The Royal Academy’s first President, Sir Joshua Reynolds, delivered fifteen speeches over a period of 18 years to the Academy’s student body and faculty. Delivered in 1769 at the opening of the Royal Academy, the first Discourse introduces progressive advice on the subject of Art. The entirety of Reynolds’ Discourses sums up an adept’s understanding of his field. Rich in useful ideas and poignant analogies, it is clear that he possessed an intellect of the highest order with which he described the practical mechanics of painting. The conferences, analyzed, have great relevance for today’s artists and, for this, a careful synopsis of the entire speech will clarify and elucidate its key points.

The first Discourse is structured around the theme of diligence. Reynolds opens with words of praise for the reigning monarch and illustrates the need for the British Empire to have “an ornament befitting its greatness,” that is, an Academy of Art. The usual platitudes accomplished, Reynolds goes on to define his notion of the purpose of the Academies, namely, “to furnish men capable of leading the student” and to be “a repository of the great examples of the Art.” These statements exemplify Reynolds’ conception of the Academy’s primary function, means, and ends. Lamenting the loss to Britain of potential artists of notable talent, Reynolds reasons that this was due, in part, to the lack of an Academy and the works of art of which the Academy would be the repository. He crafts a beautiful soliloquy by placing the emphasis of art instruction primarily on tangible examples of great art in preference to tutorial direction. Reynolds adds;

“How many men of great natural ability have been lost to this nation for want of these advantages! They never had the chance to see such masterful efforts of genius, which at once set the whole soul on fire. Raffaelle, it is true that they did not have the advantage to study in an Academy, but the whole of Rome and the works of Michelangelo in particular were for him an Academy.At the sight of the Sistine Chapel, he immediately, in a dry, gothic and even insipid way, assumed that grand style of the painting, which improves the partial representation by general and invariable ideas of nature”.

Sir Joshua resolves his position by explaining that an academy should not impose a strange attitude on the student, because such a forceful attempt will have the opposite effect, that is, it will prevent the student from adopting a point of view that he is not willing to accept. Rather, in Reynolds’ view, an academy should be an environment in which a student can adopt particular views and practices that are compatible with her particular outlook and aptitude. Speaking on the subject he comments;

“Each learning seminar can be said to be surrounded by an atmosphere of floating knowledge in which each mind can be steeped in some way according to its own original conceptions. Knowledge, thus obtained, always has something more popular and useful in it than it seems.” it is imposed on the mind by private precept.”

Having said this, Sir Joshua makes a warning aside. Noting the fact that the Continental Academies had collapsed at the time, Reynolds describes the distinctive quality of the London Academies and their saving grace by adding;

“As these Institutions have so often failed in other nations, and it is natural to think with regret how much might have been done, I must allow myself to offer some suggestions, by which these errors may be rectified… The Professors and Visitors may reject or adopt as they see fit” (i.e.) “It will not be as it has been in other schools where he who traveled the fastest just went further from the right path.”

What exactly was Reynolds’ idea of ​​the right path? This defined it as an adherence to the “Rules of the Art established by the practice of the Old Masters”. On this basis, he enters the students of the Royal Academy to consider the works of the Old Masters as the high point of Artistic instruction, advising them that they should use; “those models as perfect and infallible guides; as subjects for their imitation”. Continuing on the theme of “the right way”, Sir Joshua said some very strong things in defense of the Rules of the Craft, in effect relegating those not versed in the procedure of The Rules, to the remnants of mediocrity. In this capacity Reynolds was an ardent advocate of the need for careful and disciplined practice along lines parallel to that of the Old Masters. Sir Joshua regarded this as the touchstone of Art instruction, adding;

“Every opportunity must be seized … to discredit that false and vulgar opinion that the Rules are the shackles of genius; they are shackles only for men without genius; like an armor that for the strong is an ornament and a defense, for the stronger…weaker…becomes a burden, and paralyzes the body it was created to protect.”

When Reynolds fully acquires it, he adds that “the rules may be dispensed with. But let’s not destroy the scaffolding until we’ve got the building up.” This analogy implies that before a student can advance to a level consistent with that of the Old Masters, he must first acquire a thorough understanding of the “Rules of the Art”. The remainder of Reynolds’ first speech focuses on his warning that he quoted that he was due to straying from the “right path” by failing to properly observe the “Rules of Art” which resulted in the collapse of academies in other nations. . In this regard, Sir Joshua advises the teaching faculty of the Academies to be vigilant against the tendency of their young students to seek a short cut to excellence. The file he refers to is that of avoiding the hard and painstaking craftsmanship by unearthing the great effort involved in its regular maintenance and monitoring. Reynolds further explains that the student is;

“Terrified at the prospect before them of the labor required to attain accuracy. The impetuosity of youth is disgusted by the slow approaches of a regular siege, and wishes… to find a shorter path to excellence, and hope to obtain the reward of eminence by means other than those prescribed by the indispensable rules of art…there is no easy method to become a good painter”.

Reynolds defines the students’ shortcut as the desire to acquire; “a lively handling of chalk or pencil” which they “will find no great effort to attain” and “after much time spent in these frivolous pursuits the difficulty will be to retire; but then it will be too late and there is scarcely an instance of return to the scrupulous work after the mind has been corrupted and deluded by this fallacious domain.” There is an obvious touch of irony in Reynolds’ use of the word “mastery” in this context. As a fitting contrast to those students who would seek mastery through less assiduous means, Sir Joshua proceeds to outline the difference between the short path and the intensive labor exerted by the Old Masters in the production of their Art.

“When we read the lives of the most eminent painters, every page informs us that no part of their time was spent in dissipation. When they conceived a subject, they first made a complete drawing of the whole; after that, a more correct drawing of each part separately, – heads, hands, feet and pieces of clothing; then they painted the picture, and after all they retouched it from life.

Reynolds goes on to explain how the effect of all this work underpins a result that just seems effortless in the finished painting. This appearance of ease serves to hide the great efforts applied by the Old Masters to the task of painting, and deceives the student’s eye and intellect into believing that a quick path will achieve an equal result. This, Sir Joshua explained, is a wrong conclusion, seducing the student to follow a route that does not lead to the intended destination. Sir Joshua watches; “Images thus painstakingly forged now look like enchantment effects…as if some mighty genie had struck them down.” He recalls that this current caution is related to Reynolds’ desire to avoid the source of other Academies’ failure. Driving the point home even further, Sir Joshua pleads with his students to avoid what he considered the main flaw of; “The methods of education followed in all the Academies”. Reynolds proposes that a student must first learn to draw exactly what he perceives, otherwise he risks repeating the mistakes of the students in the failed academies. Such students, Reynolds asserts, added bizarre artifacts to the subjects in question, artifacts which, being provided by the imagination, served to distort the true structure of visual form. Making his case eloquently, Reynolds asserts;

“The mistake is that students never draw exactly from the living models before them. They change the shape according to their wavy and uncertain ideas of beauty, and make one more drawing than they think the figure should be. , that from what it seems… grace and beauty… was not acquired by the ancients, but by an attentive and well-compared study of the human form”.

Sir Joshua advances the pre-eminence of drawing, with an eye for precision, by giving as an example a particular drawing by Raphael, entitled ‘The Sacrament Dispute’. In this drawing, Reynolds points out that by representing the shape of a hat on the heads of different figures, Raphael does not deviate from the path of the correct drawing; “even at a time when he was allowed to be at the height of his excellence.” Delving into the theme of accuracy and faithful observation, Reynolds begins to wrap up his seminal address to the Royal Academy. Pleading with his audience, in the most delicate and simple way, that he consider the importance of diligent application to the task of acquiring the skills of true and accurate drawing. This, as has been shown, was Reynolds’s conception of the basis of successful painting, which he elaborated into a “Rule of Art”, which he envisioned as the principle that would save the Royal Academy from deterioration. Reynolds explains that;

“This scrupulous accuracy is so contrary to the practice of the Academies, that not without great deference, I allow myself to recommend to the consideration of the Visitors, and submit them, if the neglect of this method is one of the reasons why the students to They often disappoint expectations and being more than boys at sixteen become less than men at thirty.

As a final testament to the great and evident concern expressed by Reynolds for the welfare of his students and of the Craft in general, Sir Joshua ends his first Address with a poignant personal sentiment. With this being Reynolds’s last recorded word at a conference on the subject of art for almost a year, Sir Joshua considers the future course of the Academy, envisioning its potential to help develop civilization into a new Renaissance, he states;

“Allow me to grant my wishes and express my hope that this institution may live in Arts with that of Leo Tenth; and that the dignity of dying Art… may revive.”

With these moving words, Reynolds concludes his first Address to the Students of the Royal Academy.