A Woodland Pool with Rocks and Plants 

Thomas Gainsborough made this landscape drawing with chalk and wash, likely sometime in the late 18th century. Here, the marks aren't trying to mimic reality. Rather, Gainsborough seems interested in the essence of things. Look at how the chalk, dragged across the paper, evokes the rough texture of bark. The water is suggested with broad, almost haphazard strokes of diluted ink. You can sense the artist thinking through the sheer materiality of the world, reducing it all to colored earth, water, and the surface of the paper itself. Consider, too, that Gainsborough made his name as a society portraitist. It was this work that paid the bills. Landscapes like this were largely for his own pleasure, a space for material experimentation, unburdened by the demands of the market. Thinking about art in this way helps us look past conventional categories. We often separate the “fine” arts from the realm of “craft” – but in reality, artists often work with an intuitive, hands-on approach that disregards these boundaries altogether.