Year 12 Art Report
In this particular artwork by Sir Joshua Reynolds “The Lady Delme and her children” Sir Joshua Reynolds conducted his successful career during the height of the English Rococo. The Rococo style caught on in England as the country had a huge rise in middle class and wealthy merchant businessmen due to its advances and control over new colonies in the West, South and East. Reynolds was able to serve the needs of this growing middle class with his flattering elegant portraiture style.
The Era was characterised by hedonistic freedom and a pursuit of all things aesthetically pleasurable. Reynolds helped to define different concepts, he was a renowned intellectual who socialised in the elite social circles of London and received most recognition for his portraits. His popularity was due to his ability to raise figureheads of the day to a mythological level by painting them in the up most elegant stances.
Colour palette: For flesh tones, Reynolds used black, blue-black, lake, carmine, white, orpiment, yellow ochre, ultramarine and varnish. The artist painted various colours upon one another so the paint could mix as naturally as possible.
Brushwork: Joshua's brush work was smooth and not heavily applied to the canvas. His strokes are long,hard, and broad in nature. He does not completely blend his brush work in this painting, which makes them very clear and bold. Reynolds work was done on an extremely large scale, in this particular work the scale was 238.4 x 147.2. This allowed him to be free with his brush as he used different types of brushes in various widths and lengths to help him create the finer detail, particularly in this portrait. Tho Reynolds also used very loose and free lines, which he made in dark and bold colours.
Composition, tone and lighting:Joshua positioned the core lighting upon the main figure and his background landscape was also accentuated. He created stark shadows where necessary and bold highlighting to emphasise the primary
The Era was characterised by hedonistic freedom and a pursuit of all things aesthetically pleasurable. Reynolds helped to define different concepts, he was a renowned intellectual who socialised in the elite social circles of London and received most recognition for his portraits. His popularity was due to his ability to raise figureheads of the day to a mythological level by painting them in the up most elegant stances.
Colour palette: For flesh tones, Reynolds used black, blue-black, lake, carmine, white, orpiment, yellow ochre, ultramarine and varnish. The artist painted various colours upon one another so the paint could mix as naturally as possible.
Brushwork: Joshua's brush work was smooth and not heavily applied to the canvas. His strokes are long,hard, and broad in nature. He does not completely blend his brush work in this painting, which makes them very clear and bold. Reynolds work was done on an extremely large scale, in this particular work the scale was 238.4 x 147.2. This allowed him to be free with his brush as he used different types of brushes in various widths and lengths to help him create the finer detail, particularly in this portrait. Tho Reynolds also used very loose and free lines, which he made in dark and bold colours.
Composition, tone and lighting:Joshua positioned the core lighting upon the main figure and his background landscape was also accentuated. He created stark shadows where necessary and bold highlighting to emphasise the primary