| GAH | GAI |
mentary papers connected with art and artists. Among his acquirements are reckoned the Greek, Latin, French, English, German, Dutch, Danish, and Spanish languages.
He died while on a visit to the Countess of Guildford, at Putney Heath, April 16, 1825, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. As a teacher he was a great favourite with the students, and had considerable influence over them. His energetic manner, his wild enthusiasm, his caustic wit, and the irritable cynicism with which even his instruction was conveyed, took deep hold upon their young minds; and tales of him are still, and will long continue, rife in the schools. His pupils presented him on his retirement with a handsome silver vase, designed by Flaxman. That his instruction was not only appreciated by them, but was sound, is evidenced by the many very distinguished men who passed through the antique school during his keepership. The enthusiastic poetry of his art was hardly for the multitude, though he was made largely popular by the many engravings from his works. He was a congenial student of Michael Angelo; terrible often in his bold energetic style and the wild originality of his inventions—never tame or commonplace—the action of his figures violent and overstrained, very mannered, yet often noble and dignified. His females were without beauty—all framed on the same model—unfeminine and coarse. The critics did not spare him, nor he them. Dayes said 'he had no conception of female beauty; his women were the devil;' and Peter Pindar, that 'he was the fittest artist on earth to be appointed hobgoblin painter to the devil;' while Barry criticising his art, said, 'Talk of the beau ideal—it is the beau frightful you mean.' Yet as an illustrator of Shakespeare he stands far before all his contemporaries. Wanting in elementary knowledge and the proper training of his profession, he has no refinement or accuracy in drawing, and in some cases his attitudes are impossible. He is equally defective with regard to the laws of colour and the processes of painting, and many of his works are fast going to decay.
G
GAHAGAN, Sebastian, sculptor. He was born in Ireland, and coming to England was an assistant to Nollekens, R.A. From 1802 he was an occasional exhibitor at the Royal Academy. His contributions were chiefly monumental designs; among them, in 1816, the 'Victory,' which forms part of Sir Thomas Picton's monument, by him, in St. Paul's; in 1819, 'The Cradle Hymn,' portraits with sometimes a bust. He last exhibited, 1835, the model of a statue to Earl Grey. In 1810 the directors of the British Institution awarded him a premium of 50 guineas for his model, 'Samson breaking his Bonds,' The figures of 'Isis' and 'Osiris,' in the front of the Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly, and the Duke of Kent's statue, at the top of Portland Place, are by him. He was one of a family of modellers. One of his brothers, an assistant to Westmacott, R.A., was killed by the fall of Cannings statue, on which he was working.
GAINSBOROUGH, Thomas, R.A., portrait and landscape painter. He was born in 1727 (the day unknown, but baptized May 14), at Sudbury, Suffolk, where his father, a clothier, possessed a small property, which was soon lessened by a liberal disposition and the charges of a large family. He was early addicted to sketching from the rustic scenery of the neighbourhood, and at the age of 15 came to London for instruction, and gaining an introduction to Gravelot, the engraver, was assisted by him in his early studies, and entered the St. Martin's Lane Academy. He afterwards became the pupil of Frank Hayman, with whom he continued nearly four years, and having acquired some skill in drawing and the technical processes of his art, he found nothing more to be gained in the insipid conventionalities which then prevailed, and returned to his native town, where he began practice as a portrait painter, and occasionally painted a small landscape, for which he usually found a purchaser, at a low price, among the dealers.
At the age of 19 he married, in London, a young lady who possessed an annuity of 200l., and then with his wife took up his residence at Ipswich. After practising there some time he was induced te visit Bath, where the fashionable world then used to congregate, and settling there he commenced, about 1758, painting three-quarter portraits at five guineas, which he was soon enabled to raise to eight. In his day he was chiefly employed and esteemed as a portrait painter, while his landscapes were disregarded. Later, it may be eclipsed by the reputation of Reynolds, his landscapes were deemed his chief works. It is said that Sir Joshua at an Academy dinner gave, 'The health of Mr. Gainsborough, the {{nop} 164
