Joshua Reynolds
A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts.Collection: Art
Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers.Collection: Education
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labor of thinking.
If you have great talents, industry will improve them; if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.
Words should be employed as the means, not the end; language is the instrument, conviction is the work.
It is but a poor eloquence which only shows that the orator can talk.
The real character of a man is found out by his amusements.
A mere copier of nature can never produce anything great.
All the gestures of children are graceful; the reign of distortion and unnatural attitudes commences with the introduction of the dancing master.
Could we teach taste or genius by rules, they would be no longer taste and genius.
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.
The greatest man is he who forms the taste of a nation; the next greatest is he who corrupts it.
The value and rank of every art is in proportion to the mental labor employed in it, or the mental pleasure in producing it.
There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.Collection: Inspirational
Simplicity is an exact mediumbetween too little and too much.Collection: Simplicity
Excellence is never granted to man, but as the reward of labour.Collection: Men
The great end of all arts is to make an impression on the imagination and the feeling. The imitation of nature frequently does this. Sometimes it fails and something else succeeds.Collection: Art
What has pleased and continues to please, is likely to please again; hence are derived the rules of art, and on this immovable foundation they must ever stand.Collection: Art
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 from nothing.Collection: Memories
But young men have not only this frivolous ambition of being thought masters of execution, inciting them on the 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 disgusted 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.Collection: Art
Whatever trips you make, you must still have nature in your eye.Collection: Travel
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.Collection: Art
The mind is but a barren soil; a soil which is soon exhausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter.Collection: Learning
Certainly, nothing can be more simple than monotony.Collection: Simple
Taste depends upon those finer emotions which make the organization of the soul.Collection: Organization
You are never to lose sight of nature; the instant you do, you are all abroad, at the mercy of every gust of fashion, without knowing or seeing the point to which you ought to steer.Collection: Fashion
There can be no doubt but that he who has the most materials has the greatest means of invention.Collection: Mean
Less coin, less care.Collection: Money
If you have great talents, industry will improve them: if you have but moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency.Collection: Talent
Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid and works its effect, itself unseen.Collection: Art
What is a well-chosen collection of pictures, but walls hung round with thoughts?Collection: Wall
In the practice of art... it is necessary to keep a watchful and jealous eye over ourselves; idleness, assuming the specious disguise of industry... may be employed to evade and shuffle off real labor - the real labor of thinking.Collection: Art
I can recommend nothing better... than that you endeavor to infuse into your works what you learn from the contemplation of the works of others.Collection: Contemplation
Nothing can come of nothing; he who has laid up no materials can produce no combinations.Collection: Deeds
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.Collection: Air
And he who does not know himself does not know others, so it may be said with equal truth, that he who does not know others knows himself but very imperfectly.Collection: Doe
The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purposeCollection: Art
I wish you to be persuaded that success in your art depends almost entirely on your own industry; but the industry which I principally recommend is not the industry of the hands, but of the mind.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Art
The true test of all the arts is not solely whether the production is a true copy of nature, but whether it answers the end of art, which is to produce a pleasing effect upon the mind.Collection: Art
Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward of labor. It argues no small strength of mind to persevere in habits of industry without the pleasure of perceiving those advances, which, like the hand of a clock, whilst they make hourly approaches to their point, yet proceed so slowly as to escape observation.Collection: Men
Common observation and a plain understanding is the source of all art.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Strong
Martial music has sudden and strongly marked transitions from one note to another which that style of music requires; while in that which is intended to move the softer passions, the notes imperceptibly melt into one another.Collection: Moving
I do not see in what manner practice alone can be sufficient for the production of correct, excellent, and finished pictures. Works deserving this character never were produced, nor ever will arise, from memory alone.Collection: Memories
A passion for his art, and an eager desire to excel, will more than supply an artist with the place of method.Collection: Art
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.Collection: Ambition
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.Collection: Men
It is impossible that anything will be well understood or well done that is taken into a reluctant understanding, and executed with a servile hand.Collection: Taken
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.Collection: Art