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Everyman, I will go with thee, and be thy guide, In thy most need to go by thy side.
This is No. 118 of Everyman’s Library. A list of authors and their works in this series will be found at the end of this volume. The publishers will be pleased to send freely to all applicants a separate, annotated list of the Library.
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FIFTEEN DISCOURSES DELIVERED IN THE ROYAL ACADEMY BY SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS · INTRODUCTION BY L. MARCH PHILLIPPS
JOSHUA REYNOLDS, born in 1723 in Devonshire, the son of the Rev. Samuel Reynolds. Lived at Plymouth, 1746-9, afterwards going to Italy. Settled in London, 1752, becoming fashionable portrait-painter. Founded the Literary Club. In 1768 the first president of the Royal Academy. Died in 1792, and buried in St. Paul’s.
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_First Published in this Edition 1906_ _Reprinted 1928_
THE most careless reader of these Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds will be struck by their frequent slighting and depreciatory allusions to the great Venetian colourists, and by the almost passionate note of warning sounded in them against the teaching and influence of these masters. The school of Venice is always referred to by Sir Joshua as the “decorative” school; “mere elegance” is defined as its principal object, and its “ornamental” character is affirmed to be totally inconsistent with any achievement of the first order. Tintoret and Veronese are selected for especial condemnation. “These are the persons who may be said to have exhausted all the powers of florid eloquence to debauch the young and inexperienced.” They have turned many painters “from those higher excellences of which the art is capable, and which ought to be required in every considerable production.”