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 :. | master thomas lister | Captain the Honourable John Byron | the montgomery sisters | Mrs Richard Bennett Lloyd | Portrait of John Murray | Related Artists: michael angelo rookerMichael, Angelo, Rooker (1746 - 3 Mar 1801) was an English oil and watercolour painter of architecture and landscapes, illustrator and engraver. He was also the principal scene painter at the Haymarket Theatre. August Friedrich Oelenhainz(June 28, 1745 - November 5, 1804) was a German painter.
POTTER, PaulusDutch Baroque Era Painter, 1625-1654
Son of Pieter Potter. He was related through his mother, Aechtie Pouwels (d 1636), to the wealthy and powerful von Egmont and Semeyns families, who held important offices in Enkhuizen and at the court in The Hague. He worked in his father's studio in Amsterdam during the 1630s and, like him, painted history subjects that show the strong influence of Claes Moeyaert, with whom Paulus may also have studied. In the painting Abraham Returning from Canaan he adapted the landscape setting from an etching by Moses van Uyttenbroeck and the figures from works by Moeyaert from over ten years earlier. Significantly, however, he redistributed the numerous animals and figures that Moeyaert had aligned evenly across the frontal plane; Potter placed them to one side, permitting a view into the deep distance where other animals can be seen. Potter followed his father more than Moeyaert in searching for ways to integrate his figures with the landscape,
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