Gainsborough's Signature Style

Gainsborough’s signature style Imitating the master’s strokes Caroline Ritchie

It is a charming rustic scene: amid possession of what was seemingly a is likely to have been the person who dappled light, a man and two donkeys genuine Gainsborough. A printed made the Gainsborough attribution. have stopped to rest in a clearing. card previously attached to the back As the work itself is unsigned, further With its loose washes and diagonal of the drawing indicates that the item investigation was called for. strokes, the drawing seems, at a was at one stage in the possession of The lack of signature on this glance, worthy of attribution to the a Mr Willes Maddox of Cavendish work does not in itself rule out the great British landscape artist Thomas Square, London. The card also bears possibility that it is the work of Gainsborough (1727–1788). But a hand-written attribution to Thomas the master. In fact, Gainsborough further investigation into this drawing Gainsborough. Willes Maddox (1813– was rarely inclined to sign his from the Baillieu Library Print 1853), protégé of the famous eccentric, artworks.3 Rather, he and several Collection challenges this attribution, author and art collector William of his contemporaries viewed his and reveals a fascinating strand in the Beckford (1759–1844) of Fonthill, was style as a kind of signature: as the history of imitation and intellectual an orientalist artist who assembled a chronicler Edward Edwards wrote in property in 18th-century Britain. modest art collection. A student of art 1808, ‘Mr. Gainsborough’s manner The drawing (pictured right) came and later a practising artist, Maddox of penciling [sic] was so peculiar to the Baillieu Library in 1959 as part of a gift of more than 3,000 prints from Dr John Orde Poynton ao, cmg (1906–2001).1 In his registration book for the print collection, Dr Poynton records how he and his father purchased items from various sources in London between 1924 and 1939, ‘and of these the majority were checked at the British Museum’, though ‘unfortunately the notes recorded were lost’.2 Attached to this particular drawing is a pencilled note by a hand later than the artist’s, identifying it with Gainsborough. This attribution was presumably confirmed by authorities at the British Museum when the picture was acquired by Dr Poynton, but it would no doubt have been suggested by a previous owner, proud to be in

Caroline Ritchie Gainsborough’s signature style 75 Previous page: Artist unknown, Boy resting on a Opposite and below: Thomas Gainsborough, donkey, n.d., black ink with grey and sepia wash Churchyard with donkeys, c. 1750–88, on paper, 21.4 × 28.9 cm (image). 1959.5596, graphite on paper, 15.7 × 19.6 cm (support). gift of Dr J. Orde Poynton 1959, Baillieu Library T08894, purchased as part of the Oppé Print Collection, University of Melbourne. Collection with assistance from the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund 1996, Prints and Drawings Rooms, Tate Britain. © Tate, London, 2017.

to himself, that his work needed invited a plethora of imitations and anxieties about protecting intellectual no signature’.4 Gainsborough’s emulations. Such was the vogue property. This concern had famously contemporary and rival, Sir Joshua for Gainsboroughesque tableaux been brought to the fore in relation Reynolds, likewise attested to the that one Morning Herald report to printmaking, with the passing originality and idiosyncrasy of drew attention to ‘attempts having of the Engravers’ Copyright Act Gainsborough’s style. In a much- been made by the Fabricators in of 1735, commonly referred to as quoted passage, Reynolds commented the polite arts, to pass off some ‘Hogarth’s Act’ due to William on the way in which the ‘chaos’ very miserable imitations of Mr. Hogarth’s militant opposition to the created by Gainsborough’s ‘odd GAINSBOROUGH’s Beautiful stile dissemination of unauthorised copies. scratches and marks’ appears, ‘by of drawing’.6 The comment reveals In his perpetual efforts to ensure the a kind of magick’ to ‘assume form, both the widespread admiration idiosyncrasy and indeed inimitability and all the parts seem to drop into for Gainsborough’s style, and the of his style, Gainsborough reflected their proper places’.5 This swift, light frequency with which it was imitated, this growing perception that copying quality of Gainsborough’s landscape giving the impression of a veritable was both corrupt and a personal drawings is a hallmark of his style. Gainsborough mania. affront to the artist. However, the very idiosyncrasy The journalist’s aversion to However, there remained a sense and novelty of Gainsborough’s style imitation also reflected contemporary in which copying was also viewed as a

76 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 22, June 2018 crucial learning exercise. In this sense, so censoriously, such imitations— Gainsborough took on no students, not all copyists were ‘fabricators’ whether ‘fabrications’ or student his nephew, Gainsborough Dupont who intended to pass off their own studies—tend to be inferior to (1754–1797), worked as his studio work as that of a more famous artist. the master’s originals. Imitators assistant for more than 16 years. Joshua Reynolds proclaimed in an of Gainsborough’s style, whether An amateur artist himself, Dupont address to the Royal Academy that amateur or students, often applied devoted much attention to studying ‘by imitation only, variety, and even the master’s techniques a little too and emulating the style of his uncle. originality of invention, is produced’.7 earnestly. This makes it possible, However, differences between the Gainsborough himself devoted much through close stylistic analysis, to two artists’ styles are quite marked, attention to assimilating elements differentiate between Gainsborough’s and can be observed in Dupont’s of Old Masters from the Flemish hand and imitations of his style. In landscape drawings.8 These lack school, borrowing several motifs the case of the Baillieu Library’s the agile flow and sparing quality and stylistic features from the works drawing, the use of loose washes, and of Gainsborough’s landscapes: the of Anthony van Dyck and Peter looping strokes to describe foliage, figures and trees lack definition, Paul Rubens, as well as the French certainly reflect an attempt to mimic and the drawings are in general artist Antoine Watteau. Although Gainsborough’s technique in his characterised by a ‘disjointed staccato Gainsborough himself took on no landscape drawings from the late effect’.9 Dupont’s approach is students, it was inevitable that young 1750s and 1760s. In terms of subject thus difficult to reconcile with the artists and amateurs would turn to his matter, the Baillieu drawing also present artwork, in which the shapes work as a worthy model. By the early calls to mind Gainsborough’s scene are defined with heavier outline 19th century, it had become standard of donkeys in a churchyard, depicted throughout. practice for students to imitate in another pencil drawing from the George Frost (c. 1745–1821), Gainsborough. The collection of more 1750s or thereafter, held at the Tate too, tried his hand at reproducing than 130 Gainsborough drawings Britain (pictured opposite and above). Gainsborough’s sketching style. owned by Dr Thomas Monro, along However, as comparison with the Frost’s admiration for Gainsborough’s with a group of soft-ground etchings Tate drawing reveals, the handling in work is well attested: in 1807, Frost after Gainsborough that were made the Baillieu drawing is a little fussy wrote in a letter to John Constable, and published by John Laporte and in places, and the shadowing lacks ‘You know I am extravagantly fond William Frederick Wells at the Gainsborough’s characteristic subtlety. of Gainsbro’ perhaps foolishly so’,10 beginning of the 19th century, had The drawing does not bear the true This influence reveals itself in Frost’s helped to canonise Gainsborough’s signature of Gainsborough’s style. use of Gainsboroughesque light, style. Students frequently copied both Who, then, is our artist? In diagonal strokes. Frost’s distinctive collections for purposes of education, order to come closer to identifying approach may be seen in a drawing rather than of forgery. the hand, it is worth examining in the Metropolitan Museum of Art As the Morning Herald comment a few contemporary imitators in New York, previously attributed to about ‘miserable imitations’ suggests of the master’s style. Although Thomas Gainsborough, which has

Caroline Ritchie Gainsborough’s signature style 77 since been tentatively reattributed Perhaps, perhaps not. Several 1 For a detailed account of the Poynton to George Frost.11 Frost’s style, with unanswered questions surround bequest, see Kerrianne Stone, ‘The physiognomy of radicals, slayers and villains’, its uniform lightness of tone, offers this enigmatic artwork. Given the in Kerrianne Stone (curator), Radicals, an interesting contrast to the present frequency with which contemporaries slayers and villains: Prints from the Baillieu work, in which the artist seems to and later artists have attempted to Library, University of Melbourne, University of Melbourne Library, 2014, pp. 1–8. have taken the opposite approach reproduce Gainsborough’s style, it 2 J. Orde Poynton, cited in Stone, ‘The in heavily defining the figures and is difficult to arrive at a definitive physiognomy of radicals, slayers and villains’, foremost tree. attribution for this drawing. Whether p. 2. The prolific copyist Thomas the creation of the work was an act 3 Cristina S. Martinez, ‘“Odd scratches and marks”: Thomas Gainsborough and the Barker (1769–1847) is one of the of admiration, of education, or of idiosyncrasy of the brush’, in Reginald more probable candidates for the pure fabrication, also remains unclear. McGinnis (ed.), Originality and intellectual attribution of this work. Barker But the very questions raised by property in the French and English Enlightenment, London: Routledge, 2009, sought with some avidity to the artwork reveal the many facets p. 146. reproduce the style of Gainsborough, of Gainsborough mania, and the 4 Edward Edwards, Anecdotes of painters particularly as seen in Gainsborough’s enduring mark left by his signature who have resided or been born in England, early landscapes of the 1750s and style upon the British landscape London: Leigh and Sotheby, 1808, p. 142. 5 Joshua Reynolds, Discourses on art, ed. by 1760s. In his catalogue raisonné tradition. Robert R. Wark, San Marino, Calif.: of Gainsborough’s oeuvre, John Huntington Library, 1959, pp. 257–8. Hayes includes an important group Caroline Ritchie completed a Bachelor’s degree in 6 Cited in Martinez, ‘“Odd scratches and classics and English at the University of Oxford marks”’, p. 147. of drawings by Barker, which in 2017. She then undertook an internship with 7 Reynolds, Discourses on art, p. 96. had formerly been attributed to the Baillieu Library Print Collection as part of 8 John Hayes, The drawings of Thomas Gainsborough.12 Of these, one the Cultural Collections Projects Program. She Gainsborough: Plates, London and Bradford: is currently a curatorial assistant at the Hellenic landscape in particular is reminiscent Lund Humphries, 1970, pl. 353–6. Museum in Melbourne, and will soon undertake 9 John Hayes, The drawings of Thomas of the Melbourne drawing, in an internship in the Department of European Gainsborough: Text, London and Bradford: its depiction of two donkeys in Sculpture and Works of Art at Sotheby’s, Lund Humphries, 1970, p. 66. London. a wooded scene, and in its use of 10 Cited in Ronald Brymer Beckett (ed.), John Constable’s correspondence II: Early friends sparing, diagonal strokes to create and Maria Bicknell (Mrs. Constable), vol. 6, 13 a clipped yet fluid representation. The Baillieu Library Print Collection Ipswich: Suffolk Records Society, 1964, The detailing of the foliage in both comprises some 9,000 individual works p. 37. of art: engravings, etchings, woodcuts, Barker’s drawing and the Baillieu 11 George Frost, Landscape with figures, n.d., lithographs, linocuts, print albums, graphite on paper, 19.5 × 15.0 cm (sheet). drawings, paintings and books. Items drawing is rather more heavy-handed 11.66.2, purchase, Rogers Fund, 1911, may be requested for use in the Cultural than that seen in Gainsborough’s Drawings and Prints Collection, Collections Reading Room on Level 3 14 Metropolitan Museum of Art. work, while the washes are of the Baillieu Library, Parkville campus. 12 Hayes, Plates, pl. 395–7. See library.unimelb.edu.au/collections/ somewhat blocked in, and less 13 Hayes, , pl. 396. special-collections/print-collection. Plates blended than tends to be the case in 14 For example, Hayes, Plates, pl. 397. Gainsborough’s originals.15 15 For example, Hayes, Plates, pl. 149, 161.

78 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 22, June 2018