Seven Discourses on Art

After years of plans that went nowhere, the Royal Academy opens at last. In his first address, Joshua Reynolds warns that a painter may mistake shadow for substance.

In Britain in 1769, the new Academy promises artists a storehouse of great examples and the company of fellow students. Its first president, Reynolds, sees both promise and peril: young painters can chase dazzling ease, neglect exact study, and hope to win eminence by a shortcut. He urges them to learn from the masters and accept the toil that solid achievement demands, before deciding how far genius may venture beyond the rules. Can they build the craft before they dare to leave its scaffold?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.