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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/thomas-gainsborough-199" aria-label="More by Thomas Gainsborough" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Thomas Gainsborough</a>
Wooded Landscape with a Peasant Resting
Purchased 1889
actions: postures and motions
adults
architecture
church
cloud
East Anglia
England
England, East
features
forest
landscape
man
path
people
places
religious
sitting
Suffolk
tower
townscapes / man-made features
UK counties
UK countries and regions
village
weather
<p>This is one of Gainsborough's first landscapes, painted during his apprentice years in London when he was about twenty years old. The influence of Dutch seventeenth-century landscape painters is apparent in the detailed naturalistic treatment of the foliage and the ordered composition. The view is not strictly topographical but rather a poetic interpretation of his native Suffolk scenery, bathed in a pink light.</p><p>Although portraiture later became the main source of Gainsborough's fame and income, he was also one of the earliest British painters to produce important landscapes, admired for their freshness and fluency of handling.</p><p><em>Gallery label, September 2004</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
12 July 2004 – 20 June 2005
2005-06-20
12 July 2004
2004-07-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2004-07-12
Portraits and Perspectives
Collection based display
11 July 2005 – 18 November 2007
2007-11-18
11 July 2005 – 18 November 2007
2007-11-18
2005-07-11
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2005-07-11
The British Landscape
Collection based display
2 December 2010 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2 December 2010 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2010-12-02
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2010-12-02
Gallery 9
Collection based display
24 October 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
24 October 2017 – 14 January 2018
2018-01-14
2017-10-24
National Gallery of Ireland (Dublin, Ireland)
http://www.nationalgallery.ie
2017-10-24
Frederic William Burton: Ireland's Favourite Painter, London's Director
Loan-out
2 March 2018 – 27 May 2018
2018-05-27
2 March 2018 – 27 May 2018
2018-05-27
2018-03-02
Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg, Germany)
http://www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de
2018-03-02
Gainsborough. The landscape of the Modern World
Loan-out
20 February 2021 – 4 February 2023
2023-02-04
20 February 2021 – 31 May 2021
2021-05-31
2021-02-20
Mitsubishi Ichigokan (Tokyo, Japan)
1 July 2022 – 9 October 2022
2022-10-09
2022-07-01
Villa Vauban (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg)
24 October 2022 – 4 February 2023
2023-02-04
2022-10-24
Reggia di Venaria Reale (Turin, Italy)
2021-02-20
Constable and England: A History of His Affections
Tate partnerships & programmes
Wooded Landscape with a Peasant Resting
support: 625 × 781 mm
frame: 830 × 972 × 100 mm
Purchased 1889
<p>Gainsborough was born in Sudbury, in Suffolk. Although <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraiture</span></a> later became the main source of his fame and income, he was also one of the earliest native painters to produce serious <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscapes</span></a> showing English scenery. Many of  Gainsborough's early works were based on the Suffolk countryside, characterised by its flatness, open fields, wooded copses and rutted roads, with which he was familiar. The landscape of Suffolk was also to be the inspiration for the painter John Constable (1776-1837) half a century later, who famously remarked, 'Tis a most delightfull country for a landscape painter. I fancy I see Gainsborough in every hedge and hollow tree.'

</p><p>In Gainsborough's early years in London in the 1740s, he seems to have been known primarily as a landscape painter and by 1748 his talent was already sufficiently noted for William Hogarth (1697-1762) to commission a small view of <i>The Charterhouse</i> from him for the Foundling Hospital (Thomas Coram Foundation, London).

</p><p><i>Wooded Landscape</i> is one of Gainsborough's landscapes, painted when he was about twenty years old, during his apprentice years in London. Although Gainsborough was absent from his native county (to which he returned the following year, in 1748), the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/painting" title="Glossary definition for 'Painting'"><span>painting</span></a> is clearly a vision of the Suffolk landscape, with its open sky and woodland track. The brightly illuminated church tower in the background, glimpsed between the trees, could be in an actual village, although it has not been identified.

</p><p>The view is not, however, intended to be strictly topographical but rather a poetic interpretation of the Suffolk scenery. It is typical of Gainsborough's early landscapes in its obvious debt to Dutch painters of the seventeenth century, especially Jacob van Ruisdael (1628/9-82) and Jan Wijnants (c.1625-84). The Dutch influence is apparent in the ordered <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a> and the detailed observation of nature, in particular the naturalistic treatment of the foliage, where Gainsborough has recorded an astonishing variety of different greens. The apparent naturalism of the composition is, in fact, highly contrived, with a central path between two balanced masses of trees leading the eye to the sunlit landscape beyond, a device clearly derived from Ruisdael. 

</p><p>Like many of Gainsborough's early works, the handling of <i>Wooded Landscape</i> is fresh and fluent, with a crisp touch that gives a lively sparkle to the <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvas</span></a> more akin to French <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/r/rococo" title="Glossary definition for 'Rococo'"><span>Rococo</span></a> painters, such as Antoine Watteau (1684-1727), than the earlier Dutch masters. The painting is innovative in fusing Dutch compositional devices and detailed observation with a French Rococo mood, alongside Gainsborough's wholly individual feeling for the light and atmosphere of the English countryside.

</p><p>A mood of afternoon pastoral contentment is established by the reclining peasant, resting by the wayside under the shade of a tree. The figure is ultimately derived from Watteau, possibly absorbed via the work of the English painter, Francis Hayman (1708-76), with whom Gainsborough is known to have collaborated. It is a characteristic motif that Gainsborough used in many of his early landscapes, including <i>Landscape with Figures under a Tree</i>, c.1746 (Tate <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gainsborough-landscape-with-figures-under-a-tree-n01486" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N01486</span></a>).

</p><p>Further Reading<br/>E.K. Waterhouse, <i>Gainsborough</i>, London 1958, no. 853<br/>John Hayes, <i>The Landscape Paintings of Thomas Gainsborough</i>, 2 vols 1982, no. 19<br/><i>Young Gainsborough</i>, exhibition National Gallery, London, 1997, no.25<br/>Amal Asfour and Paul Williamson, <i>Gainsborough's Vision</i>, 1999, p.29, reproduced in colour pl. 11

</p><p>
</p><p>Diane Perkins<br/>July 2001</p>
Summary
2005-12-22T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<div class="pbodytext">
<span class="text14">This is one of Gainsborough's first <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/l/landscape" title="Glossary definition for 'Landscape'"><span>landscapes</span></a>,</span><span class="text0"> painted during his apprentice years in London when he      was about twenty years old. The influence of Dutch seventeenth-century      landscape painters is apparent in the detailed naturalistic treatment of      the foliage and the ordered <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/composition" title="Glossary definition for 'Composition'"><span>composition</span></a>. The view is not strictly      topographical but rather a poetic interpretation of his native Suffolk      scenery, bathed in a pink light. </span>
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<div class="para9">
<span class="text0">
<br/> </span>
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<span class="text15">Although <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/portrait" title="Glossary definition for 'Portrait'"><span>portraiture</span></a> later became the main</span><span class="text0"> </span><span class="text10">source of Gainsborough's fame      and income,</span><span class="text0"> </span><span class="text14">he was      also one of the earliest British painters</span><span class="text0"> to      produce important landscapes, admired for their freshness and fluency of      handling. </span>
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2004-09-10T00:00:00
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actions: postures and motions adults architecture church cloud East Anglia England England, East features forest landscape man path people places religious sitting Suffolk tower townscapes / man-made features UK counties UK countries and regions village weather