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