Sir Joshua Reynolds

Seventh Discourse

Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy on the Distribution

of the Prizes, December 10th, 1776, by the President.

Gentlemen,--It has been my uniform endeavour, since I first

addressed you from this place, to impress you strongly with one

ruling idea. I wished you to be persuaded, that success in your

art depends almost entirely on your own industry; but the industry

which I principally recommended, is not the industry of the HANDS,

but of the MIND.

As our art is not a divine gift, so neither is it a mechanical

trade. Its foundations are laid in solid science. And practice,

though essential to perfection, can never attain that to which it

aims, unless it works under the direction of principle.

Some writers upon art carry this point too far, and suppose that

such a body of universal and profound learning is requisite, that

the very enumeration of its kind is enough to frighten a beginner.

Vitruvius, after going through the many accomplishments of nature,

and the many acquirements of learning, necessary to an architect,

proceeds with great gravity to assert that he ought to be well

skilled in the civil law, that he may not be cheated in the title

of the ground he builds on.

But without such exaggeration, we may go so far as to assert, that

a painter stands in need of more know ledge than is to be picked off

his pallet, or collected by looking on his model, whether it be in

life or in picture. He can never be a great artist who is grossly

illiterate.

Every man whose business is description ought to be tolerably