A Coastal Landscape
- Thomas Gainsborough, English, 1727-1788
Thomas Gainsborough, A Coastal Landscape, About 1782–84. Oil paint on canvas; 25 1/8 × 30 1/8 in. (63.8 × 76.5 cm). Gift of the Berger Collection Educational Trust, 2019.13
Thomas Gainsborough was one of England’s most beloved portraitists, but his private passion was painting landscapes. Born in rural Suffolk, in the east of England, he painted pictures, mostly for his own enjoyment, that blended elements seen, both in nature and in works by the old masters, with those invented. In the Berger picture, with its air of calm repose and rural subject, under a sky filled with billowing cumulous clouds, Gainsborough recalls works by seventeenth-century Dutch masters. Its awkward treatment of space and scale—the cows on the headland are too large in relation to the sailboat in the foreground—suggest that he likely created the scene in his studio, as was his practice.
- “Treasures from the Berger Collection: British Paintings 1400-2000” — Denver Art Museum, 10/2/2014 – 9/9/2018
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