Thomas Gainsborough: Great Art Explained

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This is a painting about snobbery.

At first glance, Thomas Gainsborough's
Mr and Mrs Andrews

looks like just another classic painting
of the 18th century,

celebrating a dynastic marriage
of the upper classes, in all their finery

and set against a backdrop
of their extensive estate.

On closer inspection,
two things stand out:

One is that Mrs Andrews

has the most curious expression
of contempt on her face.

It is surely the most disdainful look
in all of art history.

The other thing that stands out

is this strange area
in the middle of her lap,

which is unfinished.

Something is missing.

In a painting
that is heaving with tension,

it is almost certain that, at some point,

Mr and Mrs Andrews
were so unhappy with the painting,

that they put a halt to the proceedings

- and sent Gainsborough on his way.

The painting would then disappear

and not be seen again for over 200 years.

Thomas Gainsborough was born in 1727

and grew up in Sudbury Suffolk
a county of England.

Robert Andrews and his future wife,
then known as Francis Carter

also grew up in Sudbury.

Their town is the backdrop
to the Andrews portrait.

In fact, you can see sudbury's
All Saints Church steeple in the painting

where the Andrews were married.

Thomas Gainsborough and Robert Andrews

went to the same local grammar school
at the same time

but they were not equals
or indeed friends .

Andrews came from an established
well to do family

while Gainsborough was well below them
on the social ladder.

Robert went on to Oxford
and became a member of the social elite.

Thomas became an apprentice and eventually
a painter of the social elite.

Once fellow pupils they were later
employer and employee.

Gainsborough's father, John, was a weaver
and a trader in fine materials.

His son would be extremely familiar
with the brocades, silk and lace

that he later became such a master
at portraying in paint.

In a twist to this particular story,

Gainsborough's father
went bankrupt in 1733

and his family were saved
by a loan from Mrs Andrew's father

which she would have known about.

In her eyes, Gainsborough
was a charity case

and she had almost certainly
heard the gossip

that Gainsborough got Margaret Burr
pregnant out of wedlock.

Perhaps this explains her disdain.

Gainsborough would make an absolute
fortune from painting portraits

but he hated doing them

and always said that landscapes were
what really interested him.

The problem was that
the price landscapes fetched

wasn't nearly as much as portraits.

This strange portrait managed to combine

his love of landscape
and his desire for money

and it is now considered
his earliest masterpiece.

Gainsborough had already painted
Mrs Andrew's parents three years before.

He was only 22 when Mr and Mrs Andrews
commissioned the portrait

and as his social superiors
they were calling all the shots.

Also they thought

This painting often seen

as a quintessential view
of the English countryside

could be read as a subtle critique
of the upper classes

that Gainsborough resented
but also needed.

The rich would put up
with his bad manners and bad attitude

along with high prices,

because having a portrait
by Gainsborough on your wall

was such a powerful status symbol

and a way to achieve
some form of immortality.

Gainsborough was aware
of his genius early on

and was a difficult man to deal with.

He despised the clients he painted

and it seems obvious
that he couldn't have cared less

about what Mr and Mrs Andrews
thought about him.

It is tempting to think
he deliberately captured

the inherent snobbishness
of the British upper classes

and poured all of his resentment
of Mr and Mrs Andrews into the canvas.

Mr and Mrs Andrews is the widest
landscape Gainsborough painted.

No English artist had used space
in this way before,

and Gainsborough would never attempt
a composition like this again.

The extensive background was a way

for the young painter
to advertise his skills.

Paintings showing couples in front
of the lush countryside were common,

but this painting is unusually
off-kilter and unbalanced.

In a calculated positioning,

they are shunted over
to the left of the frame,

so we get a better view
of their combined wealth.

In effect there are three portraits
in this painting:

a man, a woman, and their land.

While Mrs Andrews is looking down
her nose at us,

or more likely the artist,

her husband looks as pleased as punch
with his lot in life.

Smug even.

He is more than happy with his young wife,

and in particular the status and land
that came with her.

It has been called a wedding picture
but it is not.

They were married
two years before, in 1748,

when Robert — age 22 —
married Francis — age 16.

Only two weeks after the wedding,
her father died suddenly

and Robert as the man of the house
inherited all HER family land.

This is why he commissioned Gainsborough
to paint this triple portrait.

As a statement of their arrival

into the super wealthy
land-owning classes,

with combined estates
of about 3,000 acres,

including most of the land
visible in the painting.

They chose to have their portraits,
not in their landscaped garden,

or in front of their lavish house,
as most wealthy couples did,

but rather with a backdrop
of their agricultural working land

- in effect their farm.

The house can't be seen,
but it is just behind us, the viewer.

We now know that
they are facing the house,

because it still exists - right here.

The tree still exists too, and it is here.

All Saints Church, however,
is all the way over here,

unlikely to be seen through
the various trees in the way.

It is common for artists
to manipulate landscape

to fit in with their vision
of what reality should look like.

And so Gainsborough
has taken some "artistic license".

He places the church where they married
in the background

to reiterate the alliance between
two local land-owning families.

He has also brought the "cornfields"
right up to their doorstep,

to emphasise the working land.

The "corn" can be read
as a symbol of fertility,

and the small tree growing between
the two larger on the right

is a "nod" to future children.

Wives like Mrs Andrews would have been
promised to their husbands

when they were children,

and married off at 15 or 16.

It was a business transaction carefully
transcribed by teams of lawyers

to make sure wealth, property, and land,
stayed in the "right" hands.

France's was just another Rich pawn
with a rather large dowry.

The couple pose under the old oak tree,
on the grounds of their estate.

Mr Andrews is standing on its roots

which suggests stability and continuity
for his family and his land.

The oak is a deeply symbolic tree,
indigenous to England,

and the landed gentry
had often been compared

to the "oak that holds Britain together".

It demonstrates that Mr Andrews thought
he had a God-given right to the land.

For many in high society

the Andrews were parvenues
or nouveau-riche.

Robert Andrew's father
was a businessman,

who rose through the social ranks
with money - "new money".

Andrew's father bought his son
a vast estate

and secured an excellent bride,
Francis Mary Carter,

in a successful attempt to further
integrate Robert into the upper classes.

With the Industrial Revolution
just around the corner,

things were changing

and it wasn't long before businessmen
would outrank the "Blue Bloods".

Recent changes in both farm technology
and land ownership

had benefited gentlemen farmers
like Andrews,

but pushed the poor off the land
in the process.

In 1701 a farmer/inventor
called Jethro Tull,

invented the seed drill,

an agricultural machine that, by 1750,

had wheels, was pulled by a horse,

could be operated by one man

and sowed seeds
in three uniform rows, with no waste.

Previously, sowing seeds was done by hand

- a scatter approach
that created seed waste

and used expensive labour.

Anyone looking at this painting in 1750,

knew straight away that
the newly harvested cornfield

with the straight planted lines,

meant that Mr Andrews was using
this new method,

and was a man ahead of his time.

The fenced off areas
with sheep in the distance

tell another story.

Once, it would have been common land
for the poor to graze their animals,

in a feudal system
that went back centuries.

But a series of laws
known as the "Enclosure acts",

took the common grazing land away
from the poor,

put a fence around it,

and gave it to wealthy landlords.

Because of his background,