Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life

by Hugh Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough

This new study on Thomas Gainsborough concentrates on the early life and works of the great eighteenth-century artist. Gainsborough’s talent was evident at a young age, and before he established himself as one of London’s leading portrait artists he was able to indulge himself in his true passion, landscapes, as well as providing portraits for a provincial clientele. Graced with the light and gentle shadows of the English countryside, these early works provided the foundation for much of Gainsborough’s later work. But many of them, including the renowned Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, and His Daughters Chasing a Butterfly, can be called masterpieces in their own right. It was in Suffolk that the artist developed a naturalistic approach to portraiture by abandoning "conversation pieces" and painting instead a number of straightforward head-and-shoulder portraits. This lively and accessible volume features eighty color and black-and-white reproductions of Gainsborough’s paintings, etchings, and drawings. They not only shed light on the development of one of England’s most revered painters, but also offer an intimate look at the work of a young painter in the thrall of his subjects, and just beginning to realize his full talents.

Genres: Art

96 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2002

About the author

Hugh Graham Belsey, MBE, (born May 1954) is a British art historian who is an authority on the art of Thomas Gainsborough. For 23 years he was the curator of Gainsborough's House in Sudbury. His most recent contribution to Gainsborough scholarship is his catalogue raisonné of Gainsborough's portraits published in February 2019 by the Yale University Press for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art.