Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough, born in Suffolk in 1727 (died 1788), was an English landscape and portrait artist. A founding member of the Royal Academy, his early influences included William Hogarth, and later Anthony van Dyck (most famous for his portraits of Charles I of England). He moved from Suffolk to Bath in 1759, and from Bath to London in 1774, and it was here during the 1780s that he developed his technique of painting on glass and using a device he called a showbox to light them with candles from behind, thus creating a luminescent effect particularly suited to night-time scenes. The painted transparencies were viewed from the front of the box through a peephole fitted with a magnifying lens. The combined result of compositional elements plus backlighting created a dramatic realization of light as we might actually see it in reality.
Set at night, this painting depicts a small cottage by a pool, brought to life by the light shining through the window and from the open doorway. We seem to be expected—there is a figure in the doorway waiting to invite us in to what looks like a cozy and warm little homestead. It is difficult to know if the white plume above the chimney is part of the sky or perhaps smoke from a fire, but I’d like to think it’s the latter. The surrounding woodland is painted with quick, defined strokes that seem rather impressionistic for its day, and a full moon peeps through the trees to the left.
Gainsborough’s showbox still exists and is held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, along with a few surviving transparencies.
- Sarah Mills