Gainsborough Part 1

Gainsborough.

by Max Rothschild.

I

PAINTING IN ENGLAND BEFORE GAINSBOROUGH

The British school of painting was, compared with those of the other nations of Western Europe, the latest to develop. In Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands, Germany, and even Scandinavia painting and sculpture flourished as early as the Gothic Age, and in most of these countries the Renaissance produced a host of craftsmen whose works still endure among the most superb creations of artistic genius. It is now inexact to say that there was no _primitive_ period in British Art; the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, so resplendent on the Continent with pictures and statues reflecting the character, the aspirations, the temperament of the respective peoples that produced them, produced works of art also in these islands. There are ample records of pictures having been painted in England, both religious subjects and portraits, at a very early age, as far back even as the reign of Henry III.; of such remote productions little has been preserved, but there are still extant a few specimens, from the thirteenth century onwards, as well as portraits of Henry VI., Henry VII., and effigies of princes and earls, which cause us to mourn the loss of a large number of paintings; they are at times grotesque and so thoroughly bad as to be a quite negligible quant.i.ty as works of art, though no doubt historically interesting.

PLATE II.--RALPH SCHOMBERG, M.D.

This canvas can be seen in the National Gallery, and represents a member of the family of Field-Marshal Duke Schomberg, who was killed in 1690 at the Battle of the Boyne. It is painted in the fashion of the time, a full figure in the open air, and is a very fine example of Gainsborough's work.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE II.--RALPH SCHOMBERG, M.D.]

It may be stated for our purposes that until the reign of Henry VIII.

the art of painting was non-existent in England. This luxurious and liberal monarch it was who first gave any real and discerning encouragement to art, and the year 1526 must ever be memorable as the one in which was laid the foundation-stone of British Art. In that year the Earl of Arundel returned from a journey on the Continent; he was accompanied by a young man of powerful build, "with a swarthy sensual face, a neck like a bull, and an eye unlikely to endure contradiction."

This was Hans Holbein, who was then thirty years of age, and whose fame had already been spread far and wide by the eloquent praises of Erasmus. Whether the monarch appreciated the depth and subtlety of the painter's genius better than did his own fellow-citizens of Basle, or whether his att.i.tude towards him was prompted by a sense of vanity and ostentation is a question of little moment; the fact remains that he succeeded by his favour and a pension of two hundred florins in fixing the painter at the English court, and thus rendered an incomparable service to his country's art. With the exception of a few lengthy excursions abroad, Holbein lived continuously in England for twenty-eight years, until his death of the plague in 1543.

The art of Holbein, with all his genius, with all his success and popularity at court, does not seem to have taken root in England. The soil was not congenial, and when the plant withered no off-shoots remained behind; he formed no school in this country, had no pupils capable of carrying on his work, and continuing his tradition. With his death, the first short chapter in the history of art in Great Britain closes like a book, and for a time it looks as though the seeds sown by Henry VIII. were destined never to bear fruit. But one notable result had been attained; painting had gained a place in popular estimation, and succeeding sovereigns followed Henry's example in attracting to England talented artists from over seas. Thus Antonio Moro came for a brief period to the court of Mary; Lucas de Heere, Zucchero, and Van Somer to that of Queen Elizabeth. During this reign, for the first time, distinction is obtained by two artists of British birth, the miniature painters Hilliard and Oliver, but they again leave no very important followers (with the exception of the younger Oliver), and their isolated merit had no share in the formation of a native school.

With the accession of Charles the First art began to take a much more important position in the life of the nation. Charles was a man of considerable taste and refined discernment; no longer content with attracting artists to his court, he began to collect fine works purchased in other countries, his example being followed by his brother Prince Henry, by the Earl of Arundel and others among his courtiers; thus the works of the great Italians found their way into England. The walls of the royal palaces blazoned with the handiwork of Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci, Correggio and Veronese, t.i.tian and Tintoretto; from the Netherlands came pictures by Rembrandt and Rubens, and the influx thus started was destined to continue until England became the greatest artistic store-house in the world.

The greatest artistic event of the reign of Charles I.--the most far-reaching, indeed, in the whole history of art in this country--was the coming of Van Dyck in 1632, for to his influence is directly due the birth and development of our native school of painting culminating in the golden period of the following century.

Van Dyck was thirty-three years of age when he came to England; his talent was at its highest point of perfection; he was almost immediately attached to the court among the royal painters, and his success was rapid and unequalled. The king and queen and their children sat to him again and again; there was no courtier or n.o.ble lady but wished her portrait to be painted by the fashionable and fascinating artist, and the habit of portrait-painting became so firmly established that neither the revolution, nor the Puritan regime, which followed the death of Charles I., were able to eradicate it.

Van Dyck's commissions were so numerous that it became impossible for him to execute the whole of them with his own hand; Van Dyck, as his master Rubens had done in Antwerp, filled his studio with a.s.sistants and pupils whom he trained, and who frequently painted the more unimportant portions of his portraits, such as draperies and background. In this manner a considerable number of men received tuition of the utmost value, and, though many of them were foreigners, drawn to London by the reports of successful brothers of the brush, a school was at last founded which was destined to develop into the glorious English school of painting of the eighteenth century.

The rule of the Protector arrested for a moment this development, but the impulse given was too strong to be permanently stopped, and with the Restoration portrait-painting flourished again with increasing vigour. The men who attained success were still foreigners for the most part, and contented themselves with being weaker reflections of Van Dyck. Sitters demanded portraits in the manner of the master, and no painter had the strength of character to stray from a close and often slavish imitation. The best of them, like Lely and Kneller, both Dutchmen, painted some good portraits but entirely devoid of originality.

There arose, however, about this period a painter, British born, whose strong personality refused to bow down and worship the popular idol, while fully realising his merits. Hogarth dared to look at Nature with his own eyes instead of through Van Dyck's spectacles, and despite opposition insisted on painting things and people as he saw them. He refused to give his models the flattery to which they were accustomed, and his portraits were accordingly not so popular as his conversation pieces. But he had broken the spell: he had proved that it was possible to be a good painter without copying Van Dyck to the letter; and although his realism was not imitated by his successors he secured for them that measure of independence without which no art can attain to greatness.

Such is, briefly, a statement of the history of painting in this country until the middle of the eighteenth century. The remarkable fact appears that until this comparatively late period there is no native school worthy of the name. But about this time there is a complete change, and there arises simultaneously a whole group of men who form a genuinely national school of the greatest brilliancy. British genius a.s.serts itself at last, and for the first time, as a distinct and independent ent.i.ty, acknowledging its indebtedness to the great masters of the world, but insisting upon its own personal view and temperament.

These men accept the lessons of Van Dyck, of Rembrandt, of Raphael, and of t.i.tian; but they say to these n.o.ble ancestors: "You are great masters, but Nature is also a great mistress." It is not surprising, then, that side by side with portrait-painting, several will turn their attention to landscape, a branch of painting which hitherto had been completely neglected in this country, and in this branch also they will attain no small measure of success.

PLATE III.--QUEEN CHARLOTTE

Gainsborough painted many portraits of George the Third's consort. The bust here reproduced is in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It is a replica, somewhat less brilliant in colour, of the picture at Windsor Castle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE III.--QUEEN CHARLOTTE]

Of all the artists of this golden epoch, which produced such men as Reynolds and Raeburn, Romney, Hoppner, Lawrence, and Turner, the most brilliant and the most versatile was undoubtedly Thomas Gainsborough.

II

GAINSBOROUGH'S EARLY LIFE--IPSWICH AND BATH

Thomas Gainsborough was born at Sudbury in Suffolk in May 1727; he was thus four years younger than Reynolds, thirteen years younger than Wilson. He came from a respectable family of old standing and in comfortable circ.u.mstances. His father, John Gainsborough, was a clothier by trade, and of his mother little is known save that she was a gentle and kind woman, very indulgent to her children. They had four daughters and five sons, of whom Thomas was the youngest. Thomas was far from diligent at school; he filled his copy-books with sketches, and was not loth to play the truant in order to get into the woods and meadows, where he would sit drawing trees, flowers, or cattle. A story is even told of his having forged his father's name to a note asking the schoolmaster to "give Tom a holiday." When his father saw the forged note he exclaimed, "The boy will come to be hanged!" but when he was shown the sketches which his son had made during his hours of stolen liberty he changed his verdict to "The boy will be a genius!"

Whatever there may be of truth in this pretty story, a genius Tom turned out to be, and he certainly showed the most remarkable talent when quite a boy. There is a picture by him, painted many years later, the history of which shows that even at this early age he was capable of drawing a man's head rapidly and with great fidelity to the model.

The picture is called "Tom Peartree's Portrait," and is a reminiscence of an incident in the painter's childhood. He was sitting one day in his father's garden, concealed by bushes, sketching an old pear tree, when he caught sight of the head of a peasant looking over the wall at the ripe fruit. The expression of eager cupidity in the man's face amused the boy, who included it in his sketch; he afterwards showed it to his father, who recognised the peasant and was able, much to the latter's confusion, to tax him with the intention of stealing his pears.

Such anecdotes serve to show the artist's extraordinary facility with his pencil even as a child, when he had as yet had no training or tuition of any kind. The same valuable quality is evidenced in the works of his maturity, by the marvellous freedom of his technique, and the brilliancy of his brushwork.

His father showed no opposition to his obvious vocation, and at the age of fourteen sent him to London to study painting. It is uncertain whether he went direct to the studio of Hayman, or whether he worked first for a while with Gravelot. Hayman was a portrait-painter of ability, a companion and to some extent an imitator of Hogarth; with him young Gainsborough learned the rudiments of his art, the use of brush and colours, and the principles of composition; but Hayman could teach him little more, and after staying with him four years he returned to Sudbury. It was not long after his return home that he got married, an event which is amusingly related by Cunningham: "It happened, in one of his pictorial excursions amongst the woods of Suffolk, that he sat down to make a sketch of some fine trees, with sheep reposing below, and some wood-doves roosting above, when a young woman entered unexpectedly upon the scene, and was at once admitted into the landscape and the feelings of the artist. The name of this young lady was Margaret Burr; she was of Scottish extraction and in her sixteenth year, and to the charms of good sense and good looks she added a clear annuity of two hundred pounds. These are matters which no writer of romance would overlook, and were accordingly felt by a young, an ardent, and susceptible man: nor must I omit to tell that country rumour conferred other attractions--she was said to be the natural daughter of one of our exiled princes; nor was she when a wife and a mother desirous of having this circ.u.mstance forgotten. On an occasion of household festivity, when her husband was high in fame, she vindicated some little ostentation in her dress by whispering to her niece, now Mrs. Lane, 'I have some right to this; for you know, my love, I am a prince's daughter.' Prince's daughter or not she was wooed and won by Gainsborough, and made him a kind, a prudent, and a submissive wife. The courtship was short. The young pair left Sudbury, leased a small house at a rent of six pounds a year in Ipswich, and making themselves happy in mutual love, conceived they were settled for life."

It was at Ipswich, and not long after his arrival there, that Gainsborough made the acquaintance of Philip Thicknesse, then Governor of Landguard Fort, a man who was to exercise considerable influence upon the artist's life, and to whom we owe much information concerning him. Thicknesse, although he afterwards quarrelled with the painter, and slandered him in a venomous pamphlet, was at first a highly useful friend and not ungenerous patron. Upon his commission Gainsborough painted what was probably his first important landscape; it was a view of Landguard Fort, with figures and sheep in the foreground, and the sea, with the estuary of the Stour, in the distance. This picture was unfortunately destroyed through being hung upon a wall built with mortar mixed with sea water; but we have an excellent engraving of it by Major, and this shows the original to have been a very fine composition. As remuneration Thicknesse gave the artist thirty guineas, and lent him a violin upon which Gainsborough soon acquired considerable proficiency. He retained through life the taste for music of which we find in this incident the first evidence; indeed he seems to have been at least as proud of his achievements in this direction as he was of the creations of his magic brush.

Through the protection of Thicknesse Gainsborough had at this time no lack of commissions for both landscapes and portraits. Of the latter, the most important is that of Admiral Vernon in the National Portrait Gallery, in which the red coat is painted with extreme care. To this period belongs the Miss Hippisley, in the collection of Sir Edward Tennant, and also the heads of his two daughters in the Forster collection at South Kensington Museum.

PLATE IV.--THE BLUE BOY

This world-famous picture, which belongs to the Duke of Westminster, at Grosvenor House, is a portrait of Jonathan b.u.t.tall--the son of a wealthy ironmonger who lived in London at the corner of King Street and Greek Street, Soho--in "Van Dyck" costume.

Probably painted at Bath about 1772.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE IV.--THE BLUE BOY]

Most of Gainsborough's biographers have treated Thicknesse with but scant justice. No doubt he was a self-satisfied and overbearing man, who had the failing of wishing to manage the lives of those who came into contact with him, and who was equally prompt to take offence, and to offend in retaliation those who would not be led by his dictatorial advice. But in the case of Gainsborough, he certainly rendered him the most inappreciable services, and in the quarrel that followed the artist was probably almost as much to blame as the patron. Be that as it may, it was on Thicknesse's initiative, and on his initiative alone, that Gainsborough removed from Ipswich to Bath in the year 1758. The importance of this move cannot be overrated, and posterity, no less than the painter himself, owes to Philip Thicknesse a considerable debt of grat.i.tude for having been instrumental in bringing it to pa.s.s. The horizon at Ipswich was strictly limited; and although no doubt Gainsborough's genius was inborn, he would probably, had he remained in Suffolk, never have developed into the superb painter who must ever be one of the most dazzling stars of the artistic universe. We shall have occasion later to return to this change of scene and to its influence on Gainsborough's life-work.

It was Thicknesse then who persuaded Gainsborough to leave Ipswich and to settle at Bath. Much to the terror of frugal Mrs. Gainsborough, the painter, still acting on his patron's guidance, took a house in the Circus at the annual rental of 50. Thicknesse had many friends at Bath, and to them he warmly recommended his protege. Whether it was through the influence of Thicknesse, or by the sole force of the artist's own genius, success was soon forthcoming and sitters flocked to his studio. His previous charge of five guineas for a half-length portrait was almost immediately raised to eight, and before very long his patrons became so numerous that he was able to demand no less than forty guineas for a half-length, and one hundred guineas for a full-length, very high prices for those days.

During his stay at Bath Gainsborough devoted much of his time and energy to music; he acquired many musical instruments of various kinds, and tried his hand at all of them. The viol da gamba was apparently his favourite, and in one of his letters to his friend Jackson of Exeter he mentions that he possesses five of these instruments. He heard Giardini, the then unrivalled violinist, and had no rest till he purchased the very instrument that the Italian played on, "but," says Jackson, "seemed much surprised that the music remained with Giardini."

In the same way he acquired Abel's viol da gamba; having heard Fischer, he bought a hautboy, then suddenly developed enthusiasm for the harp, and thus pa.s.sing from instrument to instrument he never had the perseverance to play any one of them with any degree of perfection. In this connection Jackson relates an amusing anecdote of one of his most extravagant acquisitions: "Upon seeing a theorbo in a picture of Van Dyck's he concluded (perhaps because it was finely painted) that the theorbo must be a fine instrument. He recollected to have heard of a German professor, and ascending _per varios gradus_ to his garret, found him there at dinner upon a roasted apple, and smoking a pipe.

'I am come,' says he, 'to buy your lute. Come, name your price, and here is your money.'

'I cannot sh.e.l.l my lude!'

'No; not for a guinea or two, but by G-- you must sell it.'

'My lude ish wert much monnay! It ish wert ten guineas.'

'That it is. See, here is the money!'

'Well, if I musht; but you will not take it away yourself!'

'Yes, yes. Good-bye----'