Posted: 21 December 2011 by Eleanor Mills RA Magazine Thomas
Gainsborough (1727-1788) loved to paint the landscape: he would
sketch the Suffolk countryside, the skies with their fluffy
white cumulous clouds, and the cattle and farmhands in the
fields. Gainsborough moved back to his birthplace of Sudbury in
1748 to begin his career after studying in London. But the
artist soon found that he could not support himself by painting
landscapes, so he moved to the nearby thriving port of Ipswich
to paint portraits of wealthy clientele. After seven years, the
pool of subjects in Ipswich dried up, so he moved to Bath in the
hope of finding more sitters. With the move, Gainsborough began
drawing the landscape of western England around the city of
Bath. The idealised landscapes that grew out of his sketches
glow with warm light – perhaps evoking the city's golden Bath
stone. The Holburne Museum in Bath, featuring a new extension by
architect Eric Parry RA. Photo credits: Cloud9leeds (left)
Helene Binet (right) The newly