There’s a little fancy boy in a blue satin suit at the National Gallery, and everyone’s very excited to see him. He’s been gone for 100 years, ever since he was sold to a Californian businessman for a huge load of money, and he’s finally back. Don’t worry, this isn’t human trafficking, he’s not a real boy, but a celebrated painting by the great English artist Thomas Gainsborough. And after all this time away, is he worth the wait?
The work, like much of Gainsborough’s oeuvre, owes a hefty debt to Anthony Van Dyck, the Flemish court painter who’d been the British royal darling a century earlier. Two Van Dyck works are here, alongside ‘The Blue Boy’ and two other Gainsborough portraits. The older artist’s work is all pompous posing, staggeringly enormous aristocratic jawlines and endless, lavish fabric. Gainsborough’s works take all that and tone it down, softening the edges for more modern sensibilities.
Especially ‘The Blue Boy’. He’s stood proudly in a disconcertingly tempestuous, dark, swirling landscape. It looks like a downpour is imminent, surely set to soak his ruffles and bows, but his soft eyes and rosy cheeks show that he doesn't care. He’s gentle and wistful, a tender figure in a dark world. The opposite of Van Dyck’s figures.
That’s the problem with showing Gainsborough and Van Dyck together, you end up comparing them, and old Tommy doesn’t come out of it all that well. Where Van Dyck’s faces are razor sharp, crystal clear and intense, Gainsborough’s are soft and muted, fuzzy and hazy. Van Dyck’s fabrics shimmer and ripple, Gainsborough’s frizzle and fracture. He is loose and soft focus, Van Dyck is searing and precise.
But a painting this famous and adored is such a part of the cultural landscape of its time that it sort of exists beyond criticism. It’s a celebrity more than a painting, a cultural landmark more than an artwork. The real question is, where can I get myself one of those little blue satin suits.