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The World's Classics

CXLIX

REYNOLDS'S DISCOURSES

ETC.

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Born, Plympton, Devonshire

Died, London

July 16, 1723

Feb. 23, 1792

Sir Joshua Reynolds's 'Discourses' were first published complete in 1794. They were published in 'The World's Classics' in 1907.

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N7420
331

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.

At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

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INTRODUCTION

FROM that Egyptian darkness which, by common
consent of the learned (including Voltaire and M.
l'Abbé le Blanc), preceded and accompanied the first
manifestations of native art in England during the
middle of the eighteenth century, the names which
emerge most conspicuously are those of Reynolds and
Hogarth. Superficially, no two men could be more
different in aim and character. As regards initial
social status the disparity was not so great; but in
individuality it was unbridgeable. Hogarth was in-
curably self-confident, dogmatic and obstinate, holding
moreover (with Montaigne) that, if you felt you had
done well, there could be no kind of reason why
you should not proclaim that fact very audibly on
the house-tops. Reynolds, on the contrary, was
always deferential, compliant, bland (in Goldsmith's
excellent epithet); and equally convinced that it was
inexpedient at any time to talk much of your own
performances-particularly to your professional rivals.
Nor were their theories of art less opposed than
their theories of conduct. Sir Joshua, though by
vocation a portrait painter, was all for the Beautiful,
the Elevated, the best accepted traditions of the
past. Hogarth, for his part, preferred to
Nature literally, even in her more sordid aspects.
If Beauty came in his way, he drew it; but he sought
chiefly for Reality, with perhaps an unconfessed, and
-it may be an unconscious leaning in the direc-
tion of sharp contrasts, and strongly-marked humorous

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