SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART(艺术七讲座)

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SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

SEVEN DISCOURSES

ON ART

by Sir Joshua Reynolds

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

INTRODUCTION

It is a happy memory that associates the foundation of our Royal

Academy with the delivery of these inaugural discourses by Sir Joshua

Reynolds, on the opening of the schools, and at the first annual meetings

for the distribution of its prizes. They laid down principles of art from

the point of view of a man of genius who had made his power felt, and

with the clear good sense which is the foundation of all work that looks

upward and may hope to live. The truths here expressed concerning Art

may, with slight adjustment of the way of thought, be applied to Literature

or to any exercise of the best powers of mind for shaping the delights that

raise us to the larger sense of life. In his separation of the utterance of

whole truths from insistance upon accidents of detail, Reynolds was right,

because he guarded the expression of his view with careful definitions of

its limits. In the same way Boileau was right, as a critic of Literature, in

demanding everywhere good sense, in condemning the paste brilliants of a

style then in decay, and fixing attention upon the masterly simplicity of

Roman poets in the time of Augustus. Critics by rule of thumb reduced

the principles clearly defined by Boileau to a dull convention, against

which there came in course of time a strong reaction. In like manner the

teaching of Reynolds was applied by dull men to much vague and

conventional generalisation in the name of dignity. Nevertheless,

Reynolds taught essential truths of Art. The principles laid down by him

will never fail to give strength to the right artist, or true guidance towards

the appreciation of good art, though here and there we may not wholly

assent to some passing application of them, where the difference may be

great between a fashion of thought in his time and in ours. A righteous

enforcement of exact truth in our day has led many into a readiness to

appreciate more really the minute imitation of a satin dress, or a red

herring, than the noblest figure in the best of Raffaelle's cartoons. Much

good should come of the diffusion of this wise little book.

Joshua Reynolds was born on the 15th of July, 1723, the son of a

clergyman and schoolmaster, at Plympton in Devonshire. His bent for

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

Art was clear and strong from his childhood. In 1741 at the age of

nineteen, he began study, and studied for two yours in London under

Thomas Hudson, a successful portrait painter. Then he went back to

Devonshire and painted portraits, aided for some time in his education by

attention to the work of William Gandy of Exeter. When twenty-six

years old, in May, 1749, Reynolds was taken away by Captain Keppel to

the Mediterranean, and brought into contact with the works of the great

painters of Italy. He stayed two years in Rome, and in accordance with

the principles afterwards laid down in these lectures, he refused, when in

Rome, commissions for copying, and gave his mind to minute observation

of the art of the great masters by whose works he was surrounded. He

spent two months in Florence, six weeks in Venice, a few days in Bologna

and Parma. "If," he said, "I had never seen any of the fine works of

Correggio, I should never, perhaps, have remarked in Nature the

expression which I find in one of his pieces; or if I had remarked it, I

might have thought it too difficult, or perhaps impossible to execute."

In 1753 Reynolds came back to England, and stayed three months in

Devonshire before setting up a studio in London, in St. Martin's Lane,

which was then an artists' quarter. His success was rapid. In 1755 he had

one hundred and twenty-five sitters. Samuel Johnson found in him his

most congenial friend. He moved to Newport Street, and he built himself

a studio--where there is now an auction room--at 47, Lincoln's Inn Fields.

There he remained for life.

In 1760 the artists opened, in a room lent by the Society of Arts, a free

Exhibition for the sale of their works. This was continued the next year

at Spring Gardens, with a charge of a shilling for admission. In 1765

they obtained a charter of incorporation, and in 1768 the King gave his

support to the foundation of a Royal Academy of Arts by seceders from

the preceding "Incorporated Society of Artists," into which personal

feelings had brought much division. It was to consist, like the French

Academy, of forty members, and was to maintain Schools open to all

students of good character who could give evidence that they had fully

learnt the rudiments of Art. The foundation by the King dates from the

10th of December, 1768. The Schools were opened on the 2nd of

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

January next following, and on that occasion Joshua Reynolds, who had

been elected President--his age was then between forty-five and forty- six-

-gave the Inaugural Address which formed the first of these Seven

Discourses. The other six were given by him, as President, at the next

six annual meetings: and they were all shaped to form, when collected

into a volume, a coherent body of good counsel upon the foundations of

the painter's art.

H. M.

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

TO THE KING

The regular progress of cultivated life is from necessaries to

accommodations, from accommodations to ornaments. By your

illustrious predecessors were established marts for manufactures, and

colleges for science; but for the arts of elegance, those arts by which

manufactures are embellished and science is refined, to found an academy

was reserved for your Majesty.

Had such patronage been without effect, there had been reason to

believe that nature had, by some insurmountable impediment, obstructed

our proficiency; but the annual improvement of the exhibitions which your

Majesty has been pleased to encourage shows that only encouragement

had been wanting.

To give advice to those who are contending for royal liberality has

been for some years the duty of my station in the Academy; and these

Discourses hope for your Majesty's acceptance as well- intended

endeavours to incite that emulation which your notice has kindled, and

direct those studies which your bounty has rewarded.

May it please your Majesty, Your Majesty's Most dutiful servant, And

most faithful subject, JOSHUA REYNOLDS.

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE

ROYAL ACADEMY.

Gentlemen,--That you have ordered the publication of this Discourse

is not only very flattering to me, as it implies your approbation of the

method of study which I have recommended; but likewise, as this method

receives from that act such an additional weight and authority as demands

from the students that deference and respect, which can be due only to the

united sense of so considerable a body of artists.

I am, With the greatest esteem and respect, GENTLEMEN, Your most

humble And obedient servant, JOSHUA REYNOLDS

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

A DISCOURSE I

Delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2nd,

1769, by the President

Gentlemen,--An academy in which the polite arts may be regularly

cultivated is at last opened among us by royal munificence. This must

appear an event in the highest degree interesting, not only to the artists,

but to the whole nation.

It is indeed difficult to give any other reason why an Empire like that

of Britain should so long have wanted an ornament so suitable to its

greatness than that slow progression of things which naturally makes

elegance and refinement the last effect of opulence and power.

An institution like this has often been recommended upon

considerations merely mercantile. But an academy founded upon such

principles can never effect even its own narrow purposes. If it has an

origin no higher, no taste can ever be formed in it which can be useful

even in manufactures; but if the higher arts of design flourish, these

inferior ends will be answered of course.

We are happy in having a prince who has conceived the design of such

an institution, according to its true dignity, and promotes the arts, as the

head of a great, a learned, a polite, and a commercial nation; and I can

now congratulate you, gentlemen, on the accomplishment of your long and

ardent wishes.

The numberless and ineffectual consultations that I have had with

many in this assembly, to form plans and concert schemes for an academy,

afford a sufficient proof of the impossibility of succeeding but by the

influence of Majesty. But there have, perhaps, been times when even the

influence of Majesty would have been ineffectual, and it is pleasing to

reflect that we are thus embodied, when every circumstance seems to

concur from which honour and prosperity can probably arise.

There are at this time a greater number of excellent artists than were

ever known before at one period in this nation; there is a general desire

among our nobility to be distinguished as lovers and judges of the arts;

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

there is a greater superfluity of wealth among the people to reward the

professors; and, above all, we are patronised by a monarch, who, knowing

the value of science and of elegance, thinks every art worthy of his notice

that tends to soften and humanise the mind.

After so much has been done by his Majesty, it will be wholly our fault

if our progress is not in some degree correspondent to the wisdom and,

generosity of the institution; let us show our gratitude in our diligence, that,

though our merit may not answer his expectations, yet, at least, our

industry may deserve his protection.

But whatever may be our proportion of success, of this we may be sure,

that the present institution will at least contribute to advance our

knowledge of the arts, and bring us nearer to that ideal excellence which it

is the lot of genius always to contemplate and never to attain.

The principal advantage of an academy is, that, besides furnishing able

men to direct the student, it will be a repository for the great examples of

the art. These are the materials on which genius is to work, and without

which the strongest intellect may be fruitlessly or deviously employed.

By studying these authentic models, that idea of excellence which is the

result of the accumulated experience of past ages may be at once acquired,

and the tardy and obstructed progress of our predecessors may teach us a

shorter and easier way. The student receives at one glance the principles

which many artists have spent their whole lives in ascertaining; and,

satisfied with their effect, is spared the painful investigation by which they

come to be known and fixed. How many men of great natural abilities

have been lost to this nation for want of these advantages? They never

had an opportunity of seeing those masterly efforts of genius which at

once kindle the whole soul, and force it into sudden and irresistible

approbation.

Raffaelle, it is true, had not the advantage of studying in an academy;

but all Rome, and the works of Michael Angelo in particular, were to him

an academy. On the site of the Capel la Sistina he immediately from a

dry, Gothic, and even insipid manner, which attends to the minute

accidental discriminations of particular and individual objects, assumed

that grand style of painting, which improves partial representation by the

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

general and invariable ideas of nature.

Every seminary of learning may be said to be surrounded with an

atmosphere of floating knowledge, where every mind may imbibe

somewhat congenial to its own original conceptions. Knowledge, thus

obtained, has always something more popular and useful than that which

is forced upon the mind by private precepts or solitary meditation.

Besides, it is generally found that a youth more easily receives instruction

from the companions of his studies, whose minds are nearly on a level

with his own, than from those who are much his superiors; and it is from

his equals only that he catches the fire of emulation.

One advantage, I will venture to affirm, we shall have in our academy,

which no other nation can boast. We shall have nothing to unlearn. To

this praise the present race of artists have a just claim. As far as they

have yet proceeded they are right. With us the exertions of genius will

henceforward be directed to their proper objects. It will not be as it has

been in other schools, where he that travelled fastest only wandered

farthest from the right way.

Impressed as I am, therefore, with such a favourable opinion of my

associates in this undertaking, it would ill become me to dictate to any of

them. But as these institutions have so often failed in other nations, and

as it is natural to think with regret how much might have been done, and

how little has been done, I must take leave to offer a few hints, by which

those errors may be rectified, and those defects supplied. These the

professors and visitors may reject or adopt as they shall think proper.

I would chiefly recommend that an implicit obedience to the rules of

art, as established by the great masters, should be exacted from the

YOUNG students. That those models, which have passed through the

approbation of ages, should be considered by them as perfect and infallible

guides as subjects for their imitation, not their criticism.

I am confident that this is the only efficacious method of making a

progress in the arts; and that he who sets out with doubting will find life

finished before he becomes master of the rudiments. For it may be laid

down as a maxim, that he who begins by presuming on his own sense has

ended his studies as soon as he has commenced them. Every opportunity,

SEVEN DISCOURSES ON ART

therefore, should be taken to discountenance that false and vulgar opinion

that rules are the fetters of genius. They are fetters only to men of no

genius; as that armour, which upon the strong becomes an ornament and a

defence, upon the weak and misshapen turns into a load, and cripples the

body which it was made to protect.

How much liberty may be taken to break through those rules, and, as

the poet expresses it,

"To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art,"

may be an after consideration, when the pupils become masters

themselves. It is then, when their genius has received its utmost

improvement, that rules may possibly be dispensed with. But let us not

destroy the scaffold until we have raised the building.

The directors ought more particularly to watch over the genius of those

students who, being more advanced, are arrived at that critical period of

study, on the nice management of which their future turn of taste depends.

At that age it is natural for them to be more captivated with what is

brilliant than with what is solid, and to prefer splendid negligence to

painful and humiliating exactness.

A facility in composing, a lively, and what is called a masterly

handling the chalk or pencil, are, it must be confessed, captivating

qualities to young minds, and become of course the objects of their

ambition. They endeavour to imitate those dazzling excellences, which

they will find no great labour in attaining. After much time spent in these

frivolous pursuits, the difficulty will be to retreat; but it will be then too

late; and there is scarce an instance of return to scrupulous labour after the

mind has been debauched and deceived by this fallacious mastery.

By this useless industry they are excluded from all power of advancing

in real excellence. Whilst boys, they are arrived at their utmost

perfection; they have taken the shadow for the substance; and make that

mechanical facility the chief excellence of the art, which is only an

ornament, and of the merit of which few but painters themselves are

judges.

This seems to me to be one of the most dangerous sources of

corruption; and I speak of it from experience, not as an error which may

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SEVENDISCOURSESONART1SEVENDISCOURSESONARTbySirJoshuaReynoldsSEVENDISCOURSESONART2INTRODUCTIONItisahappymemorythatassociatesthefoundationofourRoyalAcademywiththedeliveryoftheseinauguraldiscoursesbySirJoshuaReynolds,ontheopeningoftheschools,andatthefirstannualmeetingsforthedistributionofitsprizes.They...

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