Quotes from Joshua Reynolds

I wish you to be persuaded that success in your art depends almost entirely on your own industry; but the industry which I principally recommend is not the industry of the hands, but of the mind.

Common observation and a plain understanding is the source of all art.

A painter must compensate the natural deficiencies of his art. He has but one sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit. He cannot, like the poet or historian, expatiate, and impress the mind.

Reform is a work of time; a national taste, however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at once.

If deceiving the eye were the only business of the art... the minute painter would be more apt to succeed. But it is not the eye, it is the mind which the painter of genius desires to address.

The excellence of every art, must consist in the complete accomplishment of its purpose