Sir Joshua Reynolds

Reynolds, Sir Joshua (1723–92), perhaps the most famous English portrait painter. Ambitious and popular, he became first president of the Royal Academy of Arts (1768). He held that great art is based on the styles of earlier masters and espoused the “Grand Style.” He painted nearly all his notable contemporaries, including his friend Samuel Johnson (1772). His works also include William Robertsen (1772) and Sarah Siddons as the Tragic Muse (1784). He also published influential essays on art education called Discourses (1769–90). Reynolds was influenced by the paintings of Anton Van Dyck, Tintoretto, Titian, Paolo Veronese, and Peter Paul Rubens.