Distributed by Homevision

Artist:Sir Joshua Reynolds
Medium: Video
Running Time: 56 minutes
Produced By: RM Arts

Item #: 6009
Name: Sir Joshua Reynolds
Price: $39.95

About this video...
Artist of the Portrait In the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment, the British upper classes resolved to fill their stately homes with noble pictures of themselves. No painter was better suited to this purpose than Joshua Reynolds, a man of tremendous social self-confidence and prodigious talent. With inventiveness and a taste for theatricality, he created splendid portraits that perfectly reflected the importance of his subjects and the affluence of the time. Through visits to Blenheim Palace, Saltram House, and Port Eliot--and through commentary by Nicholas Penny, David Sylvester, and the Duke of Marlborough--viewers survey Reynolds' artistic legacy. Only his contemporary, Thomas Gainsborough, could be considered his equal. In 1768, Reynolds was elected the founding president of London's Royal Academy of Art, an event soon followed by his knighthood and the fusion of British painting into the mainstream of European art.