Mr. and Mrs. Andrews
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| Mr. and Mrs. Andrews |
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| Thomas Gainsborough , 1749/50 |
| Oil on canvas |
| 69.8 x 119.4 cm |
| National Gallery (London) |
Mr. and Mrs. Andrews is the title of an oil painting by the English painter Thomas Gainsborough . Gainsborough was a little older than 20 years when he painted the double portrait of the newly married couple. Two genres of painting, portrait and landscape painting, are combined in the picture . Both are among the painter's specialties.
Robert Andrews and his country house
In November 1748, 22-year-old country gentleman Robert Andrews married 17-year-old Francis Mary Carter. Andrews settled and his young wife in the wild at his country estate, the farm Auberies in Sudbury in the county of Suffolk , portray. In the picture, the young couple takes up as much space as the representation of the cultivated landscape, which extends far in front of the viewer's gaze.
The English country nobility of the 18th century had enthusiastically adopted the new methods of agriculture developed in Holland. The new cultivation methods led to increases in yields, with which the demand for food from the rapidly growing population could be satisfied. The cultivation of new feed, e.g. B. Klee , at the same time led to an increase in the game population, which also made hunting, the nobility's favorite occupation, more entertaining and successful. The occupation with the management of his goods, supported by the study of a growing number of specialist books, became almost a fashionable, if occasionally more playful than serious occupation of the landlord.
The picture - taken in the course of his wedding - reflects Andrew's pride in the flourishing family estate and also hides the hope that his family will continue to flourish.
description
The couple is on the left half of the picture in front of a mighty oak tree. The young woman, dressed in a light blue silk dress, is sitting on an ornate rococo bench that is almost completely covered by her wide skirt. Next to her leans in a casual posture - in the tradition of male cross-legged portraits - the husband. With his right hand in his trouser pocket, he casually tucked the rifle under his arm, while his left elbow is resting on the back of the bench. He is dressed in a light-colored hunting skirt, black breeches, white stockings, buckled shoes and a three-cornered hat from which two curls peek out gracefully. The piebald hound at his side looks up at his master in devotion. A ray of sun breaking out of the clouds falls on the couple and makes the silk fabric of their clothes shine. An important part of the picture remained unfinished: what Mrs. Andrews was supposed to be holding in her hands in her lap is left to the imagination of the interpreter, only a light spot of primer can be seen on Gainsborough's picture.
The landscape that extends next to the couple is a typical well-tended English cultural landscape with cornfields, groups of trees, meadows fenced with hedges, on which sheep and horses graze and with elongated hills on the horizon. What is striking is the complete absence of active people whose hands owe the appearance of this idyllic landscape.
The couple's stiff, doll-like posture is strange. It is known from Gainsborough that, like his teacher Francis Hayman, he sketched people from nature, but used dolls for the execution of clothing, positions and the arrangement in the picture. The picture was not painted in nature, but composed in the studio from various studies. This leads to the striking contrast between the artificiality of the figures and the naturalistic impression of the landscape. The season also appears artificially composed in the picture. While the leaves of the trees shimmer in a spring-like green as well as the yellowish-green meadow carpet, the fields have already been harvested and the grain has been bundled.
literature
- Bernhard Buderath, Henry Makowski : Nature is subject to man . Ecology as reflected in landscape painting. Munich 1986. ISBN 3-423-02895-5
- John Hayes: The landscape of Thomas Gainsborough. A critical text and cat. rais. London 1982.