CHARACTER OF GAINSBOROUGH.
Shortly after Gainsborough’s death, Sir Joshua Reynolds, then President of the Royal Academy, delivered a discourse to the students, of which “the character of Gainsborough” was the subject. In this he alludes to Gainsborough’s method of handling—his habit of scratching. “All these odd scratches and marks,” he observes, “which, on a close examination, are so observable in Gainsborough’s pictures, and which, even to experienced painters, appear rather the effect of accident than design—this chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance—by a kind of magic, at a certain distance, assumes form, and all the parts seem to drop into their proper places; so that we can hardly refuse acknowledging the full effect of diligence, under the appearance of chaste and hasty negligence.”