Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) was born at Plympton, Devon, the son of a
clergyman who was a master in the grammar school. His father had intended
him for a doctor, but nature decided that Joshua Reynolds should be a
painter. He preferred to read Richardson’s “Treatise on Painting” to any
other book, and when his taste for art became manifest he was sent to
London to study with Hudson, the popular portrait painter of the day. It
was in 1741 that Joshua Reynolds began his studies with Hudson, and as
that worthy could teach him little or nothing, it is fortunate for art
that the connection only lasted two years. On leaving Hudson’s studio
Reynolds returned to Devonshire, but we know little about his life there
till the year 1746, when his father died, and the painter was established
at Plymouth Dock, now Devonport, and was painting portraits. Many of
these earlier works betray the stiffness and want of nature which their
author had probably learned from Hudson. Having visited London, and
stayed for a time in St. Martin’s Lane, the artists’ quarter, Reynolds
was enabled, in 1749, to realize his great wish, and go abroad, where,
unfettered and unspoilt by the mechanical arts of his countrymen, he
studied the treasures of Italy, chiefly in Rome, and without becoming a
copyist, was imbued with the beauties of the Italian school. A love of
color was the characteristic of Reynolds, and his use of brilliant and
fugitive pigments accounts for the decay of many of his best works; he
used to say jestingly that “he came off with _flying colors_.” Doubtless
the wish to rival the coloring of the Venetians led Reynolds to make
numerous experiments which were often fatal to the preservation of his
pictures.
Most of the leaders of the rank and fashion of the day sat for their
portraits to the painter who “read souls in faces.” In 1768 Joshua
Reynolds was chosen first President of the Royal Academy, and was
knighted by George III. He succeeded, on the death of Ramsey, to the
office of Court Painter. His “Discourses on Painting,” delivered at the
Royal Academy, were remarkable for their excellent judgment and literary
skill. A lesser honor, though one which caused him the greatest pleasure,
was conferred on Reynolds in 1773, when he was elected Mayor of his
native Plympton. In the same year he exhibited his famous “Strawberry
Girl,” of which he said that it was “one of the half dozen original
things” which no man ever exceeded in his life’s work. In 1789 the
failure of his sight warned Sir Joshua that “the night cometh when no man
can work.” He died, full of years and honors, on February 23rd, 1792, and
was buried near Sir Christopher Wren, in St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Reynolds was a most untiring worker. He exhibited two hundred and
forty-five pictures in the Royal Academy, on an average eleven every
year. In the National Gallery are twenty-three of his paintings. Mr.
Ruskin deems Reynolds “one of _the_ seven colorists of the world,” and
places him with Titian, Giorgione, Correggio, Tintoretto, Veronese, and
Turner. He likewise says: “Considered as a painter of individuality
in the human form and mind, I think him, even as it is, the prince of
portrait painters.” Titian paints nobler pictures, and Van Dyck had
nobler subjects, but neither of them entered so subtly as Sir Joshua did
into the minor varieties of heart and temper.