Thomas Gainsborough (1727-1788) [Aw127]
WOODED LANDSCAPE WITH CHURCH, 1770s
Black and white chalk on grey/buff paper (H. 15cm, W. 20cm)
In a letter to his friend William Jackson, written at some point in the 1760s or early 1770s, Thomas Gainsborough wrote: ‘I’m sick of Portraits and wish very much to take my Viol da Gamba and walk off to some sweet Village where I can paint Landskips and enjoy the fag End of Life in quietness and ease.’ Though best remembered today as a portrait painter of the eighteenth-century rich and fashionable, Gainsborough was also a prolific and highly skilled landscape artist. Painting in oil and watercolour; or drawing in pencil and chalk, his ability to capture the Suffolk countryside was such that it led Constable to remark: ‘I see Gainsborough in every hedge and hollow tree.’
In this work, a church appears at the end of a winding path through a wood. The tower closely resembles that of St Nicholas, Castle Hedingham, about seven miles from the artist’s birthplace in Sudbury. Churches often appear in Gainsborough’s landscapes: they represent (perhaps) stability, divine order and a timeless past. Up close, we can see the scrape of chalk on grey buff paper as, in a series of deft strokes and bold mark-makings, Gainsborough captures the effect of the wind rustling through the trees.
The medium of this drawing dates it to the last decades of Gainsborough’s life, when he switched from pencil to chalk. According to one of his daughters, when drawing with pencil ‘he could not with sufficient expedition make out his effects.’ Using chalk, Gainsborough was able rapidly to convey his impressions, laying in areas of tone and smudging areas for atmospheric effect.
Exhibited: On loan to the Ulster Museum, 1980–1993
Provenance: Colnaghi, London, 1964; Major-General Sir John D’Arcy Anderson and Lady Elizabeth Anderson; gift of Lady Elizabeth Anderson, 1993