Joshua REYNOLDS 1723 -1792 Joshua REYNOLDS Is

Joshua REYNOLDS 1723 -1792

Joshua REYNOLDS Is the most important figure in British painting. He was born in July 7, 1723 at Plympton St. Maurice in Devon, where his father was headmaster of the Grammar School and a former Fellow of Balliol.

The Eliot Family Group • As early as 1746 he painted the “Eliot Family Group”, based on a famous Van Dyck at Wilton House.

• In 1749 he had the chance to go to Italy with Commondor Keppel. He made prolonged study of the Antique, of Raphael and of Michelangelo. Here he learned the intellectual basis of Italian art.

• He was knighted in 1769 and made Doctor of Civil Law at Oxford and Mayor of his native Plympton in 1772. ~ He was elected the first president of the Royal Academy in 1768.

Three Ladies Adorning The Term of Hymen (1774)

• Barbara, Elizabeth and Anne, the daughters of Sir William Montgomery of Macbie Hall, Peeblesshire, nicknamed the Irish Graces because they had grown up in Ireland. Elizabeth was engaged to the politician Luke Gardiner, who commissioned this picture.

• The subject affords sufficient employment to the figures and gives an opportunity of introducing a variety of graceful historical attitudes. J. REYNOLDS

Mrs Siddons As The Tragic Muse (1789)

• The name of Mrs. Siddons is one of the most distinguished in the history of English dramatic art. For thirty years she was unsurpassed in her impersonation of the tragic heroines of Shakespeare. Her first great success was in the season of 1782, when she appeared for the second time on the London stage. She was then about twenty-seven years of age, and had devoted years of arduous study to her profession. Though gifted by nature with strong dramatic instincts inherited from generations of players, her powers developed slowly. The rôles which she acted were of the more serious sort, which required maturity and experience for interpretation. Her personal appearance was eminently fitted for tragic parts. She had a queenly presence, a countenance moulded in noble lines, a deep-toned measured voice, and an impressive enunciation. In private as well as in public she commanded the highest admiration. Though all London was at her feet flattery could not spoil her. Her children adored her, her friends found her the soul of sincerity, and all the world honored her noble womanhood.

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