Dimensions: support: 197 x 171 mm frame: 315 x 290 x 50 mm
Copyright: CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: Here we have Johan Zoffany’s “Thomas Gainsborough,” a small portrait held at the Tate. I’m struck by how unfinished it feels. What do you see in this piece? Curator: The unfinished quality is revealing. Note Gainsborough's gaze, averted, lost in thought. This wasn't just a likeness; it was meant to capture his essence. The unfinished state suggests an attempt to access a deeper truth. Can we ever truly capture a person's soul in an image? Editor: So, the incompleteness might be intentional, highlighting the impossibility of fully representing someone? Curator: Precisely. It becomes a poignant symbol of memory, always partial, always fading. Editor: That gives me a whole new way to look at it. Thanks! Curator: Indeed, art often speaks loudest in its silences.
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/zoffany-thomas-gainsborough-n01487
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This study of Thomas Gainsborough was probably made as part of Zoffany's preparations for an elaborate group portrait of members of the new Royal Academy of Arts, which he painted in 1771-2. Gainsborough was one of the Academy's founder members. In spite of this study, Gainsborough was not in fact included in Zoffany's final painting. He disliked the Academy's self-importance and formality, and his absence from Zoffany's final picture probably reflects his half-hearted relationship with it. Gallery label, September 2004
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