Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life (Art & Design) | Hugh Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough

Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life (Art & Design) | Hugh Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough | Belsey Offers a Compelling Portrait of Early Gainsborough

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Thomas Gainsboroug...

	Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life (Art & Design) Hugh Belsey, Thomas Gainsborough Prestel Publishing, 2002 - 96 pages average customer review:based on 2 reviews view larger image
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This study on Thomas Gainsborough concentrates on the early life and works of the great 18th-century artist. Gainsborough's talent was evident at a young age, and before he established himself as one of London's leading portrait artists he was able to indulge himself in his true passion, landscapes, as well as to provide portraits for a provincial clientele. Graced with the light and gentle shadows of the English countryside, these early works provided the foundation for much of Gainsborough's later work. However many of them, including the renowned "Mr and Mrs Andrews", and "His Daughters Chasing a Butterfly", can be called masterpieces in their own right. It was in Suffolk that the artist developed a naturalistic approach to portraiture by abandoning "conversation pieces" and painting instead a number of straightforward head-and-shoulder portraits. This volume features 80 colour and black-and-white reproductions of Gainsborough's paintings, etchings and drawings. They not only shed light on the development of one of England's most revered painters, but also offer an intimate look at the work of a young painter in the thrall of his subjects, and just beginning to realise his full talents.

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Thomas Gainsborough: A Country Life by Hugh Belsey

Mr Belsey has truimphed with this book - it is packed with detail that is conveyed in an accessible style of writing that enables the reader to absorb information whilst, at the same time, enjoying the whole experience.

Belsey Offers a Compelling Portrait of Early Gainsborough

This is an engaging book focusing on the earlier landscape paintings and portraits completed in Ipswich and Bath. The observations on the details of the paintings are acute and perceptive. The author illuminates with a thorough knowledge of the social mores and conventions of 18th Century England. For painters and artists, the insights on formal composition and color are instructive.

The narrative text is laced with a wit, humor, and irony that perhaps one can only find in an English art historian writing about a consummate English artist. The book is also mercifully focused and short, alleviating some of the bludgeon like tediousness of many art history tomes.

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