Creativity Quote by Joshua Reynolds

Reynolds is throwing a polite punch at the artist who thinks fidelity is the same thing as achievement. In 18th-century Britain, “nature” wasn’t just trees and bodies; it was the whole visible world treated as a test of skill. Copy it cleanly, and you prove you’re competent. Reynolds, as the Royal Academy’s founding president, is arguing that competence is the floor, not the ceiling.

The intent is strategic: elevate painting from craft to intellectual pursuit. If art is only accurate transcription, then the artist is basically a high-end camera before cameras existed, valued for patience and steady hands. Reynolds wants “greatness” to mean selection, synthesis, judgment - the capacity to rearrange reality into meaning. That’s why he championed the “Grand Manner,” where the painter borrows from classical ideals, heightens gesture, edits away the trivial, and composes for moral and emotional effect.

The subtext is also institutional and classed. Reynolds is defending an Academy model that privileges history painting and elevated portraiture over mere likeness-making. “Mere copier” is a coded demotion: it places the realist in the role of artisan while reserving prestige for the artist-as-thinker. In a market crowded with commissions, it’s a way to justify why some images deserve cultural authority and higher fees.

The line still lands because it names a modern anxiety: when realism becomes the default (today, via photography, AI, and flawless digital technique), originality shifts to the decisions you make - what you distort, omit, emphasize, and dare to invent.