Thomas GainsboroughRAFRSA (/ˈɡeɪnzbərə/; 14 May 1727 (baptised) – 2 August 1788) was an Englishportrait andlandscape painter,draughtsman, andprintmaker. Along with his rival SirJoshua Reynolds,[1] he is considered one of the most important British artists of the second half of the 18th century.[2] He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. Despite being a prolific portrait painter, Gainsborough gained greater satisfaction from his landscapes.[3] He is credited (withRichard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of theRoyal Academy.
Lady Lloyd and Her Son, Richard Savage Lloyd, of Hintlesham Hall, Suffolk (1745–46),Yale Center for British Art
Gainsborough was born inSudbury, Suffolk, the youngest son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and maker of woollen goods, and his wife Mary, sister of the Reverend Humphry Burroughs.[4] One of Gainsborough's brothers,Humphrey, is said to have invented the method of condensing steam in a separate vessel, which was of great service toJames Watt; another brother, John, was known asScheming Jack because of his passion for designing curiosities.[5]
The artist spent his childhood at what is nowGainsborough's House, on Gainsborough Street, Sudbury. He later resided there following the death of his father in 1748 and before his move to Ipswich.[6] The building is now a house-museum dedicated to his life and art.
As a boy he demonstrated impressive drawing and painting skills. At the age of ten he was painting heads and small landscapes, including a miniature self-portrait.[7] Gainsborough left home in 1740 to study art in London, where he trained under engraverHubert Gravelot[4] but became associated withWilliam Hogarth and his school. He assistedFrancis Hayman in decorating the supper boxes atVauxhall Gardens.[4]
In 1746, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr, an illegitimate daughter of the3rd Duke of Beaufort, who had settled a £200 annuity on her. The artist's work, then mostly consisting of landscape paintings, was not selling well. He returned to Sudbury in 1748–1749 and concentrated on painting portraits.[8] While still in Suffolk, Gainsborough painted a portrait ofThe Rev. John Chafy Playing the Violoncello in a Landscape (c. 1750–1752;Tate Gallery, London).[9]
In 1752, he and his family, now including two daughters,Mary ("Molly", 1750–1826) and Margaret ("Peggy", 1751–1820),[10] moved to Ipswich. Commissions for portraits increased, but his clients included mainly local merchants and squires. He had to borrow against his wife's annuity.[8] Toward the end of his time in Ipswich, he painted a self-portrait,[11] now in the permanent collection of theNational Portrait Gallery, London.[12]
The artist's family and self-portrait
Margaret Burr (1728–1797), the artist's wife,c. early 1770s
In 1759, Gainsborough and his family moved toBath, living at number 17The Circus.[13] There, he studied portraits byvan Dyck and was eventually able to attract a fashionable clientele. Beginning with theExhibition of 1761 he sent work to the annual exhibition of theSociety of Artists of Great Britain (of which he was one of the earliest members) atSpring Gardens in London. From 1769 he submitted works to theRoyal Academy'sannual exhibitions. The exhibitions helped him enhance his reputation, and he was invited to become a founding member of the Royal Academy in 1769. His relationship with the academy was not an easy one and he stopped exhibiting his paintings in 1773.
Despite Gainsborough's increasing popularity and success in painting portraits for fashionable society, he expressed frustration during his Bath period at the demands of such work and that it prevented him from pursuing his preferred artistic interests. In a letter to a friend in the 1760s Gainsborough wrote: "I'm sick of Portraits and wish very much to take myViol da Gamba and walk off to some sweet Village where I can paint Landskips [landscapes] and enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease".[14] Of the men he had to deal with as patrons and admirers, and their pretensions, he wrote:
... damn Gentlemen, there is not such a set of Enemies to a real artist in the world as they are, if not kept at a proper distance. They think ... that they reward your merit by their Company & notice; but I ... know that they have but one part worth looking at, and that is their Purse; their Hearts are seldom near enough the right place to get a sight of it.[15]
Gainsborough was so keen a viol da gamba player that he had at this stage five of the instruments, three made by Henry Jaye and two byBarak Norman.[16]
Frances Browne, Mrs John Douglas (1746–1811), 1783–84,Waddesdon Manor
In 1774, Gainsborough and his family moved to London to live inSchomberg House, Pall Mall.[4][17] A commemorativeblue plaque was put on the house in 1951.[18] In 1777, he again began to exhibit his paintings at the Royal Academy, including portraits of contemporary celebrities, such as theDuke andDuchess of Cumberland. Exhibitions of his work continued for the next six years. About this time, Gainsborough began experimenting withprintmaking using the then-novel techniques ofaquatint andsoft-ground etching.[19]
During the 1770s and 1780s Gainsborough developed a type of portrait in which he integrated the sitter into the landscape. An example of this is his portrait of Frances Browne, Mrs John Douglas (1746–1811) which can be seen atWaddesdon Manor. The sitter has withdrawn to a secluded and overgrown corner of a garden to read a letter, her pose recalling the traditional representation of Melancholy. Gainsborough emphasised the relationship between Mrs Douglas and her environment by painting the clouds behind her and the drapery billowing across her lap with similar silvery violet tones and fluid brushstrokes. This portrait was included in his first private exhibition at Schomberg House in 1784.[20]
In 1780, he painted the portraits of KingGeorge III and QueenCharlotte and afterwards received other royal commissions. In February 1780, his daughter Molly was married to his musician friendJohann Christian Fischer, to Gainsborough's dismay, as he realized that Fischer was forming an attachment to Molly while carrying on flirtation with Peggy.[10] The marriage between Molly and Fischer lasted only eight months, owing to their discord and Fischer's deceit.[10]
In 1784, Principal Painter in OrdinaryAllan Ramsay died and the King was obliged to give the job to Gainsborough's rival and Academy president,Joshua Reynolds. Gainsborough remained the royal family's favourite painter, however.
In his later years, Gainsborough often painted landscapes. WithRichard Wilson, he was one of the originators of the eighteenth-century British landscape school; though simultaneously, in conjunction with Reynolds, he was the dominant British portraitist of the second half of the 18th century.
William Jackson in his contemporary essays said of him "to his intimate friends he was sincere and honest and that his heart was always alive to every feeling of honour and generosity".[23] Gainsborough did not particularly enjoy reading but letters written to his friends were penned in such an exceptional conversational manner that the style could not be equalled.[24] As a letter writerHenry Bate-Dudley said of him "a selection of his letters would offer the world as much originality and beauty as is ever traced in his paintings".[25]
In the 1780s, Gainsborough used a device he called a "Showbox" to compose landscapes and display them backlit on glass. The original box is on display in theVictoria and Albert Museum with a reproduction transparency.[26]
He died of cancer on 2 August 1788 at the age of 61. According to his daughter Peggy, his last words were "van Dyck".[27] He is interred in the churchyardSt Anne's Church, Kew, Surrey, (located on Kew Green). It was his express wish to be buried near his friendJoshua Kirby. Later his wife and nephewGainsborough Dupont were interred with him. CoincidentallyJohan Zoffany andFranz Bauer are also buried in the graveyard. In 2011, an appeal was given to pay the costs of restoration of his tomb, and the tomb was restored in 2012.[28][29] A street in Kew, Gainsborough Road, is named after him.[30]
Girl with Pigs, 1781–82, private collection, was said by Sir Joshua Reynolds to be "the best picture he ever painted".[31]
The art historianMichael Rosenthal described Gainsborough as "one of the most technically proficient and, at the same time, most experimental artists of his time".[19] He was noted for the speed with which he applied paint, and he worked more from observations of nature (and of human nature) than from application of formal academic rules.[19] The poetic sensibility of his paintings causedJohn Constable to say, "On looking at them, we find tears in our eyes and know not what brings them."
Gainsborough's enthusiasm for landscapes is shown in the way he merged figures of the portraits with the scenes behind them. His landscapes were often painted at night by candlelight, using a tabletop arrangement of stones, pieces of mirrors, broccoli, and the like as a model.[19] His later work was characterised by a light palette and easy, economical strokes.[32]
His more famous works,The Blue Boy;Mr and Mrs Andrews;Portrait of Mrs Mary Graham;Mary and Margaret: The Painter's Daughters;William Hallett and His Wife Elizabeth, nee Stephen, known asThe Morning Walk; andCottage Girl with Dog and Pitcher, display the unique individuality of his subjects. His rival,Joshua Reynolds wrote that the paintingGirl with Pigs was "the best picture he (Gainsborough) ever painted or perhaps ever will".[31]
Gainsborough's works became popular with collectors from the 1850s on, afterLionel de Rothschild began buying his portraits. The rapid rise in the value of pictures by Gainsborough and also by Reynolds in the mid 19th century was partly because the Rothschild family, includingFerdinand de Rothschild began collecting them.[33]
Gainsborough'sThe Blue Boy is also referenced in a 1995 episode ofKeeping Up Appearances with Hyacinth Bucket stating at country house estate sale that she was "looking for something like Gainsborough's Blue Boy...only cheaper...".
Cecil Beaton's playGainsborough's Girls is set in London in 1774 when the painter moved his family to the capital. Previously unpublished, it received its first performance inSudbury, Suffolk in 2019, followed by a short run at the Tower Theatre, London.[37]
Simon Edge's comic novelA Right Royal Face-Off focuses on Gainsborough's relationship with King George III and his family, and his rivalry withJoshua Reynolds.[38]
Stanley Kubrick was inspired by Gainsborough's paintings, amongst other artists of the 18th century, in creating the look and mannerisms for his 1975 filmBarry Lyndon.[39]
Gainsborough (played byCecil Kellaway) performs a vital role in the 1945 filmKitty; saving the eponymous heroine from prison sets the plot, based onPygmalion, in motion.
^Greenwood, Charles (1977).Famous houses of the West Country. Bath: Kingsmead Press. pp. 84–86.ISBN978-0-901571-87-8.
^Letter to William Jackson, from Bath, dated 4 June (but without the year), in M. Woodall (ed.),The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough (London, 1961), p. 115.
^Letter to William Jackson, from Bath, dated 2 September 1767, in M. Woodall (ed.),The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough (London, 1961), p. 101.
^Letter to William Jackson, from Bath, dated 4 June (but without the year), in M. Woodall (ed.),The Letters of Thomas Gainsborough (London, 1961), p. 115: "My comfort is, I have 5 Viols da Gamba, 3 Jayes and two Barak Normans."
John Hayes archive; research papers ofJohn Hayes, British art historian and a leading authority on Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough, 1727-1788 a retrospective organized by Tate Britain, London (exhibited 24 October–19 January 2003), the National Gallery of Art, Washington (exhibited 9 February–11 May 2003, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (exhibited 15 June–14 September 2003)
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