Shortly after Gainsborough’s death, Sir Joshua Reynolds, then President
of the Royal Academy, delivered a discourse to the students, of which
“the character of Gainsborough” was the subject. In this he alludes to
Gainsborough’s method of handling--his habit of _scratching_. “All these
odd scratches and marks,” he observes, “which, on a close examination,
are so observable in Gainsborough’s pictures, and which, even to
experienced painters, appear rather the effect of accident than
design--this chaos, this uncouth and shapeless appearance--by a kind of
magic, at a certain distance, assumes form, and all the parts seem to
drop into their proper places; so that we can hardly refuse
acknowledging the full effect of diligence, under the appearance of
chaste and hasty negligence.”