CAM Look | Tale of Rivalry: Joshua Reynolds & Thomas Gainsborough | 10/15/21

Welcome to CAM Look, your daily dose of the Cincinnati Art Museum. Each weekday at 10 AM, staff or volunteers from the CAM will highlight an artwork from the museum, so check out this page every weekday at 10 for more. My name is Andrew. I'm the associate director of docent learning at the Art Museum. Today I'll be talking about two giants of 18th century British painting, Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough. But before I go any further, I want to say that I collaborate on this video with one of our docents, Kit Anderson, who did all the writing and research for the video, and I'm just the face on the screen. So thanks to Kit for working on this with me and let's look at some portraits. There are nearly every art museum you visit. Big ones, small ones, great ones, not so great ones. I'm talking about portraits or paintings of specific people, a form of art that's been popular throughout history all over the world for centuries. Museums are full of them. Portraits happen at the intersection of ego, vanity, and money. Rich people, famous people, powerful people. They all hire artists to do portraits that enhance their beauty and disguise their flaws. The artist must please and flatter the client if they want to be paid, so the work requires tact, skill and nerve. Joshua Reynolds and Thomas Gainsborough were portrait painters everyone wanted to hire. These are the two artists competed for clients and commissions throughout their careers in Georgian England in the 1700s and became intense rivals as a result. During that time, the British aristocracy and rising middle class were almost lining up to have their portraits painted, flush with cash thanks to fortunes made from enslaved labor on huge sugar plantations in the British Caribbean. So called Grand Manor portraits by Gainsborough or Reynolds were the ultimate status symbol, the perfect addition to a luxe townhouse or country estate. Reynolds and Gainsborough were contemporaries born just five years apart, but very different men and very different artists. Each was a founding member of the Royal Academy, the official art school and Gallery of England and each was hugely successful, but they approached their work very differently. Reynolds was old school. He studied in Italy and worshipped the Renaissance masters and laid down rules for his students to emulate the classical works of old, urging them to paint ideal forms, eliminate any individual quirks, keep background to a vague minimum or highlight it with classical references, use warm colors and avoid greens and blues. He cultivated the rich and famous and liked socializing with the swells. Reynolds used his influence as head of the Academy to make portraiture every bit as important as history painting. These two works by Reynolds and art collection are good examples of his style, especially the big one or the Grand Manor portrait. Gainsborough was way more laid back. He liked Dutch masters and his work portraits emphasized individual traits, often showing people with musical instruments or other favorite objects in relaxed, comfortable poses that seemed friendly and immediate. He didn't much like the rich, nor did he like painting faces and spent all the time he could doing landscapes instead. He used color boldly. Some think he did the blue boy in defiance of Reynolds' edict against blues. And he spent his free time in bars drinking and enjoying musicians and with others who could never hire him for a portrait. This full length portrait of Ann Ford is typical of Gainsborough and the smaller one featuring a lady in blue is a delicate statement of color. Reynolds was appointed official court artist, but Gainsborough remained the unofficial favorite of the royal family. Reynolds was formal and academic. Gainsborough was relaxed and natural. Who would you like to pose for? But in the end, as Gainsborough lay dying in 1788, he wrote a heartfelt letter of admiration to Reynolds declaring his affection and respect, and Reynolds publicly returned the compliment before he died in 1792. Thanks to their rivalry and skills, Reynolds and Gainsborough left a hefty body of work, a record of the influencers of their day and how they wanted to present themselves to the world. More than 200 years later, we still wander museums and wonder about the people looking back at us from their portraits. And while we might not be able to see the entirety of their rivalry and relationship just from looking at the paintings, we can notice the differences in their style and approach that reflects their desire to paint great portraits. Sometimes we need a little friendly competition to make it happen.