Sir Joshua Reynolds
British
1723-1792
Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations
Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life.
Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France.
Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of "The" Club.
With his rival Thomas Gainsborough, Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds.
Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. Related Paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds :. | rebecca, viscountess folkestone | John Armstrong | Colonel Acland and Lord Sydney, 'The Archers | Portrait of Frederick Howard | the schoolboy | Related Artists: Pedro SanchezSpanish Early Renaissance Painter, active ca.1454-1468 Francis HaymanEnglish Painter, 1708-1776,English painter and illustrator. He was in London at the age of 10, and from 1718 until c. 1725 he was apprenticed to Robert Brown (d 1753), a decorative painter. From 1732 Hayman was employed as a scene painter at Goodman's Fields Theatre, where he painted allegorical works such as The King Attended by Peace, with Liberty and Justice Trampling on Tyranny and Oppression on the pit ceiling (destr.). He moved to Drury Lane Theatre in 1736, shortly before the Licensing Act closed Goodman's Fields. At Drury Lane he painted scenery for Thomas Arne's masque The Fall of Phaeton (1736) and was praised for his naturalistic landscapes. From the late 1730s he began accepting commissions for portraits and conversation pieces. His success in the field of portraiture rested on the dearth of good portrait painters in England at the time and his exploitation of a growing middle-class clientele. Hayman painted portraits of doctors, literary men and actors. Vrancke van der Stocktpainted Triptic del Judici Final. Visio tancada del triptic in 1460
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