2. The Blue Boy

Date: 1770
Nationality: English
Painter: Thomas Gainsborough
Medium: Painting

Thomas Gainsborough was an English Rococo painter.  The English Rococo movement was very flattering to the aristocratic subjects.  They also featured pleasant natural settings to make the viewer feel content.  With Blue Boy, Gainsborough broke away from tradition.  Artists at the time had great difficulty creating intense blues, because the usual pigments are not very strong. Gainsborough saw this as a problem, and wanted to do something different.  He ground lapis lazuli, a "semi-precious stone," to make the intense blue pigment you see at the right.  Presumably, he got this knowledge from the authority of others.  He had to find these blue stones in the first place, before he could even determine that they would create such an impressive display with his artwork.  With the intense blue, the Blue Boy stands out and catches your attention more than most any other painting I've seen.  I would bring this so that our civilization could recognize the need for problem solving in order to create art.  The need to express requires creativity and learning, often against the traditions of the time.