Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Sir Joshua Reynolds explores the ways in which portrait-painting is embedded in the social fabric of a given culture as well as in the social and professional transaction between the artist and his or her subject. In addition to providing a new view of Reynolds, Wendorf's book develops a thoroughly new way of interpreting portraiture.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Introduction
• The Art of PleAsing Other Voices
• The Marketplace and The Studio
• The Studio and The Stage Patrons and Politics
• Abbreviations
• Notes
• Acknowledgments
• Index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Reynolds was born in modest circumstances in a provincial town, but by the time of his death in 1792 he was the most famous artist in Britain, the first president of the newly established Royal Academy of Arts, the author of the sagacious Discourses on Art, and the possessor of one of the country's finest collections of drawings. Among his friends were Burke, Johnson, Boswell, Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Garrick, as well as many of the gentry and aristocrats that were the subject of his portraits. To explain the artist's phenomenal success, Wendorf (Houghton Library) explores 18th-century attitudes regarding agreeability or "complaisance," as well as politeness as a social ideal and Reynolds as its embodiment. What might appear an unseemly desire to ingratiate for social advancement is seen to be part of a broader discourse recognized and partaken of by all. Wendorf analyzes how Reynolds's stature affected his patrons, the subtle effect of sitting before the great man, his attachment to the stage as a artistic dialogue, and the interaction between the self-effacing portraitist, his occasional critiques of social hierarchy, and his social superiors. A fascinating and well-written book, with excellent notation. Graduate; faculty. L. R. Matteson University of Southern California