The literary works of sir Joshua Reynolds. To which is prefixed a memoir by H.W. Beechey, Volume 1

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Pagina 233 - There is no excellent Beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. A man cannot tell, 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.
Pagina 233 - Nature, or, in other words, what is particular and uncommon, can be acquired only by experience ; 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. AH 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.
Pagina 229 - 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.
Pagina 95 - 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...
Pagina 231 - who takes for his model such forms as nature produces, and confines 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 standard of beauty. So that Phidias, when he formed his Jupiter, did not copy any object ever presented to his sight; but contemplated only that image which he had conceived in his mind from Homer's description.
Pagina 20 - 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.
Pagina 125 - TO SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, IN LEICESTER-FIELDS. "DEAR SIR, " WHEN I came to Lichfield, I found that my portrait * had been much visited, and much admired. Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place ; and I was pleased with the dignity conferred by such a testimony of your regard.
Pagina 20 - 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 imitations; 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.
Pagina 95 - At one of these meetings an idea was suggested of extemporary epitaphs upon the parties present ; pen and ink were called for, and Garrick off hand wrote an epitaph with a good deal of humour upon poor Goldsmith, who was the first in jest, as he proved to be in reality, that we committed to the grave. The dean also gave him an epitaph, and Sir Joshua illuminated the dean's verses with a sketch of his bust in pen and ink inimitably caricatured.
Pagina 300 - 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 prepossession which has taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring people to adopt what would offend them, if endeavoured to be introduced...

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