Thomas Gainsborough 1727-1788

 

Self-portrait, Thomas Gainsborough 
"The lyric genius." 

A garlanded Thomas Gainsborough
overlooking Sudbury

Margaret Gainsborough holding a theorbo.
1728-1797.

Thomas Gainsborough, son of John Gainsborough, a weaver and shroud-maker, and his wife, Mary, whose brother was a Reverend Humphry Burroughs, was born in the family home in Sudbury, Suffolk in what is now Gainsborough House. It was a creative family. One brother, Humphrey, had some ability in mechanics, and his method of condensing steam in a separate vessel, is said to have been used by James Watt in his research. Another brother, John, had a passion for inventing curiosities. In fact, brother Humphrey became a Nonconformist minister famous for his scientific inventions. Thomas himself showed early artistic promise. By the time he was ten, he was painting very competent heads and small landscapes, and his father, impressed with the talent on display, allowed Thomas in 1740, at the age of 13, to go to London as apprentice to Hubert Gravelot, an engraver. Here he moved to study with the William Hogarth school and assisted Francis Heyman in decorating supper boxes at the Vauxhall Gardens, also contributing a portrait to Captain Coram’s Foundation for Foundlings, part of Hogarth’s innovative move to use artists commercially in fund -raising for Coram’s life-saving scheme.

Molly and Peggy

Still a young man, he married Margaret Burr, in 1746, the illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Beaufort who had settled a £200 annuity on her, a useful backstop in case of future need for Thomas. Knowing her husband to be a spendthrift like his father, Margaret insisted on Thomas handing over his considerable earnings, out of which she grudgingly allowed him pocket money. Eventually they had two daughters, Molly and Peggy, whom he often painted as they grew up. In 1759 the family moved to Ipswich in search of better commissions for Gainsborough, and were eventually drawn to live in fashionable Bath as his fame in portraiture increased. Bath was a honeypot for artists, full of intense energy in a rapid social flux, hugely fashionable and creative. It attracted vibrant and talented people many of whom, as their stars rose, were attracted to the idea of having their portraits painted while in their prime. Bath presented the perfect commercial and artistic context for Gainsborough.

Mr and Mrs Andrews 1750
A newly-married, wealthy young couple, the groom a
school friend, gaze at their own landscape.
Gainsborough pioneered portraits en plein aire.

He emerged gradually as both the foremost landscape and portrait painter of his generation, sharing the portrait honours with Joshua Reynolds. In fact they were jointly involved in establishing The Royal Academy in 1768 with Reynolds as its first President. It was not until Thomas moved to Bath that his career as a portraitist really took off and it was this area of his talent which pleased him most. His personality was such that life in the swirling energy of Bath, full of new ideas in architecture, theatre, fashion, medicine, music, totally suited him. He was handsome and elegant, with a “taste for carousing and a passion for music”, especially for his beloved viol da gamba [at one point, he owned no fewer than five] and he blossomed in his fast and fashionable social life. A contemporary wryly described him as "very lively, gay and dissipated." 

Joshua Reynolds' self portrait. 1780.

"very lively, gay and dissipated."   He eventually moved to London where he called ‘his crowd, the blackstocking fraternity” a group which included such famous people as Joshua Reynolds, David Garrick, Dr. Johnson, Edmund Burke and Oliver Goldsmith. 

A typical Gainsborough/Picturesque landscape

Far from the impoverished textile town in Suffolk where he began life, to the salons of Bath then increasingly, of London, he drew fashionable and wealthy clients, while submerging himself in a full life a la mode! Alongside his famous portraits which included Bach and George 111 and Queen Charlotte, he developed his landscape paintings during the 1770s and 1780s and is credited, with Richard Wilson, as being one of the originators of the eighteenth century British landscape school. One of Gainsborough's friends, Uvedale Price, a landscape designer, became one of the chief proponents of the Picturesque which developed during the second half of the eighteenth century, first introduced into the English cultural debate in 1782 by William Gilpin.

Gainsborough's girls growing up.

It was part of the emerging Romantic sensibility of the 18^th century for which his  ‘landskips’ served as a supreme example. 

Gainsborough's style of painting relied on his certainty of eye and his faultless draughtsman-ship. He was able to produce the most complex shapes by turning and rolling his brush across the canvas to create forms that are sometimes abstracted, though they fully express the shape of a detail in a figure or a plant. His loose, feathery style was perfect for painting textiles and again and again, light on velvet or lace or silk shimmers and captivates the viewer. James Hamilton in his splendid biography of Gainsborough, suggests that his waistcoats are a thing of wonder whether velvet, satin, brocade or serge, buttons undone or untidily straining across a well-fed stomach, a Gainsborough waistcoat speaks volumes. Hamilton is fascinated by Gainsborough's technique moving in his youth, and early portraits, from "dabbing" to what became his mature style of his characteristic loose sweeps and rolling brush strokes.

Mrs Sarah Siddons 1755-1831
The greatest tragic actress of the age.
Considered one of Thomas's most
accomplished portraits.

The famous "The Blue Boy" 1770
Originally entitled
The Young Gentleman.

.

mo

Giovanna Baccelli looking rather 
racy in 1782.

Self-portrait with Margaret, his wife, and Mary,
his elder daughter. 1751.

                                                                Viola da gamba 

                                                       6 stringed, bowed, fretted viol.

                                                                       Theorbo

                                                    Large Baroque lute with long neck

James Hamilton

Thomas Gainsborough: A Portrait.

How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm ……..?

 

Forest Farm, Papplewick.

Esme with tongue out, being naughty.
Lindhurst Lane, Mansfield,
June 2017.

Just back from a weekend at Forest Farm in Notts which belongs to two nieces and two nephews, children of my sister, Esme, who died five years ago. My previous visit had been in June 2017 when I was over from Bruges to give a talk in Wye, Kent, where I lived for many years. I had taken the opportunity to visit my sister for a few days; she suffered at the end from dementia and it was such a pleasure to see her and to be recognised. During my stay, her youngest had the brilliant idea of taking us one sunny afternoon to the house where we had grown up at Berry Hill, Mansfield and we had a super sunny experience exploring, she in her wheelchair, particularly relaxed and happy, remembering quite a lot from our childhood. We laughed a lot, ate ice-cream, found the wood where we had always played, next-door to our house and looked in vain for the side-piece between our garden and the wood. It had been replaced by a bungalow! Our chauffeur, bless him, even took us into Mansfield to see St Peter’s Church where we had both been married in 1957 and 1961. One important element needed by any dementia sufferer is for friendly company, for social discourse and stimulating experiences like little trips out, and she definitely received too little of either, though her younger son turned into an excellent carer with a real understanding of her needs which he did his best to provide. That day together proved to be a very happy final re-visit to the past and Esme died a few months later.

Part of chic new terrace.

My stay this time managed to underline my own decreasing physical dexterity and balance as I walked, arm in arm with the aforementioned nephew and his dog through the lovely woods near the farmhouse. He and his partner live in the farmhouse and there have been alterations, smartening up and re-fashioning but essentially, of course, it is still the same as it was when my sister arrived there in early 1961 as a young bride, to live with her in-laws as well as her husband. I do remember feeling sympathy for her in some ways, taking on a whole new family as well as a new husband and a new life on a farm. So much change in one fell swoop! But she appeared indomitable, eager to learn, loving her new life. Forest Farm now is basically arable, the herd of cows long-departed, and there seem to be more horses these days, and certainly more cars! But still, for me, this was a fond visit to the past; there was a feeling of being in a time warp almost. In spite of her absence, time stood still for me; the difference between my life-style now and theirs is quite considerable and this somehow underlined the feeling of looking back, into the past. My sister’s and my lives were always hugely different, of course, but I had forgotten that or perhaps, not expected the disparity still to continue. My sister’s favourite insult to me had always been to call me scornfully “a townie” and I remembered that, affectionately, as I judged it to be as true as ever!

Just before going up to the farm, I had done a photographic blog with a number of images each of which had really pleased me in some way. One of them had been of a little sign, planted at the foot of a tree in the Abbey Gardens in Bury by the local Women’s Land Army; it had been put there to thank the good people of Bury for all their kindness and help over the years of WW2. The Women’s Land Army was not part of the armed forces but had been a Governmental volunteer army of women gathered together in a terrifying war to give huge help to the country. Originally, it had been formed in 1917 during WW1 and disbanded after that war, then re-formed in 1939 I think and was active throughout the Second World War. I do remember seeing these women around the rural Lindhurst Lane area where we

Parade of Land Girls in Cambridgeshire. 1940s.

lived from the 1930s; the Land Girls were simply an accepted part of the  landscape and I gave them no thought as I waved to them as I passed. But these were women from all sorts of backgrounds, often not rural and chiefly not with farming backgrounds. They did a variety of jobs, living in hostels often, or lodging with families, plucked from their normal lives and habitats, to till the earth, plant seeds and vegetables, supervise lambing and organise bee- and poultry-keeping When I reflect, reviving the memory of them as part of my childhood landscape, I am impressed! I rather think that my sister’s father-in-law had not been impressed with the idea of untrained women let loose on his cherished land and had not taken the opportunity offered!! I have often wondered what he would have thought of his daughter-in-law, widowed before she was 50, taking over the farm and turning round its fortunes to make it profitable while eventually introducing a B & B which she ran successfully for well over twenty years. Many of her customers became her friends, departing with eggs from her beloved chickens and a loaf from her freshly-baked bread, the enveloping, welcoming smell of that bread always a delight!

On the Sunday morning of my stay, I went with my niece to nearby Ravenshead, a village really, close to Newstead Abbey, the home long ago of Lord Byron. We went to an antiques fair in Ravenshead Village Hall which I was keen to see. My husband and I had bought our first house in Ravenshead and moved there in 1960 during my first pregnancy, and he and I had been on the Village Hall Committee, he, Chair, I, Secretary, formed soon after our arrival; we had been in the forefront of raising money to build a village hall until we left in 1968. So, though long forgotten, memories were replenished and I was delighted to see the actual building, close to where we had lived! It is, in fact, rather an ugly, dark brick box of a place, externally, but pretty striking inside. It added to the vague feeling of les temps perdus of the whole weekend!!

Lovely ceiling feature and lots of wood.
Definitely, a cut above the exterior.

Two sisters, March 2015.

Section of one of the last photos
of Esme in June 2017.

Photocalls

Comforting Arm. David Peat.
Glasgow street scene, 1966.
Love this photo, taken when my own three
were very young too.

December, 2022. Plastic flowers gracing
an old sunken gravestone, aided by
the subterranean tunnelling of a mole.
In the Great Graveyard, Bury.



  

Canary in the Abbey Gardens aviary,
December 2022.
Heavenly sounds in the morning stillness.

January 21st early morning mist in the 
Abbey Gardens.

Beautiful beige and white swan exploring the 
River Lark in the Abbey Gardens, Feb 9 2023
In the same spot, Feb 10.

 

January view of the River Lark and foliage
near the tennis courts, looking towards
the Abbey Bridge.

A lovely memorial stone with a special tribute 
to Mary Dorling from her husband.
"Say what a wife should be and She was that."
Exterior wall of St Mary's Parish Church.

The Women's Land Army 
thanks the people of 
Bury St Edmunds
for their kindness
during the Second
World War.

A plaque recording the generosity of John Appleby of the USAF who was 
stationed during the last few months of WW2 in Suffolk. 
He finished his war duty on bombers and spent a few months cycling around
Suffolk, learning to do brass rubbings and falling in love with the delights 
of the county. He wrote his book Suffolk Summer in 1946 bequeathing
all royalties in perpetuity to the Rose Garden in the Abbey Gardens.
His book is a delight to read and a testimony to his intense wonder at
his discoveries in this new world.
He never returned to visit the area but his rose garden and royalties continue.
A man one would love to have met.

The Great Library of Alexandria.

 

 Since writing about the proposed extension to the British Library, I seem to have been besieged by the word ‘Library’.First of all I had already bought a magnificent volume, The Library. A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree & Arthur der Weduwen, which is devoted to books and the concept of libraries. It is, in effect, an astonishingly detailed history of libraries which obviously and inevitably included the history of the book as it developed. Interestingly, the very earliest libraries preceded the invention of the book as we know it! The rulers of the Assyrian Empire of Mesopotamia [present day Iraq] gathered considerable quantities of documents, all carefully inscribed in their distinctive cuneiform script on to clay tablets. Such a library could survive, was impervious to heat or damp but with the major problem of storage and transport, being bulky and heavily awkward to move. These libraries were situated in royal palaces or temples, intended for the exclusive use of royals and scholars. On one surviving clay tablet are the instructions, “One who is competent (or knowledgeable) should show this only to one who is also competent, but may not show it to the uninitiated.”

Papyrus  letter in Greek.

All of these rare “monuments of written culture”, while often extensive, [the royal libraries of Nineveh reputedly stored 35,000 tablets] were destroyed when the Assyrian Empire was conquered by the Babylonians in 614-612 BC. In their turn, the Babylonians were gradually overtaken by more functional alphabetical writing systems and importantly, by the discovery of parchment and of the papyrus plant with its excellence as a writing medium. The emerging Greek

Papyrus plant

culture moved gradually, over centuries, from an oral to a written form and papyrus grew abundantly in the Nile delta while the techniques of splitting the reed stalks of the papyrus plant and weaving them together, were easily learned. Papyrus quickly became the pre-eminent writing medium of the ancient world, exported from Egypt to Greece and later, to Rome and contributed importantly to a huge capacity for, and urge to accumulate, knowledge.

Aristotle.
Roman copy of Greek bust.

By the fourth century B.C. Greece was a highly literate society at the elite level. There developed a flourishing commercial book trade which ensured that literature and texts taught in schools were relatively widely available though the word ‘books’ always refers to the universal and uniform, papyrus scrolls. There developed much writing and copying of texts on to papyrus and by 338 BC the authorities in Athens had become so concerned with the poor quality of some of the writing and copying, that an official archive of authoritative texts was established. The philosopher Aristotle, tutor to the young
Alexander the Great, gathered a personal collection of scrolls of considerable size while also imbuing a love of books in the young Alexander. Aristotle’s own remarkable collection of books eventually found themselves in Rome, removed in 84 B.C from the conquered city of Athens by the victorious general S
ulla and helping to inspire the subsequent formation of the world-famous Library at Alexandria.

Ptolemy 1. 323-285 B.C.
Gold pentadrachma Alexandria.

Although Alexander began to develop this important Greek city on the northern coast of Egypt in 331 B.C. the idea of a grand Museum may have been part of Alexander’s original imperial plan but one he did not live to see. The establishment of Alexandria became a major achievement of the first two Ptolemaic kings, Ptolemy the First having obtained Egypt on Alexander’s death during the power grab among Alexander’s top generals, of his huge empire. With the birth of this new city began the rapid growth of an important research institution called the Mouseion, a scholarly research academy dedicated to the Muses of which the library became a spectacular part. The library grew exponentially in size under the Ptolemaic regime’s aggressive and well-funded search to procure texts, with generous benefits to tempt researchers and philosophers to commit to this exciting project. Scientists like Strabo, Euclid and Archimedes were among those attracted particularly by the academic quality and range of subjects offered including mathematics, geography, physics and medicine. Acquisitions on a huge scale were effected with high status scholars, in effect missionary ‘librarians’, fanning out across the Greek territories, well-financed, to buy the classics of literature and serious subject texts. The extent of this famous Great Library cannot now be ascertained but estimates range from 200,000 to half a million scrolls. Both in volume and quality, this tour de force was not equalled until, perhaps, the nineteenth century and the almost unimaginable scope of the scrolls, physically demanded sophisticated and extensive storage. It is believed that organisation was by alphabet and genre and the sheer size of the ever-growing collection demanded systematic cataloguing with many rooms in use to house branches of the collection. An impressive parade of Head Librarians was appointed over the next century from among the ancient scholars such as Aristophanes (257-185/0 BC), appointed when he was sixty. Unsurprisingly, Alexandria itself, because of the Great Library, became known as the capital of knowledge.

Great Library of Alexandria.
Roman depiction.

The Great Library functioned as a hub of scholarship and knowledge for around 300 years surviving the Ptolemaic line of Egyptian rulers but Plutarch reported that in 54 A.D. Julius Caesar, pursuing a campaign to regain Egypt for his lover, Cleopatra, in attempting to burn the Egyptian navy in Alexandria harbour, accidentally burned an adjacent dockside storehouse where there were many books awaiting transfer and the fire spread to at least part of the Library and its contents. This is the most popular version of the demise of the Great Library though there are others. Nothing is really known of what happened to the extensive contents but the name and fame of this wonderful library of the ancient world lives on!

Possible head of Cleopatra. Roman painting
first century A.D.

Two portraits of Alexander? The right-hand mosaic was 
discovered in an Israeli synagogue in 2015 and may
depict Alexander.

 

Sarapeum of Alexandria. Ancient Greek temple built by
Ptolemy 111, 280-222 B.C.. Also housed an offshoot collection,
part of the Great Library.

.

The British Library Extension

  

Artist's impression of the proposed extension to 
the British Library.

Central Somers Town

I have just read that Camden Council has approved a £500 million twelve storey extension to the British Library, next door to the Francis Crick Institute, which will feature extra galleries, commercial space and shops. It will include a new home for the Alan Turing Centre for data intelligence and artificial intelligence plus two new entrances and better access to St Pancras Station. The basement will include the infrastructure for the proposed new Crossrail 2 rail link and a pedestrianised walkway running the entire length of the space to a ticket hall. This exciting and optimistic project features no Government money and the commercial support needed to finance it, accounts for the commercial space and shops in the planning. 

Visualisation of an inner courtyard in the proposed extension.

The entire package must now seek the approval of the Lord Mayor of London. Local residents are however restless! The Somers Town Neighbourhood Forum which represents local residents, has expressed concern for the effects of the bulk of the extension on a nearby housing estate and fears that, during the probably extended period of the construction of the extension, that there will be, can be, no community garden, a much-loved present feature. There is, however, a community garden planned and due to open when the extension is eventually complete. The British Library has, meanwhile, offered to make a £23 million contribution to affordable housing in Somers Town. Its chief executive, Roy Keating, says, “This long-planned extension will make it possible for even more people to access and enjoy the library, with a host of flexible new spaces including a new bespoke learning centre and spectacular new exhibition galleries.”

But dealing smoothly with the criticisms of local residents is one thing but there are also vociferous objections to the architecture of the proposed extension from fellow professionals. Lynch Architects director, Patrick Lynch, called the plan,' 'bloody awful”; others labelled it, “an unimaginative office slab” and asked, “How can such a fantastic opportunity end up with such a bloody awful, third-rate wedge of nothing?” The plans involve the demolition of buildings to the north of the Library including the 2007 British Library Centre for Conservation [BLCC] and this particular act has provoked the ire of Docomomo UK, a modernist architectural heritage organisation which insists that the high grade of listing for the BLCC had intended to protect it from such a fate, suggesting that twentieth century listed buildings generally lack conservation parity with architecture of earlier periods. The Twentieth Century Society has also insisted that the BLCC is an integral part of the British Library and must be kept although the BLCC had already been earmarked as a temporary construction compound for the mothballed Crossrail 2 project. Clearly, there is an architectural and conservation battle to be fought before any spade strikes the earth. However, Camden Council’s planning officers believe that the public benefits of the development would outweigh the harm and on this basis, recommended the proposed development for approval.

British Library Centre for Conservation.
Stylish, and built as recently as 2007,
with listed building protection.

In the current climate of strikes, inflation and general gloom as the UK seems to be slipping down all possible tables of national and international achievement, GNP, standard of living, national debt etc, it is immensely moving to read of the idea of this huge and imaginative undertaking. This Grand Extension with its multi-faceted proposals, is a prestigious project on behalf of a library and a nation, by the local Camden Council. The Design War will rage on for some considerable time, but the central idea of extending a huge and important Library in central London, is a testament to the enduring power of the library concept to a nation. The ‘library concept’ may have changed to include digital access, meeting spaces for myriad activities, even commercial outlets, but importantly, it still rests on the central appeal of the almost ageless book and its free access by all citizens.

British Library Piazza.

 

Francis Crick Institute.