What did Thomas Gainsborough learn from studying paintings by Peter Paul Rubens?

Around 1760, Peter Paul Rubens became a primary influence on Thomas Gainsborough’s work, supplanting his earlier interest in Dutch painters. From studying Rubens, Gainsborough adopted a richer color palette and incorporated beautiful, creamy pastel shades into his landscapes, as seen in Peasants Returning from Market.1

Gainsborough also learned to utilize more fluent drawing techniques and began incorporating larger-scale elements, such as the grand beech trees featured in The Harvest Wagon, which contrasted sharply with the smaller oaks he had previously painted in Suffolk. Furthermore, he drew direct compositional inspiration from Rubens; for instance, he copied Rubens’s Descent from the Cross to inform the arrangement of figures in his own work. This influence helped Gainsborough blend the real and the ideal in his idyllic landscape scenes.1