Thomas Gainsborough: The Complete Story
Thomas Gainsborough was the English painter behind The Blue Boy, one of the most famous portraits in the world. He was the most elegant portraitist of Georgian Britain, with a light, feathery touch, yet he spent his career wishing he could give up the rich and paint landscapes instead.
That tension, society's favorite face painter who longed to escape into the countryside, runs through everything he made.
Born: Sudbury, Suffolk, 1727
Known for: The Blue Boy, glamorous portraits, English landscapes
Died: London, 1788
The man who would rather paint trees
Gainsborough loved the landscape of his native Suffolk and taught himself to paint it as a young man. But portraits paid, and he was brilliant at them, so he built his career on faces while smuggling glorious skies and woods into the backgrounds.
He once wrote that he was sick of portraits and wished he could walk off to a quiet village and paint landscapes in peace. The market never let him.
The Blue Boy
His most famous work shows a young man in gleaming blue satin, painted in homage to the old master Anthony van Dyck. The blue costume was partly a technical dare, since teachers of the day warned against using cold blue as the dominant color.
It worked so well that the picture became a global icon. It now lives in California, the prize of a famous American collection.
The rivalry with Reynolds
Gainsborough's great rival was Joshua Reynolds, the powerful first president of the Royal Academy. Reynolds preached grand, learned painting built on rules. Gainsborough trusted instinct, a fast hand and the truth of what he saw.
They competed for the same wealthy sitters for decades. Reynolds, to his credit, praised Gainsborough generously after his death, calling his way with paint almost magical.
The feathery touch
Up close, a late Gainsborough dissolves into thin, flickering strokes, lace and leaves suggested with the lightest flicks. He sometimes painted with brushes on long handles, standing back to keep the whole canvas in view.
He also helped fix the English love of the informal portrait set outdoors, the sitter at ease in a real landscape, as in his early double portrait of Mr and Mrs Andrews among their fields.
Quick answers about Thomas Gainsborough
What is Thomas Gainsborough famous for?
The Blue Boy and his elegant Georgian portraits. See what is portrait painting.
What did he really want to paint?
Landscapes. He painted portraits for money. See what is landscape painting.
Who was his rival?
Joshua Reynolds, head of the Royal Academy.
Why he still matters
Gainsborough proved English painting could be as graceful as anything in Europe, and he slipped real landscape into an age obsessed with status. His Blue Boy is still a household image. See the elegant century he worked in via what is Rococo art.
One last fact. On his deathbed he is said to have made peace with Reynolds, and his final words were that they were all going to heaven, with Van Dyck in the company.