Thomas Gainsborough was an English portrait and landscape artist, the most versatile English painter of the 18th century. He was the most inventive and original, always prepared to experiment with new ideas and techniques. Gainsborough alone among the great portrait painters of the era also devoted serious attention to landscapes. Unlike Reynolds, he was no great believer in an academic tradition and laughed at the fashion for history painting; an instinctive painter, he delighted in the poetry of paint.