Thomas Gainsborough is the most perennially popular of British artists, admired for the grandeur of his society portraits and his sumptuous pastoral landscapes. In his life and art he wished to project an image of effortless accomplishment, demonstrated by a dazzling painting techniques and immense personal charm. He was also competitive, opinionated and possessed of a finely tuned business brain.

Thomas Gainsborough's (1727-88) London years, from 1774 to 1788, were the pinnacle and conclusion of his career. They coincided with the establishment of the Royal Academy, of which Gainsborough was a founding member, and the city's ascendance as a center for the arts. This is a meticulously researched and readable account of how Gainsborough designed his home and studio and maintained a growing schedule of influential patrons, making a place for himself in the art world of late-18th-century London. New material about Gainsborough's technique is based on examinations of his pictures and firsthand accounts by studio visitors. His fractious relationship with the Royal Academy and its exhibition culture is reexamined through the works he sent to its annual shows. The full range of Gainsborough's art, from fashionable portraits to landscapes and fancy pictures, is addressed in this major contribution, not just to the study of a great artist, but to 18th-century studies in general.

Geography is useful, indeed necessary, to survival. Everyone must know where to find food, water, and a place of rest, and, in the modern world, all must make an effort to make the Earth -- our home -- habitable. But much present-day geography lacks drama, with its maps and statistics, descriptions and analysis, but no acts of chivalry, no sense of quest. Not long ago, however, geography was romantic. Heroic explorers ventured to forbidding environments -- oceans, mountains, forests, caves, deserts, polar ice caps -- to test their power of endurance for reasons they couldn't fully articulate. Why climb Everest? "Because it is there." In this book, the author considers the human tendency -- stronger in some cultures than in others -- to veer away from the middle ground of common sense to embrace the polarized values of light and darkness, high and low, chaos and form, mind and body. In so doing, venturesome humans can find salvation in geographies that cater not so much to survival needs (or even to good, comfortable living) as to the passionate and romantic aspirations of their nature

The "grand" portrait has long been understood to have played a pivotal part in the self-definition of Georgian society: not only was a likeness presented to a curious public, but social station and financial rank were also advertised, if not flaunted. Leca, curator at the Cincinnati Art Museum, claims that in addition portraiture was the vehicle for "modernist" ideas. He uses as an example the museum's portrait by Thomas Gainsborough titled Ann Ford, the subject of this exhibition catalogue. In a wide-ranging essay, Leca shows how Gainsborough, the most maverick of the period's portraitists, deliberately piqued establishment taste by seeking out and painting "modern women"--courtesans, dancers, and musicians--who mirrored his own edgy persona, and by rendering them in a provocative and "unfinished" style, thus challenging viewers both morally and visually. In a second essay, Ribeiro (emer., Courtauld Institute, London) discusses the decorum surrounding female portraiture and how Gainsborough's picture deviated or violated accepted notions through pose, dress, and countenance. As an authority on period costume, Ribeiro offers an essay that is rich in observations regarding the social nuances of female attire. Ludwig (doctoral candidate, Boston Univ.) offers a survey of the portraiture of British "progressive" women. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-level undergraduates and above; general readers. General Readers; Lower-division Undergraduates; Upper-division Undergraduates; Graduate Students; Researchers/Faculty. Reviewed by L. R. Matteson.

Based on new research this fascinating book draws together a group of works from public and private collections to examine, for the first time, the relationship that Thomas Gainsborough (1727–88) had with the theatrical world and the most celebrated stage artists of his day, such as James Quin, David Garrick and Sarah Siddons. Gainsborough painted notable portraits of these and twenty others, including dramatists, dancers and composers. This publication firmly establishes the artist's place within the theatrical worlds of Bath and London and shows why the art of ballet, and in particular Gainsborough's sitters, rose to prominence in 1780 and examines parallels between Gainsborough's much admired painterly naturalism and the theatrical naturalism of Garrick and Siddons with whom he had personal friendships.

This work examines the significance of the multiple versions of designs for 'The Cottage Door', by Thomas Gainsborough.