Yale Center for British Art

Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), the excellent scholarly strength among English artists of his age, he created a new type of portraiture by understanding the humanity of his subjects in terms of the heroic tradition of Old Master history painting.Joshua Reynolds was born on July 16, 1723, in Plympton, Devon, the third son of the Reverend Samuel Reynolds, His father was the head of the Plympton Grammar School. Reynolds at seventeen was apprenticed to Richardson's son-in-law, Thomas Hudson, in London, where he was in a program for restoring portraiture to the dignity of high art.Reynolds's main types of portraiture memorialize naval and military heroes, civil and religious dignitaries, the English landowning oligarchy in both its public and private aspects, actors and actresses, and children in fanciful roles, related in their vein of sentiment to "fancy pictures" like the Age of Innocence (1788). His most ambitious translation of a subject picture into a portrait is the group of the daughters of Sir William Montgomery, the Grace Adoring a Term of Hymen (1774), a Miltonian bridal masque in which the rite of worship to the God of Wedlock is performed by three famous beauties, one recently married, another preparing for marriage, and the third still to be betrothed. Among the finest of his military portraits in a battle setting are Colonel Banastre Tarleton (1782) and George Augustus Eliott, Lord Heathfield (1788).Renyolds was the most important and influential of eighteenth century English painters, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy.Showing an early interest in Art, Reynolds apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudosnwith whom he remained until 1743. From 1749 to 1752, he spent over two years in Italy, where he studied the Old Masters and acquired a taste for the "Grand Style". Unfortunately, whilst in Rome, Reynolds suffered severe cold which left him partially deafened, and as a result he began to carry a small ear device with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the rest of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival.Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a vacation. Despite this he was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia. Because of his popularity as a portrait painter, Reynolds enjoyed constant interaction with the wealthy and famous men and women of the day, and it was he who first brought together the famous figures of the Club.With his rival Thomas Gainsborough , Reynolds was the dominant English portraitist of 'the Age of Johnson'. It is said that in his long life he painted as many as three thousand portraits. In 1789 he lost the sight of his left eye, which finally forced him into retirement, and on February 23, 1972, and died in his house in Leicester Fields, London.Professionally, Reynolds' career never peaked. He was one of the earliest members of the Royal Society of Arts, and with Gainsborough established the Royal Acedemy of Arts as a second organisation. In 1768 he was made the Royal Acedemy 's first President, a position he held until his death. Reynolds and the Royal Academy have historically received a mixed reception.Sir Joshua Reynolds painted Mrs. Abington as Miss Prue in Congreve’s “Love for Love” in 1771. The painting is oil on canvas. He painted women who moved amongst the social elite who sex lives disobey polite codes of behavior which are demi-monde. The paintings of these women gave him publicity in fashionable male circles. The actress Mrs. Abington was popular among people in London. The painting is said to straddles the line between a straightforward portrait and a “historical” picture whose associations extends beyond the subject’s physical likeness. He associates his art with women.Miss Prue is a naïve country girl who is seduced by a predatory, half-witted dandy. Mrs. Abington had worked in a brothel before making her name on the stage and was, when Reynolds painted her, the mistress of a wealthy MP. She leans coquettishly over a fashionable chair-back, her thumb poised suggestively before her slightly parted lips: a vulgar, sexually charged gesture. The work contains symbolism of an upscale woman. The message communicated in this painting was royalty in London. I seen a women how held her head up and that is what drew my attention to this painting. What stands out the most when first approaching the work was the way she was straddle over the chair. The artist use color as an oil on canvas.Resources for writing:Important links:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Reynolds