GAINSBOROUGH, THOMAS English painter, one of the first and greatest masters of the English school, was born at Sudbury, Suffolk, in the spring of 1727. His father was a woollencrape maker in that town. Thomas was the youngest of nine children. At 14 years old he had sketched every fine tree and picturesque cottage near his home and had persuaded his father to let him go to London, where he had instruction in etching from Hubert Gravelot and studied at the academy in St. Martin's lane, under Francis Hayman. After his return to Sudbury in he married Margaret Burr, the sister of a man employed by Gains borough's father as a traveller, and at the age of 20 he became a householder at Ipswich. Here he painted portraits and landscapes and he spent his leisure hours in a musical club. He numbered among his friends Joshua Kirby, president of the Society of Artists, and Philip Thicknesse, then governor of the Landquart fort near by, who was to be his first biographer. It was Thick nesse's merit to have discovered Gainsborough. He encouraged him by commissions and recommendations to his friends, and it was on his advice that Gainsborough, in 1759, went to Bath, then the general resort of wealth and fashion. Here, in the midst of England's finest society, the artist expanded to the full. His studio in the circus was thronged with visitors. At Wilton and other country seats of his patrons he had opportunities of studying the masterpieces of his beloved Vandyck; and he contributed both portraits and landscapes to the annual exhibition in London. He haunted the greenroom of Palmer's theatre and painted the portraits of many actors. His house harboured many musicians of various nationalities and he learned to play the viola-da-gamba, the harp, the hautboy and the violoncello.
In 1774, having attained a position of prosperity, he went to London and settled at Schomberg House, Pall Mall. He had not been there many months before he received a summons to the palace. He painted George III. eight times and also portrayed the queen and other members of the royal family. Sheridan, Burke, Johnson, Franklin, Canning, Pitt, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Mrs. Siddons, Clive, Blackstone, Hurd were among those who sat to him. In 1768 he was elected one of the original 36 members of the Royal Academy; and he sent both landscapes and portraits to the annual exhibitions until 1783, when being dis satisfied with the position assigned to his portrait of the three princesses, he withdrew that and his other pictures. After his se cession he arranged an exhibition in his own house, not success fully. He died on Aug. 2, 1788, and was buried at Kew. The Royal Academy possesses a fine example of a self portrait of the artist and the National Gallery has a good likeness of him by Zoffany.
Sir Joshua Reynolds made a true prophecy when he said, soon after Gainsborough's death, "Should England ever become so fruitful in talent that we can venture to speak of an English school, then will Gainsborough's name be handed down to pos terity as one of the first." What distinguished him from Reynolds was his greater independence of the old masters. For while Rey nolds had studied the classical art of Italy, Gainsborough in his rural seclusion had developed mainly by the study of nature, although in his earlier days he made a practice of copying works by Vandyck, Rembrandt, Wynants, Velasquez and Murillo. Per haps his art was most akin to that of Watteau. Gainsborough begat, his landscape painting under Dutch influences. His early landscapes, painted in Suffolk, were executed with laborious Dutch minuteness. The spirit of Wynants is evident in the land scape at the National Gallery of Ireland. The "Cornard Wood" (c. in the National Gallery, London, and the "Sunset" in the Tate Gallery show Dutch influence. During his stay in Bath he experienced the impact of Rubens and of Vandyck and he achieved the romantic beauty of such works as "the Watering Place" (c. 1775) in the Tate gallery; "the Cottage Door" (c. in the collection of the duke of Westminster; "the Market Cart" and "the Bridge" in the National Gallery. The land scapes which Gainsborough painted at Bath, with their low brown tones and rich impasto, are his finest. He was among the first English artists who represented the scenery of their own native land, thus breaking with the tradition followed by his predecessors and contemporaries, of painting imaginary Italian scenery in the style of Claude le Lorrain.
After his move to London, Gainsborough's landscapes were mostly painted from memory, his style became somewhat conven tional and the trees were generalized into masses of feathery greenery. The artist is said to have admitted to George III. that he preferred landscape painting to portraiture and he complained that he was compelled to earn his living by painting portraits as he could not sell his landscapes. On his first visit to Gainsborough at Ipswich Thicknesse criticized his early portraits ("Admiral Vernon," painted c. 1749, in the National Portrait Gallery, and "the Painter's Two Daughters," in the National Gallery in Lon don) as being stiffly painted; but he was charmed with his little landscapes and drawings for "these were works of fancy and gave him infinite delight." To the artist's mature period in Bath be long: "Sir Charles Holte," Birmingham Art gallery; "the duke of Northumberland," Dublin gallery; "Mrs. Sheridan" and "Mrs. Tickell," Dulwich gallery; "Garrick," Christ Church, Oxford; the "Blue Boy" (Master Buttall), now in the Huntington collection in California, and "the Hon. Mrs. Graham," National gallery, Edinburgh. The following are representative of his later period when he had reached perfect freedom in execution :—"The earl and the countess of Spencer" and the "Duchess of Devonshire," at Althorp; "Mrs. Siddons," "Dr. Ralph Schomberg," "the Baillie Family" in the National Gallery; "the Morning Walk," "Mrs. Sheridan," in the collection of Lord Rothschild ; "the Pink Boy," with Baron Ferd. de Rothschild ; "the Mall," "the Miss Linleys" at Dulwich; "Orpin, the Parish Clerk," in the Tate Gallery.
Gainsborough's portraits are painted in clear and transparent tone, in a colour scheme where blue and green predominate, with the same fluttering touch which he had acquired in sketching trees and skies. He often placed his figures against a landscape background which harmonized with the sentiment animating the sitter. He may indeed fairly be accounted as a forerunner of Im pressionism although he was ignorant of the scientific theories and analytic qualities which inspired that movement. His work is the expression of a poet and musician.
Gainsborough painted some Soo pictures; he etched some 18 plates, three in aquatint ; there is a representative collection of his drawings at the British Museum. Important exhibitions of his works were held at the Gallery of the British Institution in 1814 and at the Grosvenor gallery in 1885. His portrait of "Elizabeth, duchess of Devonshire" was mysteriously stolen in London in 1876, immediately after it had been purchased by Messrs. Agnew. The picture was taken to New York and to Chicago, and in April 1901 it was traced by American detectives working for Messrs. Agnew; it was then sold to J. Pierpont Morgan, Sr.