Seven Discourses on Art

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SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART
by Joshua Reyonds


INTRODUCTION


It is a happy memory that associates the foundation of our Royal Academy
with the delivery of these inaugural discourses by Sir Joshua Reynolds,
on the opening of the schools, and at the first annual meetings for the
distribution of its prizes. They laid down principles of art from the
point of view of a man of genius who had made his power felt, and with
the clear good sense which is the foundation of all work that looks
upward and may hope to live. The truths here expressed concerning Art
may, with slight adjustment of the way of thought, be applied to
Literature or to any exercise of the best powers of mind for shaping the
delights that raise us to the larger sense of life. In his separation of
the utterance of whole truths from insistance upon accidents of detail,
Reynolds was right, because he guarded the expression of his view with
careful definitions of its limits. In the same way Boileau was right, as
a critic of Literature, in demanding everywhere good sense, in condemning
the paste brilliants of a style then in decay, and fixing attention upon
the masterly simplicity of Roman poets in the time of Augustus. Critics
by rule of thumb reduced the principles clearly defined by Boileau to a
dull convention, against which there came in course of time a strong
reaction. In like manner the teaching of Reynolds was applied by dull
men to much vague and conventional generalisation in the name of dignity.
Nevertheless, Reynolds taught essential truths of Art. The principles
laid down by him will never fail to give strength to the right artist, or
true guidance towards the appreciation of good art, though here and there
we may not wholly assent to some passing application of them, where the
difference may be great between a fashion of thought in his time and in
ours. A righteous enforcement of exact truth in our day has led many
into a readiness to appreciate more really the minute imitation of a
satin dress, or a red herring, than the noblest figure in the best of
Raffaelle's cartoons. Much good should come of the diffusion of this
wise little book.

Joshua Reynolds was born on the 15th of July, 1723, the son of a
clergyman and schoolmaster, at Plympton in Devonshire. His bent for Art
was clear and strong from his childhood. In 1741 at the age of nineteen,
he began study, and studied for two yours in London under Thomas Hudson,
a successful portrait painter. Then he went back to Devonshire and
painted portraits, aided for some time in his education by attention to
the work of William Gandy of Exeter. When twenty-six years old, in May,
1749, Reynolds was taken away by Captain Keppel to the Mediterranean, and
brought into contact with the works of the great painters of Italy. He
stayed two years in Rome, and in accordance with the principles
afterwards laid down in these lectures, he refused, when in Rome,
commissions for copying, and gave his mind to minute observation of the
art of the great masters by whose works he was surrounded. He spent two
months in Florence, six weeks in Venice, a few days in Bologna and Parma.
"If," he said, "I had never seen any of the fine works of Correggio, I
should never, perhaps, have remarked in Nature the expression which I
find in one of his pieces; or if I had remarked it, I might have thought
it too difficult, or perhaps impossible to execute."

In 1753 Reynolds came back to England, and stayed three months in
Devonshire before setting up a studio in London, in St. Martin's Lane,
which was then an artists' quarter. His success was rapid. In 1755 he
had one hundred and twenty-five sitters. Samuel Johnson found in him his
most congenial friend. He moved to Newport Street, and he built himself
a studio--where there is now an auction room--at 47, Lincoln's Inn
Fields. There he remained for life.

In 1760 the artists opened, in a room lent by the Society of Arts, a free
Exhibition for the sale of their works. This was continued the next year
at Spring Gardens, with a charge of a shilling for admission. In 1765
they obtained a charter of incorporation, and in 1768 the King gave his
support to the foundation of a Royal Academy of Arts by seceders from the
preceding "Incorporated Society of Artists," into which personal feelings
had brought much division. It was to consist, like the French Academy,
of forty members, and was to maintain Schools open to all students of
good character who could give evidence that they had fully learnt the
rudiments of Art. The foundation by the King dates from the 10th of
December, 1768. The Schools were opened on the 2nd of January next
following, and on that occasion Joshua Reynolds, who had been elected
President--his age was then between forty-five and forty-six--gave the
Inaugural Address which formed the first of these Seven Discourses. The
other six were given by him, as President, at the next six annual
meetings: and they were all shaped to form, when collected into a volume,
a coherent body of good counsel upon the foundations of the painter's
art.

H. M.




TO THE KING


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 our
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.




TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY.


Gentlemen,--That you have ordered the publication of this Discourse is
not only very flattering to me, as it implies your approbation of the
method of study which I have recommended; but likewise, as this method
receives from that act such an additional weight and authority as demands
from the students that deference and respect, which can be due only to
the united sense of so considerable a body of artists.

I am,
With the greatest esteem and respect,
GENTLEMEN,
Your most humble
And obedient servant,
JOSHUA REYNOLDS




SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART


A DISCOURSE
Delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2nd, 1769, by the
President.


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
artists, 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 it which can be useful even 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 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 accomplishment of your long and
ardent wishes.

The numberless and ineffectual consultations that 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 influence
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 nobility 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 degree correspondent to the wisdom and,
generosity of the institution; let us show our gratitude in our
diligence, that, though our merit may not answer his expectations, 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, besides 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
without 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
ascertaining; and, satisfied with their effect, is spared the painful
investigation by which they come 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.

Raffaelle, it is true, had not 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 site of the Capel la Sistina he immediately from a
dry, Gothic, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute
accidental discriminations of particular and individual 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 surrounded 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, and how little has 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 obedience to the rules of art,
as established by the great masters, should be exacted from the _young_
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 presuming 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 becomes
an ornament and a defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into 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 an after 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
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 those 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 that
mechanical facility 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 experience, 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 despatch at the expense of their correctness.

But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought
masterly 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
distrusted 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 becoming 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, 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 correct drawing of every
separate part, heads, hands, feet, and pieces of drapery; they then
painted the picture, and after all re-touched it from the life. The
pictures, thus wrought with such pain, 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 vying
with each other which shall have the readiest band, 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
endeavour to 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 education
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 progress, he will be found at last capable of adding (without
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
attentive 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 drawings) 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 Caracci, 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 consideration of the visitors, and submit it 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.

In short, the method I recommend can only be detrimental when 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
presently 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 expectations of its royal founder; that the
present age may vie in arts with that of Leo X. and that "the dignity of
the dying art" (to make use of an expression of Pliny) may be revived
under the reign of George III.



A DISCOURSE
Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy, on the Distribution of
the Prizes, December 11, 1769, by the President.


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
of 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 periods, I shall
address you as having passed through the first of them, which is confined
to the rudiments, including 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 to whatever species of the art the
student may afterwards choose for his more particular application. The
power of drawing, modelling, and using colours is very properly called
the language of the art; and in this language, the honours you have just
received prove you to have made no inconsiderable progress.

When the artist is once enabled to express himself with some degree of
correctness, he must then endeavour 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 hitherto been known and done. Having hitherto
received instructions from a particular master, he is now to consider the
art itself as his master. He must extend his capacity to more sublime
and general instructions. 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
conception 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 deviating into any track where he
cannot find the footsteps of some former master.