Sir Joshua Reynolds

Discourse I

Delivered at the Opening of the Royal Academy, January 2nd, 1769,

by the President

Gentlemen,--An academy in which the polite arts may be regularly

cultivated is at last opened among us by royal munificence. This

must appear an event in the highest degree interesting, not only to

the artists, but to the whole nation.

It is indeed difficult to give any other reason why an Empire like

that of Britain should so long have wanted an ornament so suitable

to its greatness than that slow progression of things which

naturally makes elegance and refinement the last effect of opulence

and power.

An institution like this has often been recommended upon

considerations merely mercantile. But an academy founded upon such

principles can never effect even its own narrow purposes. If it

has an origin no higher, no taste can ever be formed in it which

can be useful even in manufactures; but if the higher arts of

design flourish, these inferior ends will be answered of course.

We are happy in having a prince who has conceived the design of

such an institution, according to its true dignity, and promotes

the arts, as the head of a great, a learned, a polite, and a

commercial nation; and I can now congratulate you, gentlemen, on

the accomplishment of your long and ardent wishes.

The numberless and ineffectual consultations that I have had with

many in this assembly, to form plans and concert schemes for an

academy, afford a sufficient proof of the impossibility of

succeeding but by the influence of Majesty. But there have,