Thomas gainsborough short biography

Both in his day and after, Thomas Gainsborough has been widely acclaimed as one of the greatest artists of the 18th century.

Thomas gainsborough short biography

Often known for his distinctive portraiture of the mercantile and upper classes, Gainsborough was the first important British artist to consistently paint landscapes, helping to establish the genre of landscape painting in England.

Throughout the 18th century, landscape painting was considered a rather lowly branch of art.

However, Gainsborough was innovative in often fusing the genres of landscape and portraiture within a single composition – as seen in his most famous work, the double portrait of Mr and Mrs Andrews from 1748 (National Gallery, London).

While Gainsborough did sell some of his landscapes, he found portraiture to be the more lucrative genre.

At the height of his career from the 1760s onwards, the demands for Gainsborough’s portraits were such that he suffered from overwo