ; 
 but the attention of all the other figures immediately 
 distinguishes him, and distinguishes him more pro- 
 perly ; the greatest light falls on the daughter of 
 Darius, who is in the middle of the picture, where it is 
 more necessary the principal light should be placed. 
 
 It is very extraordinary that Felibien, who has 
 given a very minute description of this picture, but 
 indeed such a description as may be rather called 
 panegyric than criticism, thinking it necessary (accord- 
 ing to the precept of Fresnoy) that Alexander should 
 possess the principal light, has accordingly given it to 
 him ; he might with equal truth have said that he was 
 placed in the middle of the picture, as he seemed 
 resolved to give this piece every kind of excellence 
 which he conceived to be necessary to perfection. His 
 generosity is here unluckily misapplied, as it would 
 have destroyed in a great measure the beauty of the 
 composition. 
 
 Another instance occurs to me, where equal liberty 
 may be taken in regard to the management of light. 
 Though the general practice is to make a large mass 
 about the middle of the picture, surrounded by shadow, 
 the reverse may be practised, and the spirit of the rule 
 may still be preserved. Examples of this principle 
 reversed may be found very frequently in the works of 
 the Venetian school. In the great composition of Paul 
 Veronese, the Marriage at Cana, the figures are for 
 the most part in half shadow ; the great light is in the 
 sky ; and indeed the general effect of this picture, 
 which is so striking, is no more than what we often see 
 in landscapes, in small pictures of fairs and country 
 feasts ; but those principles of light and shadow being 
 transferred to a large scale, to a space containing nearly 
 a hundred figures as large as life, and conducted to all 
 appearance with as much facility, and with an atten- 
 tion as steadily fixed upon the whole together, as if it 
 were a small picture immediately under the eye, the 
 work justly excites our admiration ; the difficulty being 
 increased as the extent is enlarged. 
 
 The various modes of composition are infinite ; some- 
 times it shall consist of one large group in the middle 
 of the picture, and the smaller groups on each side ; or 
 a plain space in the middle, and the groups of figures 
 ranked round this vacuity. 
 
 Whether this principal broad light be in the middle 
 space of ground, as in the School of Athens ; or in the 
 sky, as in the Marriage at Cana, in the Andromeda, 
 and in most of the pictures of Paul Veronese ; or 
 whether the light be on the groups — whatever mode of 
 composition is adopted, every variety and licence is 
 
 allowable : this only is indisputably necessary, that to 
 prevent the eye from being distracted and confused by 
 a multiplicity of objects of equal magnitude, those 
 objects, whether they consist of lights, shadows, or 
 figures, must be disposed in large masses and groups 
 properly varied and contrasted ; that to a certain 
 quantity of action a proportioned space of plain ground 
 is required ; that light is to be supported by sufficient 
 shadow ; and, we may add, that a certain quantity of 
 cold colours is necessary to give value and lustre to the 
 warm colours ; what those proportions are, cannot be so 
 well learned by precept as by observation on pictures, 
 and in this knowledge bad pictures will instruct as well 
 as good. Our inquiry why pictures have a bad effect, 
 may be as advantageous as the inquiry why they have 
 a good effect ; each will corroborate the principles that 
 are suggested by the other. 
 
 Though it is not my business to enter into the detail 
 of our art, yet I must take this opportunity of men- 
 tioning one of the means of producing that great effect 
 which we observe in the works of the Venetian painters, 
 as I think it is not generally known or observed. It 
 ought, in my opinion, to be indispensably observed, that 
 the masses of light in a picture be always of a warm 
 mellow colour, yellow, red, or a yellowish white ; and 
 that the blue, the grey, or the green colours, be kept 
 almost entirely out of these masses, and be used only 
 to support and set off these warm colours ; and for this 
 purpose, a small proportion of cold colours will be 
 sufficient. 
 
 Let this conduct be reversed; let the light be cold, 
 and the surrounding colours warm, as we often see in 
 the works of the Roman and Florentine painters, and it 
 will be out of the power of art, even in the hands of 
 Rubens or Titian, to make a picture splendid and har- 
 monious. 
 
 Le Brun and Carlo Maratti were two painters of 
 great merit, and particularly what may be called acade- 
 mical merit, but were both deficient in this management 
 of colours ; the want of observing this rule is one of the 
 causes of that heaviness of effect which is so observable 
 in their works. The principal light in the picture of 
 Le Brun, which I just now mentioned, falls on Statira, 
 who is dressed very injudiciously in a pale blue drapery ; 
 it is true, he has heightened this blue with gold, but 
 that is not enough, the whole picture has a heavy air, 
 and by no means answers the expectation raised by the 
 print. Poussin often made a spot of blue drapery, when 
 the general hue of the picture was inclinable to brown 
 or yellow, which shows sufficiently that harmony of 
 colouring was not a part of the art that had much 
 engaged the attention of that great painter. 
 
 The conduct of Titian, in the picture of Bacchus and 
 Ariadne* has been much celebrated, and justly, for the 
 harmony of colouring. To Ariadne is given (say the 
 critics) a red scarf, to relieve the figure from the sea, 
 which is behind her. It is not for that reason alone, 
 but for another of much greater consequence — for the 
 sake of the general harmony and effect of the picture. 
 The figure of Ariadne is separated from the great group, 
 and is dressed in blue, which, added to the colour of the 
 sea, makes that quantity of cold colour which Titian 
 thought necessary for the support and brilliancy of the 
 great group ; which group is composed, with very little 
 exception, entirely of mellow colours. But as the pic- 
 ture in this case would be divided into two distinct parts, 
 one half cold, and the other warm, it was necessary to 
 carry some of the mellow colours of the great group 
 into the cold part of the picture, and a part of the cold 
 into the great group ; accordingly, Titian gave Ariadne 
 a red scarf, and to one of the Bacchante a little blue 
 drapery. 
 
 The light of the picture, as I observed, ought to be 
 of a warm colour ; for though white may be used for 
 the principal light, as was the practice of many of the 
 Dutch and Flemish painters, yet it is better to suppose 
 that white illumined by the yellow rays of the setting 
 
 * Now in the National Gallery. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 37 
 
 sun, as was the manner of Titian. The superiority of 
 which manner is never more striking, than when in a 
 collection of pictures we chance to see a portrait of 
 Titian's hanging by the side of a Flemish picture (even 
 though that should be by the hand of Vandyck), which, 
 however admirable in other respects, becomes cold and 
 grey in the comparison. 
 
 The illuminated parts of objects are in nature of a 
 warmer tint than those that are in the shade ; what I 
 have recommended, therefore, is no more than that the 
 same conduct be observed in the whole which is ac- 
 knowledged to be necessary in every individual part. 
 It is presenting to the eye the same effect as that which 
 it has been accustomed to feel, which in this case, as in 
 every other, will always produce beauty ; no principle, 
 therefore, in our art can be more certain, or is derived 
 from a higher source. 
 
 What I just now mentioned of the supposed reason 
 why Ariadne has part of her drapery red, gives me 
 occasion here to observe, that this favourite quality of 
 giving objects relief, and which De Piles and all the 
 critics have considered as a requisite of the utmost im- 
 portance, was not one of those objects which much 
 engaged the attention of Titian ; painters of an inferior 
 rank have far exceeded him in producing this effect. 
 This was a great object of attention when art was in its 
 infant state, as it is at present with the vulgar and 
 ignorant, who feel the highest satisfaction in seeing a 
 figure which, as they say, looks as if they could walk 
 round it. But however low I may rate this pleasure 
 of deception, I should not oppose it, did it not oppose 
 itself to a quality of a much higher kind, by counter- 
 acting entirely that fulness of manner which is so diffi- 
 cult to express in words, but which is found in perfection 
 in the best works of Correggio, and, we may add, of Rem- 
 brandt. This effect is produced by melting and losing 
 the shadows in a ground still darker than those shadows ; 
 whereas that relief is produced by opposing and sepa- 
 rating the ground from the figure, either by light, or 
 shadow, or colour. This conduct of in-laying, as it may 
 be called, figures on their ground, in order to produce 
 relief, was the practice of the old painters, such as An- 
 drea Mantegna, Pietro Perugino, and Albert Durer ; 
 and to these we may add the first manner of Lionardo 
 da Vinci, Giorgione, and even Correggio ; but these 
 three were among the first who began to correct them- 
 selves in dryness of style, by no longer considering 
 relief as a principal object. As those two qualities, 
 relief, and fulness of effect, can hardly exist together, 
 it is not very difficult to determine to which we ought 
 to give the preference. An artist is obliged for ever to 
 hold a balance in his hand, by which he must deter- 
 mine the value of different qualities, that when some 
 fault must be committed, he may choose the least. 
 Those painters who have best understood the art of 
 producing a good effect, have adopted one principle 
 that seems perfectly conformable to reason, that a part 
 may be sacrificed for the good of the whole. Thus, 
 whether the masses consist of light or shadow, it is 
 necessary that they should be compact and of a pleasing 
 shape ; to this end some parts may be made darker and 
 some lighter, and reflections stronger than nature would 
 warrant. Paul Veronese took great liberties of this 
 kind. It is said, that being once asked why certain 
 figures were painted in shade, as no cause was seen in 
 the picture itself, he turned off the inquiry by answer- 
 ing, " una nuevola che passa" a cloud is passing, which 
 has overshadowed them. 
 
 But I cannot give a better instance of this practice 
 than a picture which I have of Rubens ; it is a repre- 
 sentation of Moonlight. Rubens has not only diffused 
 more light over the picture than is in nature, but has 
 bestowed on it those warm glowing colours by which 
 his works are so much distinguished. It is so unlike 
 what any other painters have given us of moonlight, 
 that it might be easily mistaken, if he had not likewise 
 added stars, for a fainter setting sun. Rubens thought 
 the eye ought to be satisfied in this case, above all other 
 considerations ; he might, indeed, have made it more 
 
 natural, but it would have been at the expense of what 
 he thought of much greater consequence — the harmony 
 proceeding from the contrast and variety of colours. 
 
 This same picture will furnish us with another in- 
 stance, where we must depart from nature for a greater 
 advantage. The moon in this picture does not preserve 
 so great a superiority in regard to its lightness over the 
 object which it illumines, as it does in nature ; this is 
 likewise an intended deviation, and for the same reason. 
 If Rubens had preserved the same scale of gradation of 
 light between the moon and the objects, which is found 
 in nature, the picture must have consisted of one small 
 spot of light only, and at a little distance from the pic- 
 ture nothing but this spot would have been seen. It 
 may be said, indeed, that this being the case, it is a 
 subject that ought not to be painted ; but then, for the 
 same reason, neither armour, nor any thing shining, 
 ought ever to be painted ; for though pure white is used 
 in order to represent the greatest light of shining ob- 
 jects, it will not in the picture preserve the same supe- 
 riority over flesh, as it has in nature, without keeping 
 that flesh-colour of a very low tint. Rembrandt, who 
 thought it of more consequence to paint light than the 
 objects that are seen by it, has done this in a picture of 
 Achilles, which I have. The head is kept down to a 
 very low tint, in order to preserve this due gradation and 
 distinction between the armour and the face ; the con- 
 sequence of which is, that upon the whole, the picture 
 is too black. Surely too much is sacrificed here to this 
 narrow conception of nature ; allowing the contrary 
 conduct a fault, yet it must be acknowledged a less fault 
 than making a picture so dark that it cannot be seen 
 without a peculiar light, and then with difficulty. The 
 merit or demerit of the different conduct of Rubens and 
 Rembrandt in those instances which I have given, is 
 not to be determined by the narrow principles of nature, 
 separated from its effect on the human mind. Reason 
 and common sense tell us, that before, and above all 
 other considerations, it is necessary that the work should 
 be seen, not only without difficulty or inconvenience, 
 but with pleasure and satisfaction ; and every obstacle 
 which stands in the way of this pleasure and conve- 
 nience must be removed. 
 
 The tendency of this discourse, with the instances 
 which have been given, is not so much to place the 
 artist above rules, as to teach him their reason, to pre- 
 vent him from entertaining a narrow confined concep- 
 tion of art, to clear his mind from a perplexed variety 
 of rules and their exceptions, by directing his attention 
 to an intimate acquaintance with the passions and affec- 
 tions of the mind, from which all rules arise, and to 
 which they are all referable. Art effects its purpose 
 by their means ; an accurate knowledge, therefore, of 
 those passions and dispositions of the mind, is necessary 
 to him who desires to effect them upon sure and solid 
 principles. 
 
 A complete essay or inquiry into the connection be- 
 tween the rules of art, and the eternal and immutable 
 dispositions of our passions, would be indeed going at 
 once to the foundation of criticism ; * but I am too well 
 convinced what extensive knowledge, what subtle and 
 penetrating judgment would be required, to engage in 
 such an undertaking ; it is enough for me, if, in the 
 language of painters, I have produced a slight sketch 
 of a part of this vast composition, but that sufficiently 
 distinct to show the usefulness of such a theory, and its 
 practicability. 
 
 Before I conclude, I cannot avoid making one obser- 
 vation on the pictures now before us. I have observed, 
 that every candidate has copied the celebrated inven- 
 tion of Timanthes, in hiding the face of Agamemnon in 
 his mantle ; indeed, such lavish encomiums have been 
 bestowed on this thought, and that, too, by men of the 
 highest character in critical knowledge — Cicero, Quin- 
 tilian, Valerius Maximus, and Pliny — and have been 
 since re-echoed by almost every modern that has written 
 
 * This was inadvertently said. I did not recollect the admir- 
 able treatise On the Sublime and Beautiful. 
 
38 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 on the arts, that your adopting it can neither be won- 
 dered at nor blamed. It appears now to be so much 
 connected with the subject, that the spectator would 
 perhaps be disappointed in not finding united in the 
 picture what he always united in his mind, and con- 
 sidered as indispensably belonging to the subject. But 
 it may be observed, that those who praise this circum- 
 stance were not painters. They use it as an illustration 
 only of their own art ; it served their purpose, and it 
 was certainly not their business to enter into the objec- 
 tions that lie against it in another art. I fear we have 
 but very scanty means of exciting those powers over 
 the imagination, which make so very considerable and 
 refined a part of poetry. It is a doubt with me whether 
 we should even make the attempt. The chief, if not 
 the only, occasion which the painter has for this arti- 
 fice, is when the subject is improper to be more fully 
 represented, either for the sake of decency, or to avoid 
 what would be disagreeable to be seen ; and this is not 
 to raise or increase the passions, which is the reason 
 that is given for this practice, but, on the contrary, to 
 diminish their effect. 
 
 It is true, sketches, or such drawings as painters 
 generally make for their works, give this pleasure of 
 imagination to a high degree. From a slight, undeter- 
 mined drawing, where the ideas of the composition and 
 character are, as I may say, only 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 ; and this power of the 
 imagination is one of the causes of the great pleasure 
 we have in viewing a collection of drawings by great 
 painters. These general ideas, which are expressed in 
 sketches, correspond vex*y well to the art often used in 
 poetry. A great part of the beauty of the celebrated 
 description of Eve, in Milton's Paradise Lost, consists 
 in using only general indistinct expressions, every reader 
 making out the detail according to his own particular 
 imagination — his own idea of beauty, grace, expression, 
 dignity, or loveliness ; but a painter, when he repre- 
 sents Eve on a canvass, is obliged to give a determined 
 form, and his own idea of beauty distinctly expressed. 
 
 We cannot, on this occasion, nor indeed on any other, 
 recommend an undeterminate manner or vague ideas 
 of any kind, in a complete and finished picture. This 
 notion, therefore, of leaving any thing to the imagina- 
 tion, opposes a very fixed and indispensable rule in our 
 art — that every thing shall be carefully and distinctly 
 expressed, as if the painter knew, with correctness and 
 precision, the exact form and character of whatever is 
 introduced into the picture. This is what with us is 
 called science and learning, which must not be sacrificed 
 and given up for an uncertain and doubtful beauty, 
 which, not naturally belonging to our art, will probably 
 be sought for without success. 
 
 Mr Falconet has observed, in a note on this passage 
 in his translation of Pliny, that the circumstance of 
 covering the face of Agamemnon was probably not in 
 consequence of any fine imagination of the painter — 
 which he considers as a discovery of the critics — but 
 merely copied from the description of the sacrifice, as it 
 is found in Euripides. 
 
 The words from which the picture is supposed to be 
 taken, are these — Agamemnon saw Iphigenia advance 
 toivards the fatal altar ; he groaned, he turned aside his 
 head, he shed tears, and covered his face with his robe. 
 
 Falconet does not at all acquiesce in the praise that 
 is bestowed on Timanthes ; not only because it is not 
 his invention, but because he thinks meanly of this trick 
 of concealing, except in instances of blood, where the 
 objects would be too horrible to be seen ; but, says he, 
 " in an afflicted father, in a king, in Agamemnon, you, 
 who are a painter, conceal from me the most interesting 
 circumstance, and then put me off with sophistry and 
 a veil. You are (he adds) a feeble painter, without 
 resource : you do not know even those of your art ; I 
 care not what veil it is, whether closed hands, arms 
 raised, or any other action that conceals from me the 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 countenance of the hero. You think of veiling Aga- 
 memnon ; you have unveiled your own ignorance. A 
 painter who represents Agamemnon veiled, is as ridicu- 
 lous as a poet would be, who, in a pathetic situation, in 
 order to satisfy my expectations and rid himself of the 
 business, should say that the sentiments of his hero are 
 so far above whatever can be said on the occasion, that 
 he shall say nothing." 
 
 To what Falconet has said, we may add, that sup- 
 posing this method of leaving the expression of grief to 
 the imagination to be, as it was thought to be, the in- 
 vention of the painter, and that it deserves all the praise 
 that has been given it, still it is a trick that will serve 
 but once ; whoever does it a second time, will not only 
 want novelty, but be justly suspected of using artifice 
 to evade difficulties. If difficulties overcome make a 
 great part of the merit of art, difficulties evaded can 
 deserve but little commendation. 
 
 DISCOURSE IX. 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE OPENING OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, IN 
 SOMERSET-PLACE, OCTOBER 16, 1780. 
 
 On the removal of the Royal Academy to Somerset-Place. The 
 advantages to Society from cultivating intellectual pleasure. 
 
 Gentlemen — The honour which the arts acquire by 
 being permitted to take possession of this noble habita- 
 tion, is one of the most considerable of the many in- 
 stances we have received of his majesty's protection, and 
 the strongest proof of his desire to make the academy 
 respectable. 
 
 Nothing has been left undone that might contribute 
 to excite our pursuit, or to reward our attainments. 
 We have already the happiness of seeing the arts in a 
 state to which they never before arrived in this nation. 
 This building in which we are now assembled will re- 
 main to many future ages an illustrious specimen of the 
 architect's* abilities. It is our duty to endeavour that 
 those who gaze with wonder at the structure, may not 
 be disappointed when they visit the apartments. It 
 will be no small addition to the glory which this nation 
 has already acquired, from having given birth to emi- 
 nent men in every part of science, if it should be en- 
 abled to produce, in consequence of this institution, a 
 school of English artists. The estimation in which we 
 stand in respect to our neighbours, will be in proportion 
 to the degree in which we excel or are inferior to them 
 in the acquisition of intellectual excellence, of which 
 trade and its consequential riches must be acknow- 
 ledged to give the means ; but a people whose whole 
 attention is absorbed in those means, and who forget 
 the end, can aspire but little above the rank of a bar- 
 barous nation. Every establishment that tends to the 
 cultivation of the pleasures of the mind, as distinct from 
 those of sense, may be considered as an inferior school 
 of morality, where the mind is polished and prepared 
 for higher attainments. 
 
 Let us for a moment take a short survey of the pro- 
 gress of the mind towards what is, or ought to be, its 
 true object of attention. Man in his lowest state has 
 no pleasures but those of sense, and no wants but those 
 of appetite ; afterwards, when society is divided into 
 different ranks, and some are appointed to labour for 
 the support of others, those whom their superiority sets 
 free from labour begin to look for intellectual entertain- 
 ments. Thus, whilst the shepherds were attending 
 their flocks, their masters made the first astronomical 
 observations ; so music is said to have had its origin 
 from a man at leisure listening to the strokes of a 
 hammer. 
 
 As the senses in the lowest state of nature are neces- 
 sary to direct us to our support, when that support is 
 once secure there is danger in following them farther ; 
 to him who has no rule of action but the gratification 
 of the senses, plenty is always dangerous : it is there- 
 
 * Sir William Chambers. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 39 
 
 fore necessary to the happiness of individuals, and still 
 more necessary to the security of society, that the mind 
 should be elevated to the idea of general beauty and 
 the contemplation of general truth ; by this pursuit the 
 mind is always carried forward in search of something 
 more excellent thari it finds, and obtains its proper su- 
 periority over the common senses of life, by learning to 
 feel itself capable of higher aims and nobler enjoyments. 
 In this gradual exaltation of human nature, every art 
 contributes its contingent towards the general supply of 
 mental pleasure. Whatever abstracts the thoughts from 
 sensual gratifications, whatever teaches us to look for 
 happiness within ourselves, must advance in some mea- 
 sure the dignity of our nature. 
 
 Perhaps there is no higher proof of the excellency of 
 man than this — that to a mind properly cultivated, 
 whatever is bounded is little. The mind is continually 
 labouring to advance, step by step, through successive 
 gradations of excellence towards perfection, which is 
 dimly seen at a great, though not hopeless, distance, 
 and which we must always follow, because we never 
 can attain : but the pursuit rewards itself ; one truth 
 teaches another, and our store is always increasing, 
 though nature can never be exhausted. Our art, like 
 all arts which address the imagination, is applied to 
 somewhat a lower faculty of the mind, which ap- 
 proaches nearer to sensuality, but through sense and 
 fancy it must make its way to reason ; for such is the 
 progress of thought, that we perceive by sense, we 
 combine by fancy, and distinguish by reason : and 
 without carrying our art out of its natural and true 
 character, the more we purify it from every thing that 
 is gross in sense, in that proportion we advance its use 
 and dignity ; and in proportion as we lower it to mere 
 sensuality, we pervert its nature, and degrade it from 
 the rank of a liberal art ; and this is what every artist 
 ought well to remember. Let him remember also that 
 he deserves just so much encouragement in the state as 
 he makes himself a member of it virtuously useful, and 
 contributes in his sphere to the general purpose and 
 perfection of society. 
 
 The art which we profess has beauty for its object ; 
 this it is our business to discover and to express ; the 
 beauty of which we are in quest is general and intel- 
 lectual ; it is an idea that subsists only in the mind ; 
 the sight never beheld it, nor has the hand expressed 
 it ; it is an idea residing in the breast of the artist, which 
 he is always labouring to impart, and which he dies at 
 last without imparting — but which he is yet so far able 
 to communicate, as to raise the thoughts, and extend 
 the views of the spectator ; and which, by a succession 
 of art, may be so far diffused, that its effects may extend 
 themselves imperceptibly into public benefits, and be 
 among the means of bestowing on whole nations refine- 
 ment of taste ; which if it does not lead directly to purity 
 of manners, obviates at least their greatest depravation, 
 by disentangling the mind from appetite, and conducting 
 the thoughts through successive stages of excellence, 
 till that contemplation of universal rectitude and har- 
 mony which began by taste, may, as it is exalted and 
 refined, conclude in virtue. 
 
 DISCOURSE X. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 11, 1780. 
 
 Sculpture: has but one style. Its objects, form, and character. 
 Ineffectual attempts of the modern sculptors to improve the art. 
 Ill effects of modern dress in sculpture. 
 
 Gentlemen — I shall now, as it has been customary on 
 this day, and on this occasion, communicate to you such 
 observations as have occurred to me on the theory of 
 art. 
 
 If these observations have hitherto referred princi- 
 pally to painting, let it be remembered that this art is 
 much more extensive and complicated than sculpture, 
 and affords therefore a more ample field for criticism ; 
 
 and as the greater includes the less, the leading prin- 
 ciples of sculpture are comprised in those of painting. 
 
 However, I wish now to make some remarks with 
 particular relation to sculpture; to consider wherein, 
 or in what manner, its principles, and those of painting, 
 agree or differ ; what is within its power of performing, 
 and what it is vain or improper to attempt ; that it 
 may be clearly and distinctly known what ought to be 
 the great purpose of the sculptor's labours. 
 
 Sculpture is an art of much more simplicity and 
 uniformity than painting ; it cannot with propriety, and 
 the best effect, be applied to many subjects. The ob- 
 ject of its pursuit may be comprised in two words, form 
 and character; and those qualities are presented to us 
 but in one manner, or in one style only ; whereas the 
 powers of painting, as they are more various and ex- 
 tensive, so they are exhibited in as great a variety of 
 manners. The Roman, Lombard, Florentine, Venetian, 
 and Flemish schools, all pursue the same end by dif- 
 ferent means. But sculpture having but one style, can 
 only to one style of painting have any relation ; and to 
 this (which is indeed the highest and most dignified 
 that painting can boast) it has a relation so close, that 
 it may be said to be almost the same art operating upon 
 different materials. The sculptors of the last age, from 
 not attending sufficiently to this discrimination of the 
 different styles of painting, have been led into many 
 errors. Though they well knew that they were allowed 
 to imitate, or take ideas for the improvement of their 
 own art from the grand style of painting, they were 
 not aware that it was not permitted to borrow in the 
 same manner from the ornamental. When they endea- 
 vour to copy the picturesque effects, contrasts, or petty 
 excellences of whatever kind, which not improperly find 
 a place in the inferior branches of painting, they doubt- 
 less imagine themselves improving and extending the 
 boundaries of their art by this imitation ; but they are 
 in reality violating its essential character, by giving a 
 different direction to its operations, and proposing to 
 themselves either what is unattainable, or at best a 
 meaner object of pursuit. The grave and austere 
 character of sculpture requires the utmost degree of 
 formality in composition ; picturesque contrasts have 
 here no place ; every thing is carefully weighed and 
 measured., one side making almost an exact equipoise to 
 the other : a child is not a proper balance to a full- 
 grown figure, nor is a figure sitting or stooping a com- 
 panion to an upright figure. 
 
 The excellence of every art must consist in the com- 
 plete accomplishment of its purpose ; and if, by a false 
 imitation of nature, or mean ambition of producing a 
 picturesque effect or illusion of any kind, all the 
 grandeur of ideas which this art endeavours to* excite 
 be degraded or destroyed, we may boldly oppose our- 
 selves to any such innovation. If the producing of a 
 deception is the summit of this art, let us at once give 
 to statues the addition of colour, which will contribute 
 more towards accomplishing this end, than all those 
 artifices which have been introduced and professedly 
 defended, on no other principle but that of rendering the 
 work more natural. But as colour is universally re- 
 jected, every practice liable to the same objection must 
 fall with it. If the business of sculpture were to 
 administer pleasure to ignorance, or a mere entertain- 
 ment to the senses, the Venus of Medicis might cer- 
 tainly receive much improvement by colour ; but the 
 character of sculpture makes it her duty to afford 
 delight of a different, and perhaps of a higher kind — 
 the delight resulting from the coutemplation of perfect 
 beauty — and this, which is in truth an intellectual 
 pleasure, is in many respects incompatible with what 
 is merely addressed to the senses, such as that with 
 which ignorance and levity contemplate elegance of 
 form. 
 
 The sculptor may be safely allowed to practise every 
 means within the power of his art to produce a decep- 
 tion, provided this practice does not interfere with or 
 destroy higher excellences; on these conditions he will 
 be forced, however loth, to acknowledge that tho 
 
40 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 boundaries of his art have long been fixed, and that 
 all endeavours will be vain that hope to pass beyond 
 the best works which remain of ancient sculpture. 
 
 Imitation is the means, and not the end of art ; it is 
 employed by the sculptor as the language by which his 
 ideas are presented to the mind of the spectator. 
 Poetry and elocution of every sort make use of signs, 
 but those signs are arbitrary and conventional. The 
 sculptor employs the representation of the thing itself ; 
 but still as a means to a higher end, as a gradual 
 ascent, always advancing towards faultless form and 
 perfect beauty. It may be thought at the first view 
 that even this form, however perfectly represented, is 
 to be valued and take its rank only for the sake of a 
 still higher object, that of conveying sentiment and 
 character, as they are exhibited by attitude and ex- 
 pression of the passions. But we are sure from expe- 
 rience that the beauty of form alone, without the 
 assistance of any other quality, makes of itself a great 
 work, and justly claims our esteem and admiration. As 
 a proof of the high value we set on the mere excellence 
 of form, we may produce the greatest part of the works 
 of Michael Angelo, both in painting and sculpture, as 
 well as most of the antique statues, which are justly 
 esteemed in a very high degree, though no very marked 
 or striking character or expression of any kind is re- 
 presented. 
 
 But as a stronger instance that this excellence alone 
 inspires sentiment, what artist ever looked at the Torso 
 without feeling a warmth of enthusiasm, as from the 
 highest efforts of poetry ? From whence does this pro- 
 ceed ? What is there in this fragment that produces 
 this effect, but the perfection of this science of abstract 
 form ? 
 
 A mind elevated to the contemplation of excellence 
 perceives in this defaced and shattered fragment, dis- 
 jecta membra poetce, the traces of superlative genius, the 
 reliques of a work on which succeeding ages can only 
 gaze with inadequate admiration. 
 
 It may be said that this pleasure is reserved only to 
 those who have spent their whole life in the study and 
 contemplation of this art ; but the truth is, that all 
 would feel its effects if they could divest themselves of 
 the expectation of deception, and look only for what it 
 really is, a partial representation of nature. The only 
 impediment of their judgment must then proceed from 
 their being uncertain to what rank, or rather kind of 
 excellence, it aspires, and to what sort of approbation 
 it has a right. This state of darkness is, without doubt, 
 irksome to every mind, but by attention to works of 
 this kind, the knowledge of what is aimed at comes of 
 itself, without being taught, and almost without being 
 perceived. 
 
 The sculptor's art is limited in comparison of others ; 
 but it has its variety and intricacy within its proper 
 bounds. Its essence is correctness ; and when to cor- 
 rect and perfect form is added the ornament of grace, 
 dignity of character, and appropriate expression, as 
 in the Apollo, the Venus, the Laocoon, the Moses of 
 Michael Angelo, and many others, this art may be said 
 to have accomplished its purpose. 
 
 What grace is, how it is to be acquired or conceived, 
 are in speculation difficult questions ; but causa latet, 
 res est notissima — without any perplexing inquiry, the 
 effect is hourly perceived. I shall only observe, that 
 its natural foundation is correctness of design ; and 
 though grace may be sometimes united with incorrect- 
 ness, it cannot proceed from it. 
 
 But to come nearer to our present subject. It has 
 been said that the grace of the Apollo depends on a 
 certain degree of incorrectness ; that the head is not 
 anatomically placed between the shoulders ; and that 
 the lower half of the figure is longer than just propor- 
 tion allows. 
 
 I know that Correggio and Parmeggiano are often pro- 
 duced as authorities to support this opinion ; but very 
 little attention will convince us, that the incorrectness 
 of some parts which we find in their works, does not 
 contribute to grace, but rather tends to destroy it. The 
 
 Madonna, with the sleeping Infant, and beautiful group 
 of angels, by Parmeggiano, in the Palazzo Piti, would 
 not have lost any of its excellence, if the neck, fingers, 
 and indeed the whole figure of the Virgin, instead of 
 being so very long and incorrect, had preserved their 
 due proportion. 
 
 In opposition to the first of these remarks, I have the 
 authority of a very able sculptor of this academy, who 
 has copied that figure, consequently measured and 
 carefully examined it, to declare, that the criticism is 
 not true. In regard to the last, it must be remembered 
 that Apollo is here in the exertion of one of his peculiar 
 powers, which is swiftness ; he has therefore that pro- 
 portion which is best adapted to that character. This 
 is no more incorrectness, than when there is given to 
 a Hercules an extraordinary swelling and strength of 
 muscles. 
 
 The art of discovering and expressing grace is diffi- 
 cult enough of itself, without perplexing ourselves with 
 what is incomprehensible. A supposition of such a 
 monster as grace, begot by deformity, is poison to the 
 mind of a young artist, and may make him neglect what 
 is essential to his art, correctness of design, in order to 
 pursue a phantom, which has no existence but in the 
 imagination of affected and refined speculators. 
 
 I cannot quit the Apollo, without making one obser- 
 vation on the character of this figure. He is supposed 
 to have just discharged his arrow at the Python ; and, 
 by the head retreating a little towards the right shoulder, 
 he appears attentive to its effect. What I would remark 
 is, the difference of this attention from that of the Dis- 
 cobulus, who is engaged in the same purpose, watching 
 the effect of his discus. The graceful, negligent, though 
 animated, air of the one, and the vulgar eagerness of 
 the other, furnish a signal instance of the judgment of 
 the ancient sculptors in their nice discrimination of 
 character. They are both equally true to nature, and 
 equally admirable. 
 
 It may be remarked, that grace, character, and ex- 
 pression, though words of different sense and meaning, 
 and so understood when applied to the works of painters, 
 are indiscriminately used when we speak of sculpture. 
 This indecision we may suspect to proceed from the 
 undetermined effects of the art itself ; those qualities 
 are exhibited in sculpture rather by form and attitude 
 than by the features, and can therefore be expressed 
 but in a very general manner. 
 
 Though the Laocoon and his two sons have more 
 expression in the countenance than perhaps any other 
 antique statues, yet it is only the general expression of 
 pain; and this passion is still more strongly expressed 
 by the writhing and contortion of the body than by the 
 features. 
 
 It has been observed in a late publication, that if the 
 attention of the father in this group had been occupied 
 more by the distress of his children than by his own 
 sufferings, it would have raised a much greater interest 
 in the spectator. Though this observation comes from 
 a person whose opinion, in every thing relating to the 
 arts, carries with it the highest authority, yet I cannot 
 but suspect that such refined expression is scarce within 
 the province of this art ; and in attempting it, the artist 
 will run great risk of enfeebling expression, and making 
 it less intelligible to the spectator. 
 
 As the general figure presents itself in a more con- 
 spicuous manner than the features, it is there we must 
 principally look for expression or character — patuit in 
 corpore vultus; and, in this respect, the sculptor's art 
 is not unlike that of dancing, where the attention of the 
 spectator is principally engaged by the attitude and ac- 
 tion of the performer, and it is there he must look for 
 whatever expression that art is capable of exhibiting. 
 The dancers themselves acknowledge this, by often 
 wearing masks, with little diminution in the expression. 
 The face bears so very inconsiderable a proportion to 
 the effect of the whole figure, that the ancient sculptors 
 neglected to animate the features, even with the general 
 expression of the passions. Of this the group of the 
 Boxers is a remarkable instance ; they are engaged in. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 41 
 
 the most animated action with the greatest serenity of 
 countenance. This is not recommended for imitation 
 (for there can be no reason why the countenance should 
 not correspond with the attitude and expression of the 
 figure), but is mentioned in order to infer from hence 
 that this frequent deficiency in ancient sculpture could 
 proceed from nothing but a habit of inattention to what 
 was considered as comparatively immaterial. 
 
 Those who think sculpture can express more than we 
 have allowed, may ask, by what means we discover, at 
 the first glance, the character that is represented in a 
 bust, cameo, or intaglio ? I suspect it will be found, 
 on close examination, by him who is resolved not to see 
 more than he really does see, that the figures are dis- 
 tinguished by their insignia more than by any variety 
 of form or beauty. Take from Apollo his lyre, from 
 Bacchus his thyrsus and vine-leaves, and from Meleager 
 the boar's head, and there will remain little or no dif- 
 ference in their characters. In a Juno, Minerva, or 
 Flora, the idea of the artist seems to have gone no fur- 
 ther than representing perfect beauty, and afterwards 
 adding the proper attributes, with a total indifference 
 to which they gave them. Thus, John de Bologna, after 
 he had finished a group of a young man holding up a 
 young woman in his arms, with an old man at his feet, 
 called his friends together to tell him what name he 
 should give it, and it was agreed to call it the Rape of 
 the Sabines ;* and this is the celebrated group which 
 now stands before the old palace at Florence. The figures 
 have the same general expression which is to be found 
 in most of the antique sculpture ; and yet it would be 
 no wonder if future critics should find out delicacy of 
 expression which was never intended, and go so far as 
 to see in the old man's countenance the exact relation 
 which he bore to the woman who appears to be taken 
 from him. 
 
 Though painting and sculpture are, like many other 
 arts, governed by the same general principles, yet in the 
 detail, or what may be called the by-laws of each art, 
 there seems to be no longer any connection between 
 them. The different materials upon which those two 
 arts exert their powers, must infallibly create a pro- 
 portional difference in their practice. There are many 
 petty excellences which the painter attains with ease, 
 but which are impracticable in sculpture ; and which, 
 even if it could accomplish them, would add nothing to 
 the true value and dignity of the work. 
 
 Of the ineffectual attempts which the modern sculp- 
 tors have made by way of improvement, these seem to 
 be the principal : — The practice of detaching drapery 
 from the figure, in order to give the appearance of 
 flying in the air ; 
 
 Of making different plans in the same bas-relievos ; 
 Of attempting to represent the effects of perspective ; 
 To these we may add the ill effect of figures clothed 
 in a modern dress. 
 
 The folly of attempting to make stone sport and flut- 
 ter in the air, is so apparent, that it carries with it its 
 own reprehension ; and yet to accomplish this, seemed 
 to be the great ambition of many modern sculptors, 
 particularly Bernini ; his heart was so much set on 
 overcoming this difficulty, that he was for ever attempt- 
 ing it, though by that attempt he risked every thing 
 that was valuable in the art. 
 
 Bernini stands in the first class of modern sculptors, 
 and therefore it is the business of criticism to prevent 
 the ill effects of so powerful an example. 
 
 From his very early work of Apollo and Daphne, the 
 world justly expected he would rival the best produc- 
 tions of ancient Greece ; but he soon sti'ayed from the 
 right path. And though there is in his works some- 
 thing which always distinguishes him from the common 
 herd, yet he appears in his latter performances to have 
 lost his way. Instead of pursuing the study of that 
 ideal beauty with which he had so successfully begun, 
 he turned his mind to an injudicious quest of novelty, 
 attempted what was not within the province of the art, 
 
 * Sec II Reposo <U RaffacUc. Borghini. 
 
 and endeavoured to overcome the hardness and obsti- 
 nacy of his materials ; which, even supposing he had 
 accomplished, so far as to make this species of drapery 
 appear natural, the ill effect and confusion occasioned 
 by its being detached from the figure to which it be- 
 longs, ought to have been alone a sufficient reason to 
 have deterred him from that practice. 
 
 We have not, I think, in our academy, any of Ber- 
 nini's works, except a cast of the head of his Neptune ;* 
 this will be sufficient to serve us for an example of the 
 mischief produced by this attempt of representing the 
 effects of the wind. The locks of the hair are flying 
 abroad in all directions, insomuch that it is not a super- 
 ficial view that can discover what the object is which 
 is represented, or distinguish those flying locks from 
 the features, as they are all of the same colour, of equal 
 solidity, and consequently project with equal force. 
 
 The same entangled confusion which is here occa- 
 sioned by the hair, is produced by drapery flying off, 
 which the eye must, for the same reason, inevitably 
 mingle and confound with the principal parts of the 
 figure. 
 
 It is a general rule, equally true in both arts, that 
 the form and attitude of the figure should be seen 
 clearly, and without any ambiguity, at the first glance 
 of the eye. This the painter can easily do by colour, 
 by losing parts in the ground, or keeping them so ob- 
 scure as to prevent them from interfering with the 
 more principal objects. The sculptor has no other 
 means of preventing this confusion than by attaching 
 the drapery for the greater part close to the figure ; 
 the folds of which following the order of the limbs, 
 whenever the drapery is seen, the eye is led to trace 
 the form and attitude of the figure at the same time. 
 
 The drapery of the Apollo, though it makes a large 
 mass, and is separated from the figure, does not affect 
 the present question, from the very circumstance of its 
 being so completely separated ; and from the regularity 
 and simplicity of its form, it does not in the least inter- 
 fere with a distinct view of the figure. In reality, it is 
 no more a part of it than a pedestal, a trunk of a tree, 
 or an animal, which we often see joined to statues. 
 
 The principal use of those appendages is to strengthen 
 and preserve the statue from accidents ; and many are 
 of opinion, that the mantle which falls from the Apollo's 
 arm is for the same end ; but surely it answers a much 
 greater purpose, by preventing that dryness of effect 
 which would inevitably attend a naked arm, extended 
 almost at full length, to which we may add the dis- 
 agreeable effect which would proceed from the body 
 and arm making a right angle. 
 
 The Apostles, in the church of St John Lateran, ap- 
 pear to me to fall under the censure of an injudicious 
 imitation of the manner of the painters. The drapery 
 of those figures, from being disposed in large masses, 
 gives undoubtedly that air of gi'andeur which magni- 
 tude or quantity is sure to produce. But though it 
 should be acknowledged that it is managed with great 
 skill and intelligence, and contrived to appear as light 
 as the materials will allow, yet the weight aud solidity 
 of stone was not to be overcome. 
 
 Those figures are much in the style of Carlo Maratti, 
 and such as we may imagine he would have made, if 
 he had attempted sculpture ; and when we know he had 
 the superintendence of that work, and was an intimate 
 friend of one of the principal sculptors, we may suspect 
 that his taste had some influence, if he did not even give 
 the designs. No man can look at those figures without 
 recognising the manner of Carlo Maratti. They have 
 the same defect which his works so often have, of being 
 overlaid with drapery, and that, too, artificially disposed. 
 I cannot but believe, that if Ruscono, Le Gros, Monot, 
 aud the rest of the sculptors employed in that work, 
 had taken for their guide the simple dress, such as we 
 see in the antique statues of the philosophers, it would 
 * Some years after this discourse was written, Bernini's " Nep- 
 tune" was purchased for our author at Rome, and brought ta 
 England. After his death it was sold by his executors for £500, 
 to Charles Anderson Pclham, Esq., afterwards Lord Yarborough, 
 
42 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 have given more real grandeur to their figures, and 
 would certainly have been more suitable to the cha- 
 racters of the apostles. 
 
 Though there is no remedy for the ill effect of those 
 solid projections, which flying drapery in stone must 
 always produce in statues, yet in bas-relievos it is totally 
 different ; those detached parts of drapery the sculptor 
 has here as much power over as the painter, by uniting 
 and losing it in the ground, so that it shall not in the 
 least entangle and confuse the figure. 
 
 But here again the sculptor, not content with this 
 successful imitation, if it may be so called, proceeds to 
 represent figures, or groups of figures, on different plans, 
 that is, some on the foreground, and some at a greater 
 distance, in the manner of painters in historical compo- 
 sitions. To do this, he has no other means than by 
 making the distant figures of less dimensions, and reliev- 
 ing them in a less degree from the surface : but this is 
 not adequate to the end ; they will still appear only as 
 figures on a less scale, but equally near the eye with 
 those in the front of the piece. 
 
 Nor does the mischief of this attempt, which never 
 accomplishes its intention, rest here : by this division 
 of the work into many minute parts, the grandeur of its 
 general effect is inevitably destroyed. 
 
 Perhaps the only circumstance in which the modern 
 have excelled the ancient sculptors, is the management 
 of a single group in basso-relievo, the art of gradually 
 raising the group from the flat surface till it impercep- 
 tibly emerges into alto-relievo. Of this there is no 
 ancient example remaining that discovers any approach 
 to the skill which Le Gros has shown in an altar in the 
 Jesuits' church at Rome. Different plans or degrees of 
 relief in the same group have, as we see in this instance, 
 a good effect, though the contrary happens when the 
 groups are separated, and are at some distance behind 
 each other. 
 
 This improvement in the art of composing a group in 
 basso-relievo was probably first suggested by the prac- 
 tice of the modern painters, who relieve their figures, 
 or groups of figures, from their ground, by the same 
 gentle gradation, and it is accomplished in every re- 
 spect by the same general principles ; but as the marble 
 has no colour, it is the composition itself that must give 
 it its light and shadow. The ancient sculptors could 
 not borrow this advantage from their painters, for this 
 was an art with which they appear to have been entirely 
 unacquainted ; and in the bas-relievos of Lorenzo Ghi- 
 berti, the casts of which we have in the academy, this 
 art is no more attempted than it was by the painters of 
 his age. 
 
 The next imaginary improvement of the moderns is 
 the representing the effects of perspective in bas-relief. 
 Of this little need be said : all must recollect how inef- 
 fectual has been the attempt of modem sculptors to turn 
 the buildings which they have introduced as seen from 
 their angle, with a view to make them appear to recede 
 from the eye in perspective. This, though it may show 
 indeed their eager desire to encounter difficulties, shows 
 at the same time how inadequate their materials are 
 even to this their humble ambition. 
 
 The ancients with great judgment represented only 
 the elevation of whatever architecture they introduced 
 into their bas-reliefs, which is composed of little more 
 than horizontal or perpendicular lines, whereas the in- 
 terruption of crossed lines, or whatever causes a multi- 
 plicity of subordinate parts, destroys that regularity and 
 firmness of effect on which grandeur of style so much 
 depends. 
 
 We come now to the last consideration — in what man- 
 ner statues are to be dressed, which are made in honour 
 of men either now living or lately departed. 
 
 This is a question which might employ a long dis- 
 course of itself : I shall at present only observe, that he 
 who wishes not to obstruct the artist, and prevent his 
 exhibiting his abilities to their greatest advantage, will 
 certainly not desire a modern dress. 
 
 The desire of transmitting to posterity the shape of 
 modern dress must be acknowledged to be purchased at 
 
 a prodigious price, even the price of every thing that is 
 valuable in ai-t. 
 
 Working in stone is a very serious business, and it 
 seems to be scarce worth while to employ such durable 
 materials in conveying to posterity a fashion of which 
 the longest existence scarce exceeds a year. 
 
 However agreeable it may be to the antiquary's prin- 
 ciples of equity and gratitude, that as he has received 
 gi'eat pleasure from the contemplation of the fashions 
 of dress of former ages, he wishes to give the same satis- 
 faction to future antiquaries ; yet, methinks, pictures of 
 an inferior style, or prints, may be considered as quite 
 sufficient, without prostituting this great art to such 
 mean purposes. 
 
 In this town may be seen an equestrian statue in a 
 modern dress, which may be sufficient to deter future 
 artists from any such attempt ; even supposing no other 
 objection, the familiarity of the modern dress by no 
 means agrees with the dignity and gravity of sculpture. 
 
 Sculpture is formal, regular, and austere — disdains 
 all familiar objects as incompatible with its dignity — 
 and is an enemy to every species of affectation, or ap- 
 pearance of academical art. All contrast, therefore, of 
 one figure to another, or of the limbs of a single figure, 
 or even in the folds of the drapery, must be sparingly 
 employed. In short, whatever partakes of fancy or 
 caprice, or goes under the denomination of picturesque 
 (however to be admired in its proper place), is incom- 
 patible with that sobriety and gravity which is pecu- 
 liarly the characteristic of this art. 
 
 There is no circumstance which more distinguishes 
 a well-regulated and sound taste than a settled unifor- 
 mity of design, where all the parts are compact and 
 fitted to each other, every thing being of a piece. This 
 principle extends itself to all habits of life as well as to 
 all works of art. Upon this general ground, therefore, 
 we may safely venture to pronounce, that the unifor- 
 mity and simplicity of the materials on which the 
 sculptor labours (which are only white marble), pre- 
 scribes bounds to his art, and teaches him to confine 
 himself to a proportionable simplicity of design. 
 
 DISCOURSE XI. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1782. 
 
 Genius: consists principally in the comprehension of a whole; in 
 taking general ideas only. 
 
 Gentlemen — The highest ambition of every artist is to 
 be thought a man of genius. As long as this flattering 
 quality is joined to his name, he can bear with patience 
 the imputation of carelessness, incorrectness, or defects 
 of whatever kind. 
 
 So far, indeed, is the presence of genius from implying 
 an absence of faults, that they are considered by many 
 as its inseparable companions. Some go such lengths 
 as to take indication from them, and not only excuse 
 faults on account of genius, but presume genius from 
 the existence of certain faults. 
 
 It is certainly true that a work may justly claim the 
 character of genius though full of errors, and it is 
 equally true that it may be faultless, and yet not exhibit 
 the least spark of genius. This naturally suggests an 
 inquiry, a desire at least of inquiring, what qualities of 
 a work, and of a workman, may justly entitle a painter 
 to that character. 
 
 I have in a former discourse* endeavoured to impress 
 you with a fixed opinion, that a comprehensive and 
 critical knowledge of the works of nature is the only 
 source of beauty and grandeur. But when we speak to 
 painters, we must always consider this rule, and all 
 rules, with a reference to the mechanical practice of 
 their own particular art. It is not properly in the learn- 
 ing, the taste, and the dignity of the ideas, that genius 
 
 * Discourse III. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 43 
 
 appears as belonging to a painter. There is a genius 
 particular and appropriated to his own trade (as I may 
 call it), distinguished from all others. For that power 
 which enables the artist to conceive his subject with 
 dignity, may be said to belong to general education, and 
 is as much the genius of a poet, or the professor of any 
 other liberal art, or even a good critic in any of those 
 arts, as of a painter. Whatever sublime ideas may fill 
 his mind, he is a painter only as he can put in practice 
 what he knows, and communicate those ideas by visible 
 representation. 
 
 If my expression can convey my idea, I wish to dis- 
 tinguish excellence of this kind by calling it the genius 
 of mechanical performance. This genius consists, I con- 
 ceive, in the power of expressing that which employs 
 your pencil, whatever it may be, as a whole, so that 
 the general effect and power of the whole may take pos- 
 session of the mind, and for a while suspend the con- 
 sideration of the subordinate and particular beauties or 
 defects. 
 
 The advantage of this method of considering objects 
 is what I wish now more particularly to enforce. At 
 the same time I do not forget that a painter must have 
 the power of contracting as well as dilating his sight, 
 because he that does not at all express particulars, ex- 
 presses nothing ; yet it is certain that a nice discrimina- 
 tion of minute circumstances, and a punctilious delinea- 
 tion of them, whatever excellence it may have (and I 
 do not mean to detract from it), never did confer on the 
 artist the character of genius. 
 
 Besides those minute differences in things, which are 
 frequently not observed at all, and when they are, make 
 little impression, there are in all considerable objects 
 great characteristic distinctions, which press strongly on 
 the senses, and therefore fix the imagination. These 
 are by no means, as some persons think, an aggregate 
 of all the small discriminating particulars ; nor will 
 such an accumulation of particulars ever express them. 
 These answer to what I have heard great lawyers call 
 the leading points in a case, or the leading cases relative 
 to those points. 
 
 The detail of particulars, which does not assist the 
 expression of the main characteristic, is worse than use- 
 less — it is mischievous, as it dissipates the attention, 
 and draws it from the principal point. It may be re- 
 marked, that the impression which is left on our mind, 
 even of things which are familiar to us, is seldom more 
 than their general effect — beyond which we do not look 
 in recognising such objects. To express this in paint- 
 ing, is to express what is congenial and natural to the 
 mind of man, and what gives him by reflection his own 
 mode of conceiving. The other pre-supposes nicety and 
 research, which are only the business of the curious and 
 attentive, and therefore does not speak to the general 
 sense of the whole species ; in which common, and, as 
 I may so call it, mother tongue, every thing grand and 
 comprehensive must be uttered. 
 
 I do not mean to prescribe what degree of attention 
 ought to be paid to the minute parts — this it is hard to 
 settle. We are sure that it is expressing the general 
 effect of the whole which alone can give to objects their 
 true and touching character ; and whenever this is ob- 
 served, whatever else may be neglected, we acknow- 
 ledge the hand of a master. We may even go farther, 
 and observe that when the general effect only is pre- 
 sented to us by a skilful hand, it appears to express the 
 object represented in a more lively manner than the 
 minutest resemblance would do. 
 
 These observations may lead to very deep questions, 
 which I do not mean here to discuss ; among others, it 
 may lead to an inquiry, Why we are not always pleased 
 with the most absolute possible resemblance of an imi- 
 tation to its original object ? Cases may exist in which 
 such a resemblance may be even disagreeable. I shall 
 only observe, that the effects of figures in wax-work, 
 though certainly a more exact representation than can 
 be given by painting or sculpture, is a sufficient proof 
 that the pleasure we receive from imitation is not in- 
 creased merely in proportion as it approaches to minute 
 
 and detailed reality : we are pleased, on the contrary, 
 by seeing ends accomplished by seemingly inadequate 
 means. 
 
 To express protuberance by actual relief — to express 
 the softness of flesh by the softness of wax — seems rude 
 and inartificial, and creates no grateful surprise. But 
 to express distances on a plain surface, softness by hard 
 bodies, and particular colouring by materials which are 
 not singly of that colour, produces that magic which 
 is the prize and triumph of our art. 
 
 Carry this principle a step farther. Suppose the 
 effect of imitation to be fully compassed by means still 
 more inadequate — let the power of a few well- chosen 
 strokes, which supersede labour by judgment and direc- 
 tion, produce a complete impression of all that the mind 
 demands in an object — we are charmed with such an 
 unexpected happiness of execution, and begin to be tired 
 with the superfluous diligence, which in vain solicits an 
 appetite already satiated. 
 
 The properties of all objects, as far as a painter is 
 concerned with them, are the outline of drawing, the 
 colour, and the light and shade. The drawing gives 
 the form, the colour its visible quality, and the light 
 and shade its solidity. 
 
 Excellence in any one of these parts of art will never 
 be acquired by au artist, unless he has the habit of 
 looking upon objects at large, and observing the effect 
 which they have on the eye when it is dilated, and em- 
 ployed upon the whole, without seeing any one of the 
 parts distinctly. It is by this that we obtain the ruling 
 characteristic, and that we learn to imitate it by short 
 and dexterous methods. I do not mean by dexterity a 
 trick, or mechanical habit, formed by guess, and esta- 
 blished by custom, but that science which, by a profound 
 knowledge of ends and means, discovers the shortest 
 and surest way to its own purpose. 
 
 If we examine, with a critical view, the manner of 
 those painters whom we consider as patterns, we shall 
 find that their great fame does not proceed from their 
 works being more highly finished than those of other 
 artists, or from a more minute attention to details, but 
 from that enlarged comprehension which sees the whole 
 object at once, and that energy of art which gives its 
 characteristic effect by adequate expression. 
 
 Raffaelle and Titian are two names which stand the 
 highest in our art — one for drawing, the other for paint- 
 ing. The most considerable and the most esteemed 
 works of Raffaelle are the Cartoons, and his fresco works 
 in the Vatican — those, as we all know, are far from being 
 minutely finished : his principal care and attention seems 
 to have been fixed upon the adjustment of the whole, 
 whether it was the general composition, or the compo- 
 sition of each individual figure ; for every figure may 
 be said to be a lesser whole, though in regard to the 
 general work to which it belongs it is but a part : the 
 same may be said of the head, of the hands, and feet. 
 Though he possessed this art of seeing and comprehend- 
 ing the whole, as far as form is concerned, he did not 
 exert the same faculty in regard to the general effect 
 which is presented to the eye by coloui*, and light and 
 shade. Of this the deficiency of his oil pictures, where 
 this excellence is more expected than in fresco, is a 
 sufficient proof. 
 
 It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excel- 
 lence with regard to colour, 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 ; and produced, by this alone, a 
 truer representation than his master Giovanni Bellino, 
 or any of his predecessors, who finished every hair. 
 His great care was to express the general colour — to 
 preserve the masses of light and shade — and to give, by 
 opposition, the idea of that solidity which is inseparable 
 from natural objects. When those are preserved, 
 though the work should possess no other merit, it will 
 have in a proper place its complete effect ; but where 
 any of these are wanting, however minutely laboured 
 the picture may be in the detail, the whole will have a 
 
44 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 false and even an unfinished appearance, at whatever 
 distance or in whatever light it can be shown. 
 
 It is vain to attend to the variation of tints, if in that 
 attention the general hue of flesh is lost ; or to finish 
 ever so minutely the parts, if the masses are not ob- 
 served, or the whole not well put together. 
 
 Vasari seems to have had no great disposition to 
 favour the Venetian painters, yet he every where justly 
 commends il modo di fare, la maniera, la bella pratica, 
 that is, the admirable manner and practice of that 
 school. On Titian, in particular, he bestows the epithets 
 of giudicioso, hello, e stupendo ! 
 
 This manner was then new to the world, but that 
 unshaken truth on which it is founded, has fixed it as 
 a model to all succeeding painters ; and those who will 
 examine into the artifice, will find it to consist in the 
 power of generalising, and in the shortness and simpli- 
 city of the means employed. 
 
 Many artists, as Vasari likewise observes, have igno- 
 rantly imagined they are imitating the manner of Titian, 
 when they leave their colours rough, and neglect the 
 detail ; but not possessing the principles on which he 
 wrought, they have produced what he calls goffe pitture 
 — absurd, foolish pictures ; for such will always be the 
 consequence of affecting dexterity without science, with- 
 out selection, and without fixed principles. 
 
 Raffaelle and Titian seem to have looked at nature 
 for different purposes: they both had the power of 
 extending their view to the whole ; but one looked only 
 for the general effect as produced by form, the other 
 as produced by colour. 
 
 We cannot entirely refuse to Titian the merit of 
 attending to the general form of his object, as well as 
 colour: but his deficiency lay — a deficiency at least 
 when he is compared with Raffaelle — in not possessing 
 the power, like him, of correcting the form of his model 
 by any general idea of beauty in his own mind. Of this 
 his St Sebastian is a particular instance. This figure 
 appears to be a most exact representation both of the 
 form and the colour of the model which he then hap- 
 pened to have before him : it has all the force of nature, 
 and the colouring is flesh itself ; but, unluckily, the 
 model was of a bad form, especially the legs. Titian 
 has with as much care preserved these defects, as he 
 has imitated the beauty and brilliancy of the colouring. 
 In his colouring he was large and general, as in his 
 design he was minute and partial ; in the one he was a 
 genius, in the other not much above a copier. I do 
 not, however, speak now of all his pictures : instances 
 enough may be produced in his works, where those ob- 
 servations on his defects could not, with any propriety, 
 be applied ; but it is in the manner, or language, as it 
 may be called, in which Titian and others of that school 
 express themselves, that their chief excellence lies. 
 This manner is in reality in painting, what language is 
 in poetry : we are all sensible how differently the ima- 
 gination is affected by the same sentiment expressed 
 in different words, and how mean or how grand the 
 same object appears when presented to us by different 
 painters. Whether it is the human figure, an animal, 
 or even inanimate objects, there is nothing, however 
 unpromising in appearance, but may be raised into 
 dignity, convey sentiment, and produce emotion, in the 
 hands of a painter of genius. What was said of Virgil, 
 that he threw even the dung about the ground with an 
 air of dignity, may be applied to Titian : whatever he 
 touched, however naturally mean and habitually fami- 
 liar, by a kind of magic he invested with grandeur and 
 importance. 
 
 I must here observe that I am not recommending a 
 neglect of the detail ; indeed it would be difficult, if 
 not impossible, to prescribe certain bounds, and tell 
 how far or when it is to be observed or neglected ; 
 much must at last be left to the taste and judgment of 
 the artist. I am well aware that a judicious detail will 
 sometimes give the force of truth to the work, and 
 consequently interest the spectator. I only wish to 
 impress on your minds the true distinction between 
 essential and subordinate powers, and to show what 
 
 qualities in the art claim your chief attention, and what 
 may, with the least injury to your reputation, be 
 neglected. Something, perhaps, always must be ne- 
 glected; the lesser ought then to give way to the 
 greater ; and since every work can have but a limited 
 time allotted to it (for even supposing a whole life to 
 be employed about one picture, it is still limited), it 
 appears more reasonable to employ that time to the 
 best advantage, in contriving various methods of com- 
 posing the work — in trying different effects of light 
 and shadow, and employing the labour of correction in 
 heightening, by a judicious adjustment of the parts, the 
 effects of the whole — than that the time should be taken 
 up in minutely finishing those parts. 
 
 But there is another kind of high finishing which 
 may safely be condemned, as it seems to counteract its 
 own purpose ; that is, when the artist, to avoid that 
 hardness which proceeds from the outline cutting 
 against the ground, softens and blends the colours to 
 excess ; this is what the ignorant call high finishing, 
 but which tends to destroy the brilliancy of colour, and 
 the true effect of representation, which consists very 
 much in preserving the same proportion of sharpness 
 and bluntness that is found in natural objects. This 
 extreme softening, instead of producing the effect of 
 softness, gives the appearance of ivory, or some other 
 hard substance highly polished. 
 
 The portraits of Cornelius Jansen appear to have 
 this defect, and consequently want that suppleness 
 which is the characteristic of flesh ; whereas, in the 
 works of Vandyck, we find that true mixture of 
 softness and hardness perfectly observed. The same 
 defect may be found in the manner of Vanderwerf, in 
 opposition to that of Teniers ; and such also, we may 
 add, is the manner of Raffaelle in his oil pictures, in 
 comparison with that of Titian. 
 
 The name which Raffaelle has so justly maintained 
 as the first of painters, we may venture to say was not 
 acquired by this laborious attention. His apology may 
 be made by saying that it was the manner of his 
 country ; but if he had expressed his ideas with the 
 facility and eloquence, as it may be called, of Titian, 
 his works would certainly not have been less excellent ; 
 and that praise, which ages and nations have poured 
 out upon him, for possessing genius in the higher 
 attainments of art, would have been extended to them 
 all. 
 
 Those who are not conversant in works of art, are 
 often surprised at the high value set by connoisseurs on 
 drawings which appear careless, and in every respect 
 unfinished ; but they are truly valuable ; and their 
 value arises from this, that they give the idea of a 
 whole ; and this whole is often expressed by a dexte- 
 rous facility which indicates the true power of a 
 painter, even though roughly exerted ; whether it con- 
 sists in the general composition, or the general form of 
 each figure, or the turn of the attitude which bestows 
 grace and elegance. All this we may see fully exem- 
 plified in the very skilful drawings of Parmeggiano and 
 Correggio. On whatever account we value these draw- 
 ings, it is certainly not for high finishing, or a minute 
 attention to particulars. 
 
 Excellence in every part, and in every province of 
 our art, from the highest style of history down to the 
 resemblances of still-life, will depend on this power of 
 extending the attention at once to the whole, without 
 which the greatest diligence is vain. 
 
 I wish you to bear in mind, that when I speak of a 
 whole, I do not mean simply a whole as belonging to 
 composition, but a whole with respect to the general 
 style of colouring ; a whole with regard to the light 
 and shade ; a whole of every thing which may sepa- 
 rately become the main object of a painter. 
 
 I remember a landscape-painter in Rome, who was 
 known by the name of Studio, from his patience in 
 high finishing, in which he thought the whole excel- 
 lence of art consisted, so that he once endeavoured, as 
 he said, to represent every individual leaf on a trej. 
 This picture I never saw ; but I am very sure that au 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 45 
 
 artist who looked only at the general character of the 
 species, the order of the branches, and the masses of 
 the foliage, would in a few minutes produce a more 
 true resemblance of trees than this painter in as many 
 months. 
 
 A landscape-painter certainly ought to study anato- 
 mically (if I may use the expression) all the objects 
 which he paints ; but when he is to turn his studies to 
 use, his skill, as a man of genius, will be displayed in 
 showing the general effect, preserving the same degree 
 of hardness and softness which the objects have in 
 nature ; for he applies himself to the imagination, not 
 to the curiosity, and works not for the virtuoso or the 
 naturalist, but for the common observer of life and 
 nature. When he knows his subject, he will know not 
 only what to describe but what to omit ; and this skill 
 in leaving out, is in all things a great part of know- 
 ledge and wisdom. 
 
 The same excellence of manner which Titian dis- 
 played in history or portrait-painting, is equally con- 
 spicuous in his landscapes, whether they are professedly 
 such, or serve only as back-grounds. One of the most 
 eminent of this latter kind is to be found in the picture 
 of St Pietro Martire. The large trees which are here 
 introduced are plainly distinguished from each other 
 by the different manner with which the branches shoot 
 from their trunks, as well as by their different foliage ; 
 and the weeds in the foreground are varied in the same 
 manner, just as much as variety requires, and no more. 
 When Algarotti, speaking of this picture, praises it for 
 the minute discriminations of the leaves and plants, 
 even, as he says, to excite the admiration of a botanist, 
 his intention was undoubtedly to give praise, even at 
 the expense of truth, for he must have known that 
 this is not the character of the picture ; but connois- 
 seurs will always find in pictures what they think they 
 ought to find — he was not aware that he was giving a 
 description injurious to the reputation of Titian. 
 
 Such accounts may be very hurtful to young artists, 
 who never have had an opportunity of seeing the work 
 described ; and they may possibly conclude that this 
 great artist acquired the name of the divine Titian 
 from his eminent atteution to such trifling circum- 
 stances, which in reality would not raise him above the 
 level of the most ordinary painter. 
 
 We may extend these observations even to what 
 seems to have but a single, and that an individual ob- 
 ject. The excellence of portrait-painting, and we may 
 add, even the likeness, the character, and countenance, 
 as I have observed in another place, depend more upon 
 the general effect produced by the painter, than on the 
 exact expression of the peculiarities or minute discri- 
 mination of the parts. The chief attention of the artist 
 is therefore employed in planting the features in their 
 proper places, which so much contributes to giving the 
 effect and true impression of the whole. The very pecu- 
 liarities may be reduced to classes and general descrip- 
 tions, and there are therefore large ideas to be found 
 even in this contracted subject. He may afterwards 
 labour single features to what degree he thinks proper, 
 but let him not forget continually to examine whether 
 in finishing the parts he is not destroying the general 
 effect. 
 
 It is certainly a thing to be wished, that all excel- 
 lence were applied to illustrate subjects that are inte- 
 resting and worthy of being commemorated ; whereas, of 
 half the pictures that are in the world, the subject can 
 be valued only as an occasion which sets the artist to 
 work ; and yet, our high estimation of such pictures, 
 without considering, or perhaps without knowing, the 
 subject, shows how much our attention is engaged by 
 the art alone. 
 
 Perhaps nothing that we can say will so clearly show 
 the advantage and excellence of this faculty as that it 
 confers the character of genius on works that pretend 
 to no other merit, in which is neither expression, cha- 
 racter, nor dignity, and where none are interested in the 
 subject. We cannot refuse the character of genius to 
 the Marriage of Paolo Veronese, without opposing the 
 
 general sense of mankind (great authorities have called 
 it the triumph of painting), or to the Altar of St Au- 
 gustine, at Antwerp, by Rubens, which equally deserves 
 that title, and for the same reason. Neither of those 
 pictures has any interesting story to support it. — 
 That of Paolo Veronese is only a representation of a 
 great concourse of people at a dinner ; and the subject 
 of Rubens, if it may be called a subject where nothing 
 is doing, is an assembly of various saints that lived in 
 different ages. The whole excellence of those pictures 
 consists in mechanical dexterity, working, however, 
 under the influence of that comprehensive faculty which 
 I have so often mentioned. 
 
 It is by this, and this alone, that the mechanical power 
 is ennobled, and raised much above its natural rank. 
 And it appears to me, that with propriety it acquires 
 this character, as an instance of that superiority with 
 which mind predominates over matter, by contracting 
 into one whole what nature has made multifarious. 
 
 The great advantage of this idea of a whole, is, that a 
 greater quantity of truth may be said to be contained 
 and expressed in a few lines or touches, than in the 
 most laborious finishing of the parts where this is not 
 regarded. It is upon this foundation that it stands, and 
 the justness of the observation would be confirmed by 
 the ignorant in art, if it were possible to take their 
 opinions unseduced by some false notion of what they 
 imagine they ought to see in a picture. As it is an art, 
 they think they ought to be pleased in proportion as 
 they see that art ostentatiously displayed ; they will, 
 from this supposition, prefer neatness, high-finishing, 
 and gaudy colouring, to the truth, simplicity, and unity 
 of nature. Perhaps, too, the totally ignorant beholder, 
 like the ignorant artist, cannot comprehend a whole, 
 nor even what it means. But if false notions do not 
 anticipate their perceptions, they who are capable of 
 observation, and who, pretending to no skill, look only 
 straight forward, will praise and condemn in proportion 
 as the painter has succeeded in the effect of the whole. 
 Here, general satisfaction, or general dislike, though 
 perhaps despised by the painter, as proceeding from the 
 ignorance of the principles of art, may yet help to re- 
 gulate his conduct, and bring back his attention to that 
 which ought to be his principal object, and from which 
 he has deviated for the sake of minuter beauties. 
 
 An instance of this right judgment I once saw in a 
 child, in going through a gallery where there were many 
 portraits of the last ages, which, though neatly put out 
 of hand, were very ill put together. The child paid no 
 attention to the neat finishing or naturalness of any bit 
 of drapery, but appeared to observe only the ungrace- 
 fulness of the persons represented, and put herself in the 
 posture of every figure which she saw in a forced and 
 awkward attitude. The censure of nature, uninformed, 
 fastened upon the greatest fault that could be in a pic- 
 ture, because it related to the character and management 
 of the whole. 
 
 I should be sorry if what has been said should be 
 understood to have any tendency to encourage that 
 carelessness which leaves work in an unfinished state. 
 I commend nothing for the want of* exactness ; 1 mean 
 to point out that kind of exactness which is the best, 
 and which is alone truly to be so esteemed. 
 
 So far is my disquisition from giving countenance to 
 idleness, that there is nothing in our art which enforces 
 such continual exertion and circumspection as an at- 
 tention to the general effect of the whole. It requires 
 much study and much practice ; it requires the painter's 
 entire mind ; whereas the parts may be finishing by nice 
 touches, while his mind is engaged on other matters ; 
 he may even hear a play or a novel read without much 
 disturbance. The artist who flatters his own indolence 
 will continually find himself evading this active exer- 
 tion, and applying his thoughts to the ease and laziness 
 of highly finishing the parts ; producing at last what 
 Cowley calls " laborious effects of idleness." 
 
 No work can be too much finished, provided the 
 diligence employed be directed to its proper object ; 
 but I have observed that an excessive labour in the 
 
46 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 detail has, nine times in ten, been pernicious to the 
 general effect, even when it has been the labour of great 
 masters. It indicates a bad choice, which is an ill set- 
 ting-out in any undertaking. 
 
 To give a right direction to your industry, has been 
 my principal purpose in this discourse. It is this which 
 I am confident often makes the difference between two 
 students of equal capacities, and of equal industry. 
 While the one is employing his labour on minute ob- 
 jects of little consequence, the other is acquiring the 
 art, and perfecting the habit, of seeing nature in an 
 extensive view, in its proper proportions, and its due 
 subordination of parts. 
 
 Before I conclude, I must make one observation suf- 
 ficiently connected with the present subject. 
 
 The same extension of mind which gives the excel- 
 lence of genius to the theory and mechanical practice of 
 the art, will direct him likewise in the method of study, 
 and give him the superiority over those who narrowly 
 follow a more confined track of partial imitation. Who- 
 ever, in order to finish his education, should travel to 
 Italy, and spend his whole time there only in copying 
 pictures, and measuring statues or buildings (although 
 these things are not to be neglected), would return with 
 little improvement. He that imitates the Iliad, says 
 Dr Young, is not imitating Homer. It is not by laying 
 up in the memory the particular details of any of the 
 great works of art that any man becomes a great artist, 
 if he stops without making himself master of the gene- 
 ral principles on which these works are conducted. If 
 he even hopes to rival those whom he admires, he must 
 consider their works as the means of teaching him the 
 true art of seeing nature. When this is acquired, he 
 then may be said to have appropriated their powers, or 
 at least the foundation of their powers, to himself ; the 
 rest must depend upon his own industry and applica- 
 tion. The great business of study is to form a mind, 
 adapted and adequate to all times and all occasions ; to 
 which all nature is then laid open, and which may be 
 said to possess the key of her inexhaustible riches. 
 
 DISCOURSE XII. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1784. 
 
 Particular methods of Study of little consequence. Little of the 
 Art can be taught. Love of method often a love of idleness. 
 Pittori Improvvisatori apt to be careless and incorrect ; seldom 
 original and striking. This proceeds from their not studying 
 the works of other Masters. 
 
 Gentlemen — In consequence of the situation in which 
 I have the honour to be placed in this academy, it has 
 often happened that I have been consulted by the young 
 students who intend to spend some years in Italy, con- 
 cerning the method of regulating their studies. I am, 
 as I ought to be, solicitously desirous to communicate 
 the entire result of my experience and observation ; and 
 though my openness and facility in giving my opinions 
 might make some amends for whatever was defective 
 in them, yet I fear my answers have not often given 
 satisfaction. Indeed, I have never been sure that I 
 understood perfectly what they meant, and was not 
 without some suspicion that they had not themselves 
 very distinct ideas of the object of their inquiry. 
 
 If the information required was, by what means the 
 path that leads to excellence could be discovered ; if 
 they wished to know whom they were to take for their 
 guides ; what to adhere to, and what to avoid ; where 
 they were to bait, and where they were to take up their 
 rest ; what was to be tasted only, and what should be 
 their diet — such general directions are certainly proper 
 for a student to ask, and for me, to the best of my capa- 
 city, to give ; but these rules have been already given ; 
 they have, in reality, been the subject of almost all my 
 discourses in this place. But I am rather inclined to 
 think, that by method of study, it was meant — as several 
 do mean — that the times and the seasons should be | 
 
 prescribed, and the order settled, in which every thing 
 was to be done ; that it might be useful to point out to 
 what degree of excellence one part of the art was to be 
 carried, before the student proceeded to the next ; how 
 long he was to continue to draw from the ancient 
 statues, when to begin to compose, and when to apply 
 to the study of colouring. 
 
 Such a detail of instruction might be extended with 
 a great deal of plausible and ostentatious amplification. 
 But it would at best be useless. Our studies will be 
 for ever, in a very great degree, under the direction of 
 chance ; like travellers, we must take what we can get, 
 and when we can get it, whether it is or is not admi- 
 nistered to us in the most commodious manner, in the 
 most proper place, or at the exact minute when we would 
 wish to have it. 
 
 Treatises on education, and methods of study, have 
 always appeared to me to have one general fault. They 
 proceed upon a false supposition of life, as if we pos- 
 sessed not only a power over events and circumstances, 
 but had a greater power over ourselves than I believe 
 any of us will be found to possess. Instead of suppos- 
 ing ourselves to be perfect patterns of wisdom and vir- 
 tue, it seems to me more reasonable to treat ourselves 
 — as I am sure we must now and then treat others — 
 like humoursome children, whose fancies are often to 
 be indulged, in order to keep them in good humour with 
 themselves and their pursuits. It is necessary to use 
 some artifice of this kind in all processes which by their 
 very nature are long, tedious, and complex, in order to 
 prevent our taking that aversion to our studies, which 
 the continual shackles of methodical restraint are sure 
 to produce. 
 
 I would rather wish a student, as soon as he goes 
 abroad, to employ himself upon whatever he has been 
 incited to by any immediate impulse, than to go slug- 
 gishly about a prescribed task : whatever he does in 
 such a state of mind, little advantage accrues from it, 
 as nothing sinks deep enough to leave any lasting im- 
 pression ; and it is impossible that any thing should be 
 well understood, or well done, that is taken into a re- 
 luctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand. 
 
 It is desirable, and indeed is necessary to intellectual 
 health, that the mind should be recreated and refreshed 
 with a variety in our studies ; that in the irksomeness 
 of uniform pursuit we should be relieved, and, if I may 
 so say, deceived, as much as possible. Besides, the 
 minds of men are so very differently constituted, that it 
 is impossible to find one method which shall be suitable 
 to all. It is of no use to prescribe to those who have 
 no talents ; and those who have talents will find methods 
 for themselves — methods dictated to them by their own 
 particular dispositions, and by the experience of their 
 own particular necessities. 
 
 However, I would not be understood to extend this 
 doctrine to the younger students. The first part of the 
 life of a student, like that of other school-boys, must 
 necessarily be a life of restraint. The grammar, the 
 rudiments, however unpalatable, must at all events be 
 mastered. After a habit is acquired of drawing cor- 
 rectly from the model (whatever it may be) which he 
 has before him, the rest I think may be safely left to 
 chance, always supposing that the student is employed, 
 and that his studies are directed to the proper object. 
 
 A passion for his art, and an eager desire to excel, 
 will more than supply the place of method. By leaving 
 a student to himself, he may possibly indeed 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. One inconvenience I 
 acknowledge may attend bold and arduous attempts — 
 frequent failure may discourage. This evil, however, is 
 not more pernicious than the slow proficiency which is 
 the natural consequence of too easy tasks. 
 
 Whatever advantages method may have in dispatch 
 of business (and there it certainly has many), I have 
 but little confidence of its efficacy in acquiring excel- 
 lence in any art whatever. Indeed, I have always 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 47 
 
 strongly suspected that this love of method, on which 
 some persons appear to place so great dependence, is 
 in reality, at the bottom, a love of idleness, a want of 
 sufficient energy to put themselves into immediate 
 action — it is a sort of an apology to themselves for doing 
 nothing. I have known artists who may truly be said 
 to have spent their whole lives, or at least the most 
 precious part of their lives, in planning methods of 
 study without ever beginning — resolving, however, to 
 put it all in practice at some time or other ; when a 
 certain period arrives ; when proper conveniences are 
 procured ; or when they remove to a certain place 
 better calculated for study. It is not uncommon for 
 such persons to go abroad with the most honest and 
 sincere resolution of studying hard when they shall 
 arrive at the end of their journey. The same want of 
 exertion, arising from the same cause which made them 
 at home put off' the day of labour until they had found 
 a proper scheme for it, still continues in Italy, and they 
 consequently return home with little if any improve- 
 ment. 
 
 In the practice of art, as well as in morals, it is 
 necessary to keep a watchful and jealous eye over our- 
 selves — idleness, assuming the specious disguise of 
 industry, will lull to sleep all suspicion of our want of 
 an active exertion of strength. A provision of endless 
 apparatus, a bustle of infinite inquiry and research, or 
 even the mere mechanical labour of copying, may be 
 employed to evade and shuffle off real labour — the real 
 labour of thinking. 
 
 1 have declined, for these reasons, to point out any 
 particular method and course of study to young artists 
 on their arrival in Italy. I have left it to their own 
 prudence — a prudence which will grow and improve 
 upon them in the course of unremitted ardent industry, 
 directed by a real love of their profession, and an un- 
 feigned admiration of those who have been universally 
 admitted as patterns of excellence in the art. 
 
 In the exercise of that general prudence, I shall here 
 submit to their consideration such miscellaneous obser- 
 vations as have occurred to me, on considering the 
 mistaken notions or evil habits which have prevented 
 that progress towards excellence, which the natural 
 abilities of several artists might otherwise have enabled 
 them to make. 
 
 False opinions and vicious habits have done far more 
 mischief to students, and to professors too, than any 
 wrong methods of study. 
 
 Under the influence of sloth, or of some mistaken 
 notion, is that disposition which always wants to lean 
 on other men. Such students are always talking of the 
 prodigious progress they should make if they could but 
 have the advantage of being taught by some particular 
 eminent mastei-. To him they would wish to transfer 
 that care which they ought and must take of them- 
 selves. Such are to be told, that after the rudiments 
 are past, very little of our art can be taught by others. 
 The most skilful master can do little more than put the 
 end of the clue into the hands of his scholar, by which 
 he must conduct himself. 
 
 It is true the beauties and defects of the works of 
 our predecessors may be pointed out ; the principles on 
 which their works are conducted may be explained ; 
 the great examples of ancient art may be spread out 
 before them ; but the most sumptuous entertainment is 
 prepared in vain, if the guests will not take the trouble 
 of helping themselves. 
 
 Even the academy itself, where every convenience 
 for study is procured and laid befoi'e them, may, from 
 that very circumstance, from leaving no difficulties to 
 be encountered in the pursuit, cause a remission of 
 their industry. It is not uncommon to see young 
 artists, whilst they are struggling with every obstacle 
 in their way, exert themselves with such success as to 
 outstrip competitors possessed of every means of im- 
 provement. The promising expectation which was 
 formed, on so much being done with so little means, 
 has recommended them to a patron, who has supplied 
 them with every convenience of study ; from that time 
 
 their industry and eagerness of pursuit has forsaken 
 them ; they stand still, and see others rush on before 
 them. 
 
 Such men are like certain animals, who will feed 
 only when there is but little provender, and that got at 
 with difficulty through the bars of a rack, but refuse to 
 touch it when there is an abundance before them. 
 
 Perhaps such a falling off may proceed from the 
 faculties being overpowered by the immensity of the 
 materials ; as the traveller despairs ever to arrive at 
 the end of his journey, when the whole extent of the 
 road which he is to pass is at once displayed to his 
 view. 
 
 Among the first moral qualities, therefore, which a 
 student ought to cultivate, is a just and manly confi- 
 dence in himself, or rather in the effects of that perse- 
 vering industry which he is resolved to possess. 
 
 When Raffaelle, by means of his connection with 
 Bramante, the pope's architect, was fixed upon to adorn 
 the Vatican with his works, he had done nothing that 
 marked in him any great superiority over his contem- 
 poraries ; though he was then but young, he had under 
 his direction the most considerable artists of his age ; 
 and we know what kind of men those were. A lesser 
 mind would have sunk under such a weight ; and if 
 we should judge from the meek and gentle disposition, 
 which we are told was the character of Raffaelle, we 
 might expect this would have happened to him ; but 
 his strength appeared to increase in proportion as exer- 
 tion was required, and it is not improbable that we are 
 indebted to the good fortune which first placed him in 
 that conspicuous situation for those great examples of 
 excellence which he has left us. 
 
 The observations to which I formerly wished, and 
 now desire, to point your attention, relate not to errors 
 which are committed by those who have no claim to 
 merit, but to those inadvertencies into which men of 
 parts only can fall by the overrating or the abuse of 
 some real although perhaps subordinate excellence. 
 The errors last alluded to are those of backward timid 
 characters ; what I shall now speak of belong to another 
 class — to those artists who are distinguished for the 
 readiness and facility of their invention. It is un- 
 doubtedly a splendid and desirable accomplishment to 
 be able to design instantaneously any given subject. 
 It is an excellence that I believe every artist would 
 wish to possess ; but unluckily the manner in which 
 this dexterity is acquired, habituates the mind to be 
 contented with first thoughts without choice or selec- 
 tion. The judgment, after it has been long passive, by 
 degrees loses its power of becoming active when exer- 
 tion is necessary. 
 
 Whoever, therefore, has this talent, must in some 
 measure undo what he has had the habit of doing, or 
 at least give a new turn to his mind — great works, 
 which are to live and stand the criticism of posterity, 
 are not performed at a heat. A proportionable time 
 is required for deliberation and circumspection. I re- 
 member when I was at Rome looking at the fighting 
 Gladiator, in company with an eminent sculptor, and 
 when I expressed my admiration of the skill with which 
 the whole is composed, and the minute attention of the 
 artist to the change of every muscle in that momentary 
 exertion of strength, he was of opinion that a work so 
 perfect required nearly the whole life of man to per- 
 form. 
 
 I believe, if we look around us, we shall find that in 
 the sister art of poetry what has been soon done has 
 been as soon forgotten. The judgment and practice of 
 a great poet on this occasion is worthy attention. Metas- 
 tasio, who has so much and justly distinguished himself 
 throughout Europe, at his outset was an improvvisatore, 
 or extempore poet, a description of raeu not uncommon 
 in Italy : it is not long since he was asked by a friend 
 if he did not think the custom of inventing and reciting 
 extempore, which he practised when a boy in his cha- 
 racter of an improvvisatore, might not be considered as 
 a happy beginning of his education ? He thought it, on 
 the contrary, a disadvantage to him : he said that he 
 
48 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 had acquired by that habit a carelessness and incorrect- 
 ness which it cost him much trouble to overcome, and 
 to substitute in the place of it a totally different habit — 
 that of thinking with selection, and of expressing him- 
 self with correctness and precision. 
 
 However extraordinary it may appear, it is certainly 
 true, that the inventions of the pittori improvvisatori, as 
 they may be called, have, notwithstanding the common 
 boast of their authors that all is spun from their own 
 brain, very rarely any thing that has in the least the 
 air of originality ; their compositions are generally com- 
 mon-place, uninteresting, without character or expres- 
 sion — like those flowery speeches that we sometimes 
 hear, which impress no new ideas on the mind. 
 
 I would not be thought, however, by what has been 
 said, to oppose the use, the advantage, the necessity there 
 is, of a painter being readily able to express his ideas by 
 sketching. The further he can carry such designs the 
 better. The evil to be apprehended is his resting there 
 and not correcting them afterwards from nature, or 
 taking the trouble to look about him for whatever assist- 
 ance the works of others will afford him. 
 
 We are not to suppose that when a painter sits down 
 to deliberate on any work, he has all his knowledge to 
 seek ; he must not only be able to draw extempore the 
 human figure in every variety of action, but he must be 
 acquainted likewise with the general principles of com- 
 position, and possess a habit of foreseeing, while he is 
 composing, the effect of the masses of light and shadow 
 that will attend such a disposition. His mind is entirely 
 occupied by his attention to the whole. It is a subse- 
 quent consideration to determine the attitude and ex- 
 pression of individual figures. It is in this period of 
 his work that I would recommend to every artist to 
 look over his portfolio, or pocket-book, in which he has 
 treasured up all the happy inventions, all the extraordi- 
 nary and expressive attitudes, that he has met with in 
 the course of his studies, not only for the sake of bor- 
 rowing from those studies whatever may be applicable 
 to his own work, but likewise on account of the great 
 advantage he will recejve by bringing the ideas of great 
 artists more distinctly before his mind, which will teach 
 him to invent other figures in a similar style. 
 
 Sir Francis Bacon speaks with approbation of the pro- 
 visionary methods Demosthenes and Cicero employed 
 to assist their invention, and illustrates their use by a 
 quaint comparison after his manner. 
 
 These particular studios being not immediately con- 
 nected with our art, I need not cite the passage I allude 
 to, and shall only observe, that such preparation totally 
 opposes the generally received opinions that are floating 
 in the world concerning genius and inspiration. The 
 same great man in another place, speaking of his own 
 ossays, remarks, that they treat of " those things 
 wherein both men's lives and persons are most conver- 
 sant, whereof a man shall find much in experience, but 
 little in books :" they are then what an artist would 
 naturally call invention ; and yet we may suspect that 
 even the genius of Bacon, great as it was, would never 
 have been enabled to have made those observations, if 
 his mind had not been trained and disciplined by read- 
 ing the observations of others. Nor could he, without 
 such reading, have known that those opinions were not 
 to be found in other books. 
 
 I know there are many artists of great fame who ap- 
 pear never to have looked out of themselves, and who 
 probably would think it derogatory to their character 
 to be supposed to borrow from any other painter. But 
 when we recollect and compare the works of such men 
 with those who took to their assistance the inventions 
 of others, we shall be convinced of the great advantage 
 of this latter practice. 
 
 The two men most eminent for readiness of invention 
 that occur to me, are Luca Giordano and La Fage ; one 
 in painting, and the other in drawing. 
 
 To such extraordinary powers as were possessed by 
 both of those artists, we cannot refuse the character of 
 genius ; at the same time it must be acknowledged, that 
 it was that kind of mechanic genius which operates 
 
 without much assistance of the head. In all their 
 works, which are (as might be expected) very nume- 
 rous, we may look in vain for any thing that can be said 
 to be original and striking ; and yet, according to the 
 ordinary ideas of originality, they have as good preten- 
 sions as most painters, for they borrowed very little 
 from others, and still less will any artist, that can dis- 
 tinguish between excellence and insipidity, ever borrow 
 from them. 
 
 To those men, and all such, let us oppose the practice 
 of the first of painters. I suppose we shall all agree, 
 that no man ever possessed a greater power of inven- 
 tion, and stood less in need of foreign assistance, than 
 Raffaelle ; and yet, when he was designing one of his 
 greatest as well as latest works, the Cartoons, it is very 
 apparent that he had the studies which he had made 
 from Masaccio before him. 
 
 Two noble figures of St Paul which he found there, 
 he adopted in his own work ; one of them he took for 
 St Paul preaching at Athens, and the other for the 
 same saint, when chastising the sorcerer Elymas. An- 
 other figure in the same work, whose head is sunk on 
 his breast, with his eyes shut, appearing deeply wrapt 
 up in thought, was introduced amongst the listeners to 
 the preaching of St Paul. The most material alteration 
 that is made in those two figures of St Paul, is the ad- 
 dition of the left hands, which are not seen in the ori- 
 ginal. It is a rule that Raffaelle observed (and indeed 
 ought never to be departed from), in a principal 
 figure, to show both hands ; that it should never be a 
 question what is become of the other hand. For the 
 Sacrifice at Listra, he took the whole ceremony much 
 as it stands in an ancient basso-relievo, since published 
 in the Admiranda. 
 
 I have given examples from those pictures only of 
 Raffaelle which we have among us, though many other 
 instances might be produced of this great painter not 
 disdaining assistance ; indeed, his known wealth was so 
 great, that he might borrow where he pleased without 
 loss of credit. 
 
 It may be remarked, that this work of Masaccio, from 
 which he has borrowed so freely, was a public work, 
 and at no farther distance from Rome than Florence ; so 
 that if he had considered it a disgraceful theft, he was 
 sure to be detected — but he was well satisfied that his 
 character for invention would be little affected by such 
 a discovery ; nor is it, except in the opinion of those who 
 are ignorant of the manner in which great works are 
 built. 
 
 Those who steal from mere poverty, who, having no- 
 thing of their own, cannot exist a minute without mak- 
 ing such depredations, who are so poor that they have 
 no place in which they can even deposit what they have 
 taken — to men of this description nothing can be said ; 
 but such ai'tists as those to whom I suppose myself now 
 speaking, men whom I consider as competently provided 
 with all the necessaries and conveniences of art, and 
 who do not desire to steal baubles and common trash, 
 but wish only to possess peculiar rarities which they 
 select to ornament their cabinets, and take care to en- 
 rich the general store with materials of equal or of 
 greater value than what they have taken — such men 
 surely need not be ashamed of that friendly intercourse 
 which ought to exist among artists, of receiving from 
 the dead and giving to the living, and perhaps to those 
 who are yet unborn. 
 
 The daily food and nourishment of the mind of an 
 artist is found in the great works of his predecessors. 
 There is no other way for him to become great himself. 
 Serpens nisi serpentem comederit, non fit draco* is a 
 remark of a whimsical Natural History which I have 
 read, though I do not recollect its title ; however false 
 as to dragons, it is applicable enough to artists. 
 
 Raffaelle, as appears from what has been said, had 
 
 * In Ben Johnson's Catiline we find this aphorism, with a 
 slight variation :— 
 
 " A serpent, ere he comes to be a dragon, 
 Must eat a bat." 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 49 
 
 carefully studied the works of Masaccio ; aud indeed 
 there was no other, if we except Michael Angelo (whom 
 he likewise imitated), so worthy of his attention ; and 
 though his manner was dry and hard, his compositions 
 formal, and not enough diversified, according to the 
 custom of painters in that early period, yet his works 
 possess that grandeur and simplicity which accompany, 
 and even sometimes proceed from, regularity and hard- 
 ness of manner. We must consider the barbarous state 
 of the arts before his time, when skill in drawing was 
 so little understood, that the best of the painters could 
 not even foreshorten the foot, but every figure appeared 
 to stand upon his toes : and what served for drapery, 
 had, from the hardness and smallness of the folds, too 
 much the appearance of cords clinging round the body. 
 He first introduced large drapery, flowing in an easy 
 and natural manner ; indeed, he appears to be the first 
 who discovered the path that leads to every excellence 
 to which the art afterwards arrived, and may therefore 
 be justly considered as one of the great fathers of 
 modern art. 
 
 Though I have been led on to a longer digression 
 respecting this great painter than I intended, yet I 
 cannot avoid mentioning another excellence which he 
 possessed in a very eminent degree ; he was as much 
 distinguished among his contemporaries for his diligence 
 and industry, as he was for the natural faculties of his 
 mind. We are told that his whole attention was ab 
 sorbed in the pursuit of his art, and that he acquired 
 the name of Masaccio,* from his total disregard to his 
 dress, his person, and all the common concerns of life. 
 He is indeed a signal instance of what well-directed 
 diligence will do in a short time ; he lived but twenty- 
 seven years, yet in that short space carried the art so 
 far beyond what it had before reached, that he appears 
 to stand alone as a model for his successors. Vasari 
 gives a long catalogue of painters and sculptors, who 
 formed their taste, and learned their art, by studying 
 his works; among those he names Michael Angelo, 
 Lionardo da Vinci, Pietro Perugino, Raffaelle, Barto 
 lomeo, Andrea del Sarto, II Rosso, and Pierino del 
 Vaga. 
 
 The habit of contemplating and brooding over the 
 ideas of great geniuses, till you find yourself warmed 
 by the contact, is the true method of forming an artist- 
 like mind; it is impossible, in the presence of those 
 great men, to think or invent in a mean manner 
 state of mind is acquired that receives those ideas only 
 which relish of grandeur and simplicity. 
 
 Besides the general advantage of forming the taste 
 by such an intercourse, there is another of a particular 
 kind, which was suggested to me by the practice of 
 Raffaelle, when imitating the work of which I have been 
 speaking. The figure of the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, 
 is taken from the Felix of Masaccio, though one is a 
 front figure, and the other seen in profile ; the action 
 is likewise somewhat changed, but it is plain Raffaelle 
 had that figure in his mind. There is a circumstance 
 indeed, which I mention by the bye, which marks it 
 very particularly: Sergius Paulus wears a crown of 
 laurel ; this is hardly reconcileable to strict propriety, 
 and the costume, of which Raffaelle was in general a 
 good observer ; but he found it so in Masaccio, and he 
 did not bestow so much pains in disguise as to change 
 it. It appears to me to be an excellent practice, thus 
 to suppose the figures which you wish to adopt in the 
 works of those great painters to be statues ; and to give 
 as Raffaelle has here given, another view, taking care 
 to preserve all the spirit and grace you find in the ori- 
 ginal. 
 
 I should hope, from what has been lately said, that 
 it is not necessary to guard myself against any supposi- 
 tion of recommending an entire dependence upon former 
 masters. I do not desire that you shall get other people 
 to do your business, or to think for you ; I only wish 
 you to consult with, to call in as counsellors, men the 
 
 * The addition of actio denotes some deformity or imperfection 
 attending that person to whom it is applied.— R. 
 
 D 
 
 most distinguished for their knowledge and experience 
 the result of which counsel must ultimately depend upon 
 yourself. Such conduct in the commerce of life has 
 never been considered as disgraceful, or in any respect 
 to imply intellectual imbecility ; it is a sign rather of 
 that true wisdom which feels individual imperfection, 
 and is conscious to itself how much collective obser- 
 vation is necessary to fill the immense extent, and to 
 comprehend the infinite variety of nature. I recom- 
 mend neither self-dependence nor plagiarism. I advise 
 you only to take that assistance which every human 
 being wants, and which, as appears from the examples 
 that have been given, the greatest painters have not 
 disdained to accept. Let me add, that the diligence 
 required m the search, and the exertion subsequent in 
 accommodating those ideas to your own purpose, is a 
 business which idleness will not, and ignorance can not, 
 perform. But in order more distinctly to explain what 
 kind of borrowing I mean, when I recommend so 
 anxiously the study of the works of great masters, let 
 us for a minute return again to Raffaelle, consider his 
 method of practice, and endeavour to imitate him in 
 his manner of imitating others. 
 
 The two figures of St Paul which I lately mentioned, 
 are so nobly conceived by Masaccio, that perhaps it was 
 not in the power even of Raffaelle himself to raise and 
 improve them, nor has he attempted it ; but he has had 
 the address to change, in some measure, without dimi- 
 nishing the grandeur of their character ; he has substi- 
 tuted, in the place of a serene, composed dignity, that 
 animated expression which was necessary to the more 
 active employment he has assigned them. 
 
 In the same manner he has given more animation to 
 the figure of Sergius Paulus, and to that which is intro- 
 duced in the picture of St Paul preaching, of which little 
 more than hints are given by Masaccio, which Raffaelle 
 has finished. The closing the eyes of this figure, which 
 in Masaccio might be easily mistaken for sleeping, is not 
 in the least ambiguous in the cartoon ; his eyes indeed 
 are closed, but they are closed with such vehemence, 
 that the agitation of a mind perplexed in the extreme is 
 seen at the first glance ; but what is most extraordi- 
 nary, and 1 think particularly to be admired, is, that 
 the same idea is continued through the whole figure, 
 even to the drapery, which is so closely muffled about 
 him, that even his hands are not seen ; bv this happy 
 correspondence between the expression of" the counte- 
 nance and the disposition of the parts, the figure ap- 
 pears to think from head to foot. Men of superior 
 talents alone are capable of thus using and adapting 
 other men's minds to their own purposes, or are able 
 to make out and finish what was only in the original a 
 hint or imperfect conception. A readiness in taking 
 such hints which escape the dull and ignorant, makes, 
 m my opinion, no inconsiderable part of that faculty of 
 the mind which is called genius. 
 
 It often happens that hints may be taken and em- 
 ployed in a situation totally different from that in which 
 they were originally employed. There is a figure of a 
 Bacchante leaning backward, her head thrown quite 
 behind her, which seems to be a favourite invention, as 
 it is so frequently repeated in basso-relievos, cameos, 
 and intaglios ; it is intended to express an enthusiastic, 
 frantic kind of joy. This figure, Baccio Bandinelli, in a 
 drawing that I have of that master, of the Descent from 
 the Cross, has adopted (and he knew very well what 
 was worth borrowing) for one of the Marys, to express 
 frantic agony of grief. It is curious to observe, and it 
 is certainly true, that the extremes of contrary passions 
 are, with very little variation, expressed by the same 
 action. 
 
 If I were to recommend method in any part of the 
 tudy of a painter, it would be in regard to invention ; 
 that young students should not presume to think them- 
 selves qualified to invent, till they were acquainted with 
 those stores of invention the world already possesses, 
 and had by that means accumulated sufficient materials 
 for the mind to work with. It would certainly he no 
 improper method of forming the mind of a voung artist 
 
50 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 to begin with such exercises as the Italians call a pas- 
 ticcio composition of the different excellences w hich are 
 dispersed in all other works of the same kind. It is 
 not supposed that he is to stop here, but that he is to 
 acquire by this means the art of selecting, first what is 
 truly excellent in art, and then what is still more excel- 
 lent in natui'e — a task which, without this previous 
 Study, he will be but ill qualified to perform. 
 
 The doctrinG which is here advanced is acknowledged 
 to be new, and to many may appear strange. But I 
 only demand for it the reception of a stranger — a fa- 
 vourable and attentive consideration, without that entire 
 confidence which might be claimed under authoritative 
 recommendation. 
 
 After you have taken a figure, or any idea of a figure, 
 from any of those great painters, there is another ope- 
 ration still remaining, which I hold to be indispensably 
 necessary — that is, never to neglect finishing from 
 nature every part of the work. What is taken from a 
 model, though the first idea may have been suggested 
 by another, you have a just right to consider as your 
 own property. And here I cannot avoid mentioning a 
 circumstance in placing the model, though to some it 
 may appear trifling. It is better to possess the model 
 with the attitude you require, than to place him with 
 your own hands ; by this means it happens often that 
 the model puts himself in an action superior to your 
 own imagination. It is a great matter to be in the way 
 of accident, and to be watchful and ready to take ad- 
 vantage of it ; besides, when you fix the position of a 
 model, there is danger of putting him in an attitude 
 into which no man would naturally fall. This extends 
 even to drapery. We must be cautious in touching and 
 altering a fold of the stuff which serves as a model, for 
 fear of giving it inadvertently a forced form ; and it is 
 perhaps better to take the chance of another casual 
 throw, than to alter the position in which it was at first 
 accidentally cast. 
 
 Rembrandt, in order to take the advantage of acci- 
 dent, appears often to have used the palette-knife to lay 
 his colours on the canvass, instead of the pencil. Whe- 
 ther it is the knife or any other instrument, it suffices 
 if it is something that does not follow exactly the will. 
 Accident in the hands of an artist who knows how to 
 take the advantage of its hints, will often produce bold 
 and capricious beauties of handling and facility, such 
 as he would not have thought of or ventured, with his 
 pencil under the regular restraint of his hand. How- 
 ever, this is fit only on occasions where no correctness 
 of form is required, such as clouds, stumps of trees, 
 rocks, or bx*oken ground. Works produced in an acci- 
 dental manner will have the same free unrestrained 
 air as the works of nature, whose particular combina- 
 tions seem to depend upon accident. 
 
 I again repeat, you are never to lose sight of nature : 
 the instant you do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of 
 every gust of fashion, without knowing or seeing the 
 point to which you ought to steer. Whatever trips you 
 make, you must still have nature in your eye. Such 
 deviations as art necessarily requires, I hope in a future 
 discourse to be able to explain. In the mean time, 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 for ever wearing out, and will be at last obli- 
 terated, unless they are continually refreshed and re- 
 paired. 
 
 It is not uncommon to meet with artists, who, from a 
 long neglect of cultivating this necessary intimacy with 
 nature, do not even know her when the}' see hex- — she 
 appearing a stranger to them, from their being so long 
 habituated to their own representation of her. I have 
 heard painters acknowledge, though in that acknow- 
 ledgment no degradation of themselves was intended, 
 that they could do better without nature than with her ; 
 or, as they expressed it themselves, that it only put them 
 out. A painter with such ideas and such habits is in- 
 deed in a most hopeless state. The art of seeing nature, 
 or, in other words, the art of using models, is in reality 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 the great object, the point to which all our studies are 
 directed. As for the power of being able to do tolerably 
 well from practice alone, let it be valued according to 
 its worth. But I do not see in what manner it 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 ; 
 and I will venture to say, that an artist who brings to 
 his work a mind tolerably furnished with the general 
 principles of art, and a taste formed upon the works of 
 good artists — in short, who knows in what excellence 
 consists — will, with the assistance of models, which we 
 will likewise suppose he has learnt the art of using, be 
 an over-match for the greatest painter that ever lived, 
 who should be debarred such advantages. 
 
 Our neighbours, the French, are much in this prac- 
 tice of extempore invention, and their dexterity is such 
 as even to excite admiration, if not envy ; but how rarely 
 can this praise be given to their finished pictures ? 
 
 The late director of their academy, Boucher, was 
 eminent in this way. When I visited him some years 
 since in France, I found him at work on a very large 
 picture, without drawings or models of any kind. On 
 my remarking this particular circumstance, he said, 
 when he was young, studying his art, he found it neces- 
 sary to use models, but he had left them off for many 
 years. 
 
 Such pictures as this was, and such as I fear always 
 will be produced by those who work solely from prac- 
 tice or memory, may be a convincing proof of the ne- 
 cessity of the conduct which I have recommended. 
 However, in justice, I cannot quit this painter without 
 adding, that in the former part of his life, when he was 
 in the habit of having recourse to nature, he was not 
 without a considerable degree of merit — enough to make 
 half the painters of his country his imitators : he had 
 often grace and beauty, and good skill in composition ; 
 but, I think, all under the influence of a bad taste : his 
 imitatoi's are indeed abominable. 
 
 Those artists who have quitted the service of nature 
 (whose service, when well understood, is -perfect free- 
 dom), and have put themselves under the direction of 
 I know not what capricious fantastical mistress, who 
 fascinates and overpowers their whole mind, and from 
 whose dominion there are no 'hopes of their being ever 
 reclaimed (since they appear perfectly satisfied, and 
 not at all conscious of their forlorn situation), like the 
 transformed followers of Comus, 
 
 Not once perceive their foul disfigurement, 
 But boast themselves more comely than before— 
 Methinks, such men, who have found out so short a 
 path, have no reason to complain of the shortness of 
 life, and the extent of art ; since life is so much longer 
 than is wanted for their improvement, or indeed is 
 necessary for the accomplishment of their idea of per- 
 fection. On the contrary, he who recurs to nature, at 
 every recurrence renews his strength. The rules of 
 art he is never likely to forget : they are few and simple ; 
 but nature is refined, subtle, and infinitely various, 
 beyond the power and retention of memory ; it is neces- 
 sary, therefore, to have continual recourse to her. In 
 this intercourse there is no end of his improvement ; 
 the longer he lives, the nearer he approaches to the 
 true and perfect idea of art. 
 
 DISCOURSE XIII. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 11, 1786. 
 
 Art not merely imitation, but under the direction of the imagina- 
 tion. In what manner Poetry, Painting, Acting, Gardening, 
 and Architecture, depart from nature. 
 Gentlemen — To discover beauties, or to point out faults, 
 in the works of celebrated masters, and to compare the 
 conduct of one artist with another, is certainly no mean 
 or inconsiderable part of criticism; but this is still no 
 more than to know the art through the artist. This 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 test of investigation must have two capital defects — it 
 must be narrow, and it must be uncertain. To enlarge 
 the boundaries of the art of painting, as well as to fix 
 its principles, it will be necessary that that art and 
 ■those principles should be considered in their corres- 
 pondence with the principles of the other arts, which, 
 like this, address themselves primarily and principally 
 to the imagination. When those connected and kindred 
 principles are brought together to be compared, another 
 comparison will grow out of this — that is, the compa- 
 rison of them all with those of human nature, from 
 whence arts derive the materials upon which they are 
 to produce their effects. 
 
 When this comparison of art with art, and of all arts 
 with the nature of man, is once made with success, our 
 guiding lines are as well ascertained and established as 
 they can be in matters of this description. 
 
 This, as it is the highest style of criticism, is at the 
 same time the soundest, for it refers to the eternal and 
 immutable nature of things. 
 
 You are not to imagine that I mean to open to you 
 at large, or to recommend to your research, the whole 
 of this vast field of science. It is certainly much above 
 my faculties to reach it ; and though it may not be 
 above yours to comprehend it fully, if it were fully and 
 properly brought before you, yet perhaps the most per- 
 fect criticism requires habits of speculation and abstrac- 
 tion not very consistent with the employment which 
 ought to occupy, and the habits of mind which ought 
 to prevail in, a practical artist. I only point out to you 
 these things, that when you do criticise (as all who 
 work on a plan will criticise more or less), your criti- 
 cism may be built on the foundation of true principles ; 
 and that though you may not always travel a great way, 
 the way that you do travel may be the right road. 
 
 I observe, as a fundamental ground, common to all 
 the arts with which we have any concern in this dis- 
 course, that they address themselves only to two facul- 
 ties of the mind — its imagination and its sensibility. 
 
 All theories which attempt to direct or to control the 
 art, upon any principles falsely called rational, which 
 we form to ourselves upon a supposition of what ought 
 in reason to be the end or means of art, independent 
 of the known first effect produced by objects on the 
 imagination, must be false and delusive. For though 
 it may appear bold to say it, the imagination is here the 
 residence of truth. If the imagination be affected, the 
 conclusion is fairly drawn — if it be not affected, the 
 reasoning is erroneous, because the end is not obtained : 
 the effect itself being the test, and the only test, of the 
 truth and efficacy of the means. 
 
 There is in the commerce of life, as in art, a sagacity 
 which is far from being contradictory to right reason, 
 and is superior to any occasional exercise of that faculty 
 — which supersedes it, and does not wait for the slow 
 progress of deduction, but goes at once, by what appears 
 a kind of intuition, to the conclusion. A man endowed 
 with this faculty feels and acknowledges the truth, 
 though it is not always in his power, perhaps, to give 
 a reason for it ; because he cannot recollect and bring 
 before him all the materials that gave birth to his opi- 
 nion ; for very many and very intricate considerations 
 may unite to form the principle even of small and 
 minute parts, involved in or dependent on a great system 
 of things : though these in process of time are forgotten, 
 the right impression still remains fixed in his mind. 
 
 This impression is the result of the accumulated ex- 
 perience of our whole life, and has been collected we 
 do not always know how or when. But this mass of 
 collective observation, however acquired, ought to pre- 
 vail over that reason, which, however powerfully exerted 
 on any particular occasion, will probably comprehend 
 but a partial view of the subject ; and our conduct in 
 life, as well as in the arts, is, or ought to be, generally 
 governed by this habitual reason : it is our happiness 
 that we are enabled to draw on such funds. If we were 
 obliged to enter into a theoretical deliberation on every 
 occasion before we act, life would be at a stand, and art 
 would be impracticable. 
 
 DISCOURSES. 51 
 
 It appears to me, thei'efore, that our first thoughts, 
 that is, the effect which any thing produces on our 
 minds on its first appearance, is never to be forgotten ; 
 and it demands for that reason, because it is the first, 
 to be laid up with care. If this be not done, the artist 
 may happen to impose on himself by partial reasoning ; 
 by a cold consideration of those animated thoughts 
 which proceed, not perhaps from caprice or rashness 
 (as he may afterwards conceit), but from the fulness of 
 his mind, enriched with the copious stores of all the 
 various inventions which he had ever seen, or had ever 
 passed in his mind. These ideas are infused into his 
 design without any conscious effort ; but if he be not 
 on his guard, he may re-consider and correct them, 
 till the whole matter is reduced to a commonplace 
 invention. 
 
 This is sometimes the effect of what I mean to cau- 
 tion you against ; that is to say, an unfounded distrust 
 of the imagination and feeling, in favour of narrow, 
 partial, confined, ai'gumentative theories ; and of prin- 
 ciples that seem to apply to the design in hand ; without 
 considering those genei'al impressions on the fancy, in 
 which real principles of sound reason and of much more 
 weight and importance are involved, and, as it were, 
 lie hid, under the appearance of a sort of vulgar senti- 
 ment. 
 
 Reason, without doubt, must ultimately determine 
 every thing ; at this minute it is required to inform us 
 when that very reason is to give way to feeling. 
 
 Though I have often spoken of that mean conception 
 of our art which confines it to mere imitation, I must 
 add, that it may be narrowed to such a mere matter of 
 experiment, as to exclude from it the application of 
 science, which alone gives dignity and compass to any 
 art. But to find proper foundations for science, is 
 neither to narrow nor to vulgarise it; and this is suffi- 
 ciently exemplified in the success of experimental phi- 
 losophy. It is the false system of reasoning, grounded 
 on a partial view of things, against which 1 would most 
 earnestly guard you. And 1 do it the rather, because 
 those narrow theories, so coincident with the poorest 
 and most miserable practice, and which are adopted to 
 give it countenance, have not had their origin in the 
 poorest minds, but in the mistakes, or, possibly, in the 
 mistaken interpretations, of great and commanding 
 authorities. We are not, therefore, in this case misled 
 by feeling, but by false speculation. 
 
 When such a man as Plato speaks of painting as only 
 an imitative art, and that our pleasure proceeds from 
 observing and acknowledging the truth of the imitation, 
 I think he misleads us by a partial theory. It is in this 
 poor, partial, and so far, false, view of the art, that 
 Cardinal Bembo has chosen to distinguish even Raf- 
 faelle himself, whom our enthusiasm honours with the 
 name of divine. The same sentiment is adopted by 
 Pope in his epitaph on Sir Godfrey Kneller ; and he 
 turns the panegyric solely on imitation, as it is a sort of 
 deception. 
 
 I shall not think my time misemployed, if by any 
 means I may contribute to confirm your opinion of 
 what ought to be the object of your pursuit ; because, 
 though the best critics must always have exploded this 
 strange idea, yet I know that there is a disposition 
 towards a perpetual recurrence to it, on account of its 
 simplicity and superficial plausibility. For this reason 
 I shall beg leave to lay before you a few thoughts on 
 this subject ; to throw out some hints that may lead 
 your minds to an opinion (which I take to be the truth), 
 that painting is not only to be considered as an imita- 
 tion, operating by deception, but that it is, and ought 
 to be, in many points of view, and strictly speaking, no 
 imitation at all of external nature. Perhaps it ought 
 to be as far removed from the vulgar idea of imitation, 
 as the refined civilised state in which we live is removed 
 from a gross state of nature ; and those who have not 
 cultivated their imaginations, which the majority of 
 mankind certainly have not, may be said, in regard to 
 arts, to continue in this state of nature. Such men will 
 always prefer imitation to that excellence which is 
 
52 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 addressed to another faculty that they do not possess ; 
 but these are not the persons to whom a painter is to 
 look, any more than a judge of morals and manners 
 ought to refer controverted points upon those subjects 
 to the opinions of people taken from the banks of the 
 Ohio, or from New Holland. 
 
 It is the lowest style only of arts, whether of painting, 
 poetry, or music, that may be said, in the vulgar sense, 
 to be naturally pleasing. The higher efforts of those 
 arts, we know by experience, do not affect minds wholly 
 uncultivated. This refined taste is the consequence of 
 education and habit ; we are born only with a capacity 
 of entertaining this refinement, as we are born with a 
 disposition to receive and obey all the rules and regu- 
 lations of society ; and so far it may be said to be natu- 
 ral to us, and no farther. 
 
 What has been said may show the artist how neces- 
 sary it is, when he looks about him for the advice and 
 criticism of his friends, to make some distinction of the 
 character, taste, experience, and observation in this art, 
 of those from whom it is received. An ignorant un- 
 educated man may, like Apelles's critic, be a competent 
 judge of the truth of the representation of a sandal ; or 
 to go somewhat higher, like Moliere's old woman, may 
 decide upon what is nature in regard to comic humour ; 
 but a critic in the higher style of art ought to possess 
 the same refined taste which directed the artist in his 
 work. 
 
 To illustrate this principle by a comparison with 
 other arts, I shall now produce some instances to show 
 that they, as well as our own art, renounce the narrow 
 idea of nature, and the narrow theories derived from that 
 mistaken principle, and apply to that reason only which 
 informs us not what imitation is — a natural represen- 
 tation of a given object — but what it is natural for the 
 imagination to be delighted with. And perhaps there 
 is no better way of acquiring this knowledge than by 
 this kind of analogy : each art will corroborate and 
 mutually reflect the truth on the other. Such a kind of 
 juxtaposition may likewise have this use, that whilst 
 the artist is amusing himself in the contemplation of 
 other arts, he may habitually transfer the principles of 
 those arts to that which he professes, which ought to 
 be always present to his mind, and to which every thing 
 is to be referred. 
 
 So far is art from being derived from, or having any 
 immediate intercourse with, particular nature as its 
 model, there are many arts that set out with a pro- 
 fessed deviation from it. 
 
 This is certainly not so exactly true in regard to paint- 
 ing and sculpture. Our elements are laid in gross com- 
 mon nature — an exact imitation of what is before us : 
 but when we advance to the higher state, we consider 
 this power of imitation, though first in the order of 
 acquisition, as by no means the highest in the scale of 
 perfection. 
 
 Poetry addresses itself to the same faculties and the 
 same dispositions as painting, though by different means. 
 The object of each is to accommodate itself to all the 
 natural propensities and inclinations of the mind. The 
 very existence of poetry depends on the licence it as- 
 sumes of deviating from actual nature in order to gra- 
 tify natural propensities by other means, which are 
 found by experience fully as capable of affording such 
 gratification. It sets out with a language in the highest 
 degi-ee artificial, a construction of measured words such 
 as never is nor ever was used by man. Let this mea- 
 sure be what it may, whether hexameter or any other 
 metre used in Latin or Greek — or rhyme, or blank 
 verse varied with pauses and accents in modern lan- 
 guages they are all equally removed from nature, and 
 
 equally a violation of common speech. 
 
 When this artificial mode has been established as the 
 vehicle of sentiment, there is another principle in the 
 human mind to which the work must be referred, which 
 still renders it more artificial, carries it still farther 
 from common nature, and deviates only to render it 
 more perfect. That principle is the sense of congruity, 
 coherence, and consistency, which is a real existing 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 principle in man, and it must be gratified. Therefore 
 having once adopted a style and a measure not found 
 in common discourse, it is required that the sentiments 
 also should be in the same proportion elevated above 
 common nature, from the necessity of there being an 
 agreement of the parts among themselves, that one uni- 
 form whole may be produced. 
 
 To correspond, therefore, with this general system of 
 deviation from nature, the manner in which poetry is 
 offered to the ear, the tone in which it is recited, should 
 be as far removed from the tone of conversation as the 
 words of which that poetry is composed. This naturally 
 suggests the idea of modulating the voice by art, which 
 I suppose may be considered as accomplished to the 
 highest degree of excellence in the recitative of the 
 Italian opera ; as we may conjecture it was in the chorus 
 that attended the ancient drama. And though the most 
 violent passions, the highest distress, even death itself, 
 are expressed in singing or recitative, I would not admit 
 as sound criticism the condemnation of such exhibitions 
 on account of their being unnatural. 
 
 If it is natural for our senses and our imaginations 
 to be delighted with singing, with instrumental music, 
 with poetry, and with graceful action, taken separately 
 (none of them being in the vulgar sense natural, even 
 in that separate state), it is conformable to experience, 
 and therefore agreeable to reason, as connected with and 
 referred to experience, that we should also be delighted 
 with this union of music, poetry, and graceful action, 
 joined to every circumstance of pomp and magnificence 
 calculated to strike the senses of the spectator. Shall 
 reason stand in the way, and tell us that we ought not 
 to like what we know we do like, and prevent us from 
 feeling the full effect of this complicated exertion of art ? 
 This is what I would understand by poets and painters 
 being allowed to dare every thing, for what can be more 
 daring than accomplishing the purpose and end of art 
 by a complication of means, none of which have their 
 archetypes in actual nature ? 
 
 So far, therefore, is servile imitation from being neces- 
 sary, that whatever is familiar, or in any way reminds 
 us of what we see and hear every day, perhaps does not 
 belong to the higher provinces of art, either in poetry 
 or painting. The mind is to be transported, as Shaks- 
 peare expresses it, beyond the ignorant present, to ages 
 past. Another and a higher order of beings is supposed, 
 and to those beings every thing which is introduced 
 into the work must correspond. Of this conduct, under 
 these circumstances, the Roman and Florentine schools 
 afford sufficient examples. Their style by this means is 
 raised and elevated above all others, and by the same 
 means the compass of art itself is enlarged. 
 
 We often see grave and great subjects attempted by 
 artists of another school, who, though excellent in the 
 lower class of art, proceeding on the principles which 
 regulate that class, and not recollecting, or not know- 
 ing, that they were to address themselves to another 
 faculty of the mind, have become perfectly ridiculous. 
 
 The picture which I have at present in my thoughts 
 is a Sacrifice of Iphigenia, painted by Jan Steen, a 
 painter of whom I have formerly had occasion to speak 
 with the highest approbation : and even in this picture, 
 the subject of which is by no means adapted to his 
 genius, there is nature and expression ; but it is such 
 expression, and the countenances are so familiar, and 
 consequently so vulgar, and the whole accompanied 
 with suc,h finery of silks and velvets, that one would be 
 almost tempted to doubt whether the artist did not pur- 
 posely intend to burlesque his subject. 
 
 Instances of the same kind we frequently see in 
 poetry. Parts of Hobbes's translation of Homer are 
 remembered and repeated merely for the familiarity and 
 meanness of their phraseology, so ill corresponding with 
 the ideas which ought to have been expressed, and, as 
 I conceive, with the style of the original. 
 
 We may proceed in the same manner through the 
 comparatively inferior branches of art. There are in 
 works of that class the same distinction of a higher 
 and a lower style ; and they take their rank and degree 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 55 
 
 in proportion as the artist departs, more or less, from 
 common nature, and makes it an object of his attention 
 to strike the imagination of the spectator by ways be- 
 longing specially to art — unobserved and untaught out 
 of the school of its practice. 
 
 If our judgments are to be directed by narrow, vul- 
 gar, untaught, or rather ill-taught, reason, we must 
 prefer a portrait by Denner, or any other high finisher, 
 to those of Titian or Vandyck ; and a landscape of Van- 
 derheyden to those of Titian or Rubens ; for they are 
 certainly more exact representations of nature. 
 
 If we suppose a view of nature represented with all 
 the truth of the camera obscura, and the same scene 
 represented by a great artist, how little and mean will 
 the one appear in comparison of the other, where no 
 superiority is supposed from the choice of the subject. 
 The scene shall be the same, the difference only will be 
 in the manner in which it is presented to the eye. 
 With what additional superiority, then, will the same 
 artist appear when he has the power of selecting his 
 materials, as well as elevating his style? Like Nicholas 
 Poussin, he transports us to the environs of ancient 
 Rome, with all the objects which a literary education 
 makes so pi-ecious and interesting to man ; or, like Se- 
 bastian Bourdon, he leads us to the dark antiquity of 
 the Pyramids of Egypt ; or, like Claude Lorraine, he 
 conducts us to the tranquillity of Arcadian scenes and 
 fairy-land. 
 
 Like the history-painter, a painter of landscapes in 
 this style, and with this conduct, sends the imagination 
 back into antiquity, and, like the poet, he makes the 
 elements sympathise with his subject: whether the 
 clouds roll in volumes like those of Titian or Salvator 
 Rosa — or, like those of Claude, are gilded with the set- 
 ting sun — whether the mountains have sudden and bold 
 projections, or are gently sloped — whether the brandies 
 of his trees shoot out abruptly in right angles from their 
 trunks, or follow each other with only a gentle inclina- 
 tion : all these circumstances contribute to the general 
 character of the work, whether it be of the elegant, or 
 of the more sublime kind. If we add to this the power- 
 ful materials of lightness and darkness, over which the 
 artist has complete dominion, to vary and dispose them 
 as he pleases ; to diminish or increase them, as will 
 best suit his purpose, and correspond to the general idea 
 of his work — a landscape thus conducted, under the in- 
 fluence of a poetical mind, will have the same superiority 
 over the more ordinary and common views, as Milton's 
 Allegro and Penseroso have over a cold prosaic narra- 
 tion or description ; and such a picture would make a 
 more forcible impression on the mind than the real scenes, 
 were they presented before us. 
 
 If we look abroad to other arts, we may observe the 
 same distinction, the same division into two classes ; 
 each of them acting under the influence of two different 
 principles, in which the one follows nature, the other 
 varies it, and sometimes departs from it. 
 
 The theatre, which is said to hold the mirror up to 
 nature, comprehends both those ideas. The lower kind 
 of comedy, or farce, like the inferior style of painting, 
 the more naturally it is represented the better ; but the 
 higher appears to me to aim no more at imitation, so far 
 as it belongs to any thing like deception, or to expect 
 that the spectators should think that the events there 
 represented are really passing before them, than Raf- 
 faelle in his Cartoons, or Poussin in his Sacraments, 
 expected it to be believed, even for a moment, that 
 what they exhibited were real figures. 
 
 For want of this distinction, the world is filled with 
 false criticism. Raffaelle is praised for naturalness and 
 deception, which he certainly has not accomplished, and 
 as certainly never intended ; and our late great actor, 
 Garrick, has been as ignorantly praised by his friend 
 Fielding ; who doubtless imagined he had hit upon an 
 ingenious device, by introducing in one of his novels 
 (otherwise a work of the highest merit) an ignorant 
 man mistaking Garrick's representation of a scene in 
 Hamlet for reality. A very little reflection will con- 
 vince us, that there is not one circumstance in the whole 
 
 scene that is of the nature of deception. The merit and 
 excellence of Shakspeare, and of Garrick, when they 
 were engaged in such scenes, is of a different and much 
 higher kind. But what adds to the falsity of this in- 
 tended compliment is, that the best stage-representation 
 appears even more unnatural to a person of such a 
 character, who is supposed never to have seen a play 
 before, than it does to those who have had a habit of 
 allowing for those necessary deviations from nature 
 which the art requires. 
 
 In theatric representation, great allowances must 
 always be made for the place in which the exhibition is 
 represented ; for the surrounding company, the lighted 
 candles, the scenes visibly shifted in your sight, and 
 the language of blank verse, so different from common 
 English ; which, merely as English, must appear sur- 
 prising in the mouths of Hamlet, and all the court and 
 natives of Denmark. These allowances are made ; but 
 their being made puts an end to all manner of decep- 
 tion ; and, further, we know that the more low, illite- 
 rate, and vulgar any person is, the less he will be 
 disposed to make these allowances, and of course to be 
 deceived by any imitation ; the things in which the 
 trespass against nature and common probability is made 
 in favour of the theatre, being quite within the sphere 
 of such uninformed men. 
 
 Though I have no intention of entering into all the 
 circumstances of unnaturalness in theatrical represen- 
 tations, I must observe, that even the expression of 
 violent passion is not always the most excellent in pro- 
 portion as it is the most natural ; so great terror and 
 such disagreeable sensations may be communicated to 
 the audience, that the balance may be destroyed by 
 which pleasure is preserved, and holds its predominancy 
 in the mind ; violent distortion of action, harsh scream- 
 ings of the voice, however great the occasion, or however 
 natural on such occasion, are therefore not admissible 
 in the theatric art. Many of these allowed deviations 
 from nature arise from the necessity which there is 
 that every thing should be raised and enlarged beyond 
 its natural state ; that the full effect may come home to 
 the spectator, which otherwise would be lost in the com- 
 paratively extensive space of the theatre. Hence tlie 
 deliberate and stately step, the studied grace of action, 
 which seem to enlarge the dimensions of the actor, and 
 alone to fill the stage. All this unnaturalness, though 
 right and proper in its place, would appear affect* d and 
 ridiculous in a private room. 
 
 And here I must observe, and I believe it may be 
 considered as a general rule, that no art can be grafted 
 with success on another art. For though they all pro- 
 fess the same origin, and to proceed from the same 
 stock, yet each has its own peculiar modes both of 
 imitating nature and of deviating from it, each for the 
 accomplishment of its own particular purpose. These 
 deviations, more especially, will not bear transplanta- 
 tion to another soil. 
 
 If a painter should endeavour to copy the theatrical 
 pomp and parade of dress and attitude, instead of that 
 simplicity which is not a greater beauty in life than it 
 is in painting, we should condemn such pictures as 
 painted in the meanest style. 
 
 So also gardening, as far as gardening is an 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. Even 
 though we define it, w nature to advantage dressed," 
 and in some sense it is such, and much more beautiful 
 and commodious for the recreation of man, it is, how- 
 ever, when so dressed, no longer a subject for the 
 pencil of a landscape-painter, as all landscape-painters 
 know, who love to have recourse to nature herself, and 
 to dress her according to the principles of their own 
 art, which are far different from those of gardening, 
 even when conducted according to the most approved 
 principles, and such as a landscape-painter himself 
 would adopt in the disposition of his own grounds for 
 his own private satisfaction. 
 
54 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 I have brought together as many instances as appear 
 necessary to make out the several points which I wish 
 to suggest to your consideration in this discourse, that 
 your own thoughts may lead you further in the use 
 that may be made of the analogy of the arts, and of the 
 restraint which a full understanding of the diversity of 
 many of their principles ought to impose on the em- 
 ployment of that analogy. 
 
 The great end of all those arts is to make an impres- 
 sion on the imagination and the feeling. The imitation 
 of nature frequently does this. Sometimes it fails, and 
 something else succeeds. 1 think, therefore, the true 
 test of all the arts is, not solely whether the production 
 is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the 
 end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon 
 the mind. 
 
 It remains only to speak a few words of architecture, 
 which does not come under the denomination of an 
 imitative art. It applies itself, like music (and I believe 
 we may add poetry), directly to the imagination, with- 
 out the intervention of any kind of imitation. 
 
 There is in architecture, as in painting, an inferior 
 branch of art, in which the imagination appears to 
 have no concern. It does not, however, acquire the 
 name of a polite and liberal art from its usefulness or 
 administering to our wants or necessities, but from 
 some higher principle ; we are sure, that in the hands 
 of a man of genius it is capable of inspiring senti- 
 ment, and of tilling the mind with great and sublime 
 ideas. 
 
 It may be worth the attention of ai'tists to consider 
 what materials are in their hands that may contri- 
 bute to this end ; and whether this art has it not in its 
 power to address itself to the imagination with effect, 
 by more ways than are generally employed by archi- 
 tects. 
 
 To pass over the effect produced by that general 
 symmetry and proportion by which the eye is delighted, 
 as the ear is with music, architecture certainly possesses 
 many principles in common with poetry and painting. 
 Among those which may be reckoned as the first, is 
 that of affecting the imagination by means of associa- 
 tion of ideas. Thus, for instance, as we have naturally 
 a veneration for antiquity, whatever building brings to 
 our remembrance ancient customs and manners, such 
 as the castles of the barons of ancient chivalry, is sure 
 to give this delight. Hence it is that towers and battle- 
 ments* are so often selected by the painter and the poet, 
 to make a part of the composition of their ideal land- 
 scape ; it is from hence in a great degree that in the 
 buildings of Vanbrugh, who was a poet as well as an 
 architect, there is a greater display of imagination than 
 we shall find perhaps in any other ; and this is the 
 ground of the effect we feel in many of his works, not- 
 withstanding the faults with which many of them are 
 justly charged. For this purpose, Vanbrugh appears 
 to have had recourse to some of the principles of the 
 Gothic architecture, which, though not so ancient as 
 the Grecian, is more so to our imagination, with which 
 the artist is more concerned than with absolute truth. 
 
 The barbaric splendour of those Asiatic buildings, 
 which are now publishing by a member of this academy 
 may possibly, in the same manner, furnish an architect, 
 not with models to copy, but with hints of composition 
 and general effect, which would not otherwise have 
 occurred. 
 
 It is, I know, a delicate and hazardous thing (and 
 as such I have already pointed it out) to carry the 
 principles of one art to another, or even to reconcile in 
 one object the various modes of the same art, when 
 they proceed on different principles. The sound rules 
 of the Grecian architecture are not to be lightly sacri- 
 ficed. A deviation from them, or even an addition to 
 them, is like a deviation from, or addition to, the rules 
 of other arts — fit only for a great master, who is 
 
 thoroughly conversant in the nature of man, as well as 
 all combinations in his own art. 
 
 It may not be amiss for the architect to take advan- 
 tage sometimes of that to which I am sure the painter 
 ought always to have his eyes open — I mean the use of 
 accidents, to follow when they lead, and to improve 
 them, rather than always to trust to a regular plan. It 
 often happens that additions have been made to houses, 
 at various times, for use or pleasure. As such buildings 
 depart from regularity, they now and then acquire 
 something of scenery by this accident, which I should 
 think might not unsuccessfully be adopted by an archi- 
 tect, in an original plan, if it does not too much inter- 
 fere with convenience. Variety and intricacy is a beauty 
 and excellence in every other of the arts which address 
 the imagination, and why not in architecture ? 
 
 The forms and turnings of the streets of London, and 
 other old towns, are produced by accident, without any 
 original plan or design ; but they are not always the 
 less pleasant to the walker or spectator on that account. 
 On the contrary, if the city had been built on the regu- 
 lar plan of Sir Christopher Wren, the effect might have 
 been, as we know it is in some new parts of the town, 
 rather unpleasing ; the uniformity might have produced 
 weariness, and a slight degree of disgust. 
 
 I can pretend to no skill in the detail of architecture. 
 I judge now of the art merely as a painter. When I 
 speak of Vanbrugh, I mean to speak of him in the lan- 
 guage of our art. To speak then of Vanbrugh in the 
 language of a painter, he had originality of invention ; 
 he understood light and shadow, and had great skill in 
 composition. To support his principal object, he pro- 
 duced his second and third groups or masses ; he per- 
 fectly understood in his art what is the most difficult in 
 ours — the conduct of the background, by which the 
 design and invention is set off to the greatest advantage. 
 What the background is in painting, in architecture is 
 the real ground on which the building is erected ; and 
 no architect took greater care than he that his work 
 should not appear crude and hard — that is, it did not 
 abruptly start out of the ground without expectation or 
 preparation. 
 
 This is a tribute which a painter owes to an architect 
 who composed like a painter, and was defrauded of the 
 due reward of his merit by the wits of his time, who 
 did not understand the principles of composition in 
 poetry better than he, and who knew little or nothing 
 of what he understood perfectly — the general ruling 
 principles of architecture and painting. His fate was 
 that of the great Perrault: both were the objects of 
 the petulant sarcasms of factious men of letters ; and 
 both have left some of the fairest ornaments vv ich to 
 this day decorate their several countries — the facade of 
 the Louvre, Blenheim, and Castle Howard. 
 
 Upon the whole, it seems to me that the object and 
 intention of all the arts is to supply the natural imper- 
 fection of things, and often to gratify the mind by 
 realising and embodying what never existed but in the 
 imagination. 
 
 It is allowed on all hands, that facts and events, how- 
 ever they may bind the historian, have no dominion 
 over the poet or the painter. With us, history is made 
 to bend and conform to this great idea of art. And 
 why ? Because these arts, in their highest province, are 
 not addressed to the gross senses, but to the desires of 
 the mind, to that spark of the divinity which we have 
 within, impatient of being circumscribed and pent up 
 by the world which is about us. Just so much as our 
 art has of this, just so much of dignity, I had almost 
 said of divinity, it exhibits ; and those of our artists 
 who possessed this mark of distinction in the highest 
 degree, acquired from thence the glorious appellation of 
 
 DIVINE. 
 
 * Towers and battlements it sees 
 Bosom'd high in tufted trees.— Milton, L'Allcgro. 
 t Mr Hodges. 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 DISCOURSE XIV. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1788. 
 Character of Gainsborough. His excellences and defects. 
 
 Gentlemen— In the study of our art, as in the study of 
 all arts, something is the result of our own observation 
 of nature : something, and that not little, the effect of 
 the example of those who have studied the same nature 
 before us, and who have cultivated before us the same 
 art with diligence and success. The less we confine 
 ourselves in the choice of those examples, the more 
 advantage we shall derive from them ; and the nearer 
 we shall bring our performances to a correspondence 
 with nature and the great general rules of art. When 
 we draw our examples from remote and revered anti- 
 quity — with some advantage undoubtedly in that selec- 
 tion — we subject ourselves to some inconveniences. 
 We may suffer ourselves to be too much led away by 
 great names, and to be too much subdued by overbear- 
 ing authority. Our learning, in that case, is not so much 
 an exercise of our judgment as a proof of our docility. 
 We find ourselves, perhaps, too much overshadowed ; 
 and the character of our pursuits is rather distinguished 
 by the tameness of the follower than animated by the 
 spirit of emulation. It is sometimes of service that our 
 examples should be near us, and such as raise a reve- 
 rence sufficient to induce us carefully to observe them, 
 yet not so great as to prevent us from engaging with 
 them in something like a generous contention. 
 
 We have lately lost Mr Gainsborough, one of the 
 greatest ornaments of our academy. It is not our busi- 
 ness here to make panegyrics on the living, or even on 
 the dead who were of our body. The praise of the for- 
 mer might bear appearance of adulation, and the latter 
 of untimely justice ; perhaps of envy to those whom we 
 have still the happiness to enjoy, by an oblique sugges- 
 tion of invidious comparisons. In discoursing, there- 
 fore, on the talents of the late Mr Gainsborough, my 
 object is not so much to praise or to blame him, as to 
 draw from his excellences and defects matter of instruc- 
 tion to the students in our academy. If ever this nation 
 should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the 
 honourable distinction of an English school, the name 
 of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity in the 
 history of the art, among the very first of that rising 
 name. That our reputation in the arts is now only rising, 
 must be acknowledged ; and we must expect our ad- 
 vances to be attended with old prejudices, as adversaries, 
 and not as supporters ; standing in this respect in a very 
 different situation from the late artists of the Roman 
 school, to whose reputation ancient prejudices have 
 certainly contributed : the way was prepared for them, 
 and they may be said rather to have lived in the repu- 
 tation of their country, than to have contributed to it ; 
 whilst whatever celebrity is obtained by English artists, 
 can arise only from the operation of a fair and true 
 compai'ison. And when they communicate to their 
 country a share of their reputation, it is a portion of 
 fame not borrowed from others, but solely acquired by 
 their own labour and talents. As Italy has undoubt- 
 edly a prescriptive right to an admiration bordering 
 on prejudice, as a soil peculiarly adapted, congenial, 
 and, we may add, destined to the production of men of 
 great genius in our art, we may not unreasonably sus- 
 pect that a portion of the great fame of some of their 
 late artists has been owing to the general readiness and 
 disposition of mankind to acquiesce in their original 
 prepossessions in favour of the productions of the Roman 
 school. 
 
 On this gi'ound, however unsafe, I will venture to 
 prophesy, that two of the last distinguished painters of 
 that country — I mean Pompeio Battoni and Raftaelle 
 Mengs — howevergreat their names may at present sound 
 in our ears, will very soon fall into the rank of Imperiale, 
 Sebastian Concha, Placido Constanza, Masaccio, and 
 the rest of their immediate predecessors ; whose names, 
 though equally renowned in their lifetime, are now fallen 
 
 into what is little short of total oblivion. I do not say 
 that those painters were not superior to the artist 1 
 allude to, and whose loss we lament, in a certain routine 
 of practice, which, to the eyes of common observers, 
 has the air of a learned composition, and bears a sort 
 of superficial resemblance to the manner of the great 
 men who went before them. I know this perfectly well : 
 but I know likewise, that a man, looking for real and 
 lasting reputation, must unlearn much of the common- 
 place method so observable in the works of the artists 
 whom I have named. For my own part, I confess I 
 take more interest in, and am more captivated with, the 
 powerful impression of nature which Gainsborough 
 exhibited in his portraits and in his landscapes, and the 
 interesting simplicity and elegance of his little ordinary 
 beggar-children, than with any of the works of that 
 school, since the time of Andrea Sacchi, or perhaps we 
 may say Carlo Maratti ; two painters who may truly be 
 said to be ultimi Romanorum. 
 
 I am well aware how much I lay myself open to the 
 censure and ridicule of the academical professors of 
 other nations, in preferring the humble attempts of 
 Gainsborough to the works of those regular graduates 
 in the great historical style. But we have the sanction 
 of all mankind in preferring genius in a lower rank of 
 art to feebleness and insipidity in the highest. 
 
 It would not be to the present purpose, even if I had 
 the means and materials, which I have not, to enter into 
 the private life of Mr Gainsborough. The history of 
 his gradual advancement, and the means by which he 
 acquired such excellence in his art, would come nearer 
 to our purposes and wishes, if it were by any means 
 attainable ; but the slow progress of advancement is in 
 general imperceptible to the man himself who makes 
 it ; it is the consequence of an accumulation of various 
 ideas which his mind has received, he does not perhaps 
 know how or when. Sometimes, indeed, it happens^hat 
 he may be able to mark the time, when, from the sight 
 of a picture, a passage in an author, or a hint in con- 
 versation, he has received, as it were, some new and 
 guiding light, something like inspiration, by which his 
 mind has been expanded ; and is morally sure that his 
 whole life and conduct has been affected by that acci- 
 dental circumstance. Such interesting accounts we 
 may, however, sometimes obtain from a man who has 
 acquired an uncommon habit of self-examination, and 
 has attended to the progress of his own improvement. 
 
 It may not be improper to make mention of some of 
 the customs and habits of this extraordinary man ; 
 points which come more within the reach of an observer 
 — I however mean such only as are connected with his 
 art, and indeed were, as I apprehend, the causes of 
 his arriving to that high degree of excellence which we 
 see and acknowledge in his works. Of these causes we 
 must state, as the fundamental, the love which he had 
 to his art ; to which, indeed, his whole mind appears 
 to have been devoted, and to which every thing was 
 referred ; and this we may fairly conclude from various 
 circumstances of his life which were known to his inti- 
 mate friends. Among others, he had a habit of con- 
 tinually remarking to those who happened to be about 
 him, whatever peculiarity of countenance, whatever 
 accidental combination of figure, or happy effects of 
 light and shadow, occurred in prospects, in the sky, in 
 walking the streets, or in company. If in his walks 
 he found a character that he liked, and whose atten- 
 dance was to be obtained, he ordered him to his house ; 
 and from the fields he brought into his painting-room 
 stumps of trees, weeds, and animals of various kinds ; 
 and designed them, not from memory, but immediately 
 from the objects. He even framed a kind of model of 
 landscapes on his table : composed of broken stones, 
 dried herbs, and pieces of looking-glass, which he mag- 
 nified and improved into rocks, trees, and water. How 
 far this latter practice may be useful in giving hints, 
 the professors of landscape can best determine. Like 
 every other technical practice, it seems to me wholly 
 to depend on the general talent of him who uses it. Such 
 methods may be nothing better than contemptible and 
 
56 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 mischievous trifling ; or they may be aids. I think, 
 upon the whole, unless we constantly refer to real 
 nature, that practice may be more likely to do harm 
 than good. I mention it only as it shows the solicitude 
 and extreme activity which he had about every thing 
 that related to his art ; that he wished to have his 
 objects embodied, as it were, and distinctly before him ; 
 that he neglected nothing which could keep his facul- 
 ties in exercise, and derived hints from every sort of 
 combination. 
 
 We must not forget, whilst we are on this subject, to 
 make some remarks on his custom of painting by night, 
 which confirms what I have already mentioned — his 
 great affection to his art; since he could not amuse 
 himself in the evening by any other means so agreeable 
 to himself. I am indeed much inclined to believe that it 
 is a practice very advantageous and improving to an 
 artist ; for by this means he will acquire a new and a 
 higher perception of what is great and beautiful in 
 nature. By candle-light, not only objects appear more 
 beautiful, but from their being in a greater breadth 
 of light and shadow, as well as having a greater breadth 
 and uniformity of colour, nature appears in a higher 
 style ; and even the flesh seems to take a higher and 
 richer tone of colour. Judgment is to direct us in the 
 use to be made of this method of study, but the method 
 itself is, I am very sure, advantageous. I have often 
 imagined that the two great colourists, Titian and Cor- 
 reggio, though I do not know that they painted by night, 
 formed their high ideas of colouring from the effects of 
 objects by this artificial light ; but I am more assured, 
 that whoever attentively studies the first and best 
 manner of Guercino, will be convinced that he either 
 painted by this light or formed his manner on this con- 
 ception. 
 
 Another practice Gainsborough had, which is worth 
 mentioning, as it is certainly worthy of imitation — I 
 mean his manner of forming all the parts of his picture 
 together ; the whole going on at the same time, in the 
 same manner as Nature creates her works. Though 
 this method is not uncommon to those who have been 
 regularly educated, yet probably it was suggested to 
 him by his own natural sagacity. That this custom is 
 not universal, appears from the practice of a painter 
 whom I have just mentioned, Pompeio Battoni, who 
 finished his historical pictures part after part, and in 
 his portraits completely finished one feature before he 
 proceeded to another. The consequence was as might 
 be expected ; the countenance was never well expressed ; 
 and, as the painters say, the whole was not well put 
 together. 
 
 The first thing required to excel in our art, or I 
 believe in any art, is not only a love for it, but even an 
 enthusiastic ambition to excel in it. This never fails 
 of success proportioned to the natural abilities with 
 which the artist has been endowed by Providence. Of 
 Gainsborough, we certainly know, that his passion was 
 not the acquirement of riches but excellence in his art, 
 and to enjoy that honourable fame which is sure to at- 
 tend it. That he felt this ruling passion strong in death, 
 I am myself a witness. A few days before he died, he 
 wrote me a letter, to express his acknowledgments for 
 the good opinion I entertained of his abilities, and the 
 manner in which (he had been informed) I always spoke 
 of him, and desired he might see me once more before 
 he died. I am aware how flattering it is to myself to 
 be thus connected with the dying testimony which this 
 excellent painter bore to his art. But I cannot prevail 
 on myself to suppress that I was not connected with 
 him by any habits of familiarity : if any little jealousies 
 had subsisted between us, they were forgotten in those 
 moments of sincerity ; and he turned towards me as 
 one who was engrossed by the same pursuits, and who 
 deserved his good opinion, by being sensible of his ex- 
 cellence. Without entering into a detail of what passed 
 at this last interview, the impression of it upon my mind 
 was, that his regret at losing life was principally the 
 regret of leaving his art ; and more especially as he now 
 began, he said, to see what his deficiencies were, which 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 he said he flattered himself in his last works were in 
 some measure supplied. 
 
 When such a man as Gainsborough arrives to great 
 fame without the assistance of an academical educa- 
 tion, without travelling to Italy, or any of those prepa- 
 ratory studies which have been so often recommended, 
 he is produced as an instance how little such studies are 
 necessary, since so great excellence may be acquired 
 without them. This is an inference not warranted by 
 the success of any individual, and I trust it will not be 
 thought that I wish to make this use of it. 
 
 It must be remembered that the style and depart- 
 ment of art which Gainsborough chose, and in which 
 he so much excelled, did not require that he should go 
 out of his own country for the objects of his study — 
 they were everywhere about him — he found them in 
 the streets and in the fields — and from the models thus 
 accidentally found, he selected with great judgment 
 such as suited his purpose. As his studies were directed 
 to the living world principally, he did not pay a general 
 attention to the works of the various masters, though 
 they are in my opinion always of great use, even when 
 the character of our subject requires us to depart from 
 some of their principles. It cannot be denied that 
 excellence in the department of the art which he pro- 
 fessed may exist without them ; that in such subjects, 
 and in the manner that belongs to them, the want of 
 them is supplied, and more than supplied, by natural 
 sagacity and a minute observation of particular nature. 
 If Gainsborough did not look at nature with a poet's 
 eye, it must be acknowledged that he saw her with the 
 eye of a painter, and gave a faithful, if not a poetical, 
 representation of what he had before him. 
 
 Though he did not much attend to the works of the 
 great historical painters of former ages, yet he was well 
 aware that the language of the art — the art of imitation 
 — must be learned somewhere ; and as he knew that 
 he could not learn it in an equal degree from his 
 contemporaries, he very judiciously applied himself to 
 the Flemish school, who are undoubtedly the greatest 
 masters of one necessary branch of art ; and he did not 
 need to go out of his own country for examples of that 
 school ; from that he learned the harmony of colouring, 
 the management and disposition of light and shadow, 
 and every means which the masters of it practised, to 
 ornament and give splendour to their works. And to 
 satisfy himself as well as others how well he knew the 
 mechanism and artifice which they employed to bring 
 out that tone of colour which we so much admire in 
 their works, he occasionally made copies from Rubens, 
 Teniers, and Vandyck, which it would be no disgrace 
 to the most accurate connoisseur to mistake at the first 
 sight for the works of those masters. What he thus 
 learned, he applied to the originals of nature which he 
 saw with his own eyes, and imitated, not in the manner 
 of those masters, but in his own. 
 
 Whether he most excelled in portraits, landscapes, or 
 fancy pictures, it is difficult to determine ; whether his 
 portraits were most admirable for exact truth of resem- 
 blance, or his landscapes for a portrait-like representa- 
 tion of nature, such as we see in the works of Rubens, 
 Ruysdal, and others of those schools. In his fancy 
 pictures, when he had fixed on his object of imitation, 
 whether it was the mean and vulgar form of a wood- 
 cutter, or a child of an interesting character ; as he did 
 not attempt to raise the one, so neither did he lose any 
 of the natural grace and elegance of the other ; such a 
 grace and such an elegance as are more frequently 
 found in cottages than in courts. This excellence was 
 his own, the result of his particular observation and 
 taste — for this he was certainly not indebted to the 
 Flemish school, nor indeed to any school ; for his grace 
 was not academical or antique, but selected by himself 
 from the great school of nature ; and there are yet a 
 thousand modes of grace which are neither theirs nor 
 his, but lie open in the multiplied scenes and figures of 
 life, to be brought out by skilful and faithful observers. 
 
 Upon the whole, we may justly say that whatever 
 he attempted, he carried to a high degree of excellence. 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 It is to the credit of his good scn?e and judgment that 
 he never did attempt that style of historical painting, 
 for which his previous studies had made no prepara- 
 tion. 
 
 And here it naturally occurs to oppose the sensible 
 conduct of Gainsborough in this respect to that of our 
 late excellent Hogarth, who, with all his extraordinary 
 talents, was not blessed with this knowledge of his own 
 deficiency, or of the bounds which were set to the 
 extent of his own powers. After this admirable artist 
 had spent the greater part of his life in an active, busy, 
 and, we may add, successful attention to the ridicule 
 
 of life after he had invented a new species of dramatic 
 
 painting, in which probably he will never be equalled, 
 and had stored his mind with infinite materials to 
 explain and illustrate the domestic and familiar scenes 
 of common life — which were generally, and ought to 
 have been always, the subject of his pencil — he very 
 imprudently, or rather presumptuously, attempted the 
 great historical style, for which his previous habits had 
 by no means prepared him : he was, indeed, so entirely 
 unacquainted with the principles of this style, that he 
 was not even aware that any artificial preparation was 
 at all necessary. It is to be regretted that any part of 
 the life of such a genius should be fruitlessly employed. 
 Let his failure teach us not to indulge ourselves in the 
 vain imagination that by a momentary resolution we 
 can give either dexterity to the hand or a new habit to 
 the mind. 
 
 I have, however, little doubt but that the same 
 sagacity which enabled those two extraordinary men to 
 discover their true object, and the peculiar excellence 
 of that branch of art which they cultivated, would have 
 been equally effectual in discovering the principles of 
 the higher style, if they had investigated those prin- 
 ciples with the same eager industry which they exerted 
 in their own department. As Gainsborough never at- 
 tempted the heroic style, so neither did he destroy the 
 character and uniformity of his own style by the idle 
 affectation of introducing mythological learning in any 
 of his pictures. Of this boyish folly we see instances 
 enough even in the works of great painters. 
 
 When the Dutch school attempt this poetry of our 
 art in their landscapes, their performances are beneath 
 criticism ; they become only an object of laughter. 
 This practice is hardly excusable even in Claude Lor- 
 raine, who had shown more discretion if he had never 
 meddled with such subjects. 
 
 Our late ingenious academician, Wilson, has I fear 
 been guilty, like many of his predecessors, of introduc- 
 ing gods and goddesses, ideal beings into scenes which 
 were by no means prepared to receive such personages. 
 His landscapes were in reality too near common nature 
 to admit supernatural objects. In consequence of this 
 mistake, in a very admirable picture of a storm, which 
 I have seen of his hand, many figures are introduced in 
 the foreground, some in apparent distress, and some 
 struck dead, as a spectator would naturally suppose, by 
 the lightning, had not the painter injudiciously (as I 
 think) rather chosen that their death should be imputed 
 to a little Apollo, who appears in the sky with his bent 
 bow, and that those figures should be considered as the 
 children of Niobe. 
 
 To manage a subject of this kind, a peculiar style of 
 art is required ; and it can only be done without im- 
 propriety, or even without ridicule, when we adapt the 
 character of the landscape, and that too, in all its parts, 
 to the historical or poetical representation. This is a 
 very difficult adventure, and it requires a mind thrown 
 back two thousand years, and as it were naturalised in 
 antiquity, like that of Nicolo Poussin, to achieve it. In 
 the picture alluded to, the first idea that presents itself 
 is that of wonder, at seeing a figure in so uncommon a 
 situation as that in which the Apollo is placed, for the 
 clouds on which he kneels have not the appearance of 
 being able to support him : they have neither the sub- 
 stance nor the form fit for the receptacle of a human 
 figure, and they do not possess in any respect that 
 romantic character which is appropriated to such an 
 
 DISCOURSES. 57 
 
 object, and which alone can harmonise with poetical 
 stories. 
 
 It appears to me, that such conduct is no less absurd 
 than if a plain man, giving a relation of a real distress 
 occasioned by an inundation, accompanied with thunder 
 and lightning, should, instead of simply relating the 
 event, take it into his head, in order to give a grace to 
 his narration, to talk of Jupiter- Pluvius, or Jupiter and 
 his thunderbolts, or any other figurative idea — an in- 
 termixture which, though in poetry, with its proper 
 preparations and accompaniments, might be managed 
 with effect, yet in the instance before us would counter- 
 act the purpose of the narrator, and instead of being 
 interesting, would be only ridiculous. 
 
 The Dutch and Flemish style of landscape, not even 
 excepting that of Rubens, is unfit for poetical subjects ; 
 but to explain in what this inaptitude consists, or to 
 point out all the circumstances that give nobleness, 
 grandeur, and the poetic character, to style in land- 
 scape, would require a long discourse of itself ; and the 
 end would be then perhaps but imperfectly attained. 
 The painter who is ambitious of this perilous excellence, 
 must catch his inspiration from those who have culti- 
 vated with success the poetry, as it may be called, of 
 the art, and they are few indeed. 
 
 I cannot quit this subject without mentioning two 
 examples which occur to me at present, in which the 
 poetical style of landscape may be seen happily exe- 
 cuted : the one is Jacob's Dream, by Salvator Rosa ; and 
 the other, t\\Q Return of the Ark from Captivity, by Se- 
 bastian Bourdon.* With whatever dignity those his- 
 tories are presented to us in the language of Scripture, 
 this style of painting possesses the same power of in- 
 spiring sentiments of grandeur and sublimity, and is 
 able to communicate them to subjects which appear by 
 no means adapted to receive them. A ladder against 
 the sky has no very promising appearance of possess- 
 ing a capacity to excite any heroic ideas ; and the ark, 
 in the hands of a second-rate master, would have little 
 more effect than a common waggon in the highway ; yet 
 those subjects are so poetically treated throughout, the 
 parts have such a correspondence with each other, and 
 the whole and every part of the scene is so visionary, 
 that it is impossible to look at them, without feeling in 
 some measure the enthusiasm which seems to have 
 inspired the painters. 
 
 By continual contemplation of such works, a sense 
 of the higher excellences of art will by degrees dawn 
 on the imagination ; at every review that sense will 
 become more and more assured, until we come to enjoy 
 a sober certainty of the real existence (if I may so ex- 
 press myself) of those almost ideal beauties ; and the 
 artist will then find no difficulty in fixing in his mind 
 the principles by which the impression is produced ; 
 which he will feel and practise, though they are perhaps- 
 too delicate and refined, and too peculiar to the imi- 
 tative art, to be conveyed to the mind by any other 
 means. 
 
 To return to Gainsborough : the peculiarity of his 
 manner, or style, or we may call it the language in 
 which he expressed his ideas, has been considered by 
 many as his greatest defect. But without altogether 
 wishing to enter into the discussion whether this pe- 
 culiarity was a defect or not, intermixed, as it was, with 
 great beauties, of some of which it was probably the- 
 cause, it becomes a proper subject of criticism and 
 inquiry to a painter. 
 
 A novelty and peculiarity of manner, as it is often a 
 cause of our approbation, so likewise it is often a ground 
 of censure ; as being contrary to the practice of other 
 painters, in whose manner we have been initiated, and 
 in whose favour we have perhaps been prepossessed 
 from our infancy ; for, fond as we are of novelty, we are 
 upon the whole creatures of habit. However, it is certain 
 that all those odd scratches and marks, which on a close 
 
 * This fine picture was in our author's collection, and was be- 
 queathed by him to Sir George Beaumont, Bart., who presented it 
 to the National Gallery. 
 
58 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 examination are so observable in Gainsborough's pic- 
 tures, and which even to experienced painters appear 
 rather the effect of accident than design — this chaos, 
 this uncouth and shapeless appearance, by a kind of 
 magic, at a certain distance assumes form, and all the 
 parts seem to drop into their proper places, so that we 
 can hardly refuse acknowledging the full effect of dili- 
 gence, under the appearance of chance and hasty ne- 
 gligence. That Gainsborough himself considered this 
 peculiarity in his manner, and the power it possesses of 
 exciting surprise, as a beauty in his works, I think may 
 be inferred from the eager desire which we know he 
 always expressed that his pictures at the Exhibition 
 should be seen near, as well as at a distance. 
 
 The slightness which we see in his best works cannot 
 always be imputed to negligence. However they may 
 appear to superficial observers, painters know very well 
 that a steady attention to the general effect takes up 
 more time, and is much more laborious to the mind, 
 than any mode of high finishing, or smoothness, with- 
 out such attention. His handling, the manner of leaving 
 the colours, or, in other words, the methods he used for 
 producing the effect, had very much the appearance of 
 the work of an artist who had never learned from others 
 the usual and regular practice belonging to the art ; but 
 still, like a man of strong intuitive perception of what 
 was required, he found out a way of his own to accom- 
 plish his purpose. 
 
 It is no disgrace to the genius of Gainsborough, to 
 compare him to such men as we sometimes meet with, 
 whose natural eloquence appears even in speaking a 
 language which they can scarce be said to understand ; 
 and who, without knowing the appropriate expression of 
 almost any one idea, contrive to communicate the lively 
 and forcible impressions of an energetic mind. 
 
 I think some apology may reasonably be made for 
 his manner, without violating truth, or running any 
 risk of poisoning the minds of the younger students, by 
 propagating false criticism, for the sake of raising the 
 character of a favourite artist. It must be allowed, 
 that this hatching manner of Gainsborough did very 
 much contribute to the lightness of effect which is so 
 eminent a beauty in his pictures ; as, on the contrary, 
 much smoothness, and uniting the colours, is apt to 
 produce heaviness. Every artist must have remarked, 
 how often that lightness of hand which was in his dead 
 colour, or first painting, escaped in the finishing, when 
 he had determined the parts with more precision ; and 
 another loss he often experiences, which is of greater 
 consequence ; whilst he is employed in the detail, the 
 effect of the whole together is either forgotten or ne- 
 glected. The likeness of a portrait, as I have formerly 
 observed, consists more in preserving the general effect 
 of the countenance, than in the most minute finishing 
 of the features, or any of the particular parts. Now, 
 Gainsborough's portraits were often little more, in re- 
 gard to finishing, or determining the form of the fea- 
 tures, than what generally attends a dead colour ; but 
 as he was always attentive to the general effect, or whole 
 together, I have often imagined that this unfinished 
 manner contributed even to that striking resemblance 
 for which his portraits are so remarkable. Though this 
 opinion may be considered as fanciful, yet I think a 
 plausible reason may be given why such a mode of 
 painting should have such an effect. It is pre-supposed 
 that in this undetermined manner there is the general 
 effect ; enough to remind the spectator of the original ; 
 the imagination supplies the rest, and perhaps more 
 satisfactorily to himself, if not more exactly, than the 
 artist, with all his care, could possibly have done. At 
 the same time it must be acknowledged there is one 
 evil attending this mode ; that if the portrait were seen, 
 previous to any knowledge of the original, different 
 persons would form different ideas, and all would be 
 disappointed at not finding the original correspond with 
 their own conceptions ; under the great latitude which 
 indistinctness gives to the imagination to assume almost 
 what character or form it pleases. 
 
 Every artist has some favourite part, on which he 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 fixes his attention, and which he pursues with such 
 eagerness, that it absorbs every other consideration ; 
 and he often falls into the opposite error of that which 
 he would avoid, which is always ready to receive hiin. 
 Now, Gainsborough having truly a painter's eye for 
 colouring, cultivated those effects of the art which pro- 
 ceed from colours, and sometimes appears to be indif- 
 ferent to or to neglect other excellences. Whatever 
 defects are acknowledged, let him still experience from 
 us the same candour that we so freely give upon similar 
 occasions to the ancient masters ; let us not encourage 
 that fastidious disposition, which is discontented with 
 every thing short of perfection, and unreasonably re- 
 quire, as we sometimes do, a union of excellences, not 
 perhaps quite compatible with each other. We may, 
 on this ground, say even of the divine Raffaelle that he 
 might have finished his picture as highly and as cor- 
 rectly as was his custom, without heaviness of manner ; 
 and that Poussin might have preserved all his precision 
 without hardness or dryness. 
 
 To show the difficulty of uniting solidity with light- 
 ness of manner, we may produce a picture of Rubens, 
 in the church of St Judule at Brussels, as an example : 
 the subject is, Christ's Charge to Peter, which, as it is 
 the highest and smoothest finished picture I remember 
 to have seen of that master, so it is by far the heaviest ; 
 and if I had found it in any other place, I should have 
 suspected it to be a copy ; for painters know very well 
 that it is principally by this air of facility, or the want 
 of it, that originals are distinguished from copies. A 
 lightness of effect produced by colour, and that produced 
 by facility of handling, are generally united ; a copy 
 may preserve something of the one, it is true, but hardly 
 ever of the other ; a connoisseur*, therefore, finds it often 
 necessary to look carefully into the picture before he 
 determines on its originality. Gainsborough possessed 
 this quality of lightness of manner and effect, I think, 
 to an unexampled degree of excellence ; but it must be 
 acknowledged, at the same time, that the sacrifice which 
 he made to this ornament of our art was too great ; it 
 was in reality preferring the lesser excellences to the 
 greater. 
 
 To conclude. However we may apologise for the 
 deficiencies of Gainsborough (I mean particularly his 
 want of precision and finishing), who so ingeniously 
 contrived to cover his defects by his beauties, and who 
 cultivated that department of art where such defects 
 are more easily excused, you are to remember that no 
 apology can be made for this deficiency, in that style 
 which this academy teaches, and which ought to be the 
 object of your pursuit. It will be necessary for you, in 
 the first place, never to lose sight of the great rules and 
 principles of the art, as they are collected from the full 
 body of the best general practice and the most constant 
 and uniform experience ; this must be the groundwork 
 of all your studies ; afterwards you may profit, as in 
 this case I wish you to profit, by the peculiar expe- 
 rience and personal talents of artists living and dead ; 
 you may derive lights, and catch hints, from their prac- 
 tice ; but the moment you turn them into models, you 
 fall infinitely below them ; you may be corrupted by 
 excellences not so much belonging to the art as per- 
 sonal and appropriated to the artist, and become bad 
 copiers of good painters, instead of excellent imitators 
 of the great universal truth of things. 
 
 DISCOURSE XV. 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE STUDENTS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY, ON 
 THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE PRIZES, DECEMBER 10, 1790. 
 
 The President takes leave of the Academy. A Review of the 
 Discourses. The study of the works of Michael Angelo recom- 
 mended. 
 
 Gentlemen — The intimate connection which I have 
 had with the Royal Academy ever since its establish- 
 ment, the social duties in which we have ail mutually 
 engaged for so many years, make any profession of 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 attachment to this institution, on ray part, altogether 
 superfluous ; the influence of habit alone in such a con- 
 nection would naturally have produced it. 
 
 Among men united in the same body, and engaged 
 in the same pursuit, along with permanent friendship 
 occasional differences will arise. In these disputes men 
 are naturally too favourable to themselves, and think 
 perhaps too hardly of their antagonists. But composed 
 and constituted as we are, those little contentions will 
 be lost to others, and they ought certainly to be lost 
 amongst ourselves, in mutual esteem for talents and 
 acquirements ; every controversy ought to be, and I am 
 persuaded will be, sunk in our zeal for the perfection 
 of our common art. 
 
 In parting with the academy, I shall remember with 
 pride, affection, and gratitude, the support with which 
 I have almost uniformly been honoured from the com- 
 mencement of our intercourse. I shall leave you, gentle- 
 men, with unaffected cordial wishes for your future 
 concord, and with a well-founded hope, that in that 
 concord the auspicious and not obscure origin of our 
 academy may be forgotten in the splendour of your 
 succeeding prospects. 
 
 My age, and my infirmities still more than my age, 
 make it probable that this will be the last time I shall 
 have the honour of addressing you from this place. 
 Excluded as I am, spatiis iniquis, from indulging my 
 imagination with a distant and forward perspective of 
 life, I may be excused if I turn my eyes back on the 
 way whicii I have passed. 
 
 We may assume to ourselves, I should hope, the 
 credit of having endeavoured, at least, to fill with pro- 
 priety that middle station which we hold in the general 
 connection of things. Our predecessors have laboured 
 for our advantage, we labour for our successors ; and 
 though we have done no more in this mutual inter- 
 course and reciprocation of benefits than has been 
 effected by other societies formed in this nation for the 
 advancement of useful and ornamental knowledge, yet 
 there is one circumstance which appears to give us a 
 higher claim than the credit of merely doing our duty. 
 What I at present allude to, is the honour of having 
 been, some of us, the first contrivers, and all of us the 
 promoters and supporters, of the annual exhibition. 
 This scheme could only have originated from artists 
 already in possession of the favour of the public, as it 
 would not have been so much in the power of others to 
 have excited curiosity. It must be remembered, that 
 for the sake of bringing forward into notice concealed 
 merit, they incurred the risk of producing rivals to 
 themselves; they voluntarily entered the lists, and ran 
 the race a second time for the prize which they had 
 already won. 
 
 When we take a review of the several departments 
 of the institution, I think we may safely congratulate 
 ourselves on our good fortune, in having hitherto seen 
 the chairs of our professors filled with men of distin- 
 guished abilities, and who have so well acquitted them- 
 selves of their duty in their several departments. I 
 look upon it to be of importance, that none of them 
 should be ever left unfilled ; a neglect to provide for 
 qualified persons is to produce a neglect of qualifica- 
 tions. 
 
 In this honourable rank of professors, I have not pre- 
 sumed to class myself ; though in the discourses which 
 I have had the honour of delivering from this place, 
 while in one respect I may be considered as a volunteer, 
 in another view it seems as if I was involuntarily pressed 
 into this service. If prizes were to be given, it appeared 
 not only proper, but almost indispensably necessary, 
 that something should be said by the president on the 
 delivery of those prizes ; and the president for his own 
 credit would wish to say something more than mere 
 words of compliment, which, by being frequently re- 
 peated, would soon become flat and uninteresting, and 
 by being uttered to many, would at last become a dis- 
 tinction to none ; I thought, therefore, if I were to pre- 
 face this compliment with some instructive observations 
 on the ai't, when we crowned merit in the artist whom 
 
 DISCOURSES. 59 
 
 we rewarded, I might do something to animate and 
 guide them in their future attempts. 
 
 I am truly sensible how unequal I have been to the 
 expression of my own ideas. To develope the latent 
 excellences, and draw out the interior principles of our 
 art, requires more skill and practice in writing than is 
 likely to be possessed by a man perpetually occupied in 
 the use of the pencil and the palette. It is for that rea- 
 son, perhaps, that the sister art has had the advantage 
 of better criticism. Poets are naturally writers of prose. 
 They may be said to be practising only an inferior de- 
 partment of their own art, when they are explaining and 
 expatiating upon its most refined principles. But still 
 such difficulties ought not to deter artists who are not 
 prevented by other engagements, from putting their 
 thoughts in order as well as they can, and from giving 
 to the public the result of their experience. The know- 
 ledge which an artist has of his subject will more than 
 compensate for any want of elegance in the manner of 
 treating it, or even of perspicuity, which is still more 
 essential ; and I am convinced that one short essay 
 written by a painter, will contribute more to advance 
 the theory of our art, than a thousand volumes such as 
 we sometimes see — the purpose of which appears to be 
 rather to display the refinement of the author's own 
 conceptions of impossible practice, than to convey use- 
 ful knowledge or instruction of any kind whatever. An 
 artist knows what is, and what is not, within the pro- 
 vince of his art to perform, and is not likely to be for 
 ever teasing the poor student with the beauties of mixed 
 passions, or to perplex him with an imaginary union of 
 excellences incompatible with each other. 
 
 To this work, however, I could not be said to come 
 totally unprovided with materials. I had seen much, 
 and 1 had thought much upon what I had seen ; I had 
 something of a habit of investigation, and a disposition 
 to reduce all that I observed and felt in my own mind 
 to method and system ; but never having seen what I 
 myself knew distinctly placed before me on paper, I 
 knew nothing correctly. To put those ideas into some- 
 thing like order was, to my inexperience, no easy task. 
 The composition, the ponere totum even of a single dis- 
 course, as well as of a single statue, was the most diffi- 
 cult part, as perhaps it is of every other art, and most 
 requires the hand of a master. 
 
 For the manner, whatever deficiency there was, I 
 might reasonably expect indulgence, but I thought it 
 indispensably necessary well to consider the opinions 
 which were to be given out from this place, and under 
 the sanction of a Royal Academy ; 1 therefore examined 
 not ouly my own opinions, but likewise the opinions of 
 others. I found in the course of this research many 
 precepts and rules established in our art which did not 
 seem to me altogether reconcileable with each other, yet 
 each seemed in itself to have the same claim of being 
 supported by truth and nature ; and this claim, irre- 
 concileable as they may be thought, they do in reality 
 alike possess. 
 
 To clear away those difficulties, and reconcile those 
 contrary opinions, it became necessary to distinguish the 
 greater truth, as it may be called, from the lesser truth ; 
 the larger and more liberal idea of nature from the more 
 narrow and confined ; that which addresses itself to the 
 imagination, from that which is solely addressed to the 
 eye. In consequence of this discrimination, the different 
 branches of our art, to which those different truths were 
 referred, were perceived to make so wide a separation, 
 and put on so new an appearance, that they seemed 
 scarcely to have proceeded from the same general stock. 
 The different rules and regulations which presided over 
 each department of art, followed of course ; every mode 
 of excellence, from the grand style of the Roman and 
 Florentine schools down to the lowest rank of still life, 
 had its due weight and value — fitted some class or 
 other, and nothing was thrown away. • By this dispo- 
 sition of our art into classes, that perplexity and confu- 
 sion, which I apprehend every artist has at some time 
 experienced from the variety of styles and the variety 
 of excellence with which he is surrounded, is, I should 
 
60 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 hope, in some measure removed, and the student better 
 enabled to judge for himself what peculiarly belongs to 
 his own particular pursuit. 
 
 In reviewing my discourses, it is no small satisfac- 
 tion to be assured that I have in no part of them lent 
 my assistance to foster newly-hatched, unfledyed opinions, 
 or endeavoured to support paradoxes, however tempt- 
 ing may have been their novelty, or however ingenious 
 I might, for the minute, fancy them to be ; nor shall I, 
 I hope, any where be found to have imposed on the 
 minds of young students declamation for argument, a 
 smooth period for a sound precept. I have pursued a 
 plain and honest method; I have taken up the art simply 
 as I found it exemplified in the practice of the most ap- 
 proved painters. That approbation which the world 
 has uniformly given, I have endeavoured to justify by 
 such proofs as questions of this kind will admit ; by the 
 analogy which painting holds with the sister arts, and 
 consequently by the common congeniality which they 
 all bear to our nature. And though in what has been 
 done no new discovery is pretended, I may still flatter 
 myself, that from the discoveries which others have 
 made by their own intuitive good sense and native rec- 
 titude of judgment, I have succeeded in establishing the 
 rules and principles of our art on a more firm and last- 
 ing foundation than that on which they had formerly 
 been placed. 
 
 Without wishing to divert the student from the prac- 
 tice of his art to speculative theory, to make him a mere 
 connoisseur instead of a painter, I cannot but remark, 
 that he will certainly find an account in considering once 
 for all on what ground the fabric of our art is built. 
 Uncertain, confused, or erroneous opinions, are not only 
 detrimental to an artist in their immediate operation, 
 but may possibly have very serious consequences ; affect 
 his conduct, and give a peculiar character, as it may be 
 called, to his taste and to his pursuits through his 
 whole life. 
 
 I was acquainted at Rome, in the early part of my 
 life, with a student of the French Academy, who ap- 
 peared to me to possess all the qualities requisite to 
 make a great artist, if he had suffered his taste and feel- 
 ings, and, I may add, even his prejudices, to have fair 
 play. He saw and felt the excellences of the great 
 works of art with which we were surrounded, but la- 
 mented that there was not to be found that nature which 
 is so admirable in the inferior schools ; and he supposed 
 with Felibien, De Piles, and other theorists, that such 
 an union of different excellences would be the perfection 
 of art. He was not aware that the narrow idea of 
 nature, of which he lamented the absence in the works 
 of those great artists, would have destroyed the grandeur 
 of the general ideas which he admired, and which was 
 indeed the cause of his admiration. My opinions being 
 then confused and unsettled, I was in danger of being 
 borne down by this kind of plausible reasoning, though 
 I remember 1 then had a dawning of suspicion that it 
 was not sound doctrine ; and at the same time I was 
 unwilling obstinately to refuse assent to what I was 
 unable to confute. 
 
 That the young artist may not be seduced from the 
 right path by following what, at first view, he may 
 think the light of reason, and which is indeed reason in 
 part, but not in the whole, has been much of the object 
 of these discourses. 
 
 I have taken every opportunity of recommending a 
 rational method of study as of the last importance. 
 The great, I may say the sole, use of an academy is to 
 put, and for some time to keep, students in that course, 
 that too much indulgence may not be given to peculi- 
 arity, and that a young man may not be taught to be- 
 lieve that what is generally good for others is not good 
 for him. 
 
 I have strongly inculcated in my former discourses, 
 as I do in this my last, the wisdom and necessity of 
 previously obtaining the appropriated instruments of 
 the art, in a first correct design, and a plain manly 
 colouring, before any thing more is attempted. But by 
 this I would not wish to cramp and fetter the mind, or 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 discourage those who follow (as most of us may at one 
 time have followed) the suggestion of a strong inclina- 
 tion : something must be conceded to great and irre- 
 sistible impulses ; perhaps every student must not be 
 strictly bound to general methods, if they strongly thwart 
 the peculiar turn of his own mind. I must confess that 
 it is not absolutely of much consequence whether he 
 proceeds in the general method of seeking first to ac- 
 quire mechanical accuracy, before he attempts poetical 
 flights, provided he diligently studies to attain the full 
 perfection of the style he pursues ; whether, like Par- 
 meggiano, he endeavours at grace and grandeur of 
 manner before he has learned correctness of drawing, 
 if like him he feels his own wants, and will labour, as 
 that eminent artist did, to supply those wants ; whether 
 he starts from the east or from the west, if he relaxes 
 in no exertion to arrive ultimately at the same goal. 
 The first public work of Parmeggiano is the St Eusta- 
 chius, in the church of St Petronius in Bologna, and 
 was done when he was a boy ; and one of the last of his 
 works is the Moses breakiny the Tables, in Parma. In 
 the former, there is certainly something of grandeur in 
 the outline, or in the conception of the figure, which 
 discovers the dawnings of future greatness — of a young 
 mind impregnated with the sublimity of Michael Angelo, 
 whose style he here attempts to imitate, though he 
 could not then draw the human figure with any com- 
 mon degree of correctness. But this same Parmeggiano, 
 when in his more mature age he painted the Moses, 
 had so completely supplied his first defects, that we are 
 here at a loss which to admire most, the correctness of 
 drawing, or the grandeur of the conception. As a con- 
 firmation of its great excellence, and of the impression 
 which it leaves on the minds of elegant spectators, I 
 may observe, that our great lyric poet, when he con- 
 ceived his sublime idea of the indignant Welsh bard, 
 acknowledged, that though many years had intervened, 
 he had warmed his imagination with the remembrance 
 of this noble figure of Parmeggiano. 
 
 When we consider that Michael Angelo was the great 
 archetype to whom Parmeggiano was indebted for that 
 grandeur which we find in his works, and from whom 
 all his contemporaries and successors have derived 
 whatever they have possessed of the dignified and the 
 majestic ; that he was the bright luminary from whom 
 painting has borrowed a new lustre; that under his 
 hands it assumed a new appearance, and is become 
 another and superior art — I may be excused if I take 
 this opportunity, as I have hitherto taken every occa- 
 sion, to turn your attention to this exalted founder and 
 father of modern art, of which he was not only the 
 inventor, but which, by the divine energy of his own 
 mind, he carried at once to its highest point of possible 
 perfection. 
 
 The sudden maturity to which Michael Angelobrought 
 our art, and the comparative feebleness of his followers 
 and imitators, might perhaps be reasonably, at least plau- 
 sibly explained, if we had time for such an examination. 
 At present I shall only observe, that the subordinate 
 parts of our art, and perhaps of other arts, expand 
 themselves by a slow and progressive growth ; but those 
 which depend on a native vigour of imagination, gene- 
 rally burst forth at once in fulness of beauty. Of this, 
 Homer probably, and Shakspeare more assuredly, are 
 signal examples. Michael Angelo possessed the poetical 
 part of our art in a most eminent degree ; and the same 
 daring spirit which urged him first to explore the un- 
 known regions of the imagination, delighted with the 
 novelty, and animated by the success of his discoveries, 
 could not have failed to stimulate and impel him forward 
 in his career beyond those limits which his followers, 
 destitute of the same incentives, had not strength to pass. 
 
 To distinguish between correctness of drawing and 
 that part which respects the imagination, we may say 
 the one approaches to the mechanical (which in its way, 
 too, may make just pretensions to genius), and the other 
 to the poetical. To encourage a solid and vigorous 
 course of study, it may not be amiss to suggest, that 
 perhaps a confidence in the mechanic produces a bold- 
 
REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 61 
 
 ness in the poetic. He that is sure of the goodness of j 
 his ship and tackle, puts out fearlessly from the shore ; 
 and he who knows that his hand can execute whatever 
 his fancy can suggest, sports with more freedom in 
 embodying the visionary forms of his own creation. I 
 will not say Michael Angelo was eminently poetical, 
 only because he was greatly mechanical, but I am sure 
 that mechanic excellence invigorated and emboldened 
 his mind to carry painting into the regions of poetry, 
 and to emulate that art in its most adventurous flights. 
 Michael Angelo equally possessed both qualifications. 
 Yet of mechanic excellence there were certainly great 
 examples to be found in ancient sculpture, and particu- 
 larly in the fragment known by the name of the Torso 
 of Michael Angelo ; but of that grandeur of character, 
 air, and attitude, which he threw into all his figures, 
 and which so well corresponds with the grandeur of his 
 outline, there was no example ; it could, therefore, pro- 
 ceed only from the most poetical and sublime imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 It is impossible not to express some surprise that 
 the race of painters who preceded Michael Angelo, men 
 of acknowledged great abilities, should never have 
 thought of transferring a little of that grandeur of out- 
 line which they could not but see and admire in ancient 
 sculpture, into their own works ; but they appear to 
 have considered sculpture as the later schools of artists 
 look at the inventions of Michael Angelo — as something 
 to be admired, but with which they have nothing to do 
 
 quod super nos, nihil ad nos. The artists of that age, 
 
 even Raffaelle himself, seemed to be going on very 
 contentedly in the dry manner of Pietro Perugino, and 
 if Michael Angelo had never appeared, the art might 
 still have continued in the same style. 
 
 Besides Rome and Florence, where the grandeur of 
 this style was first displayed, it was on this foundation 
 that the Caracci built the truly great academical 
 Bolognian school, of which the first stone was laid by 
 Pellegrino Tibaldi. He first introduced this style 
 amongst them ; and many instances might be given in 
 which he appears to have possessed, as by inheritance, 
 the true, genuine, noble, and elevated mind of Michael 
 Angelo. Though we cannot venture to speak of him 
 with the same fondness as his countrymen, and call 
 him, as the Caracci did, Nostro Michael Angelo re/or- 
 mato, yet he has a right to be considered amongst the 
 first and greatest of his followers : there arc certainly 
 many drawings and inventions of his, of which Michael 
 Angelo himself might not disdain to be supposed the 
 author, or that they should be, as in fact they often are, 
 mistaken for his. I will mention one particular in- 
 stance, because it is found in a book which is in every 
 young artist's hands — Bishop's Ancient Statues. He 
 there has introduced a print representing Polyphemus, 
 from a drawing of Tibaldi, and has inscribed it with 
 the name of Michael Angelo, to whom he has also in 
 the same book attributed a Sibyl of Raffaelle. Both 
 these figures, it is true, are professedly in Michael 
 Angelo's style and spirit, and even worthy of his hand ; 
 but we kno w that the former is painted in the Institute 
 a Bologna by Tibaldi, and the other in the Pace by 
 Raffaelle. 
 
 The Caracci, it is acknowledged, adopted the mecha- 
 nical part with sufficient success. But the divine part, 
 which addresses itself to the imagination, as possessed 
 by Michael Angelo or Tibaldi, was beyond their grasp ; 
 they formed, however, a most respectable school, a style 
 more on the level, and calculated to please a greater 
 number ; and if excellence of this kind is to be valued 
 according to the number rather than the weight and 
 quality of admirers, it would assume even a higher rank 
 in art. The same in some sort may be said of Tintoret, 
 Paolo Veronese, and others of the Venetian painters. 
 They certainly much advanced the dignity of their 
 style, by adding to their fascinating powers of colouring 
 something of the strength of Michael Angelo ; at the 
 same time it may still be a doubt how far their orna- 
 mental elegance would be an advantageous addition to 
 his grandeur. But if there is any manner of painting 
 
 which may be said to unite kindly with his style, it is 
 that of Titian. His handling, the manner in which his 
 colours are left on the canvass, appears to proceed (as 
 far as that goes) from a congenial mind, equally dis- 
 dainful of vulgar criticism. 
 
 Michael Angelo's strength, thus qualified, and made 
 more palatable to the general taste, reminds me of an 
 observation which I heard a learned critic* make, when 
 it was incidentally remarked that our translation of 
 Homer, however excellent, did not convey the charac- 
 ter, nor had the grand air, of the original. He replied, 
 that if Pope had not clothed the naked majesty of 
 Homer with the graces and elegances of modern fashions 
 — though the real dignity of Homer was degraded by 
 such a dress — his translation would not have met with 
 such a favourable reception, and he must have been 
 contented with fewer readers. 
 
 Many of the Flemish painters who studied at Rome 
 in that great era of our art, such as Francis Floris, 
 Hemskerk, Michael Coxis, Jerom Cock, and others, 
 returned to their own country with as much of this 
 grandeur as they could carry. But like seeds falling 
 on a soil not prepared or adapted to their nature, the 
 manner of Michael Angelo thrived but little with them ; 
 perhaps, however, they contributed to prepare the way 
 for that free, unconstrained, and liberal outline, which 
 was afterwards introduced by Rubens through the 
 medium of the Venetian painters. 
 
 The grandeur of style has been in different degrees 
 disseminated over all Europe. Some caught it by 
 living at the time, and coming into contact with the 
 original author, whilst others received it at second- 
 hand ; and being everywhere adopted, it has totally 
 changed the whole taste and style of design, if there 
 could be said to be any style before his time. Our art, 
 in consequence, now assumes a rank to which it could 
 never have dared to aspire, if Michael Angelo had not 
 discovered to the world the hidden powers which it 
 possessed. Without his assistance, we never could have 
 been convinced that painting was capable of producing 
 an adequate representation of the persons and actions 
 of the heroes of the Iliad. 
 
 I would ask any man qualified to judge of such 
 works, whether he can look with indifference at the 
 personification of the Supreme Being in the centre of 
 the Capella Sestina, or the figures of the Sibyls which 
 surround that chapel, to which we may add the statue 
 of Moses ; and whether the same sensations are not 
 excited by those works as what he may remember to 
 have felt from the most sublime passages of Homer. I 
 mention those figures more particularly as they come 
 nearer to a comparison with his Jupiter, his demi-gods, 
 and heroes ; those Sibyls and prophets being a kind of 
 intermediate beings between men and angels. Though 
 instances may be produced in the works of other 
 painters, which may justly stand in competition with 
 those I have mentioned, such as the Isaiah, and the 
 Vision of Ezekiel, by Raffaelle, the St Mark of Frate 
 Bartolomeo, and many others ; yet these, it must be 
 allowed, are inventions so much in Michael Angelo's 
 manner of thinking, that they may be truly considered 
 as so many rays which discover manifestly the centre 
 from whence they emanated. 
 
 The sublime in painting, as in poetry, so overpowers, 
 and takes such possession of the whole mind, that no 
 room is left for attention to minute criticism. The 
 little elegances of art in the px*esence of these great 
 ideas thus greatly expressed, lose all their value, and 
 are, for the instant at least, felt to be unworthy of our 
 notice. The correct judgment, the purity of taste, which 
 characterise Raffaelle, the exquisite grace of Correggio 
 and Parmeggiano, all disappear before them. 
 
 That Michael Angelo was capricious in his inventions, 
 I cannot be denied, and this may make some circum- 
 j spection necessary in studying his works ; for though 
 j they appear to become him, an imitation of them is 
 always dangerous, and will prove sometimes ridiculous. 
 
 * Dr Johnson. 
 
62 
 
 REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 K Within that circle none durst walk but he." To me, 
 I confess, his caprice does not lower the estimation of 
 his genius, even though it is sometimes, I acknowledge, 
 carried to the extreme ; and however those eccentric 
 excursions are considered, we must at the same time 
 recollect that those faults, if they are faults, are such as 
 never could occur to a mean and vulgar mind ; that 
 they flowed from the same source which produced his 
 greatest beauties, and were therefore such as none but 
 himself was capable of committing ; they were the 
 powerful impulses of a mind unused to subjection of 
 any kind, and too high to be controlled by cold criti- 
 cism. 
 
 Many see his daring extravagance who can see no- 
 thing else. A young artist finds the works of Michael 
 Angelo so totally different from those of his own 
 master, or of those with whom he is surrounded, that he 
 may be easily persuaded to abandon and neglect study- 
 ing a style, which appears to him wild, mysterious, and 
 above his comprehension, and which he therefore feels 
 no disposition to admire ; a good disposition, which he 
 concludes that he should naturally have, if the style de- 
 served it. It is necessary, therefore, that students 
 should be prepared for the disappointment which they 
 may experience at their first setting out ; and they must 
 be cautioned, that probably they will not at first sight 
 approve. 
 
 It must be remembered, that this great style itself is 
 artificial in the highest degree ; it presupposes in the 
 spectator a cultivated and prepared artificial state of 
 mind. It is an absurdity, therefore, to suppose that we 
 are born with this taste, though we are with the seeds 
 of it, which, by the heat and kindly influence of his 
 genius, may be ripened in us. 
 
 A late philosopher and critic* has observed, speak- 
 ing of taste, that we are on no account to expect that fine 
 things should descend to us — our taste, if possible, must 
 be made to ascend to them. The same learned writer 
 recommends to us even to feign a relish, till we find a 
 relish come, and feel that what began in fiction termi- 
 nates in reality. If there be in our art any thing of 
 that agreement or compact, such as I apprehend there 
 is in music, with which the critic is necessarily required 
 previously to be acquainted, in order to form a correct 
 judgment, the comparison with this art will illustrate 
 what I have said on these points, and tend to show the 
 probability, we may say the certainty, that men are not 
 born with a relish for those arts in their most refined 
 state, which, as they cannot understand, they cannot 
 be impressed with their effects. This great style of 
 Michael Angelo is as far removed from the simple re- 
 presentation of the common objects of nature, as the 
 most refined Italian music is from the inartificial notes 
 of nature, from whence they both profess to originate. 
 But without such a supposed compact, we may be very 
 confident that the highest state of refinement in either 
 of those arts, will not be relished without a long and 
 industrious attention. 
 
 In pursuing this great art, it must be acknowledged 
 that we labour under greater difficulties than those who 
 were born in the age of its discovery, and whose minds 
 from their infancy were habituated to this style — who 
 learned it as language, as their mother tongue. They 
 had no mean taste to unlearn ; they needed no persua- 
 sive discourse to allure them to a favourable reception 
 of it, no abstruse investigation of its principles to con- 
 vince them of the great latent truths on which it is 
 founded. We are constrained, in these latter days, to 
 have recourse to a sort of grammar and dictionary, as 
 •the only means of recovering a dead language. It was 
 by them learned by rote, and perhaps better learned 
 that way than by precept. 
 
 The style of Michael Angelo, which I have compai'ed 
 to language, and which may, poetically speaking, be 
 called the language of the gods, now no longer exists, 
 as it did in the fifteenth century ; yet with the aid of 
 diligence, we may in a great measure supply the defi- 
 
 * James Harris, Esq. 
 
 ciency which I mentioned — of not having his works so 
 perpetually before our eyes — by having recourse to 
 casts from his models and designs in sculpture ; to 
 drawings, or even copies of those drawings ; to prints, 
 which, however ill executed, still convey something by 
 which this taste may be formed, and a relish may be 
 fixed and established in our minds for this grand style 
 of invention. Some examples of this kind we have in 
 the academy ; and I sincerely wish there were more, 
 that the younger students might in their first nourish- 
 ment imbibe this taste ; whilst others, though settled 
 in the practice of the commonplace style of painters, 
 might infuse, by this means, a grandeur into their 
 works. 
 
 I shall now make some remarks on the course which 
 I think most proper to be pursued in such a study. I 
 wish you not to go so much to the derivative streams 
 as to the fountain-head, though the copies are not to 
 be neglected, because they may give you hints in what 
 manner you may copy, and how the genius of one man 
 may be made to fit the peculiar manner of another. 
 
 To recover this lost taste, I would recommend young 
 artists to study the works of Michael Angelo, as he 
 himself did the works of the ancient sculptors ; he began, 
 when a child, a copy of a mutilated satyr's head, and 
 finished in his model what was wanting in the original. 
 In the same manner, the first exercise that I would 
 recommend to the young artist when he first attempts 
 invention, is to select every figure, if possible, from the 
 inventions of Michael Angelo. If such borrowed figures 
 will not bend to his purpose, and he is constrained to 
 make a change to supply a figure himself, that figure 
 will necessarily be in the same style with the rest ; and 
 his taste will by this means be naturally initiated, and 
 nursed in the lap of grandeur. He will sooner perceive 
 what constitutes this grand style by one practical trial 
 than by a thousand speculations, and he will in some 
 sort procure to himself that advantage which in these 
 later ages has been denied him — the advantage of hav- 
 ing the greatest of artists for his master and instructor. 
 
 The next lesson should be to change the purpose of 
 the figures without changing the attitude, as Tintoret 
 has done with the Sampson of Michael Angelo. In- 
 stead of the figure which Sampson bestrides, he has 
 placed an eagle under him ; and instead of the jaw-bone, 
 thunder and lightning in his right hand ; and thus it 
 becomes a Jupiter. Titian, in the same manner, has 
 taken the figure which represents God dividing the light 
 from the darkness, in the vault of the Capella Sestina, 
 and has introduced it in the famous battle of Cadore, so 
 much celebrated by Vasari ; and, extraordinary as it 
 may seem, it is here converted to a general falling from 
 his horse. A real judge who should look at this pic- 
 ture, would immediately pronounce the attitude of that 
 figure to be in a greater style than any other figure of 
 the composition. These two instances may be sufficient, 
 though many more might be given in their works, as 
 well as in those of other great artists. 
 
 When the student has been habituated to this grand 
 conception of the art, when the relish for this style is 
 established, makes a part of himself, and is woven into 
 his mind, he will by this time have got a power of 
 selecting from whatever occurs in nature that is grand, 
 and corresponds with that taste which he has now ac- 
 quired, and will pass over whatever is commonplace 
 and insipid. He may then bring to the mart such works 
 of his own proper invention as may enrich and increase 
 the general stock of invention in our art. 
 
 1 am confident of the truth and propriety of the 
 advice which I have recommended ; at the same time, 
 I am aware how much by this advice I have laid myself 
 open to the sarcasms of those critics who imagine our 
 art to be a matter of inspiration. But I should be sorry 
 it should appear even to myself that I wanted that 
 courage which I have recommended to the students in 
 another way ; equal courage perhaps is required in the 
 adviser and the advised ; they both must equally dare 
 and bid defiance to narrow criticism and vulgar opinion. 
 
 That the art has been in a gradual state of decline, 
 
REYNOLDS'S 
 
 from the age of Michael Angclo to the present, must be 
 acknowledged; and we may reasonably impute this 
 declension to tbe same cause to which the ancient 
 critics and philosophers have imputed the corruption 
 of eloquence. Indeed, the same causes are likely at 
 all times and in all ages to produce the same effects ; 
 indolence not taking the same pains as our great pre- 
 decessors took — desiring to find a shorter way — are the 
 generally imputed causes. 
 
 The words of Petronius* are very remarkable. After 
 opposing the natural chaste beauty of the eloquence of 
 former ages, to the strained, inflated, style then in 
 fashion, " Neither," says he, " has the art in painting 
 had a better fate, after the boldness of the Egyptians 
 had found out a compendious way to execute so great 
 an art." 
 
 By compendious, I understand him to mean a mode 
 of painting such as has infected the style of the later 
 painters of Italy and France — commonplace, without 
 thought, and with as little trouble, working as by a 
 recipe — in contradistinction to that style for which 
 even a relish cannot be acquired without care and long 
 attention, and most certainly the power of executing 
 cannot be obtained without the most laborious applica- 
 tion. 
 
 I have endeavoured to stimulate the ambition of 
 artists to tread in this great path of glory, and, as well 
 as I can, have pointed out the track which leads to it, 
 and have at the same time told them the price at which 
 it may be obtained. It is an ancient saying, that labour 
 is the price which the gods have set upon every thing 
 valuable. 
 
 The great artist who has been so much the subject 
 of the present discourse, was distinguished even from 
 his infancy for his indefatigable diligence ; and this was 
 continued through his whole life, till prevented by ex- 
 treme old age. The poorest of men, as he observed 
 himself, did not labour from necessity, more than he 
 did from choice. Indeed, from all the circumstances 
 related of his life, he appears not to have had the least 
 conception that his art was to be acquired by any other 
 means than great labour ; and yet he, of all men that 
 ever lived, might make the greatest pretensions to the 
 efficacy of native genius and inspiration. I have no 
 doubt that he would have thought it no disgrace, that 
 
 * Pictura quoquc non alium exitum fecit, postquam ^Egyptio* 
 rum audacia tam magna; artis campendiariam invenit. 
 
 DISCOURSES. (j 3 
 
 it should be said of him, as he himself said of Raffaelle, 
 that he did not possess his art from nature, but by long 
 study.* He was conscious that the great excellence to 
 which he arrived was gained by dint of labour, and 
 was unwilling to have it thought that any transcendant 
 skill, however natural its effects might seem, could be 
 purchased at a cheaper price than he had paid for it. 
 This seems to have been the true drift of his observa- 
 tion. We cannot suppose it made with any intention 
 of depreciating the genius of Raffaelle, of whom he 
 always spoke, as Condivi says, with the greatest respect ; 
 though they were rivals, no such illiberality existed 
 between them ; and Raffaelle on his part entertained 
 the greatest veneration for Michael Angelo, as appears 
 from the speech which is recorded of him, that he con- 
 gratulated himself, and thanked God, that he was born 
 in the same age with that painter. 
 
 If the high esteem and veneration in which Michael 
 Angelo has been held by all nations and in all ages 
 should be put to the account of prejudice, it must still 
 be granted that those prejudices could not have been 
 entertained without a cause ; the ground of our preju- 
 dice then becomes the source of our admiration. But 
 from whatever it proceeds, or whatever it is called, it 
 will not, I hope, be thought presumptuous in me to 
 appear in the train, I cannot tay of his imitators, but 
 of' his admirers. I have taken another course, one 
 more suited to my abilities, and to the taste of the times 
 in which I live. Yet however unequal I feel myself to 
 that attempt, were 1 now to begin the world again I 
 would tread in the steps of that great master ; to kiss 
 the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his 
 perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for 
 an ambitious man. 
 
 I feel a self-congratulation in knowing myself capable 
 of such sensations as he intended to excite. I reflect, 
 not without vanity, that these discourses bear testimony 
 of my admiration of that truly divine man ; and 1 should 
 desire that the last words which 1 should pronounce in 
 this academy, and from this place, might be the name 
 of Michael Angelo. f 
 
 * Che Raffaelle non ebbe quest* arte da natura, ma per longo 
 studio. 
 
 f Unfortunately for mankind, these were the last words pro- 
 nounced by this great painter from the academical chair. Ho 
 died about fourteen months after this discourse was delivered. 
 
 In the year 1781, Sir Joshua Reynolds visited the 
 Netherlands and countries on the Lower Rhine, for the 
 purpose of inspecting works of art ; and of this classical 
 tour, as it may be called, he published an account shortly 
 after his return to England. With the view of filling 
 up a spare page of the present work, we beg to offer the 
 following extracts, referring to the two famous pictures 
 of Rubens in the cathedral of Antwerp — the Descent 
 from the Cross, and the Elevation of the Cross, both of 
 which are still extant, and are now hung on the cross 
 wall of the transept, on the right hand in entering by 
 the side door of the building. 
 
 The Descent from the Cross. — This picture, of all 
 the works of Rubens, is that which has the most repu- 
 tation. I had consequently conceived the highest idea 
 of its excellence ; knowing the print, I had formed in my 
 imagination what such a composition would produce in 
 the hands of such a painter. I confess I was disap- 
 pointed. However, this disappointment did not proceed 
 from any deficiency in the picture itself : had it been in 
 the original state in which Rubens left it, it must have 
 appeared very different, but it is mortifying to see to 
 what degree it has suffered by cleaning and mending ; 
 that brilliant effect, which it undoubtedly once had, is 
 lost in a mist of varnish, which appears to be chilled or 
 mildewed. The Christ is in many places retouched, so 
 as to be visible at a distance j the St John's head re- 
 
 painted ; and other parts, on a close inspection, appear 
 to be chipping off, and ready to fall from the canvass. 
 However, there is enough to be seen to satisfy any con- 
 noisseur, that in its perfect state it well deserved all 
 its reputation. 
 
 The composition of this picture is said to be borrowed 
 from an Italian print. This print I never saw ; but 
 those who have seen it, say that Rubens has made no 
 deviation from it, except in the attitude of the Magdalen. 
 On the print is written, " Peter Passer Invenit ; Hier- 
 onymus Wirix sculpsit." 
 
 The greatest peculiarity of this composition is the 
 contrivance of the white sheet, on which the body of 
 Jesus lies : this circumstance was probably what induced 
 Rubens to adopt the composition. He well knew what 
 effect white linen, opposed to flesh, must have, with his 
 powers of colouring ; a circumstance which was not 
 likely to enter into the mind of an Italian painter, who 
 probably would have been afraid of the linen hurting 
 the colouring of the flesh, and have kept it down of a 
 low tint. And the truth is, that none but great colour- 
 ists can venture to paint pure white linen near flesh, 
 but such know the advantage of it ; so that possibly 
 what was stolen by Rubens, the possessor knew not how 
 to value, and certainly no person knew so well as 
 Rubens how to use. After all, this may perhaps turn 
 out another Lauder's detection of plagiarism. I could 
 
64 REYNOLDS'S 
 
 wish to see this print, if there is one, to ascertain how 
 far Rubens was indebted to it for his Christ, which I 
 consider as one of the finest figures that ever were in- 
 vented : it is most correctly drawn, and I apprehend in 
 an attitude of the utmost difficulty to execute. The 
 hanging of the head on his shoulder, and the falling of 
 the body on one side, gives such an appearance of the 
 heaviness of death that nothing can exceed it. 
 
 Of the three Marys, two of them have more beauty 
 than he generally bestowed on female figures, but no 
 great elegance of character. The St Joseph of Ari- 
 mathea is the same countenance which he so often 
 introduced in his works; a smooth fat face — a very 
 un-historical character. 
 
 The principal light is formed by the body of Christ 
 and the white sheet ; there is no second light which 
 bears any proportion to the principal ; in this respect 
 it has more the manner of Rembrandt's disposition of 
 light than any other of Rubens's works ; however, there 
 are many little detached lights distributed at some 
 distance from the great mass, such as the head and 
 shoulders of the Magdalen, the heads of the two Marys, 
 the head of St Joseph, and the back and arm of the 
 figure leaning over the Cross ; the whole surrounded 
 with a dark sky, except a little light in the horizon, and 
 above the cross. 
 
 The historical anecdote relating to this picture, says, 
 that it was given in exchange for a piece of ground on 
 which Rubens built his house ; and that the agreement 
 was only for a picture representing their patron St 
 Christopher, with the Infant Christ on his shoulders. 
 Rubens, who wished to surprise them by his generosity, 
 sent five pictures instead of one — a piece of gallantry 
 on the side of the painter which was undoubtedly well 
 received by the Arquebusers ; since it was so much to 
 their advantage, however expensive to the maker of it. 
 
 Elevation of the Cross. — This is the first public 
 work which Rubens executed after he returned from 
 Italy. In the centre is Christ nailed to the cross, with 
 a number of figures exerting themselves in different 
 ways to raise it. One of the figures appears flushed, 
 all the blood rising into his face from his violent efforts ; 
 others in intricate attitudes, which, at the same time 
 that they show the great energy with which the busi- 
 ness is done, give that opportunity which painters desire, 
 of encountering the difficulties of the art, in foreshort- 
 ening and in representing momentary actions. This 
 subject, which was probably of his own choosing, gave 
 him an admirable opportunity of exhibiting his various 
 abilities to his countrymen ; and it is certainly one of 
 his best and most animated compositions. 
 
 The bustle, which is in every part of the picture, 
 makes a fine contrast to the character of resignation in 
 the crucified Saviour. The sway of the body of Christ 
 is extremely well imagined. The taste of the form in 
 the Christ, as well as in the other figures, must be ac- 
 knowledged to be a little inclinable to the heavy ; but 
 it has a noble, free, and flowing outline. The invention 
 of throwing the cross obliquely from one corner of the 
 picture to the other, is finely conceived ; something in 
 "the manner of Tintoret : it gives a new and uncommon 
 air to his subject, and we may justly add, that it is 
 
 DISCOURSES. 
 
 uncommonly beautiful. The contrast of the body with 
 the legs is admirable, and not overdone. 
 
 The doors [wings which fold over the picture] are a 
 continuation of the subject. That on the right has a 
 group of women and children, who appear to feel the 
 greatest emotion and horror at the sight : the Virgin 
 and St John, who are behind, appear very properly with 
 more resignation. On the other door are the officers 
 on horseback; attending behind them are the two 
 thieves, whom the executioners are nailing to the cross. 
 
 It is difficult to imagine a subject better adapted for 
 a painter to exhibit his art of composition than the 
 present ; at least Rubens has had the skill to make it 
 serve, in an eminent degree, for that purpose. In the 
 naked figures of the Christ, and of the executioners, he 
 had ample room to show his knowledge of the anatomy 
 of the human body in different characters. There are 
 likewise women of different ages, which is always con- 
 sidered as a necessary part of every . composition, in 
 order to produce variety ; there are, besides, children 
 and horsemen ; and to have the whole range of variety, 
 he has even added a dog, which he has introduced in 
 an animated attitude, with his mouth open, as if pant- 
 ing — admirably well painted. His animals are always 
 to be admired : the horses here are perfect in their kind, 
 of a noble character, animated to the highest degree. 
 Rubens, conscious of his powers in painting horses, in- 
 troduced them in his pictures as often as he could. 
 This part of the work, where the horses are represented, 
 is by far the best in regard to colouring ; it has a fresh- 
 ness which the other two pictures want: but those 
 appear to have suffered by the sun. This picture of 
 the horsemen is situated on the south-east side, whereas 
 the others, being east and south-east, are more exposed : 
 however, at present there is no longer danger, the fathers 
 having taken the precaution to have a fixed window 
 blind, which the rays of the sun cannot penetrate. 
 
 The central picture, as well as that of the group of 
 women, does not, for whatever reason, stand so high for 
 colour as every other excellence. There is a dryness 
 in the tint ; a yellow-ochrey colour predominates over 
 the whole ; it has too much the appearance of a yellow 
 chalk-drawing. I mean only to compare Rubens with 
 himself ; they might be thought excellent even in this 
 respect, were they the work of almost any other painter. 
 The flesh, as well as the rest of the picture, seems to 
 want grey tints, which is not a general defect of Rubens ; 
 on the contrary, his mezzotints are often too grey. 
 
 The blue drapery, about the middle of the figure at 
 the bottom of the cross, and the grey colour of some 
 armour, are nearly all the cold colours in the picture : 
 which are certainly not enough to qualify so large a 
 space of warm colours. The principal mass of light is 
 on the Christ's body ; but in order to enlarge it, and 
 improve its shape, a strong light comes on the shoulder 
 of the figure with a bald head : the form of this shoulder 
 is somewhat defective ; it appears too round. 
 
 Upon the whole, this picture must be considered as 
 one of Rubens's principal works, and that appearance 
 of heaviness which it has, when seen near, entirely 
 vanishes when the picture is viewed from the body of 
 the church, to which you descend from the choir by 
 twenty stairs. 
 
 END OF REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES. 
 
 KDIXBUROH : 
 PRINTED BY W. A.VD R. CHAMBERS.