Thomas Gainsborough

There was nothing that the great English Master and founder of the English School of painting, Thomas Gainsborough, loved more than to 'walk off to some sweet village when I can paint Landskips (landscapes) in quietness and ease'. For although he made his reputation as a portraitist to the 18th-century gentry in Ipswich, London and Bath, his enduring passion was for rural scenes. 

His enthusiasm was kindled early. Born in 1727 in the market town of Sudbury in Suffolk's Stour Valley, he absorbed from boyhood the natural beauty around him. His early landscape Cornard Wood typically echoes the Sudbury countryside that he was to make his own. Even that other magnificent Suffolk painter, John Constable, later commented, 'I fancy I see a Gainsborough in every hedge and hollow tree'. 

After a spell in London, Gainsborough returned to Suffolk where, always strapped for cash, he could 'pick pockets in the portrait way'. But his beloved landscapes still played a unique role in fashionable 'conversation pieces': Mr and Mrs Robert Andrews shows a couple against a ravishing harvest scene reminiscent of Sudbury's fields and hills, its flickering highlights characteristic of the artist's sensitivity to nature and texture.  

Gainsborough's House, the artist's birthplace in Sudbury, displays many of his paintings and the 'quietness and ease' of footpath and bridleway make Suffolk ideal walking and horse-riding terrain. Boating on the River Stour is also popular.

Around 1758, Gainsborough moved to Bath to find new clients to paint. He also loved to sketch outdoors, the environs providing him with more dramatic inspiration than Suffolk's placid countryside. Today's explorers find the city a convenient base whether for bracing hill-walking along the Cotswold Way or a gentle cruise on the restored Kennet and Avon Canal.  

While in Bath, Gainsborough painted both imaginary rural vignettes like The Harvest Waggon and scenes echoing real life. Even when he had returned to London, a 1783 trip to the Lake District - more superb walking country - instigated the moody Mountain landscape with Peasants Crossing a Bridge: as timeless in its appeal as the romantic hills that inspired it.

Further information

South Suffolk (www.babergh-south-suffolk.gov.uk/babergh/home)
Visit Cumbria (www.visitcumbria.com)