About this product

Product Identifiers

PublisherHarvard University Press

ISBN-100674809661

ISBN-139780674809666

eBay Product ID (ePID)568503

Product Key Features

Book TitleSir Joshua Reynolds : the Painter in Society

Number of Pages328 Pages

LanguageEnglish

TopicIndividual Artists / General, Techniques / Painting, European

Publication Year1996

IllustratorYes

GenreArt

AuthorRichard Wendorf

Book SeriesEssays in Art and Culture Ser.

FormatHardcover

Dimensions

Item Height0.3 in

Item Weight23.5 Oz

Item Length8.9 in

Item Width5.9 in

Additional Product Features

Intended AudienceTrade

LCCN95-051750

Dewey Edition20

ReviewsSir Joshua Reynolds probably provided more fodder for the would-be biographer than any other British artist who has ever lived...Why then does he remain so elusive? Richard Wendorf, in this hugely stimulating and subtly written study of Reynolds's social life and times, gets nearer to answering that question than anyone else to date. At the heart of Wendorf's text is an investigation of how Reynolds shaped his own persona in order to accommodate others and guarantee his own continued professional advancement. The key word, and one which his contemporaries used in describing him, is 'complaisance'...Reynolds could, when he wished, charm the birds from the trees. He could also be ruthless. Somehow Wendorf resists the temptation to play judge and jury, maintaining a reflective and fair-minded impartiality...Despite the mass of information encountered by Wendorf, few stones are left unturned. In factual terms, Wendorf achieves a high degree of accuracy...Wendorf may not lead one to love Reynolds, but he demonstrates that he remains a pivotal figure for anyone who seeks to understand the interstices of eighteenth-century cultural life., [A] luminous study of Reynolds...After finishing this book, we are left not only with an understanding and appreciation of Sir Joshua Reynold's public eminence in art and society, but also of the human side to his private life., You practice an art ruled by men. Worse still, it is one in which your brother is preeminent. This was the delicate position in which Frances Reynolds, professional portraitist and the sister of Sir Joshua, found herself--which is only one of the fascinating highlights of Richard Wendorf's portrait of the 18th century's most fashionable painter...The subtitle of Sir Joshua Reynolds suggests something of its originality, for it is not about the painter of society as much as the painter in society, revealing how the enterprise of portrait-painting illumines the nature of the period.

Dewey Decimal759.2

Table Of ContentIntroduction The Art of Pleasing Other Voices The Marketplace and the Studio The Studio and the Stage Patrons and Politics Abbreviations Notes Acknowledgments Index

SynopsisSir Joshua Reynolds explores the ways in which portrait-painting is embedded in the social fabric of a given culture as well as in the social and professional transaction between the artist and his or her subject. In addition to providing a new view of Reynolds, Wendorf's book develops a thoroughly new way of interpreting portraiture.

LC Classification NumberND1329.R4W46 1996