Description: That Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) became the most fashionable painter of his time was not simply due to his article gifts or good fortune. The art of pleasing, Richard Wendorf contends, was as much a part of Reynolds's success -- in his life and in his work -- as the art of painting. Conceived as an experiment in cultural criticism, written along the fault lines of art history and literary studies, Sir Joshua Reynolds explores the ways in Which portrait-painting is embedded in the social fabric of a given culture as well as In the social and professional transaction between the artist and his or her subject. In addition to providing a new view of Reynolds, Wendorf's book develops a thoroughly new way of interpreting portraiture.

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