Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Seven Discourses Delivered in the Royal Academy by the President [Discourses on Art]

London

Printed for T. Cadell

1778

"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."

I must inform you, however, that old pictures deservedly 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 unexperienced painters, or young students. An artist whose judgment is matured by long observation, considers rather what the picture once was, than what it is at present. He has acquired a power by habit of seeing the brilliancy of tints through the cloud by 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.
(pp. 43-4)

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Reading at Project Gutenberg and Google Books

From 1769 to 1772 Reynolds' lectures were delivered annually, with each discourse published shortly after its delivery. After 1772, the lectures were delivered biennially. The first seven discourses were collected and published together in 1778. In 1797, the first collected edition of all fifteen appeared, with a second edition issued in 1798. See the ODNB.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, Seven Discourses Delivered in the Royal Academy by the President (London: T. Cadell, 1778). <Link to Google Books><Link to Project Gutenberg>

02/20/2011