... virtue, nor excite it. Genius is chiefly exerted in historical pictures ; and the art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest is not always best. I should grieve... Works - Page 159by Samuel Johnson - 1811Full view - About this book
| James Boswell - 1786 - 552 pages
...there might be water to wash the statue.' JOHNSON. ' Nay, Sir, the argument from the it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest is not always best....absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.' The Idler. No. 45. 1 Southey wrote thirty years later: — 'I find daily more and more reason to wonder... | |
| James Boswell - 1799 - 648 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest is not always best....absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.' It is recorded in Johnson's Works, (1787) xi. 208, that 'Johnson, talking with some persons about '... | |
| British essayists - 1802 - 220 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life, what is greatest is not always best. I...quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presenceof the dead. Yet in a nation great and opulent there is room, and ought to be patronage, for... | |
| Samuel Johnson - 1810 - 428 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest is not always best....empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art which is new employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent,... | |
| Samuel Johnson - 1816 - 484 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest is not always best....goddesses, to empty splendour and to airy fiction, thai art which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections... | |
| James Northcote - 1819 - 382 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest is not always best....Reynolds transfer to heroes and to goddesses, to empty splendor and to airy fiction, that art, which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in renewing... | |
| Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy - 1820 - 430 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest is not always best....which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in reving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.... | |
| Samuel Johnson - 1820 - 428 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life ; what is greatest is not always best....which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in reving tenderness, in quickening the affections of the absent, and continuing the presence of the dead.... | |
| sir Joshua Reynolds - 1824 - 332 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life, what is greatest is not always best. I...absent, and continuing the presence of the dead." There can be little doubt that the former part of this paper was aimed at Hogarth, who is well known... | |
| Sir Joshua Reynolds - 1824 - 332 pages
...art of the painter of portraits is often lost in the obscurity of his subject. But it is in painting as in life, what is greatest is not always best. I...goddesses, to empty splendour and to airy fiction, that art I which is now employed in diffusing friendship, in reviving tenderness, in quickening the affections... | |
| |