Jenny Uglow, Sunday Times
"Rosenthal's fine study allows us to appreciate both the beauty and complexity of [Gainsborough's] art and its enduring modernity."


Day by Day
"This interesting, carefully researched book is revealing about London and provincial art worlds..."


Library Journal
"This fine overview is recommended for all collections."


Book Description
In this sumptuously illustrated book, Michael Rosenthal provides a lively account of Thomas Gainsborough's varied life and diverse artworks. Rosenthal examines the artist's portraits, landscapes, and fancy pictures, works of extraordinary beauty and complexity. The book also considers for the first time Gainsborough's entire body of works and how his career reflected problems and situations common among painters in eighteenth-century England.


About the Author
Michael Rosenthal holds a chair in the history of art at the University of Warwick. His other books include Constable: The Painter and His Landscape, published by Yale University Press.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This is the first comprehensive book on Gainsborough, presenting his entire career in the context of the issues facing him and his contemporaries. His art can be described as a mixture of neoclassical and romantic styles. He led English painting into its great period. Calling himself, " a wild goose at best," Gainsborough did not conform to the tradition of his time. Although he was one of the original member of the Royal Academy, he broke with them dramatically in 1768 because they would not hang his pictures the way he wanted. Although he is best known for his stunning portraits, his true love was landscape painting. He was an incredibly savvy businessman and became quite wealthy from his portraits. He and Sir Joshua Reynolds were quite competitive contemporaries, but they respected each other's work. While Reynold's was appointed the King's Principal painter, Gainsborough became a favorate painter of the royal family. This thorough and beautiful presentation of Gainsborough's life and work will fill a much needed gap in the literature for scholars and provide an accessible account for the lay audience interested in English art at its high point and British social history.

FROM THE CRITICS

Jenny Uglow - Sunday Times