"When the streets are paved with brilliants and the skies made of rainbows I suppose you'll be contented and satisfied with red, blue and yellow.. ..how to satisfy your tawdry friends while you steal back into the mild evening gleam and quiet middle term[?]. I'll tell you, my sprightly genius, how this is to be done. Maintain all your lights, but spare the poor abused colours till the eye rests and recovers. Keep up your music by supplying the place of noise by more sound, more harmony and more tune, and split that cursed fife and drum.. ..he [Mr. Garrick] must feel the truth of what I am now saying, that neither our plays, paintings or music are any longer real works of invention, but the abuse of Nature's lights and what has been already invented in former times."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
letter of Gainbourough, 1772; as cited in Thomas Gainsborough, by William T, Whitley; New York, Charles Scribner's Sons – London, Smith, Elder & Co, Sept. 1915, p. 88
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Gainsborough
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Thomas Gainsborough
Thomas Gainsborough (baptised 14 May 1727 - 2 August 1788) was an English portrait and landscape painter, draughtsman, and printmaker.
56 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Thomas Gainsborough →
Related Quotes
"You please me much by saying that no other fault [in the portrait Gainsborough recently made and sent] is to be found…"
"..w:Froggy did not believe that colour was reducible to system; and Joven, when painting his 'w:The Green Frog', seem…"
"Do you consider, my dear maggotty sir [cosy-name for his friend], what a deal of work history pictures require to wha…"
"damn gentlemen, there is not such a set of enemies to a real artist in the world as they are, if not kept at a proper…"
"..though I'm a rogue in talking upon Painting and love to seem to take things wrong I can be serious and honest upon …"
"Many a real genius is lost in the fictitious character of the Gentleman. I am the most inconsistent, changeable being…"
"One part of a picture ought to be like the first part of a tune, that you guess what follows, and that makes the seco…"
"[I] Pray do you remember carrying me to a picture-dealer's somewhere by Hanover Square, [London], and my being struck…"
"I am much obliged to you for your last letter, and the lessons reed, before. I think I now begin to see a little into…"
"I am favoured with your obliging letter, and shall finish your picture in two or three days at farthest, and send to …"