14.05.1727 – 2.08.1788

“There is no devilry worse than writing portraits,” – noted the most famous English portraitist of the XVIII century, Thomas Gainsborough. He considered landscapes to be his true vocation, but among the aristocracy they were not successful, however in the genre of the portrait the artist became an unsurpassed master. Sharply sensitive character of the portrait, he created exquisite images, his characters are often depicted against the backdrop of the landscape, in a relaxed atmosphere; color, built on a combination of cool bluish-silvery tones, conquers with nobility and harmony.

Thomas Gainsborough was born in Suffolk in the family of a cloth merchant. He left the family very early, from the age of 13 the boy already lived independently in London and earned money selling his sketches. Thomas Gainsborough studied with the famous portraitist Francis Hayden and the landscape painter Güber Gravelo, who introduced the rococo elements into the artistic style of the beginning artist.

July 15, 1746 Gainsborough married with Margaret Barr, and a few years later moved from a bustling capital to provincial Ipswich. The main earnings of the artist are portraits. When he moved to Bath in the beginning of 1760, real popularity is falling on him. The paintings of Thomas Gainsborough’s brush are distinguished by special lightness, ease, refinement and grace. Many aristocrats waited for the queue for several years, wishing to have a portrait written by Gainsborough.

In the favorite silvery-blue palette is written “Boy in Blue”, a portrait of J. Buttol. The painting is filled with poetry and musicality, the face of the teenager is melancholy and excited, the figure of the boy stands out against the background of the evening landscape, pearl gray, olive and blue tones constitute an amazing complex coloristic symphony.

At the end of life, Gainsborough moves to London, but in his works more often there are sentimental portraits of peasant children, landscapes and even genre scenes.