Joshua Reynolds Quotes

52 Sourced Quotes

A mere copier of nature can never produce any thing great, can never raise and enlarge the conceptions, or warm the heart of the spectator.

Joshua Reynolds
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.

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

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

Joshua Reynolds
Words should be employed as the means, not as the end: language is the instrument, conviction is the work.

Joshua Reynolds
An eye critically nice can only be formed by observing well-colored pictures with attention.

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

Joshua Reynolds
Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid, and works its effect, itself unseen.

Joshua Reynolds
Whatever trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye...

Joshua Reynolds
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... be an overmatch for the greatest painter that ever lived who should be debarred such advantages.

Joshua Reynolds
I have heard painters acknowledge, though in that acknowledgment no degradation of themselves was intended, that they could do better without nature than with her; or as they express themselves, 'that it only put them out.

Joshua Reynolds
It is to Titian we must turn our eyes to find excellence with regard to color, and light and shade, in the highest degree. He was both the first and the greatest master of this art. By a few strokes he knew how to mark the general image and character of whatever object he attempted...

Joshua Reynolds
Let me recommend to you not to have too great dependence on your practice or memory, however strong those impressions may have been which are there deposited. They are forever wearing out, and will be at least obliterated, unless they are continually refreshed and repaired.

Joshua Reynolds
From a slight, undetermined drawing, where the ideas of the composition and character are just touched upon, the imagination supplies more than the painter himself, probably, could produce. And we accordingly often find that the finished work disappoints the expectation that was raised from the sketch...

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

Joshua Reynolds
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... they give the idea of a whole.

Joshua Reynolds
Grandeur of effect is produced by two different ways which seem entirely opposed to each other. One is by reducing the colors to little more than chiaroscuro... and the other, by making the colors very distinct and forcible... but still, the presiding principle of both those manners is simplicity.

Joshua Reynolds
However minutely labored the picture may be in the detail, the whole will have a false and even an unfinished appearance, at whatever distance, or in whatever light it can be shown.

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

Joshua Reynolds
What the back-ground 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.

Joshua Reynolds
There can be no doubt but that he who has the most materials has the greatest means of invention...

Joshua Reynolds
Variety and intricacy is a beauty and excellence in every other of the arts which address the imagination; and why not in Architecture?

Joshua Reynolds
A passion for his art, and an eager desire to excel, will more than supply an artist with the place of method.

Joshua Reynolds
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.

Joshua Reynolds
The distinct blue, red, and yellow colors... though they have not the kind of harmony which is produced by a variety of broken and transparent colors, have the effect of grandeur.

Joshua Reynolds
The spectator, as he walks the gallery, will stop, or pass along. To give a general air of grandeur at first view, all trifling, or artful play of little lights, or an attention to a variety of tints is to be avoided; a quietness and simplicity must reign over the whole work, to which a breadth of uniform and simple color will very much contribute.

Joshua Reynolds
One inconvenience... 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.

Joshua Reynolds
What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung round with thoughts?

Joshua Reynolds
It must be remembered that painting is not the mere gratification of sight.

Joshua Reynolds
I should desire that the last words which I should pronounce in this Academy, and from this place, might be the name of—Michael Angelo.

Joshua Reynolds