Text 6. Thomas Gainsborough

Text 5. John Constable

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(1776 - 1837)

England gave the world a school of famous and interesting artists to which belong such great masters of brush as William Hogarth, Joshua Reynolds [ ], Thomas Lawrence [ ], Thomas Gainsborough [ ], and William Turner. But perhaps one of the greatest among English artists is John Constable [ ]. A miller’s son he finished elementary school and went to work in his father’s son he finished elementary school and went to work in his father’s mill. His strong wish to draw brought him to the attention of the local gentry¹, one of whom showed the young man’s work to some famous artists of the day. In 1795, at nineteen, Constable went to London, spent two years studying, and returned to his father’s mill. He continued to draw in his spare moments. When he was 23, these drawings enabled him to enter one of the Royal Academy schools². Within a few years his pictures were accepted for the Academy exhibitions. From this point onward John Constable developed his own style of painting, but fame was slow to come. It was not before 1816 that Constable could marry and settle down. In 1824, when he was about fifty, Constable exhibited a number of his landscapes at the Paris Salon³. Among them was his famous Hay Wain⁴ for which the painter was awarded the gold medal. But in his own country there were but few people who understood him. John Constable was elected to full membership of the Royal Academy only 1829, and he felt that this honour and come too late in the life to have much meaning. If you could have an attentive look at Hay Warn, you would see Constable’s deep love for the English country-side and its beauties, for the common people of England. The picture would impress you with the feeling it is so full of. This is one of reasons why Constable played an important role in the development not only of the English out also of the French schools of painting.

¹ – привлекло к нему внимание местного дворянства.

² – школа при Королевской академии искусств.

³ [ ] – Парижский салон (ежегодная выставка живописи и скульптуры)

⁴ Hay [ ] wain [ ] – “ телега для сена ”

(1727 – 1788)

Gainsborough turned to the Olds masters, especially to Van Dyck. To this study he brought an innate genius for drawing and a sensuous delight in colour and movement that seems at times to amount to almost an intoxication with them. No other painter has thus caught, at his best, the essence of sinks and lace in motion, nor the tremulous flicker of an eyelash. The particular discovery of Gainsborough was the creation of a form or art in which the sitters and the background merge into a single entity. The landscape is not kept in the background, but in most cases man and nature are fused in a single whole through the atmospheric harmony of mood. It is no accident that in the works of Gainsborough’s late maturity the figures blend with the background to such an extent that they become almost transparent this effect was possible only by situating the figures in the background, not in order to add an element to the portrait but with the sole purpose of achieving the greatest possible degree of spontaneity. It was this same striving for spontaneity which prevented Gainsborough from portraying his society people in historical costume of striking attitudes. This was a distinct innovation at a time when the whole tradition was to extol an ideal and historical concept of beauty to abandon nature and embrace artificiality. Each of Gainsborough’s portraits is distinct and individual even though taken as a whole, they depict an entire society in its significant manifestation.

Gainsborough’s truthful and subtle rendering of character is typical of his portrait painting. His special insight into the psychology of women make him essentially the woman’s painter the most fascinating works of this painter are “Two Daughters”, “Mrs Siddons”, “The Market Cart” and others.

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