Hello, and welcome everyone, to another
ten minute talk at the National Gallery.
My name is Clara, one of the young
producers currently working here, and
today's painting of discussion is 'The
Painter's Daughters Chasing a Butterfly'.
The painter in question is Thomas
Gainsborough, one of the most renowned
portraiture and landscape artists of
eighteenth-century England, and his two
daughters were called Mary and Margaret,
who would have been around six and four
years old when this was painted in 1756.
Now what's really remarkable about this
painting is the tenderness, and real
emotiveness in which Gainsborough has
painted his two daughters. You really get
a sense of their personality, and it's
perhaps one of the most convincing
portraits of children in this gallery.
Another thing that's really remarkable
about this painting is how
compositionally, both in the way in which
he's paired the two sisters together, and
the use of colour, Gainsborough has
suggested that his daughters resemble
and have characteristics similar to the
small butterfly in the corner of the
painting. The two sisters are dressed in
bright, light-coloured dresses. They're
like a beacon of light shining through
the painting, and they're almost the same
colour as the butterfly. They're holding
hands,
they almost seem like a single body, and
researchers have suggested that in fact
each sister could be a wing of the
butterfly.
Now why would Gainsborough make this
connotation between the two sisters and
a butterfly? He was probably trying to
reinforce their innocence, their
fragility, the fact that there are very
delicate and could very easily come to
harm. The white butterfly is also
generally known to be a symbol of purity
of the soul, so he's trying to make all these
connotations. Perhaps he is also trying
to suggest that just like the butterfly
who is fluttering away very quickly, this
moment in their childhood is also going
to pass very quickly as well, just as the
children are trying to run after and
catch this butterfly, he's trying to
capture a moment in their lives which
will be over in a flash. Another
remarkable aspect of this painting is
the individuality of the two sisters. If
you really pay attention to their
features you would immediately get an
impression of what each sister is like,
and it's when you're looking at these
two sisters that you begin to question
whether this scene from their childhood,
where they're running around playing in
a garden, is in fact as playful, as
carefree, and as joyful, as it first may
seem. When you look at their expressions,
it suggests that it's probably not the
case. Let's start with the younger sister,
Margaret, who is reaching out to catch
the butterfly. For somebody who's being
quite impulsive and playful, I can't help
but think that she looks a little bit
melancholic in her expression. She seems
quite sad, perhaps she's about to burst
into tears, because she can't quite catch
the butterfly. Or maybe there's something
else going on. If you actually look at
the butterfly, you would see that it is
sitting on a thistle. So it's a thorny type
of flower. If Margaret does manage to
catch the butterfly, she would inevitably
crush it, but if she doesn't catch the
butterfly she will catch the thorny
plant, and she will hurt herself. So
essentially this is a innocent child at
play, who is going to come to harm. This
is a stark contrast to Mary, the older
sister,
who is not impulsive like the younger
one. In fact, she is holding back. Look at
the way she's holding her younger
sister's hand. Her hand is on top. She is
the older, more dominant sister, and she's
actively restraining the youngest
sister's impulsive urge to lunge forward.
And if you look at her expression, she
also looks very very cautious, not only
does she seem to anticipate what might
happen to her younger sister, she also
seems to be looking beyond the canvas, as
if she's anticipating the dangers beyond,
and has already, even though she's only
around one or two years older than her
sister, she already seems to have gained
an understanding of the outside world
and the potential dangers that it has.
She has already lost her innocence, and
almost as if to reinforce this point, her
dress is yellow, it's not the pure white
of her younger sister. So she's already
grown up, she's already lost a bit of her
innocence, and she's already lost a part
of her childhood.
Why would Gainsborough suggest these
type of emotions in each sister? Why
would there be a suggestion of pathos,
sadness, and even cautiousness? Perhaps he
is trying to reflect and project his own
feelings and anxieties onto his
daughters. Maybe the fact that the older
sister, Mary, looks cautious and
apprehensive, is the father's own
anxieties about his daughter's growing
up in a potentially hostile society.
Perhaps the reason why the background is
so dark: it's a suggestion that there are
dangers for these two girls growing up.
They could come to harm. It's the anxiety
of a father for his two children, and
maybe the fact that Mary looks
sad, and is perhaps about to burst into tears
because she can't catch that butterfly,
is Gainsborough's own sadness at the
realization or knowledge that this
moment in their childhood isn't going to
last, and as he is painting them, that
moment is slipping away.
Perhaps just as they're trying to grab
the butterfly, he is also trying to
capture this moment of childhood innocence.
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