Thomas Gainsborough: Painting Identity

Excellent three week online course from the Wallace Collection on Gainsborough.

In the first week Karly Allen took two portraits in the Wallace Collection, Miss Elizabeth Haverfield and Mrs Mary Robinson (Perdita) to look in general at Gainsborough’s portrait work and to place them in the context of the time. She discussed how they became the main source of income which kept him away from the landscape work he loved.

Week two with Aliki Braine turned to landscape and again placed Gainsborough’s work in context as well as looking at how he succeeded in elevating the genre combining the accuracy of Dutch 17th century work and the imagination of Claude. She included an interesting section of optical devises from Claude mirrors to camera obscurer.

Finally Jo Ryhmer looked at the legacy of Gainsborough and using examples from the Wallace Collection putting him in a line of artists who admired the work of the Dutch artist Jacob Von Ruisdael from Gainsborough himself to Constable, through the Barbizon school and to the Impressionists.

An interesting three weeks and a good introduction to an artist I did not know a lot about.

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