Monday, June 16, 2008

Discourses on Art


DISCOURSES ON ART
Sir Joshua Reynolds
.by Robert Wark
Sir Joshua Reynolds’ discourses on art ‘forms one of the most eloquent literary documents in the history of the European art. Composed as lectures to the students at the Royal Academy in the late eighteenth century, they both summarise the art theory of the previous 300 years and point towards the attitudes prevalent in the nineteenth century. His general topic is the education of the artist and he is concerned with the essentials of the problem he tackles: the purpose of art, the nature of the creative process and the artist’s relation to tradition. Long recognized as the fundamental text for the study of the eighteenth century English painting, this edition is generally considered to be the definitive.

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