Thomas Gainshorough. -WC turn now to the career of another con temporary of Wilson, the great painter Thomas Gainsborough, who was the son of a tailor and was born in the town of Sudbury in 1727. If not the most prominent English artist of the eighteenth century, he must be considered by impartial critics to have been the greatest, and was sur passed, if equalled, by few on the Continent during the same period. At the age of seventeen he proceeded to London and studied painting under Francis Klayman (17M-1776), one of the founders of the Royal Academy. After four years in London, Gainsborongh returned to Sudbury and, being then nineteen, married a lady possessing two hundred pounds a year—a good sum in those days. He then settled in Ipswich. At that place his acquaintance with Philip Thicknesse, governor of Landguard Fort, proved the turning-point in his career. Thicknesse became his patron, and proved of great assistance in obtaining commissions for him. On removing in 1758 to Bath—at that period a centre of fashion—Gainsborough found at once abundant employment for his brush. He began with five guineas for a two-thirds-length portrait. This, in combination with the remark able excellence of his style, brought him so much into vogue that he was soon able to raise his terms.
Some years later, for reasons not sufficiently explained, but probably to gratify a natural taste for love of change, Gainsborough turned his attention to landscape-painting. His success in this direction was scarcely less than in portraiture. More than any other painter of that period Gainsborough excelled in the combination of figures and cattle with landscape—a department which is so effectively represented by various schools of our time. He studied nature more than art, and, whatever the excellences of his style, they were entirely his own. To his other talents Gainsborough added a taste for music, and often refreshed himself and pleased his friends by his skill on the violin. He is said by connoisseurs to have had the touch of a master.
Gainsborough does not appear to have sought reputation: the qitiet pursuit of his art and the pleasant retirement of domestic life in his hours of leisure were sufficient for him. It was not until 1774 that he finally returned to London, where he resided in Hatton Garden until his death. His fame, however, had preceded him, and immediately on arriving at the capital he was besieged by those distinguished for rank and beauty anxious to live iu his glowing canvases. He exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy, although taking little personal interest in that institution. It is possible that, conscious of his pre-eminent ability, but lacking the ambi tion to enter into an open rivalry with Sir Joshua Reynolds—with whom he was on friendly terms, but who was little inclined to admit any rivals to the lofty position he held in English art—Gainsborough deliberately pre ferred to keep in the background and allow his works to speak for him.
But he did not avoid social pleasures, and his handsome, genial coun tenance was welcome in the leading circles of London. He died of a cancer in 1788, while at the height of a career rarely surpassed in the annals of art for worldly ease and for successful achievement. On his death-bed the great artist said to Reynolds, " We are all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of the party." In accordance with his expressed wishes, he was quietly buried at Kew; was one of his pall-bearers.
Of the commanding genius of Thomas Gainsborough there can be no question. His superiority in two distinct branches of art is well illustrated by the story that Sir Joshua Reynolds at a banquet of the Royal Academy gave the toast, " The health of Mr. Gainsborough, the greatest landscape-painter of the day." To which Wilson retorted, " Ay, and the greatest portrait-painter too." The later triumphs of such Inas tern in landscape as Constable and Turner have not dimmed the glories of Gainsborough's successes in landscape, while as a portrait-painter it is not too much to assert that lie was the equal of Reynolds, sonic even claim ing him as his superior. His scheme of color was superb, and his daring in attempting novel effects, as in the famous Blue Ray, was the daring of a genius. .1 with a Do; and is one of his most cele brated landscape-and-genre compositions. The magnificent portrait of the duchess of Devonshire has in recent years acquired increased celebrity because of its sale for ten thousand pounds and its subsequent disappear ance. Ten years have passed since it was stolen, and no trace of it has vet been discovered. Probably it is hidden only to be brought forward suddenly when the event shall have been forgotten by the present generation.
Giozwitninailisia rapid was the rise of the British school of the eighteenth century that we are soon confronted by a number of painters of increasing ability. Among those who gave lustre to English art at the time under consideration must be included several of foreign birth whose art-life was passed in England. One of these was Giovanni Battista Cipriani, who was born in Florence in 1727 and died at London in 1785. He drifted to London at an early age, and became one of the founders of the Royal Academy. The art-work of Cipriani was of a versatile and miscellaneous character, although his reputation is largely founded upon the historical canvases at Houghton House, which are the least creditable to his genius. But lie excelled in drawing, and did much to advance the study of the human figure among English artists. He showed much inventive power in his compositions, and was justly distin guished for the exquisite grace lie imparted to his drawings of feminine loveliness, and especially of the beauty of childhood.