Thomas Gainsborough (1727 - 88) is one of the great European painters of the eighteenth century. In Germany he is primarily known for his portraits. This volume is the first to present the English artist as a pivotal figure in the development of "modern" landscape painting, a genre in which his painterly experiments were particularly innovative.

Gainsborough himself favoured landscape painting, a field to which he made important contributions, over his well - known portraits. His works are fascinating for their painterly subtlety and technical variation. This volume brings together German and British traditions of viewing, interpreting, and studying Gainsborough. It looks at the connections to the landscapes of the Dutch and the Italian vedute, explains Ga insborough's unusual and experimental techniques from an art technological point of view, and situates his landscapes in the context of the social tensions of early industrialisation.