Sir Joshua Reynolds

Sir Joshua Reynolds (Plympton, Devon 1723- London 1792) was an English Rococo Era Painter and distinguished member of London's intellectual society. In 1764 he founded the Literary Club.

In Rome, he remained for two years devoting himself to studying the great masterpieces of ancient Greco-Roman sculpture and of Italian painting... While returning home via Florence, Bologna, and Venice, he became absorbed by the compositions and colour of the great Renaissance Venetian painters of the 16th century: Titian, Jacopo Tintoretto, and Paolo Veronese. The Venetian tradition's emphasis on colour and the effect of light and shading had a lasting influence on Reynolds, and, although all his life he preached the need for young artists to study the sculptural definition of form characteristic of Florentine and Roman painters, his own works are redolent of the Venetian style. Web Gallery of Art (Emil Kren and Daniel Marx)

Reynolds was the first president of the Royal Academy. He was knighted by King George III in 1769.