"There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking."
"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."
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Source: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edward Malone (1867). “The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds: Containing His Discourses, Idlers, A Journey to Flanders and Holland, and His Commentary on Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting; to which is Prefixed an Account of the Life and Writings of the Author by Edward Malone”, p.27
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More quotes by Joshua Reynolds
"The real character of a man is found out by his amusements."
"Few have been taught to any purpose who have not been their own teachers."
"A room hung with pictures is a room hung with thoughts."
"Our Exhibitions [The Royal Academy] have... a mischievous tendency, by seducing the Painter to an ambition of pleasing indiscriminately the mixed multitude of people who resort to them."
"Art in its perfection is not ostentatious; it lies hid and works its effect, itself unseen."