See also: Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough (1727 - London, August 2nd 1788) was one of the most famous portraitists and landscape designers of the 18th British century .

Gainsborough was born in 1727 with Sudbury, in the Suffolk, in England. His/her father was a teacher in relation to the trade of the Laine. At 14 years, it impressed his father by his talents of draftsman, so that it could leave to London to study art in 1740. In London, it was initially formed by the engraver Hubert Gravelot, then it joined William Hogarth and its school. One of its mentors was Francis Hayman. During these years, it took part in decoration of what is now the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children and of the super boxings of the Vauxhall Gardens.

In the Years 1740, Gainsborough married Margaret Burr whose illegitimate father, the Duc of Beaufort, paid a revenue of 200 £ to them. Its work, primarily of the landscapes, was not sold very well. It set out again in Sudbury in 1748-1749 and concentrated its activity on the Portrait S. “a man, will say Gainsborough, can make large things and yet to die ignored in an attic if it does not control its inclinations and does not conform to the eye of vulgar by choosing the speciality that everyone will pay and encourage. ”

In 1752, with its family which had increased of two girls, it moved with Ipswich. The orders of portraits increased, but its customers especially consisted of local merchants and landowners. It was to borrow, guaranteeing the revenue of his wife.

In 1759 Gainsborough and its family moved with Bath. It there studied portraits of Van Dyck and ends up being able to attract customers of the high society, remunerative. In 1761 it started to off send works to the Society Arts exhibition of London (become the Royal Society off Arts , of which it was one of the first members) and starting from 1769 with the annual exposures of the Royal Academy . It chooses famous portraits of customers to draw the attention. The exposures helped it to gain a national reputation, and it was invited to become one of the founding members of the Royal Academy in 1769. However, its relation with the Academy was not easy and it ceased exposing its paintings in to it 1773.

In 1774 Gainsborough and its family moved in London to live with Schomberg House, Pall Badly. In 1777 it started again to expose its paintings to the Royal Academy , with portraits of celebrities of the time, including the duke and the duchess of Cumberland, related with the royal family. These exposures continued during six years.

In 1780 it carried out the portraits of the king George III and the queen, then it accepted many royal orders. That gave him influence on the Academy to define how it wished that its work be exposed. But, in 1783 it took again its paintings and brought back them to Schomberg House . In 1784, the official painter of the court, Allan Ramsay died and the king had to offer the title to the rival of Gainsborough, the president of the Academy, Joshua Reynolds. Gainsborough however remained the preferred painter of the royal family.

At the end of its life it often painted landscapes of a very simple composition. With Richard Wilson, it was one of the founders of the British school of the landscape of the eighteenth century, and with Joshua Reynolds, it was the British Portraitiste dominating of second half of the 18th century.

Gainsborough painted more according to its observations of nature than by observing formal rules.

Its best works, like

• Portrait of Mrs Graham ;
• girls of the painter ;
• William Hallett and her wife Elizabeth, born Stephen , known under the name of morning Walk (1785);
• and Small country-woman with the dog and the jug (1785),

See too

External bonds

• Humanities Web: Thomas Gainsborough Biography
• Britain Express train: Thomas Gainsborough
• Webmuseum Paris: Thomas Gainsborough
• Olga' S Gallery: Thomas Gainsborough
• Artcyclopedia: Thomas Gainsborough
• Gainsborough or charms of the {{S|XVIII|E}} by Marie-Annick Sékaly, director of the culture section of Clio.