Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Thomas Gainsborough: A Record of His Life and Works
In the world of literature, as in that of politics and of science, many great stars arose and set during Gainsborough's career. Samuel johnson was just beginning to attract notice by his Latin translations in the year the artist was born, and died three years before him; Oliver Goldsmith, one year younger than Gainsborough, was cut Off in the prime of life in 1774, when his great contemporary was at the zenith of his fame; Fielding's first comedy was produced in Drury Lane when Gainsborough was a year old; Cowper, though he was four years younger than the artist and survived him sixteen years, had produced all his best work and sunk into imbecility before 1788. In 1727 Richardson was still a mere scribbler for the newspapers, his Pamela not having been produced till 1740; Sterne, a lad Of fourteen when Gainsborough was born, did not issue the book which made his reputation till he was fifty; Chatterton, the brilliant meteor who ?ashed so rapidly across the literary firmament to be quenched in early dissolu tion, was born whilst Gainsborough was still a struggling painter at Ipswich, and died before the great artist had reached the acme of his fame Gray, with whose quiet descriptions of rural scenery the landscapes of Gainsborough had some affinity, was producing his immortal works of classic style, but truly English sentiment, when the Suffolk painter was just beginning his career; Burns was the idol of Scotland and of England throughout the whole of Gainsborough's career; and the mystery of Dean Swift's connection with Stella was still being eagerly canvassed in literary circles when the young neophyte first came to London.
In striking contrast with the intense and fevered political and literary activity of the eighteenth century, not only in England, but throughout Europe, was the decline of all true art production. In Italy, the land so long prolific of painters of real genius, not a single name of note rises above the dead level of uniform mediocrity: for Canaletto, Guardi.
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