Hello everyone!  Today, I’m going to speak about a famous British painter, Thomas Gainsborough. He’s propably one of the most famous portraitist in England of the 18th century., after Reynolds.

He began his life as a simple landscape painter, then as an unknown and low-paid portraitist of region’s merchants. But, he managed to become a close friend of noble people and even, the Royal Family. Indeed, the whole Family considered him the greatest painter of this time. Unfortunetly, they are forced to choose Reynolds as the court official painter.

Obviously, we realize that Gainsborough has been more famous as a portraitist whereas it represents a minor part of his work. In fact, he likes above all painting landscapes which is quite, because of the Academy, a rejected genre. Besides, his landscape works of art have been consider too natural : Gainsborough didn’t use the painting rules of his time.

This painting, nicknamed The Blue Boy, is representative of the Gainsborough’s retraining from landscape paintings to portraits. He needed to earn more money. Probably, we can say that Gainsborough inspired himself with Van Dyck’s masterpieces.