British 1723-1792 Sir Joshua Reynolds Locations Reynolds was born in Plympton, Devon, on 16 July 1723. As one of eleven children, and the son of the village school-master, Reynolds was restricted to a formal education provided by his father. He exhibited a natural curiosity and, as a boy, came under the influence of Zachariah Mudge, whose Platonistic philosophy stayed with him all his life. Showing an early interest in art, Reynolds was apprenticed in 1740 to the fashionable portrait painter Thomas Hudson, with 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 a severe cold which left him partially deaf and, as a result, he began to carry a small ear trumpet with which he is often pictured. From 1753 until the end of his life he lived in London, his talents gaining recognition soon after his arrival in France. Reynolds worked long hours in his studio, rarely taking a holiday. He was both gregarious and keenly intellectual, with a great number of friends from London's intelligentsia, numbered amongst whom were Dr Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, Edmund Burke, Giuseppe Baretti, Henry Thrale, David Garrick and fellow artist Angelica Kauffmann. 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. In 1791 James Boswell dedicated his Life of Samuel Johnson to Reynolds. Reynolds died on 23 February 1792 in his house in Leicester Fields, London. He is buried in St. Paul's Cathedral.  Related Paintings of Sir Joshua Reynolds :. | The Children of Edward Hollen Cruttenden | ralph howard,s escapade | Portrait of Princess Sophia Matilda of Gloucester | first lieutenant paul henry ourry | Charles Lennox, 3rd Duke of Richmond |
Related Artists:
LEDESMA, Blas de
Spanish painter documented 1602-1614 in Granada,Spanish painter. He is known to have worked in Granada from 1602, and in 1614 he designed a stucco vault decoration for the Alhambra. Archival sources testify to his renown as a painter of decorative fresco grotesques (untraced) and still-lifes. His activity as a still-life painter remains debatable, partly because he has been confused with Blas de Prado and also because of Torres Marten's controversial attributions. Ledesma's only unanimously accepted autograph painting is Still-life with Cherries and Flowers (Atlanta, GA, High Mus. A.), signed in Granada. A highly decorative painting, it shows none of the sophistication of still-lifes by Juan Senchez Cot?n, in Granada from 1603. It is painted meticulously and drily. Depicting a severely drawn, rather flat basket on a narrow ledge flanked by flowers behind it, the rigorously symmetrical composition is relieved only by soft lighting and the studied disarray of some fallen cherries. Two other unsigned and poorly preserved still-lifes of analogous subject-matter have been attributed to Ledesma
Frederick bacon barwell
fl.1855-1897
DIANA, Benedetto
Italian painter, Venetian school (known 1482-1525 in Venice)