Eighteenth-century England produced the sharp criticism of Addison and Steele, the caricatures of Hogarth, and the lusty novels of Smollet, Fielding, and Sterne. However, its most popular paintings were society portraits like those of Gainsborough. The apparent paradox was due to the fact that in this fluid and changing society the upper middle classes were the new patrons of art. They wished to be represented by a dignity, grace, and charm which they did not always deserve. English art, still primarily under the influence of older Continental masters, turned to Rubens and his pupil Van Dyck for guidance in the expression of this aristocratic ideal.

Looking at the elegant portraits of Thomas Gainsborough, it is difficult to realize that he himself was far from aristocratic. He was the son of a clothier in Suffolk. At twelve he had been sent to London to study under the painter Hayman, a somewhat questionable character from whom Gainsborough's later inelegant behavior may derive. In the words of one chronicler, “ he sometimes used oaths and strayed occasionally from the path of sobriety.”

Gainsborough soon set himself up in Hatton Garden as a portrait painter, since this was the only way to make a living as an artist. As a diversion, he painted landscapes. There was still no market for them, but these little pictures are important in the development of English landscape art.

About 1758 he and his wife moved to Bath, a fashionable watering place where he began his career as a society painter. He spent a number of years there, sending occasional pictures to London. Although by no means well educated, his wit and charm gained him the friendship of many of the literati. When the Royal Academy was established he was among the founding members.

Mrs. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (below) portrays the wife of the brilliant Irish playwright who wrote The School for Scandal and The Critic. This portrait is a typical example of Gainsborough's mature style. From Van Dyck are derived its elongated proportions and handling of cloth. Though it illustrates the general style of the period, this work has its own individual quality. While Van Dyck conveys the air of a court pageant and most of the English portraitists give a sense of worldly riches and even smugness, Gainsborough imparts a feeling of refinement and delicate breeding. He is not interested in photographic likeness, but rather in the poetic expression of individuality. This attempt to find out what the person really represents, to get beneath the surface, often results in the painter's projecting himself into the character of the sitter just as Leonardo did with the Mona Lisa.

There is a consistent suggestion of Watteau in these long graceful figures, with their tiny oval faces and look of inbreeding, and in the subtly delicate manner of handling fabrics. Similarly, Gainsborough's fuzzy landscape backgrounds, here and in many other works, suggest the early Rococo French painter.

If the portrait of Sheridan's wife is transfigured by friendly feeling for the sitter, such is not the case with all of the fashionable portraits he turned out during the years in Bath and London. Gainsborough has described his working method, especially with women. He would ignore the sitter for a long time and instead of trying to get her likeness, would paint the most beautiful creature he could evoke. Then he would work down and away from this idealization until he reached a point where the lovely image on the canvas began to resemble the woman sitting before him, then he would stop. Although this is probably an exaggeration, one may suppose that many ladies came off better than they deserved. Certainly he was bored by some of these jobs. Gainsborough, who was a sensitive musician, said, "I'm sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my viol-da-gamba and walk off to some sweet village where I can paint landscapes and enjoy the end of life in quietness and ease.”

In addition to his love for music and his appreciation of a pretty woman or a good bottle of wine, Gainsborough was devoted to landscape painting. Here he was apparently able to express in an intimate way the delicate and sensitive moods of his extremely volatile temperament. Interest in nature was part of the general eighteenth century turning from the artificial as expressed by Jean Jacques Rousseau and others. With Gainsborough this was no affectation, but a needed emotional outlet.

The Landscape is one of the most poetic and evocative of the entire period. It brings a feeling of unworldliness, of evening quiet, as the little figures move diagonally across the picture, some coming from the small church, others going toward it. A series of broad sweeping curves and generalized hills and a shimmering cool color unite the luminous background of Titian and the great feeling for nature of Rubens. But the color quality and the particular mood are Gainsborough's.

Although this work is a product of the same period as Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard, the painter's intent is entirely unlike the poet's. Gainsborough shows none of Gray's concern with mortality. Each returns to nature for a different solace; each expresses its beauty and its moods in the language of his own craft.