[MUSIC] One of Gainsborough's most popular paintings is his The Blue Boy, here given pride of place in the Huntington's Thornton Gallery, where it hangs opposite Sir Thomas Lawrence's Pinkie, a portrait of the daughter of a planter from the West Indies dancing on a hilltop. It became a favourite among the general art loving public. From its first exhibition, The Blue Boy reached a level of popularity among the art loving public rarely afforded to an academic painting, and it remains, to this day, a favourite with the contemporary Californian. And indeed, with the international community of art lovers. Pinky and Blue Boy make an engaging pair, and many visitors to the Huntington head straight to the gallery to see them. Not unlike the visitors who make sure they see the Mona Lisa, when they are in Paris. Jonathan Buttall was for many years thought to be the model for The Blue Boy. But Gainsborough Dupont, the artist's nephew, who worked in his uncle's studio and was also the model for other paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, is now considered to be a more likely candidate. The picture is an excellent example of the great emphasis on costume and fashion in English portraits of the 1770s. And the blue silk suit so clearly featured in the Blue Boy became a trademark through which Gainsborough's reputation transcended the relatively narrow interests of academic painting into a broader popular sphere. How we can read this portrait through the lens of sensibility? As we've come to understand, one of the themes of the crisis in sensibility of the later years of the 18th century was concerned about the movement away from masculine values, towards the more feminized culture that accompanied the development of mercantile capitalism and the emergence of urbanism. The arts of cloth making, watch making, ship building, and the production of food, went through a revolution over the 18th century. As markets all over Europe brought much greater prosperity, there was across the board, increased levels of luxury, and even what Simons Scharma called an embarrassment of riches in some circles. The representation of the fine costume of Gainsborough sitters is a feature of his paintings of the 1760s and the 1770s. Only surpassed perhaps in the fashionable portraiture of Sir Anthony Van Dyke, whose work Gainsborough greatly admired. Portraiture was, of course, Gainsborough's bread and butter. And the wonderfully skilled depiction of the sitter's costume was one of the aspects that drew patrons to Gainsborough's studio in Bath. Susan Sloman has pointed out that Gainsborough's background in the wool trade, his father was a weaver and his sister a milliner, would have trained his eye to the materiality of cloth and enabled his extraordinary skill in rendering the appearance of fabrics. Gainsborough's The Blue Boy is certainly a young man with very fine feathers, who by his dress, is embracing the values of effeminacy. With the new luxury provided by the unparalleled growth of markets in the 18th century, came extraordinary grandeur of dress and with that, a culture thought to be one that more firmly embraced feminine values. Men marked their apprehensions over relinquishing the older male ideals associated with classical warriors and farmers, through a boundary they named effeminacy. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury, for example, a prolific writer on sensibility, was very concerned about what this meant for the morals and the public and private behaviour of both men and women. Not long after the picture arrived here at the Huntington, the American cartoon character Dennis the Menace pronounced the Blue Boy a sissy. This was exactly what critics of sensibility were worried about in the 18th century. That men had so embraced feminine values in attempting to take on the culture of refinement, that they'd become too feminine. It was believed that the more men refined their pleasures, the more humane they became. And the less susceptible they were then to indulge in vices such as gluttony, drunkenness and whoring, thereby contributing to the improvement of public life. But were they neglecting their masculine side? The sport of fox hunting was recommended as an antidote. Sir John Eardly Wilmot, for example, recommended the manly amusement of fox hunting as an entirely British antidote to effeminacy. He wrote, and I quote, its pursuit gives hardihood, and nerve, and intrepidity to our youth. While it confirms and prolongs the strength and vigour of our manhood. It is the best corrective to those habits of luxury, and those concomitants of wealth, which would otherwise render our aristocracy effeminate and degenerate. It serves to retain the moral influence of the high over the lower classes of society, promotes good fellowship among equal, and is one of the strongest, preservative of that national spirit by which we are led to cherish above all things, a life of active energy, independence, and freedom. Blue Boy is clearly not about to embark on a fox hunt, but it still cuts a manly figure. While he's very elaborately dressed, the pose of the figure and the direct gaze to the viewer undermines the effeminacy that otherwise might have undercut the figure's masculinity. Blue Boy firmly stands his ground as he looks straight at the viewer. His left hand resting on his hip is wrapped in more loose silk drapery. His right hand by his side holds a cavalier style feathered hat. He stands in the contrapposto pose, the classical statuary. His ribbon shoe laces completing his study in blue. But he is no sissy, nor is he here represented as a man of feeling. X-ray photography shows that Gainsborough originally included a shaggy dog in the right foreground of his picture. The dog is a water hound of the type seen in other works by Gainsborough, such is the portrait of his two girls entitled, The Painter's Daughters. It may have indeed been the same dog. Here is the infrared photograph for you to study. Why do you think Gainsborough removed the dog form the painting? How would the dog have changed the painting had he left it in place? Do you think effeminacy is still an issue today? Why do men and women worry about crossing boundaries and whether or not they conform to stereotypes of gendered behaviour? Is it important? Does it matter? Was Gainsborough being witty here, or merely conforming to the most progressive gender codes of his day? What do you think? [MUSIC]
