Eighteenth Century British Portraiture

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

In his discourse to the Academy students in 1778, Reynolds observed that blue should not be massed together in a picture, whereupon Gainsborough proceeded subsequently to paint his famous ‘Blue Boy’ and, by his brilliant success with the boy’s blue dress, put Reynolds in the wrong. It is highly probably that the blues which figure so prominently in his beautiful portrait of ‘Mrs Siddons’ are another expression of Gainsborough’s disapproval of Sir Joshua’s dogmatic teaching. We have only to compare this Gainsborough portrait with Reynolds’s painting of the same actress as ‘The Tragic Muse’ to realize the difference between the two artists. Reynolds painted his picture in 1783, Gainsborough his in 1784, when Mrs Siddons was twenty eight; but, though actually a year younger, everyone will agree that the actress looks years older in Sir Joshua’s picture. Reynolds emphasized the intellectual qualities of the great tragedienne, his endeavor was to show the sublimity of her mind; Gainsborough was content to show the charm and vivacity of her person, and that is why Mrs Siddons looks younger in his portrait. Another temperamental difference between the two artists is shown in their hobbies; while Sir Joshua was interested in literature and delighted in conversing with the learned, Gainsborough’s ruling passion was music. He was not only a good musician himself but was completely carried away by the playing of others. Once when a talented amateur, a Colonel Hamilton, was playing the violin at his house, Gainsborough called out, ‘Go on, go on, and I will give the picture of ‘The Boy at the Stile’ which you have so often wished to buy of me.’ The Colonel ‘went on’ and eventually returned home with the coveted picture of his reward. This love of music makes itself felt in Gainsborough’s pictures, which are lyrical, the paintings of an artist who sings, while those of Reynolds are more philosophical, the pictures of a man who thinks in paint.

Of all the English eighteenth century portraitists Gainsborough is the lightest and airiest, and in freshness of color and in gracefulness without affectation his portraits more than rival those of Reynolds. His ‘Miss Haverfield’ is more of little lady than any of Sir Joshua’s children, and though her gentility may not be accounted of virtue, and while we must admit that Reynold’s ‘Age of Innocence’ has more psychological profundity, ye we cannot find another portrait in the world which excels this Gainsborough in rendering the flower-like charm of childhood.

Though by his portraits Gainsborough acquired so considerable a fortune that he could afford to have country houses at Richmond and in Hampshire as well as his town house, his landscapes rarely found buyers, and remained ‘admired and unsold till they stood ranged in long lines from his hall to his painting room.’ At his death his house was filled with his own landscapes. The end came with some suddenness. A pain in the neck, to which he had paid little attention, turned out to be due to a cancer, and when the physicians pronounced his case hopeless, he settled his affairs with composure and prepared to meet death. He was particularly anxious to be reconciled with Sir Joshua and begged him to visit him on his death bed. When Reynolds came an affecting reconciliation took place: ‘We are all going to heaven,’ said Gainsborough, ‘and Vandyck is of the party.’ Thomas Gainsborough died on August 2, 1788, and by his own desire was buried as privately as possible in Kew Churchyard. Sir Joshua Reynolds was one of the pall-bearers, and in his presidential address to the Academy in the following year he paid an eloquent tribute to the memory of his former rival.

Eighteenth Century British Portraiture (continued)