Chapter XV: Thomas Gainsborough

_English School_
1727-1788
_Pupil of Gravelot and of Hayman_

There seems to have been no artist, with the extraordinary exceptions of Dürer and Leonardo, who learned his lessons while at school. Little painters have uniformly begun as bad spellers.

Gainsborough's father was in the business of woolen-crape making, while his mother painted flowers, very nicely, and it was she who taught the small Thomas. There were nine little Gainsboroughs and, shocking to relate, the artist of the family was so ready with his pencil that when he was ten years old he forged his father's name to a note which he took to the schoolmaster, and thereby gained himself a holiday. There is no account of any other wicked use to which he put his talent. It is said that he could copy any writing that he saw, and his ready pencil covered all his copy-books with sketches of his schoolmasters. It was thought better for him finally to follow his own ideas of education, namely, to roam the woodlands and make beautiful pictures.

His father's heart was not softened till one day little Gainsborough brought home a sketch of the orchard into which the head of a man had thrust itself, painted with great ability. This man was a poacher, and father Gainsborough recognised him by the portrait. There seemed to be utility in art of this kind, and before long the boy found himself apprenticed to a silversmith.

Through the silversmith the artist got admission to an art school and began his studies; but his master was a dissolute fellow, and before long the pupil left him.

Gainsborough was born in the town of Sudbury on the River Stour, the same which inspired another great painter half a century later. Gainsborough is best known by his portraits, in particular as the inventor of "the Gainsborough hat," but he was first of all a truly great landscape painter, and learned his art as Constable did after him, along the beautiful shores of the river that flowed past his native town.

The old Black Horse Inn is still to be seen, and it was in the orchard behind it that he studied nature, the same in which he made the first of his famous portraits, that of the poacher. It is known to this day as the portrait of "Tom Pear-tree." That picture was copied on a piece of wood cut into the shape of a man, and it is in the possession of Mr. Jackson, who lent it for the exhibition of Gainsborough's work held at the Grosvenor Gallery, in 1885.

While Thomas was with his first master, by no means a good companion for a lad of fifteen, he lived a busy, self-respecting life, since he was devoted to his home and to his parents. Only three years after he set out to learn his art he married a young lady of Sudbury. The pair were by no means rich, Gainsborough having only eighteen years of experience in this world, besides his brush, and a maker of woolen-crape shrouds for a father--who was not over pleased to have an artist for a son. The lady had two hundred pounds but this did not promise a very luxurious living, so they took a house for six pounds a year, at Ipswich. Thus the two young lovers began their life together. There was a good deal of romance in the story of his wife, whose name was supposed to be Margaret Burr. The two hundred pounds that helped to pay the Ipswich rent did not come from the man accepted as her father, but from her real father, who was either the Duke of Bedford, or an exiled prince. This would seem to be just the sort of story that should surround a great painter and his affairs.

While he lived at Ipswich Gainsborough used to say of himself that he was "chiefly in the face-way" meaning that for the most part he made portraits. He loved best to paint the scenes of his boyhood, as Constable afterward did, but he soon found there was more money in portraits, and so he decided to go to live in Bath, the fashionable resort of English people in that day, where he was likely to find rich folk who wanted to see themselves on canvas. He settled down there with his wife, whom he loved dearly, and his two daughters and at once began to make money. It is said he painted five hours a day and all the rest of the time studied music. As the theatre was Corot's greatest happiness, so did music most delight Gainsborough, and he could play well on nearly every known instrument; he became so excellent a musician that he even gave concerts. He had the most delightful people about him, people who loved art and who appreciated him, and then there were the other people who paid for having themselves painted. Altogether it was an ideal situation.

His studio was in the place known as the "Circus" at Bath, and people came and went all day, for it became the fashionable resort for all the fine folks.

From five guineas for half length portraits, he soon raised his price to forty; he had charged eight for full length portraits, but now they went for one hundred. He painted some famous men of the time. The very thought is inspiring of such a company of geniuses with Gainsborough in the centre of the group. He painted Laurence Sterne, who wrote "The Sentimental Journey," and a few other delightful things; also Garrick, the renowned actor.

Even the encyclopædia reads thrillingly upon this subject and one can afford to quote it, with the feeling that the quotation will be read: "His house harboured Italian, German, French and English musicians. He haunted the green room of Palmer's Theatre, and painted gratuitously the portraits of many of the actors. He gave away his sketches and landscapes to any one who had taste or assurance enough to ask for them." This sounds royal and exciting.

After that Gainsborough went up to London with plenty of money and plenty of confidence and instead of six pounds a year for his house, he paid three hundred pounds, which suggests much more comfort.

There were two other great painters of the time in London, Sir Benjamin West--an American, by the way--and Sir Joshua Reynolds. West was court favourite, but Gainsborough too was called upon to paint royalty, and share West's honours. Reynolds was the favourite of the town, but he too had to divide honours with Gainsborough when the latter painted Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Edmund Burke and Sir William Blackstone.

Notwithstanding, his landscapes, for which he should have been most famous, did not sell. Everybody approved of them, but it is said they were returned to him till they "stood ranged in long lines from his hall to his painting room" Gainsborough was a member of the Royal Academy and also a true Bohemian. He cared little for elegant society, but made his friends among men of genius of all sorts. He was very handsome and impulsive, tall and fair, and generous in his ways; but he had much sorrow on account of one of his daughters, Mary, who married Fischer, a hautboy player, against her father's wishes. The girl became demented--at least she had spells of madness.

When Mary Gainsborough married, her father wrote the following letter to his sister, which shows that he was a man of tender feeling for those whom he truly loved:

" ... I had not the least suspicion of the attachment being so long and deeply seated; and as it was too late for me to alter anything without being the cause of total unhappiness on both sides, my consent ... I needs must give ... and accordingly they were married last Monday and settled for the present in a ready-furnished little house in Curzon Street, Mayfair ... I can't say I have any reason to doubt the man's honesty or goodness of heart, as I never heard anyone speak anything amiss of him, and as to his oddities and temper, she must learn to like them as she likes his person ... Peggy has been very unhappy about it, but I endeavour to comfort her." Peggy was his wife.

The abominable Fischer died twenty-years before Mary did--she lived to be an old, old woman.

Among those whom Gainsborough loved best was the man called Wiltshire who carried his pictures to and from London. He was a public "carrier" but would never take any money for his services to the artist, because he loved his work. All he asked was "a little picture"--and he got so many of these, given in purest affection, that he might have gone out of business as a carrier, had he chosen to sell them. Four of those little pictures are now very great ones worth thousands of pounds and known everywhere to fame. They are "The Parish Clerk," "Portrait of Quin," "A Landscape with Cattle," and "The Harvest Waggon."

We have a good many stories of Gainsborough's bad manners. The artists of his day tried to treat him with every consideration, but in return he treated them very badly, especially Sir Joshua Reynolds. Reynolds, who was then President of the Academy greatly admired Gainsborough but the latter would not return Sir Joshua's call, and when Reynolds asked him to paint his portrait for him, Gainsborough undertook it thanklessly. Sir Joshua left town for Bath for a time, and when he returned he tried to learn how soon the portrait would be finished, but Gainsborough would not even reply to his inquiry. There seems to have been no reason for this behaviour unless it was jealousy, but it made a most uncomfortable situation between fellow artists.

Gainsborough has told some not very pleasing stories about himself, but one of them shows us what a knack he had for seeing the comic side of things, and perhaps for seeing comedy where it never existed. Upon one occasion he was invited to a friend's house where the family were in the habit of assembling for prayers, and he had no sooner got inside, than he began to fear he should laugh, when prayer time came, at the chaplain. In a rush of shyness he fled, leaving his host to look for him, till he stumbled over a servant who said that Mr. Gainsborough had charged him to say he had gone to breakfast at Salisbury. Even respect for the customs of others could not make him control himself.

It was through his intimacy with King George's family that his quarrel with the Royal Academy came about. He had painted the three princesses--the Princess Royal, Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth, and these were to be hung at a certain height in Carlton House, but when he sent the first to the Academy he asked it to be specially hung and his request was refused. Then he sent a note as follows:

"He begs pardon for giving them so much trouble, but he has painted the picture of the princesses in so tender a light that, notwithstanding he approves very much of the established line for strong effects, he cannot possibly consent to have it placed higher than eight feet and a half, because the likeness and the work of the picture will not be seen any higher, therefore at a word he will not trouble the gentlemen against their inclination, but will beg the best of his pictures back again." Immediately, the Academy returned his pictures, although it would seem that they might better have accommodated Gainsborough than have lost such a fine exhibition. He never again would send anything to them.

He was inclined to be irritated by inartistic points in his sitters, and is said to have muttered when he was painting the portrait of Mrs. Siddons, the great actress: "Damn your nose madam; there is no end to it." The nose in question must have been an "eyesore" to more than Gainsborough, for a famous critic is said to have declared that "Mrs. Siddons, with all her beauty was a kind of female Johnson ... her nose was not too long for nothing."

Notwithstanding that his landscapes were not popular, he used to go off into the country to indulge his taste for painting them, and once he wrote to a friend that he meant to mount "all the Lakes at the next Exhibition in the great style, and you know, if people don't like them, it's only jumping into one of the deepest of them from off a wooded island and my reputation will be fixed forever." An old lady, whose guest he was, down in the country, told how he was "gay, very gay, and good looking, creating a great sensation, in a rich suit of drab with laced ruffles and cocked hat."

One of the boys he saw in the country he delighted to paint, and he also grew so much attached to him that he took him to London and kept him with him as his own son. That boy's name was Jack Hill and he did not care for city life, nor maybe for Gainsborough's eccentricities, so he ran away. He was found again and again, till one day he got away for good, and never came back.

All his later life Gainsborough was happy. His daughter, who had married Fischer, the hautboy-player, came back home to live, and her disorder was not bad enough to prevent her being a cause of great happiness to her father. The other daughter never married. Gainsborough says that he spent a thousand pounds a year, but he also gave to everybody who asked of him, and to many who asked nothing, so that he must have made a great deal of money during his lifetime, by his art. It is said that the "Boy at the Stile" was bestowed on Colonel Hamilton for his fine playing of a solo on the violin. A lady who had done the artist some trifling service received twenty drawings as a reward, which she pasted on the walls of her rooms without the slightest idea of their value.

Gainsborough got up early in the morning, but did not work more than five hours. He liked his friends, his music, and his wife, and spent much time with them. He was witty, and while he sketched pictures in the evening, with his wife and daughters at his side, he kept them laughing with his droll sayings.

The last days of Gainsborough showed him to be a hero. He died of cancer, and some time before he knew what his disease was he must have suffered a great deal. There is a story that is very pathetic of a dinner with his friends, Beaumont and Sheridan. Usually, he was the gayest of the gay, but of late all his friends had noticed that gaiety came to him with effort. Upon the night of this dinner, Sheridan had been his wittiest, and had tried his hardest to make Gainsborough cheer up, till finally, the artist, finding it impossible to get out of his sad mood, asked Sheridan if he would leave the table and speak with him alone. The two friends went out together. "Now don't laugh, but listen," Gainsborough said; "I shall soon die. I know it; I feel it. I have less time to live than my looks infer, but I do not fear death. What oppresses my mind is this: I have many acquaintances, few friends; and as I wish to have one worthy man to accompany me to the grave, I am desirous of bespeaking you. Will you come? Aye or no!" At that Sheridan, who was greatly shocked, tried to cheer him, but Gainsborough would not return to the table, till he got the promise, which of course Sheridan made.

It was not very long after this that a famous trial took place--that of Warren Hastings. It was in Westminster Hall, and Gainsborough went to listen several times. On the last occasion, he became so interested in what was happening that he did not notice a window open at his back. After a little he said to a friend that he "felt something inexpressibly cold" touch his neck. On his return home he told of the strange feeling to his wife. Then he sent for a doctor, and there was found a little swelling. The doctor said it was not serious and that when the weather grew warmer it would disappear; but all the while Gainsborough felt certain that it would mean his death. A short time after that he told his sister that he knew himself to have a cancer, and that was true.

When he felt that he must die, he fell to thinking of many things in the past, and wished to right certain mistakes of his behaviour as far as possible.

He sent to Sir Joshua Reynolds and asked him to come and see him, since he could not go to see Sir Joshua. Reynolds went and then Gainsborough told him of his regret that he had shown so much ill-will and jealousy toward so great and worthy a rival. Reynolds was very generous and tried to make Gainsborough understand that all was forgiven and forgotten. He left his brother artist much relieved and happier, and he afterward said: "The impression on my mind was that his regret at losing life was principally the regret of leaving his art." As Reynolds left the dying man's room, Gainsborough called after him: "We are all going to heaven--and Van Dyck is of the company."

He was buried in Kew Churchyard and the ceremonies were followed by Reynolds and five of the Royal Academicians, who forgot all Gainsborough's eccentricities of conduct toward them in their honest grief over his death. He was one of the first three dozen original members of the Royal Academy.

PLATE--PORTRAIT OF MRS. RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN

This picture is now in the collection of Lord Rothschild, London. Mrs. Sheridan was the loveliest lady of her time. She was the daughter of Thomas Linley, and a singer.

She came from a home which was called "a nest of nightingales," because all in it were musicians. The father had a large family and made up his mind to become the best musician of his time in his locality in order to support them. He was successful, and in turn most of his children became musicians. His lovely daughter, Eliza (Mrs. Sheridan), he bound to himself as an apprentice and taught her till she was twenty-one, insisting that she "serve out her time" to him, that she might become a perfect singer. The story of this beautiful lady seems to belong to the story of Gainsborough's portrait and shall be told here.

When she was a very little girl, no more than eight years old, she was so beautiful that as she stood at the door of the pump room in Bath to sell tickets for her father's concerts, everyone bought them from her. When she was a very young woman her father engaged her to marry a Mr. Long, sixty years old. She did not seem to mind what arrangements her father made for her, but continued to sing and attend to her business, till after the wedding gowns were all made and everything ready for the marriage, when she happened to meet the brilliant Richard Brinsley Sheridan, whose plays were so fashionable, and she fell deeply in love with him. She told Mr. Long she would not marry him, and without much objection he gave her up, but her father was very angry and he threatened to sue Mr. Long for letting his daughter go. Then the beautiful lady ran away to Calais and married Mr. Sheridan without her father's permission; but she came home again and said nothing of what she had done, kept on singing and helping her father earn money for his family. One day, Mr. Sheridan was wounded in a duel which he had fought with one of his wife's admirers, and when she heard the news she screamed, "my husband, my husband," so that everybody knew she was married to the fascinating playwright. Sheridan for some reason did not at once come and get her, nor arrange for them to have a home together. For a good while she continued to sing; and once hearing her in oratorio, Sheridan fell in love with his wife all over again. He took her from her home and would never let her sing again in public. They remarried publicly and went to live in London. He was not at all a rich and famous man at that time--only a poor law-student--but he would not let his wife make the fortune she might easily have made, by singing.

This must have made his beautiful wife very sad, but she made no complaint at giving up her music and letting him silence her lovely voice, but turned all her attention to advancing his fortunes. She worked for him even harder than she had for her father, and that was saying a great deal. When he became a great writer of plays his wife took charge of all the accounts of his Drury Lane Theatre, and when he was in the House of Commons she acted as his secretary. Sheridan died in great poverty and wretchedness, and it is believed had his self-sacrificing wife not died before him she would have looked after his affairs so well that he would not have lost his fortune. Gainsborough painted the portraits of Sheridan's father-in-law, and of Samuel Linley; and it was said that this last portrait was painted in forty-eight minutes. Among his other portraits are: eight of George III., Sir John Skynner, Admiral Hood, Colonel St. Leger, and "The Blue Boy"; but he was first and last a landscape painter of highest genius.