Wooded Landscape with Horseman and Pack Horse

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Artist: Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727–1788)
Medium: India ink, white lead, black chalk and watercolor, on laid paper, varnished
Size: 8 1/4 × 11 15/16 in. (21 × 30.32 cm) (image, sheet)
Museum: Minneapolis Institute of Art
Rights: Public Domain Mark

Though best known for his magnificent portraits, Thomas Gainsborough preferred painting “landskips” (as he called them) and played a key role in establishing the importance of landscape in British art. As a young artist he enjoyed the beauties of his native Suffolk countryside. After moving to Bath, to pursue the regular income the spa town could provide a portrait painter, he had less time for gamboling through the fields.

Instead, he fashioned miniature landscapes, using broccoli for trees, bits of cork or coal for stones, fragments of mirrors for water, and whatever else was to hand. He dedicated an oak folding table to this purpose and would set it up in his parlor. This is not to say he never again drew from nature, but many of his mature landscapes are fantasies deeply informed by experience.

Text: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), CC BY 4.0.