32 Facts About Joshua Reynolds

1.

Sir Joshua Reynolds was an English painter who specialised in portraits.

2.

Joshua Reynolds promoted the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealisation of the imperfect.

3.

Joshua Reynolds was a founder and first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, and was knighted by George III in 1769.

4.

Joshua Reynolds's father had been a fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, but did not send any of his sons to the university.

5.

Joshua Reynolds made extracts in his commonplace book from Theophrastus, Plutarch, Seneca, Marcus Antonius, Ovid, William Shakespeare, John Milton, Alexander Pope, John Dryden, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Aphra Behn, and copied passages on art theory by Leonardo da Vinci, Charles Alphonse Du Fresnoy, and Andre Felibien.

6.

The work that came to have the most influence on Joshua Reynolds was Jonathan Richardson's An Essay on the Theory of Painting.

7.

Joshua Reynolds' annotated copy was lost for nearly two hundred years until it appeared in a Cambridge bookshop, inscribed with the signature 'J.

8.

Joshua Reynolds returned to London before the end of 1744, but following his father's death in late 1745 he shared a house in Plymouth Dock with his sisters.

9.

Joshua Reynolds travelled homeward overland via Florence, Bologna, Venice, and Paris.

10.

Joshua Reynolds took rooms in St Martin's Lane, before moving to Great Newport Street; his sister Frances acted as his housekeeper.

11.

In 1760 Joshua Reynolds moved into a large house, with space to show his works and accommodate his assistants, on the west side of Leicester Fields.

12.

Alongside ambitious full-length portraits, Joshua Reynolds painted large numbers of smaller works.

13.

Joshua Reynolds often adapted the poses of his subjects from the works of earlier artists, a practice mocked by Nathaniel Hone in a painting called The Conjuror submitted to the Royal Academy exhibition of 1775, and now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland.

14.

Joshua Reynolds had an excellent vantage from his house, Wick House, on Richmond Hill, and painted the view in about 1780.

15.

Joshua Reynolds emphasised the innocence and natural grace of children when depicting them.

16.

Joshua Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday.

17.

Joshua Reynolds was gregarious and keenly intellectual, with many friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick, and artist Angelica Kauffman.

18.

Joshua Reynolds is under the Fox star and the Irish constellation.

19.

Joshua Reynolds was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Arts, helped found the Society of Artists of Great Britain, and in 1768 became the first president of the Royal Academy of Arts, a position he was to hold until his death.

20.

Joshua Reynolds alluded to Keppel's trial in the portrait by painting his hand on his sword, reflecting the presiding officer's words at the court-martial: "In delivering to you your sword, I am to congratulate you on its being restored to you with so much honour".

21.

Thomas Gainsborough felt that he had a good chance of securing it, but Joshua Reynolds felt he deserved it and threatened to resign the presidency of the Royal Academy if he did not receive it.

22.

In 1787 Joshua Reynolds painted the portrait of Lord Heathfield, who became a national hero for the successful defence of Gibraltar in the Great Siege from 1779 to 1783 against the combined forces of France and Spain.

23.

In 1789, Joshua Reynolds lost the sight of his left eye, which forced him into retirement.

24.

Joshua Reynolds agreed with Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France and, writing in early 1791, expressed his belief that the ancien regime of France had fallen due to spending too much time tending, as he puts it,.

25.

Joshua Reynolds returned to town from Burke's house in Beaconsfield and Edmond Malone wrote that "we left his carriage at the Inn at Hayes, and walked five miles on the road, in a warm day, without his complaining of any fatigue".

26.

Later that month Joshua Reynolds suffered from a swelling over his left eye and had to be purged by a surgeon.

27.

Joshua Reynolds seemed serious even to sadness, though extremely kind.

28.

On New Year's Day 1792 Joshua Reynolds became "seized with sickness", and from that time onwards could not keep food down.

29.

Joshua Reynolds was the first Englishman who added the praise of the elegant Arts to the other Glories of his Country.

30.

Joshua Reynolds did not like Gainsborough, yet appreciated his achievements in the obituary he wrote of his rival.

31.

Never quite losing his Devonshire accent, Reynolds was not only an amiable and original conversationalist, but a friendly and generous host, so that Frances Burney recorded in her diary that he had "a suavity of disposition that set everybody at their ease in his society", and William Makepeace Thackeray believed "of all the polite men of that age, Joshua Reynolds was the finest gentleman".

32.

Dan Cruickshank in his book London's Sinful Secret summarised Joshua Reynolds as having visited and re-visited various reputed red light districts in London after his return from Italy as a possible contributor to his medical condition and appearance due to commonly contracted disease in those areas of London.