Gainsborough: A Portrait

Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) is the quintessential painter of the 18th century, an era that is so richly reflected in the novels of Jane Austen, the music of Handel, and the elegance of Bath and Georgian London. Gainsborough defined an age in his portraits, while in his landscape paintings he evoked the first critical reverberations of the impending social change from Britain's rural to an industrial economy. While Gainsborough's work has been displayed fruitfully in exhibitions and in country house collections, there is no modern full-length biography. The circumstances of his life have only been seriously addressed where they touch on the interpretation of his work by art historians. James Hamilton's vibrant biography sets the artist in his period and society, and reveals how he emerged out of a Suffolk background, expressed his genius against the society of Ipswich, Bath and London, and melted into the urban landscape of London where, aged sixty-one, he died. Gainsborough is an engaging figure by any measure, and his importance in the history of art and music makes an extended study of his life essential reading. This book chronicles Gainsborough's ambivalent and eventually acrimonious relationship with the Royal Academy, and his taste for the high life. There are vivid portraits of his family: his loving wife, his sister, the milliner; his talented brothers, Humphrey and 'Scheming Jack'; and his two lovely daughters, one of whom becomes deranged and contracts a bad marriage. Hamilton draws a striking picture of the social, literary and musical background in London, Bath and provincial Suffolk, whilst also illuminating the paintings, the majority of which are in public collections in Britain, principally at the National Gallery, Tate Britain, Kenwood and the National Gallery of Scotland, where they are seen as the epitome of 18th-century elegance.