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Sir Joshua Reynolds explores the ways in which portrait-painting is embedded in the social fabric of a given culture as well as in the social and professional transaction between the artist and his or her subject. In addition to providing a new view of Reynolds, Wendorf's book develops a thoroughly new way of interpreting portraiture.
When the artist is once enabled to express himself with some degree of correctness, he must then endeavour to collect subjects for expression; to amass a stock of ideas, to be combined and varied as occasion may require. He is now in the second period of study, in which his business is to learn all that has hitherto been known and done. Having hitherto received instructions from a particular master, he is now to consider the art itself as his master. He must extend his capacity to more sublime and general instructions.
A deeply researched and elegantly written study on Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792)--Georgian England's most celebrated portraitist and the first president of the British Royal Academy of Arts--this lavishly illustrated volume explores all aspects of Reynolds's portraiture. Mark Hallett provides detailed, compelling readings of Reynolds's most celebrated and striking works, investigating the ways in which they were appreciated and understood in his own lifetime. Recovering the artist's dynamic interaction with his sitters and patrons, and revealing the dramatic impact of his portraits within the burgeoning exhibition culture of late-18th-century London, Hallett also unearths the intimate relationship between Reynolds's paintings and graphic art. Reynolds: Portraiture in Action offers a new understanding of the artist's career within the extremely competitive London art world and takes readers into the engrossing debates and controversies that captivated the city and its artists. Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art
First published to accompany the exhibition held at The Wallace Collection, London, March 12 - June 7, 2015.
This catalogue includes such famous figures as David Garrick and Dr Samuel Johnson, Sarah Siddons and Emma Hamilton, and the work of such artists as Gainsborough, Reynolds and Romney. It has been compiled by one of the leading authorities on 18th-century English portraiture, John Ingamells.