1727-1788 British Thomas Gainsborough Locations English painter, draughtsman and printmaker. He was the contemporary and rival of Joshua Reynolds, who honoured him on 10 December 1788 with a valedictory Discourse (pubd London, 1789), in which he stated: 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 Art, among the very first of that rising name. He went on to consider Gainsborough portraits, landscapes and fancy pictures within the Old Master tradition, against which, in his view, modern painting had always to match itself. Reynolds was acknowledging a general opinion that Gainsborough was one of the most significant painters of their generation. Less ambitious than Reynolds in his portraits, he nevertheless painted with elegance and virtuosity. He founded his landscape manner largely on the study of northern European artists and developed a very beautiful and often poignant imagery of the British countryside. By the mid-1760s he was making formal allusions to a wide range of previous art, from Rubens and Watteau to, eventually, Claude and Titian. He was as various in his drawings and was among the first to take up the new printmaking techniques of aquatint and soft-ground etching. Because his friend, the musician and painter William Jackson (1730-1803), claimed that Gainsborough detested reading, there has been a tendency to deny him any literacy. He was, nevertheless, as his surviving letters show, verbally adept, extremely witty and highly cultured. He loved music and performed well. He was a person of rapidly changing moods, humorous, brilliant and witty. At the time of his death he was expanding the range of his art, having lived through one of the more complex and creative phases in the history of British painting. He painted with unmatched skill and bravura; while giving the impression of a kind of holy innocence, he was among the most artistically learned and sophisticated painters of his generation. It has been usual to consider his career in terms of the rivalry with Reynolds that was acknowledged by their contemporaries; while Reynolds maintained an intellectual and academic ideal of art, Gainsborough grounded his imagery on contemporary life, maintaining an aesthetic outlook previously given its most powerful expression by William Hogarth. His portraits, landscapes and subject pictures are only now coming to be studied in all their complexity; having previously been viewed as being isolated from the social, philosophical and ideological currents of their time, they have yet to be fully related to them. It is clear, however, that his landscapes and rural pieces, and some of his portraits, were as significant as Reynolds acknowledged them to be in 1788.  Related Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough :. | Woman in Blue | Miss Anne Ford (mk08) | The Watering Place | Pfeiferauchender Bauer vor der Huttentur | Portrait of Edward Ligonier, 1st Earl Ligonier |
Related Artists:
Alphonse Legros
Alphonse Legros (8 May 1837 - 8 December 1911), painter, etcher and sculptor was born in Dijon. His father was an accountant, and came from the neighbouring village of Veronnes. Young Legros frequently visited the farms of his relatives, and the peasants and landscapes of that part of France are the subjects of many of his pictures and etchings. He was sent to the art school at Dijon with a view to qualifying for a trade, and was apprenticed to Maître Nicolardo, house decorator and painter of images. In 1851 Legros left for Paris to take another situation; but passing through Lyon he worked for six months as journeyman wall-painter under the decorator Beuchot, who was painting the chapel of Cardinal Bonald in the cathedral.
Ivan Grohar
Ivan Grohar (15 June 1867 - 19 April 1911) was a Slovene Impressionist painter. Together with Rihard Jakopič, Matej Sternen and Matija Jama, he is considered one of the leading figures of Slovene impressionism in the fin de siecle period. Grohar was born in the Upper Carniolan village of Spodnja Sorica, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. From an early age, he showed an interest in art but he could not develop his talent because he was an orphan and lived in poverty. In 1888, the local vicar Anton Jamnik sent him to an exhibition in the nearby town of Škofja Loka, enabling him to spend the summer working in the town of Kranj under the supervision of the church painter Matija Bradaška. He also travelled to Zagreb, where he worked in the atelier of Spiridion Milanesi, until he was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian Army. He disliked the military life, so he deserted and fled to Venice, in Italy. Left with nothing, he appealed to the Austro-Hungarian consulate. In 1889 a court sentenced him to a short stay in prison and extended his military service by one year. Ivan Grohar: Brna from 1899In 1892, he applied to the Carniolan Provincial Diet for financial assistance to study at the Graz school of painting, which he received. Two years later, he applied for assistance to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. This assistance was also approved, but despite his excellent exam result, he was not accepted to the Academy because he had not finished his studies in Graz. He continued his schooling in Graz and finished it at the end of 1894. In August 1896, he opened his own atelier in Škofja Loka. He also worked in Munich, where he attended Anton Ažbe school of art. Back home, he befriended the impressionist painter Rihard Jakopič. In autumn of 1900, he took part in the first Slovene Artistse Exhibition, organised by the Slovene Artistic Association (Slovensko umetniško društvo, SUD). He was elected to the position of treasurer of the SUD, but illegally borrowed money from the association, for which he was sentenced to three monthse imprisonment. On his release, he left for Vienna.
Henri Gascar
Henri Gascar, Portrait of Barbara Palmer, 1st Duchess of Cleveland James II of England, then Duke of York (1660s)Henri Gascar (1635 -1 Jan 1701) was a French-born portrait painter who achieved artistic success in England during the reign of Charles II. He painted many leading ladies at court, including several of the King's mistresses. Gascar was born in Paris, the son of Pierre Gascar, a minor painter and sculptor. Gascar came to England about 1674, probably at the behest of Louise de Keroualle, Duchess of Portsmouth, Charles II's favourite mistress. Gascar (or Gascard, as he seems to have spelt his name at first) was already known as a skillful portrait-painter; among the portraits already painted by him was that of Nicolas de Lafond, author of the "Gazette of Holland", painted in 1667, and engraved by Peter Lombart. The patronage of the Duchess of Portsmouth insured Gascar a rapid success in England. His flamboyant style, contrasting with the stolid English approach, seemed to suit the frivolity of the time and he painted many of the ladies of Charles II's court. His lack of attention to detail in the likeness he made up for by the sumptuous draperies and tawdry adornments around the subject. For a short time he became fashionable, and is said to have amassed a fortune of over £10,000. Among the portraits painted by him during his time in England were Charles II (engraved by Peter Vanderbank); Louise, Duchess of Portsmouth (twice - once engraved by Étienne Baudet); Barbara, Duchess of Cleveland (nee Villiers), and her daughter, Barbara Fitzroy; Charles Lennox, 1st Duke of Richmond; Frances Stewart, Duchess of Richmond; George FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Northumberland; Nell Gwyn; Sophia Bulkeley (engraved by Robert Dunkarton); Edmund Verney; and Philip Herbert, 7th Earl of Pembroke. It is stated that the last-named portrait was done surreptitiously for Louise, Duchess of Portsmouth. A portrait by Gascar of James II as Duke of York was in that king's collection.