Fifteen lectures given at the prize-givings of the Royal Academy by its first President. The fourth (1771) sets Claude, who composed his pictures from many studies, against the Dutch painters, who painted single places as they found them.
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–1792) gave the Discourses between 1769 and 1790, and they were the textbook of English painting for a century. Their theme is the general and ideal against the particular and accidental: the painter should study the best of nature and of the old masters, and paint not what he sees but what nature intends.
Claude is his example in landscape. His pictures, Reynolds says, are compositions from many sketches; and he “seldom, if ever, availed himself” of the accidents of nature, a storm or a rainbow, which would destroy the quiet of his scenes.
The book, part by part
I Discourse IV (1771)
The grand style; the general against the particular; Claude’s landscapes composed from many studies, against the Dutch painters’ portraits of single places.
Rules: Compose, do not copy