EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
More notes at http://tanguay.info/learntracker
C O U R S E
Sexing the Canvas: Art and Gender
Jeanette Hoorn, The University of Melbourne
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E Gainsborough's Cottage Door: Charity and Sensibility Notes taken on December 22, 2016 by Edward Tanguay |
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Charity and Sensibility
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Gainsborough painted this painting towards the end of his career
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one of several pictures on this theme
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how the representation of the rural poor and the theme of charity became part of the civic culture of the 18th century
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many of Gainsborough's works include references to labor and the working class
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one theme was impoverished mothers and their children
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presented with the aim of
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1. eliciting sympathy with the viewer
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2. reminding the public of its own capacity for carrying out good works
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Cottage Door series
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show country folk gathering around a cottage door
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using in the clearing in a forest
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the theme first appeared about 1770
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many paintings
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18 published drawings on the theme
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many show a mother with a baby in her arms
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sometimes accompanied by other women
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surrounded by other children ranging in age
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sometimes a dog plays with the children
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in one portrait, pigs are feeding nearby
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feeling evoked
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a happy but not a prosperous rural life
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innocence and simplicity
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draws attention to poverty in the English countryside
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gentleness and complacency
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related to strands of the culture of sensibility
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an interest in sensation
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style, palette, lighting
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theatrical devices
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palette is high pitched, designed to draw the eye of the viewer
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the composition is closed as though it might be on a stage
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content
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lesson of charity
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the viewer may conclude that it is the responsibility of the well-to-do to fee sympathy for and assist the poor
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especially mothers and their babies
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1784 Charity Relieving Distress
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landscapes
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1783 A Sea Piece, A Calm
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a brush stroke was so scratchy
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difficult to make out subject of the work
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emulated Rubens, Claude, Rosa, Murillo
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admired the work of Adriaen van Ostade, Jacob van Ruisdael, and Aelbert Cuyp
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pictures show evidence of rapid enclosure of common land
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the poor being driven through a countryside with carts laden with their meager possessions
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concerned with the social reality of the English countryside
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"to him that feels it with great sensibility, a mind able to see common incidents in their real state is disposed by very common incidents to very serious contemplation"
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in valuing what is seemingly insignificant, sensibility set a store by things that seemed meaningless and was moved with profound feeling in the presence of the ordinary
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sensibility is an interest in and an awareness to others, and an ability to enter into them
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the ability to feel with another
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studies of the ordinary
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but also about empathy
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predominantly about women and usually more than one figure
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some only pictured one woman
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Housemaid
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Girl with Pigs
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more commonly, he represents women and children
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figures performing labor
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man returning to cottage
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none of the figures look out at the viewer
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aware that they are the subject of the gaze
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life is too busy for that
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clothing is simple if not ragged
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child eating soup
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another child reaches for it
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Gainsborough had a concern for the care of mothers and their children
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he was involved with the London Founding Hospital
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painted of the hunger suffered by rural women and their children
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some say, however, that the child figures appear to be relatively well fed and attractive
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he shows the rural poor in a palatable manner
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literature that refers to impoverished mothers and their children
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no society could be happy when more than half the members are poor and miserable
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it was the role of aristocratic and middle class women in particular to perform acts of charity
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they should visit poor cottages and relieve their necessities
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Mary Wollstonecraft
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when a governess in Ireland
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visited the cabins of the poor
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tender sympathy and wholesome counsels to the indigent and industrious cottages
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given the number of paintings of the poor
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we can conclude the Gainsborough had an interest in the fate of the rural working women and their children
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as a man of sensibility, it was his duty to teach these sentiments to others