Discourses delivered to the students of the Royal Academy
This is a 1905 London edition of Joshua Reynolds's Discourses to the students of the Royal Academy, edited by Roger Fry, with its plates reproducing old master paintings in dark halftone. The pictures are reproductions of Baroque and Renaissance works showing mythological and religious scenes, with dense figure groups, dramatic diagonals and heavy shadow. A designer might take from them strong compositional structure, tenebrism and crowded action arranged around a central light.
