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Dictionary definition: Grand Manner
- Article from:
- The Oxford Dictionary of Art
- Author:
Copyright© The Oxford Dictionary of Art 2004, originally published by Oxford University Press 2004. (Hide copyright information)
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Grand Manner.
Term applied to the lofty and rhetorical manner of
history painting
that in academic theory was considered appropriate to the most serious and elevated subjects. The classic exposition of its doctrines is found in
Reynolds's
Third and Fourth
Discourses
(1770 and 1771), where he asserts that ‘the
gusto grande
of the Italians, the
beau idéal
of the French, and the
great style, genius
, and
taste
among the English, are but different appellations of the same thing’. Cecil Gould (
An Introduction to Italian Renaissance Painting
, 1957) rightly points out that ‘the Grand Manner is an attitude rather than a style’ and goes on to give a lucid exposition ...