Thomas Gainsborough

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Thomas Gainsborough

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Ìîñêâà 2006

Summary

Thomas Gainsborough is by general consent one of the most delightful, spontaneous and naturally gifted of all English painters and draughtsmen. He was an interesting person, inconsistent, impulsive, and easily touched. The painter preferred the companionship of fellow artists, musicians and actors. There was a combination of excitability and bohemianism on the one hand and practical good sense on the other hand in him.

He was born in 1727 in the small market town of Sudbury in Suffolk. In 1740, when he was only 13, Gainsborough set out for London, and lodged in the house of a silversmith. Thomas soon made acquaintance of Gravelot, an accomplished French engraver and draughtsman, who was his first teacher.

It was in Suffolk that Gainsborough met his future wife, a beautiful girl named Margaret Burr. The wedding took place in London in 1746. The couple had 2 daughters.

In 1752 Gainsborough moved from Sudbury to the seaport of Ipswich. At Ipswich the painter met his first biographer and best friend, Philip Thicknesse. Gainsborough attracted Thicknesse by the originality of his works, which lay in the fact that he unconsciously flouted the fashions of the day and found his inspiration in the work of the Dutch realistic painters. His 1^st landscapes were the “View of the Charterhouse”, the “Cornard Wood”, “Landguard Fort” etc (about 1752).

Gainsborough had to paint portraits to make a living. His portraits show a keen understanding of human nature as well as of wild nature. He did not use landscape as a background to set off the figures, but as an integral part of the theme. Suffolk portraits are “Mr and Mrs Andrews”, “The artist, his wife and child», “Scheming Jack, “Mr Kirby”, “Mrs Kirby”, “Samuel Kilderbee”(about 1751 -- 1752) etc.

Philip Thicknesse offered Gainsborough to try his fortune in Bath, a popular resort (1759). It was in Bath that Gainsborough painted the best known of his portraits, the famous “Blue Boy” (1770).

Gainsborough who was ambitious, went to London, the center of the art life. The most famous pictures of his London period are “Mrs Graham”, “Mrs Robinson”, “Mrs Siddons”(1785), “The Morning Walk” (1786).

However, Gainsborough's first love was for landscape. The best-known of his landscapes are “The Grand Landscape”, “Harvest Wagon”, “Landscape with cattle” etc.

The painter died on August 2, 1788. As Sir Joshua Reynolds, the President of the Royal Academy, said in his obituary, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the history of the Art among the most famous English painters.

Thomas Gainsborough is by general consent one of the most delightful, spontaneous and naturally gifted of all English painters and draughtsmen.

Gainsborough's lifetime spanned an age of profound change in British painting and in the public's attitude towards British artists. He was born in 1727, when Hogarth was painting his first genre scenes and conversation pieces, and died in 1788, when Boydell's commissions for the Shakespeare Gallery in Pall Mall were giving a new impetus to British History painting. Gainsborough had an eye as sharp as Rembrandt's, but he had more than a just perceptive eye; he possessed an extraordinary capacity to translate what he observed into the medium of oil paint which puts him firmly, along with Rembrandt, and with artists such as Velazquez, Manet, Renoir and Picasso, into the top flight of “born painters”.

Childhood and Youth

gainsborough painter sketch english

Thomas Gainsborough was born in 1727 and baptized on 14^th May of that year at the Independent Meeting House in Friar's Lane in the small market town of Sudbury in Suffolk. Edward III had selected Sudbury as one of the places in which to settle Flemish weavers, and like so many East Anglian towns its prosperity was built on the proceeds of the cloth trade with which the Gainsborough family was connected for several generations.

The painters' father, John Gainsborough, was one of the last of the family to engage in the manufacture of woollen goods; but he is said to have discovered the secret of woollen shroud making in Coventry, and to have introduced it into Sudbury, where, for a time, he enjoyed a monopoly of the trade. However, he does not seem to have been very successful in the conduct of his affairs, and his property at the time of his death in 1748 was renounced by his wife and children in favour of a creditor. He was generous to a fault and possessed a great sense of humour, both of which were richly inherited by his son.

Gainsborough's mother was the sister of the Reverend Humphrey Burroughs, the headmaster of the ancient Grammar School at Sudbury, which Thomas and his brothers attended. Thomas had 4 brothers and 4 sisters.

The eldest, John, nicknamed “Scheming Jack”, was an ingenious, if somewhat purposeless inventor, and on one occasion he attempted to fly from the roof of a summerhouse with a pair of wings of his own manufacture, but landed in the ditch, profoundly humiliated, but fortunately unhurt. Humphrey, another brother, was a Nonconformist clergyman to whom Thomas was always much attached; like John, he took a great interest in mechanics and engineering, but had more capacity in applying his ideas. He was awarded a premium by the society of Arts for a mill plough and a hive mill.

When John Constable visited Sudbury many years after Gainsborough was working there, he said, “It is a delightful country for a painter, I fancy, I see Gainsborough in every hedge and hollow tree,” and Gainsborough often said in later life that Suffolk had made him a painter.

In 1740, when he was only 13, Gainsborough set out for London, and lodged in the house of a silversmith. Through the good offices of the silversmith, Gainsborough made acquaintance of the Frenchman, Gravelot. Gravelot was in England for a number of years, and is chiefly remembered for his very charming vignettes and designs for book illustrations. He was both an accomplished engraver and a sensitive and delicate draughtsman and, working with him, Gainsborough did not only acquire skill in the use of the engrave and etching needle, but also something of that sense of style and easy refinement associated with the French school. Gravelot had considerable standing among the artists of the day and was very friendly with Hogarth. He was, like Hogarth, a caricaturist and mocked somewhat defiantly the artistic shibboleths of the time. In the small artistic circle in London, Gainsborough no doubt met Hogarth, whose independent attitude would be likely to appeal to him, and whose fresh approach to the problems of painting had much influence on Gainsborough's work.

Whilst he lived in London, Gainsborough kept himself by painting small portraits and landscapes and by making drawings for the engravers. He also supplemented his resources by making models. He made his 1^st essays in art by modelling figures of cows, horses and dogs, in which he attained great excellence. There is a cast in the plaster shops of an old horse that he modelled which has peculiar merits. In later life Gainsborough often amused himself by modelling, and on one occasion after a concert at Bath, he was so charmed by Miss Linley's voice that he sent his servant for a bit of clay with which he made and coloured her head. Sometimes he used to wax candles on the table to make impromptu models.

Gainsborough's love of landscape painting would naturally attract him to Suffolk, and he probably paid many visits to Sudbury while he was studying in London. It is possible that it was in Suffolk that Gainsborough met his future wife, a beautiful girl named Margaret Burr. The wedding took place in London in 1746 at Dr Keith's Mayfair Chapel which was used for the celebration of clandestine marriages. Evidently, the young couple had not been able to secure the approval of their elders, and resorted to a runaway affair.

Suffolk portraits

It is not known exactly when Gainsborough returned to Suffolk to live, but he probably spent a good deal of time at Sudbury even before he finally gave up his rooms in London. Gainsborough's 2 daughters, Mary and Margaret, were both born in Sudbury, one in 1748 and the other 1752, and judging from the number of portraits of them as children, their father often prevailed upon them to pose for him. Gainsborough had an inkling that the girls were ill fitted for a normal society life, and might not easily find suitable husbands. His foreboding proved all true.

It was probably about 1752 that Gainsborough moved from Sudbury to the seaport of Ipswich where he lived until he went to Bath in 1759. At Ipswich the painter met his first biographer, Philip Thicknesse. According to his own story, Thicknesse was walking with in his pretty town garden and perceived a melancholy faced country man with his arms together leaning over a garden wall. Thicknesse stepped forward with intention to speak to the person and did not perceive until he was close up that it was a wooden man painted on a shaped board. He then learnt the address of the painter.

Gainsborough attracted Thicknesse by the originality of his works. His originality lay in the fact that he unconsciously flouted the fashions of the day and found his inspiration in the work of the Dutch realistic painters. In the XVIII century realistic landscapes were called “those drudging mimics of nature's most uncomely coarseness”. The 1^st landscapes were the “View of the Charterhouse”, the “Cornard Wood”, “Landguard Fort” etc.

Gainsborough achieved his 1^st professional success as a landscape painter, but this line of business was not profitable at the time, and he had to paint portraits to make a living. Some of the most interesting of the Suffolk pictures are the small portraits in landscape settings, in which he could combine his gifts in both branches of his art. These portraits are in a sense “conversation pieces”, which were then so popular in England, but Gainsborough succeeded in giving a special character to that convention. His portraits, although sometimes rather stiff, show a keen understanding of human nature as well as of wild nature, linked with a rare appreciation of the true relation of the one to the other. He did not use landscape as a background to set off the figures, but as an integral part of the theme.

The most successful of these pictures is undoubtedly the portrait of “Mr and Mrs Andrews” which is still in the possession of the Andrews family. They are not sitting on an elegant terrace, in a well-groomed landscape, but on an ordinary garden seat looking at their crops, as if Gainsborough caught them unaware of his presence when they were resting during a stroll round their property. Mr Andrews has just shot a bird which Mrs Andrews is carrying with no town-bred qualms although she is charmingly dressed in her best frock for the painting. The figures are so naturally posed that they seem part of the landscape, which is painted with a degree of realism unprecedented at the time. It is much more brilliant in colour than any other of the Suffolk portraits and the trees and fields are attuned to the gay blue gown Mrs Andrews is wearing. The whole conception in its simplicity and realism is more nearly related to the plein air painting of the XIX century than to the mannered conversation piece.

In most of the other early portrait groups, the landscape gives pride of place to the figures, but is always a fitting and thoughtful accompaniment to them. The delightful portrait of “The artist, his wife and child” was probably painted about 1751. The landscape in this picture is less clearly defined than in the Andrews, but the rather ethereal blue-green trees fit the mood of the picture and accord with the dreamy expression on the painter's face.

Among other early portraits are that of the painter's brother “Scheming Jack, “Mr Kirby”, “Mrs Kirby”, “Samuel Kilderbee”.

One of the loveliest of the later Suffolk portraits is “The Painter's Daughters Chasing a Butterfly”, surely one of the most beautiful of all pictures of children, so tender in its feeling for the delicate forms and yet so solidly conceived as a pictorial design.

Gainsborough's letters to his friends throw some light on his attitude to his craft. In later life Gainsborough was much concerned about the hanging of his pictures. It was particularly important to Gainsborough that his pictures should be hung in a proper light since he relied for his effects for delicate drawing and lively handling of the paint rather than on striking effects of colour or emphatic chiaroscuro.

In the Suffolk pictures Gainsborough had not yet fully enough developed his manner, but “the odd scratches and marks” were beginning to make their appearance. They are evident in the treatment of the drapery, the painting of the hair and in other details. For the most part Gainsborough's sitters seem to have been also his friends. No doubt Gainsborough's early study of landscape influenced his vision as a portrait painter, he saw a head, as he saw a tree, enveloped in light, and he was profoundly interested in the delicate gradations of tones.

Bath and fashion

Although Gainsborough evidently had quite a flourishing trade in Suffolk, he admitted that he was afraid to put people off when they were in a mood to sit, and the potential local clientele must have been limited. Philip Thicknesse, who was accustomed to winter in Bath, pressed Gainsborough to abandon the quiet Suffolk town and to try his fortune in the West country. Naturally, London was the centre of the art world, but there was in England no town than Bath which provided such opportunities for the portrait painter. The city was a favourite resort of pleasure seekers from all parts of England and of all ranks of society.

On his arrival at Bath, Gainsborough took a house about ¾ of a mile in the Lansdowne Road. Lansdowne Road leads up a hill to the open country and would naturally have attracted Gainsborough the landscape painter, who although he could never persuade himself to renounce the pleasures of town, always sighed for the country. What did he look like physically? Portraits leave a clear impression of his personality; the sharp turn of the head, the quivering nostrils, the half-parted lips, the searching eyes, all these add up to an image of somebody vibrantly alive -- alert, observant, excitable, highly strung. He was inconsistent, impulsive, and, of course, easily touched. However, his constitution and nervous system were by no means robust. He thought and acted like a gentleman and was not irreligious, although there was a combination of excitability and bohemianism on the one hand and practical good sense on the other hand in him.

Gainsborough was impatient and found it hard to contain himself when he was in pursuit of some new material or pigment he had found effective. Gainsborough cared passionately for the quality of his materials, and for the excellence of technique.

A visit to Gainsborough's studio soon became the mode. It was the custom in Bath to allow visiting painters to place specimens of their work in the Rump Room with their scale of charges. Gainsborough on his arrival followed the usual practice and his studio quickly attracted great interest. He became so popular that a contemporary wit said, “Fortune seemed to take up her abode with him; her house became Gainsborough”.

The painter must have known most of the distinguished and elegant folk who visited Bath, but he never enjoyed polite society and infinitely preferred the companionship of fellow artists, musicians and actors. He was not only “passionately fond of music”, but himself performed on several instruments -- his friends said he “was too conspicuous to study music scientifically, but his ear was good and his natural taste was refined... he always played to his feelings”.

The stage had an irresistible appeal for Gainsborough who was on excellent terms with the manager of the Bath Theatre and had access to a box on all occasions. He met many of the actors who visited Bath, including the great Garrick, of whose character and ability he had the very highest opinion. The artists became lifelong friends; both had a very nice sense of humour, and it is amusing to read of them visiting Mr Christie's rooms in London, when the auctioneer is said to have remarked that the presence of those two with their lovely banter greatly added to the interests in his sales.

It was in Bath that Gainsborough painted the best known of his portraits, the famous “The Blue Boy” (1770). It seems that the model was Jonathan Buttall. The boy's father, an ironmonger in the Greek Street, was an intimate friend of Gainsborough and one of the few people invited to be present at his burial.
Mr Buttall was a man of means and taste, and frequently entertained artists and musicians at his home. It was not a commissioned work at all: X-rays have revealed the beginnings of the portrait of an older man under the paint surface, and, thus the fact that the “The Blue Boy” was painted on a discarded canvas. The picture was clearly done for Gainsborough's own pleasure.

The painting of the blue suit is superb and surely justifies Thicknesse's contention that “Mr Gainsborough not only paints the face, but finishes with his own hands every part of the drapery; this, however trifling a matter it may appear to some, is of great importance to the picture as it is fatigue and labour to the artist.”

Some very fine portraits of men were painted by Gainsborough in the late 60's. That of “Viscount Kilmorey” is now in the National Gallery. Gainsborough has seized upon an easy slouching attitude which one feels the sitter would naturally have adopted. The paint is applied in those broken direct touches so characteristic of the later work and is more akin to the workmanship of Manet or Goya than to any contemporary XVIII century painter. The subtle play of movement around the mouth is particularly characteristic, whilst the vigorous treatment of the tree trunk is an admirable foil to the delicate modelling of the head.

An event of the first importance to the artistic world occurred in 1768 in the foundation of the Royal Academy. Gainsborough sent to the first exhibition a portrait of Lady Molyneux, which was one of Gainsborough's most successful works of the period. The black lace scarf gracefully draped over her shoulders, shows off the beautiful hands of great advantage and emphasizes the delicacy of the tones of the cream-coloured satin. The simple compact design and the sureness of the drawing give the picture a strength and depth which are enhanced by the very delicacy of treatment.

However, Gainsborough soon quarreled with the authorities of the Royal Academy and sent no pictures to the exhibitions until 1777.

Before he left Bath, Gainsborough had explored that exquisitely subtle range of tones which he was to develop so effectively in the symphonies of pearly colour which distinguish the best of his later portraits. He had also evolved his beautiful brushwork, which makes even his duller portraits a delight to painters studying the mysteries of their craft; his power of invention may have weakened when he became a fashionable portrait painter, but is power of expressive handling increased throughout his life.

London

Gainsborough who was ambitious, was naturally anxious to go to London and put his work to the test of competition with Sir Joshua Reynolds on his own ground.

Gainsborough arrived in London in the early summer of 1774. The family moved into the western wing at Schomberg House in Pall Mall. The house, which was formerly the property of the Dukes of Schomberg, was then owned by the painter, Astley. He lived in the central portion and let the eastern part to a notorious charlatan, Dr Graham, who established there his Temple of Health. With his acute sense of humour, Gainsborough must have had considerable amusement from the throngs of visitors attending the lectures next door.

His many friends in the musical and theatrical world welcomed Gainsborough with open arms, and one of his first activities in London was to assist in the decoration of the new music room.

Gainsborough achieved sufficient fame at Bath to be elected to the Council of the Royal Academy almost immediately he arrived in London, although he characteristically refused to take any part in the proceedings of that august body. In spite of his neglect of the Royal Academy, Gainsborough evidently acquired considerable business within a short time of his arrival in London.

It was in 1775 that Gainsborough first met the Reverend Henry Bate, afterwards Sir Henry Bate Dudley, who later became his constant friend and companion. Bate, the son of the country clergyman, himself took orders before embarking on his career as a newspaper magnate. He helped to found the “Morning Post”, of which paper he was editor until he left it in order to establish the “Morning Herald”. Bate was a passionate admirer of Gainsborough's painting and he lost no opportunity of bringing it to the notice of the public.

In 1777 Gainsborough again exhibited at the Academy. When the exhibition opened two of Gainsborough's most distinguished pictures were on view, the portrait of Mrs Graham and the fine landscape, “The Watering Place”.

Lady Graham seems to have been something of a paragon, since she was not only elegant and accomplished but a more than an ordinarily competent housewife. Her husband adored her, and when she died young, in the south of France, went off to seek his fortune in the wars, and could never bear to look at the portrait, which he sent to the warehouse in Scotland, where it remained until 1859, when it was bequeathed to the National Gallery of Scotland. Gainsborough was evidently anxious to make a success of portrait, and took a considerable time in working out his idea.

A good likeness of Mr Christie, the auctioneer, who was an intimate friend of the painter, was also exhibited this year. His rooms were close to Gainsborough's house, and Gainsborough often dropped in with Garrick in order to examine the pictures on view for sale. Gainsborough was much interested in the works of the old masters and bought a number of pictures. An interesting sidelight on Gainsborough's judgement of pictures was shown when in 1787, he was called upon to give evidence in the case of selling a false Poussin. Gainsborough said that although he was usually charmed with Poussin's work, the picture in question was in his view deficient in harmony, taste, ease and elegance, and that it produced him no emotion. When he was asked whether something more than a bare inspection by the eye was necessary for a judge of pictures, Gainsborough said he conceived “the eye of a painter to be equal to the tongue of the lawyer”.

One of Gainsborough's best-known portraits was that of Mrs Robinson, known as “Perdita”, because it was when playing that character in “A Winter's Tale” that she first attracted the notice of the Prince of Wales. The beautiful young actress was a fitting subject for Gainsborough' brush and shows him in his most poetic vein. She is sitting on a bank dressed in a white muslin frock with a little white dog by her side and holds in her hand a miniature of the Prince of Wales. The symphony of white and grey-green is only relieved by the blue sash and the highly coloured complexion of the actress.

In 1785 Mrs Siddons, an actress, sat to Gainsborough for the well-known portrait in the National Gallery. Though the painter lavished his painterly skill on the silks and satins and furs of Mrs Siddons's dress, attention is firmly concentrated on the beautiful and delicately modelled head, which is the principal light in the picture and stands out against the broad red curtain that closes the background.

Another distinguished portrait of the same year is that of Mrs Sheridan, where the flimsy draperies seem to be as much alive with movement as the landscape background is tenderly felt. Gainsborough had such a grasp of form and rhythm that he did not have to rely on vivid colour contrasts in order to emphasize the shapes and hold his composition together, but insisted, rather, on the general atmospheric effect, which is conveyed by the subtle and sensitive brushwork.

The Morning Walk, a portrait of Squire Hallet and his wife, was painted in 1786, and gave Gainsborough's talents full scope. In the design he combined dignity with informality in a characteristically English way; the brushwork gives the illusion of soft breezes blowing through the trees, and the linear rhythms and colour harmonies are blended in a perfect symphony. Gainsborough summed up with extraordinary brilliance and sympathy the aristocratic life of the XVIII century, its elegance, refinement and confidence; and although it is a picture of a particular age it has the enduring qualities of all great art.

The later landscapes

Gainsborough's first love was for landscape, but he always considered his chief business to be in the “face way”, and he did not allow his fancy to interfere unduly with his trade in portraiture, which increased so rapidly after his move to Bath. However, Gainsborough evidently spent a good deal of time in painting landscapes. The most famous of his landscapes painted before he moved to London are “The Grand Landscape”, “Harvest Wagon”, “Landscape with cattle” etc.

The “Harvest Wagon” was exhibited at the Royal academy in 1771. The picture has warm colouring with subtle combination of autumn tints and delicate pastel shades, and peasants seem active, lively people. The picture is painted very thinly, and the lovely figure of the boy leading the horses is hardly more than outlined with the brush with all the vigour of a pen and ink sketch. In the same way the form and movement of the horses is conveyed with a few infinitely telling lines. Gainsborough has immortalized the simple scene conveying its essential dignity.

After Gainsborough moved to London he still found time for landscapes. “Watering Place”, “Mountain Landscape” were painted at the time.

Gainsborough used some of his sketches of mountain scenery for the little show box which he made in order to show transparencies -- pictures painted on glass and lighted from behind with candles in order to give moonlight effect. A contemporary remarked that Gainsborough's transparencies of land and sea were so natural that one stepped back for fear of being splashed.

In the spring of 1788 Gainsborough went to Westminster Hall to hear our speeches of his friends Sheridan and Burke and sitting with his back to the window caught a severe chill. A few weeks later, the swelling in his neck increased and he died on August 2, 1788.

Conclusion

Gainsborough, like Constable, felt deeply the romance of the ordinary happenings of the countryside, but he was born in the age of Reason, when balanced composition and style counted for more than atmospheric effects. He was always torn between his natural desire to please and his instinct as an artist. He loved England and English country as few have done before or since, and, at a time when England had hardly been discovered as a field for landscape painters, Gainsborough was painting the fields and lanes of Suffolk, investing these simple scenes with poetry and romance. At his death, this modest and lovable man was the subject of one of the most thoughtful and beautifully written obituaries accorded to an English painter. Such was the generous tribute of his great rival as a portraitist, Sir Joshua Reynolds. “If ever this nation should produce genius sufficient to acquire to us the honourable distinction of an English School, the name of Gainsborough will be transmitted to posterity, in the history of the Art among the very first of that rising name.”

Literature

1) Mary Woodall. Thomas Gainsborough: his life and work.

2) John Hayes. Gainsborough.

3) http://www.abcgallery.com.

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