"WE ARE ALL GOING TO HEAVEN."

Otago Witness, Issue 2817, 4 March 1908, Page 85

"WE ARE ALL GOING TO HEAVEN."

—Gainsborough's Prophecy About Himself. —

You stand for all that is vivacious and light-hearted, Gainsborough, for the artisiic temperament at its best — irresponsible, lierVOU*., shunning long la-bour, *°'?n? n fatigued, yet arriving at the goal by brilliant short-cuts of intuition. Your light horsemanship- in the arts, your dartings here and there, your flash to the winning-post, troubled your heavi'yaccoutred rival. Sir Joshua Reynolds, mistruster of all short cuts that had not been worn by the feet of tradition. But he was just, and in the discourse delivered after your death he acknowledged that what he called the "chaos" of your pictures, at a certain distance, "by a kind of magic," assumed form, and all the parts seemed to drop into their proper places. Magic ! That is the right word. There is magic in your portrait of Mr 3 Robinson as Perdita at the Wallace Collection, and in your Miss Linley, magic in the portraits of your two daughters at the National Gallery magic, in your picture called "The Morning Walk," and in that Watteau-likc dream called "The Mall," a perfect fusion of women and Nature, of which Horace Walpole said : "It is all in motion and in a flutter like a lady's fan." You were a pioneer, an impressionist, in days whe-n it was still the vogue to look through the eyes of the Old Masters rather than through one's own, and as you grew older you evaded, light-hearted one, the heavy hand of Time; your touch grew lighter, your brush-marks more feathery. the complexions of your pretty eighteenthcentury ladies more delicate, your \ision more oj>alesccnt. Even the breath of death could not dull your spirit. Almost the last words you uttered were that proud prophecy yon whispered to Sir Joshua: "We ai'e all going to heaven, and Van Dyck is of the company." You wrote and talked in>pul»ive*y. as you painted. You never reflected, you let the mood of the moment wing out, and your transparent sincerity was such that your correspondents can hardly have been offended. But when in -1783 you quarrelled with the Royal Academy about the hanging of your picture "The Princesses" the letter that you wrote must have startled ! that august body. It, ends: "Mr Gains- • borough ne\ er more, whilst he breathes, will send another picture to the exhibition. Thi^ he swears 'by God." On another occasion you wrote to Jackson: "Lot me then throw aside that damned grinning tnok of mine for a moment, and be as serious and stupid as a Horse." That " grinning trick " was simply another name for high spirits, and an energy that never knew exhaustion. In many of your magic portraits you stand unrivalled ; in landscape, " Constable " and " Old Crome," to name but two, shoulder you away. You were often angry at the indifference of your contemporaries to your landscape*. When you removed from Bath to London, and Lord Lansdowne called upon you at Schombcrg House, he found the rooms hung with your pastoral pictures. " People won't buy 'em," you cried. Then you worked yourself into a passion and shouted : " I'm a landscape painter, and yet they will come to me for portraits. I can't paint portraits. Look at that damned arm ! I have been at it all the morning, and I can't get it right." No ! And you couldn't get the group of foolish figures, to the loft of your laree "Watering Places," at the National Gallery right. But you could leave them as they were. There was no sitter to complain. All the rest of this glowing pastoral is a magnificent decorative scene; not the wet, homely England that Constable painted. not Nature, but a rich artificial vision, all aglow with fervour and splendour. Yet it ranks second, in my opinion, to the lovely blue pool landscape from the Delawarr collection that was cold last spring at Christie'?. How you would have enjoyed being present, hearing the shout of admiration when it was hoisted upon the easel, the eager bidding, and the fall of the hammer at 5700 guineas ! That was pure Gainsborough — luminous broken colour and feathery trees holding the light. It would have satisfied Corot's test. Birds could seem to be able to fly through tho=:e branches. — Lewis Hind, in the London Evening News.