Ut Poesis Pictura: Reynolds on Imitation and Imagination

Abstract

EXCEPT FOR BLAKE'S angry and unperceptive comments,' perhaps most famous observation about Reynolds' Discourses has been Hazlitt's reference to Sir Joshua's inconsistencies. And a recognition of inconsistencies has dominated study of Reynolds' criticism for much of time since Hazlitt. Most recently Michael Macklem followed this line of investigation in his analysis of and Ambiguities of Neo-Classical Criticism, 2 concluding that the final meaning of Discourses is in ambiguity between general, Ideal, and idealized nature. Yet, for most part, last two decades have taken a different direction. The emphasis is now on unity of Reynolds' critical thought. Elder Olson, followed by Walter Hipple and Robert Wark, has described strong imprint which academic setting left on Discourses. Reynolds, says Olson, differentiates phases which artist must pass in development of his faculties and discovers them to pose different problems requiring different methods of solution. 3 This is well taken, and it does much to explain away both charge of inconsistency and notion that Reynolds progressively -in something like a Romantic direction-altered many of his original positions. Furthermore, evidence to support this view is,