The most accomplished and the most influential English painter of the eighteenth century was Thomas Gainsborough. Until 1774 Gainsborough painted landscapes and portraits in various provincial centres before settling in London for the last fourteen years of his life. Although the elegant attenuation of his lords and ladies is indebted to his study of Van Dyck, Gainsborough achieved in his full-length portraits a freshness and lyric grace all his own. Occasional objections to the lack of structure in his weightless figures are swept away by the beauty of his colour and the delicacy of his touch. The figure in Mary Countess Howe, painted in the mid-1760s, is exquisitely posed in front of a landscape background. Gainsborough has expended his ability on the soft shimmer of light over the embroidered organdy of her overdress and cascades of lace at her elbows, sparkling in the soft English air; the only solid accents in the picture are her penetrating eyes. Although Gainsborough was country-born, his landscape elements seem artificial, added like bits of scenery to establish a spatial environment for the exquisite play of colour in the figure.
In later life Gainsborough painted more freely and openly. Although his landscapes, which he preferred to his portraits, exhale a typically English freshness, they were painted in the studio on the basis of small models put together from moss and pebbles. Constructed in the grand manner of Hobbema, a seventeenth-century Dutch master, and painted with soft strokes of wash like those of Watteau, the Market Cart, of 1787, shows an almost rhapsodic abandonment to the mood of nature, which led to the great English landscapists of the early nineteenth century.
Constable said that Gainsborough's landscape moved him to tears, and contemplating the freedom and beauty of the painting of the cart and a boy gathering brushwood, not to speak of the glow of light seeming to come from within the tree in the centre, one can understand why.
Make sure you know how to pronounce the following words:
Thomas Gainsborough; Van Dyck; embroidered; abandonment; rhapsodic; organdy; Howe; aristocracy; Hobbema, Watteau
Notes
Mary Countess Howe – «Графиня Мери Хью»
Market Cart – «Телега, едущая на рынок»
Tasks
I. Read the text. Make sure you understand it. Mark the following statements true or false.
1. Until 1774 Gainsborough lived and worked in Italy.
2. Gainsborough's figures are abundant.
3. Gainsborough's portraits were influenced by Titian.
4. Gainsborough's brushwork was free and bold.
5. Gainsborough's landscapes were classical.
6. Gainsborough was abandoned to nature.
II. How well have you read? Can you answer the following questions?
1. What makes Gainsborough an outstanding painter?
2. Whose influence is felt in Gainsborough's portraits? What did Gainsborough achieve in his full-length portraits?
3. Where is the figure in Mary Countess Howe posed?
4. What do Gainsborough's landscapes exhale? What did Gainsborough prefer to paint in later life?
5. What does the Market Cart show?
6. What was said about Gainsborough's landscape?
III. i. Give Russian equivalents of the following phrases:
the most influential English painter; the elegant attenuation; a full-length portrait; to pose in front of a landscape background; the embroidered organdy of the overdress; the exquisite play of colour; to prefer landscapes to portraits; to paint landscapes in a studio; the grand manner; to move to tears; the painting of the cart; the shimmer of light; soft strokes; to gather brushwood.
ii. Give English equivalents of the following phrases:
трогать до слез; наиболее авторитетный художник; позировать на фоне пейзажа; предпочитать пейзажи портретам; хрупкость и изящество несколько удлиненных женских фигур; органди; портрет во весь рост; мягкие блики; писать пейзажи в студии; величественная манера; совершенная игра цвета; собирать хворост; изображение повозки; мягкие мазки.
iii. Make up sentences ofyour own with the given phrases.
iv. Arrange the following in the pairs of synonyms:
a) influential; occasional; exquisitely; environment; artificial;
b) unnatural; surroundings; infrequent; perfectly; important.
IV. Translate the text into English.
На формирование Томаса Гейнсборо – великого английского портретиста XVIII века, значительное влияние оказали работы Ван Дейка.
Пейзаж в портретах Гейнсборо имеет большое значение. В зрелом возрасте, когда Гейнсборо переселился в Лондон, он начал писать портреты во весь рост на фоне пейзажа. Модели Гейнсборо поэтичны. Художник придает особую хрупкость и изящество несколько удлиненным женским фигурам. Светлая колористическая гамма становится отличительной чертой его живописи. В портретах Гейнсборо отсутствуют аллегории. Гейнсборо прошел творческую эволюцию от детальной манеры, близкой «малым голландцам» к живописи широкой и свободной.
V. Summarize the text.
VI. Topics for discussion.
1. Gainsborough's portraits.
2. Gainsborough's style.