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Thomas Gainsborough
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tags: [artist]
► definition
Definition:[1727 – 1788]an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker. He surpassed his rival Sir Joshua Reynolds to become the dominant British portraitist of the second half of the 18th century. He painted quickly, and the works of his maturity are characterised by a light palette and easy strokes. He preferred landscapes to portraits, and is credited (with Richard Wilson) as the originator of the 18th-century British landscape school. Gainsborough was a founding member of the Royal Academy.[...]He died of cancer on 2 August 1788 at the age of 61. According to his daughter Peggy, his last words were "van Dyck".text from Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike
painting 1: self portrait (1759), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Gainsborough_by_Thomas_Gainsborough.jpgpainting 2: Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, (1786), https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Gainsborough_-_Portrait_of_Georgiana,_Duchess_of_Devonshire.jpgpainting 3: The Blue Boy, (1770) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Blue_Boy.jpg
► uses
Uses:
Hyacinth: Of course, these are not really to my taste. I was looking for something more like Gainsborough's "Blue Boy."
BBC. Keeping Up Appearances, season 5: The Country Estate Sale (1995)
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"[...] This is a celebration. I've just bought The Girl in Blue."
"Who's she?"
"She is a miniature by Gainsborough. She is wearing a blue dress, so the late Gainsborough, hunting around for a title, called her The Girl in Blue."
P. G. Wodehouse. The Girl in Blue, p.34 (1971)
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Baldrick: Well my cousin Bert Baldrick, Mr Gainsborough's butler's dogsbody, says that he's heard that all portraits look the same these days 'cause they're painted to a romantic ideal rather than as a true depiction of the idiosycratic facial qualities of the person in question.
Blackadder: Your cousin Bert obviously has a larger vocabulary than you do, Baldrick.
BBC. Blackadder, season 3: Duel and Duality
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