Gainsborough, A Story of a Painter and an Era

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Gainsborough, A Story of a Painter and an Era

To be able to appraise the originality of eighteenth century English art, one must recognize its importance in history. A great painter to research is Thomas Gainsborough. His artwork was an important aspect of the art community of the middle seventeen hundreds. His paintings seem to bring brightness and color to a period in art that needed his creative boost. His combination of portrait paintings along with beautiful landscapes was not recognized in his time, but would be recognized as remarkable later in history.

Thomas Gainsborough was born in 1727 in the town of Sudbury in Suffolk (Internet 1). He grew up as the son of a woodworking father and his mother was a teacher. He had 7 brothers and sisters, with whom he attended school until he was thirteen. He traveled to London and worked for a Silversmith. While there he saw many painters, he enjoyed it and began painting himself. It was impressive that he began painting without any formal academic lessons (Woodall 11). In spite of that his work was very astonishing and he published his first sketches in 1747. He was greatly influenced by the great painter Sir Anthony Van Dyck before he decided that it was time for him to leave the silversmith’s shop (Internet 2). He married and had two daughters, his love for painting continued on. His love for painting landscapes brought great paintings, but these were not popular enough to earn a living. He had to paint portraits to keep an income. Gainsborough’s combination of both portrait style painting and landscape painting was to give him a large contribution to his era of painters.

Up until this point in time, paintings were usually face shots or occasionally full body sho...

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... may seem confusing, but with just a little conversation with it should have all the details figured out. Art is History.

Bibliography:

Sources

Woodall, Mary. Gainsborough. London: Phoenix House Limited, 1949.

Internet sources

1 http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Jgainsborough.htm 8 December, 1999.

12 December, 1999.

2 http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/04854.html 8 December, 1999.

12 December, 1999.

3 http://acker.cwrl.utexas.edu/~scoggins/britishprojects/eighteenth/economy.html

8 December, 1999. 12 December, 1999.

4 http://metalab.unc.edu/wm/paint/auth/gainsborough/ 8 December, 1999.

12 December, 1999.

5 http://encarta.msn.com/index/conciseindex/4F/04F02000.htm?z=1&pg=2&br=1

6 December, 1999. 12 December, 1999.

7 http://tetrad.stanford.edu/hm/HorseNMusket.html 8 December, 1999.

12 December, 1999.

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