A Year in Books/Day 51: Gainsborough

Title: Gainsborough
Author: Nicola Kalinsky
Year Published: 1995 (Phaidon Press Limited)
Year Purchased: 2010
Source: My lovely Momma.
About: What starts as a dynamic and fully fleshed biographical monograph becomes a detailed analysis of his entire oeuvre, painting by painting. If you’ve ever wanted to explore deeper than ‘The Blue Boy’, this volume is a wonderful jumping off point.
Motivation: I’m my Mother’s daughter, which means that there are just some things I was born to love; literature, art and tea being the most important and enduring. She knew that I would appreciate this book. She was right!
Random Excerpt/Pages 14 and 15: “Gainsborough took a professional pride in his business and his pictures were well-made objects which have generally survived in a good state of preservation. His apprenticeship in London, to whoever it was, clearly served him well in the craft of painting. Comments in his letters attest to his care in selecting materials; he chose his pigments with a view to both beauty and permanence, unlike Reynolds, who was notorious for using fugitive colours. He was unusual in his insistence on normally painting all parts of a portrait himself, rather than employing a drapery painter; his nephew, Gainsborough Dupont, was his only recorded assistant and pupil.”
Happiness Scale: 10
Image via Wikipedia

A Small Press Life: Books. Art. Writing. Life. Tea.