Quotes About Gainsborough

John Smyth, originally from Gainsborough, but by 1608 pastor of the Brethren of the Separation of the Second English Church at Amsterdam, its congregation made up of Lincolnshire farmers, decided that they needed to hear the scriptures in the original. One can only imagine the effect on the poor exiles from Gainsborough: hour on hour of Smyth reading out passages of Hebrew and Greek of which they had not the faintest understanding, desperately looking for the sanctity in this.

Sky and clouds and trees and little figures relaxing in the perfect rural rhythm of their surroundings: these are the staples of a Gainsborough landscape.

If you look at art history, at Goya or Gainsborough, it's always about acknowledging the people of your time who have influence.

But only the English would insist on two separate versions of Gainsborough's checkout line. Or even have the chutzpah to suggest it. Julius Caesar didn't say "Et tu, Brute?" and "Where's the Praetorian guard when you really need them?" John Wilkes Booth didn't shriek "Sic semper tyrannis" and "Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how'd you like the play?