170 PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 



of Michael Angelo were supernatural grandeur of form, and energetic 

 character; to which qualities Reynolds had no pretensions as a painter, 

 nor had he much in common with Rafaelle, who was gifted with the 

 faculty of ideality in a pre-eminent degree. 



There is no reason to suppose that Sir Joshua, at any period of his 

 life, was peculiarly impressed with the excellence of the works of 

 Leonardo da Vinci, or at least that he ever proposed them as a model 

 for his imitation, but there is abundant evidence in his Pictures that 

 he admired and imitated the works of Coreggio, and he must have 

 possessed many qualities of mind nearly akin to that great painter. 



Sir Joshua was not only an admirer but an imitator of Georgione 

 and Titian, Painters of the Venetian School, and he had some quali- 

 ties of mind that were akin to both. He had, like both these emin- 

 ent men, the power of feeling and appreciating all that constitutes 

 richness and harmony in colour and chiaroscuro ; but not in an equal 

 degree with either he had also in common with them, a strong 

 perception of character, and a power of generalising; but al- 

 though in all these qualities he was alike in kind, yet he was greatly 

 their inferior in power. As compared with Vandyck, although Sir 

 Joshua Reynolds looked at nature with a penetrating eye, he certain- 

 ly had not the power of giving to his Portraits that wonderful ab- 

 stract and subtle air which we find in those of Vandyck. 



Rembrandt was the Painter, above all others, whose peculiar qua- 

 lities Sir Joshua Reynolds seemed most anxious to acquire. There 

 is abundant evidence that he studied and imitated the manner of 

 Rembrandt, and sometimes he equalled him in colour and chiaroscuro ; 

 but he never exhibited that remarkable poetic feeling which occasion- 

 ally manifested itself in the works of Rembrandt ; yet he had a facul- 

 ty which Rembrandt had not the power of dignifying and elevating 

 his Portraits above the living Models, always preserving, neverthe- 

 less faithful and characteristic likenesses. 



It appears that Sir Joshua was slow to comprehend the great works 

 of Michael Angelo and Rafaelle, and although he afterwards express- 

 ed unbounded admiration of them, yet he made no approach to their 

 high attainments ; obviously, because he did not possess such quali- 

 ties of mind as are essential to such attainments. 



Sir Joshua Reynolds, was nevertheless, a Man of original genius, 

 and the proof of this is, that at a period when Art was at the lowest 

 stage of degradation, he, unaided and alone, and under the most ad- 

 verse circumstances, broke the degrading shackles in which his 

 Master, Hudson, and the other Professors of that day held it bound ; 

 and, if he did not reproduce the splendour of the Medician age, at 



