DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61291#0047
HIS ART
33
to the work of others, gaining year by year in-
creased ease of manner with an assured pre-
cision of touch and a richness of colouring such
as are even now rarely surpassed.
Gainsborough’s first ambition was to be a
landscape-painter, and a landscape-painter alone.
The portraits he painted were mostly under-
taken for the sake of the money they would
bring, and it was not until comparatively late in
life that human nature in all its complexity
appealed to him with anything like the same force
as did natural scenery. Great as he undoubtedly
was in portraiture, he would probably have been
even greater in landscape had he lived half a
century later. He has been called the “ first
and best of the impressionists ”; and, although
this is perhaps going too far, the judgment con-
tains a certain measure of truth, for his aim was
always to catch the actual spirit of every scene
he depicted, and he relied for effect on sincere
and direct imitation alone. Sir Joshua Reynolds,
to whom Gainsborough’s fine landscapes were
really something of a puzzle, said that “their
grace was not academic or antique, but selected
from the great school of nature;” and he tried
to explain it by describing how the Suffolk
master used to arrange a miniature scene on his
D
33
to the work of others, gaining year by year in-
creased ease of manner with an assured pre-
cision of touch and a richness of colouring such
as are even now rarely surpassed.
Gainsborough’s first ambition was to be a
landscape-painter, and a landscape-painter alone.
The portraits he painted were mostly under-
taken for the sake of the money they would
bring, and it was not until comparatively late in
life that human nature in all its complexity
appealed to him with anything like the same force
as did natural scenery. Great as he undoubtedly
was in portraiture, he would probably have been
even greater in landscape had he lived half a
century later. He has been called the “ first
and best of the impressionists ”; and, although
this is perhaps going too far, the judgment con-
tains a certain measure of truth, for his aim was
always to catch the actual spirit of every scene
he depicted, and he relied for effect on sincere
and direct imitation alone. Sir Joshua Reynolds,
to whom Gainsborough’s fine landscapes were
really something of a puzzle, said that “their
grace was not academic or antique, but selected
from the great school of nature;” and he tried
to explain it by describing how the Suffolk
master used to arrange a miniature scene on his
D