ISBN: Ostalo
Godina izdanja: 2004
Jezik: Engleski
Oblast: Slikarstvo
Autor: Strani

Joshua Reynolds: The Life and Times of The First President of the Royal Academy by Ian McIntyre
Knjiga je u dobrom stanju, 608 strana, slike u boji.

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 to 1792) was one of – if not the – leading English painter of the 18th century. He specialised in portraits, painting about 2,000 of them during a long and busy professional career, as well as 200 ‘subject pictures’, and over 30 self-portraits.

Ian McIntyre’s biography of Sir Joshua Reynolds is a big book. What makes it hugely enjoyable is the way McIntyre very deliberately widens its scope to become a portrait of the age. Not a page goes by without entertaining and often amusing digressions away from the basic chronology of events.

The book is packed with footnotes, often as many as six on a page, giving biographical snapshots of every single person Reynolds comes into contact with, reads or meets or writes to or mentions, often with a bit of background about their achievements in art or literature – Reynolds cultivated friendships with the leading writers of the time – or, quite often, the wars or battles they were involved in, as a) Reynolds painted a large number of military and naval personnel and b) Britain was almost continually at war throughout the 18th century.

The book is an in-depth biography of Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Royal Academy of Arts, and the context of the age within which he worked. As a young man, he spent time in Rome and was inspired to become an artist. He quickly rose to prominence in the mid-18th century and remained influential as a high-society painter in London for forty years. Ian McIntyre traces the development of his style and analyses his work in detail. His personal relationships are also explored. Reynolds never married and had an uneasy relationship with his sisters. Yet he was also friends with some of the greatest names of the age: Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith. He was one of the most renowned painters of his day and had a significant influence on subsequent British artists.