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The Blue Boy

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stands next to Thomas Lawrence's Pinkie

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achieved a level of popularity rarely afforded to an academic painting

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Pinkie and Blue Boy make an engaging pair

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Jonathan Buttall was thought to be the model for the Blue Boy

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but Gainesborough's nephew is a more likely candidate

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an example of costume and fashion in English portraits in the 1770s

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the blue suit

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became a trademark which made Gainsborough famous into a broader, popular sphere

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sensibility

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the move away from masculine values towards a more feminized culture, which accompanied

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mercantile capitalism

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the emergence of urbanism

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the arts of cloth-making, watch-making, ship-building, and the production of food went through a revolution over the 18th century

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markets across Europe brought an increased level of prosperity

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increased level of luxury

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an embarrassment of riches

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a skilled representation of the sitter's costume

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one of the aspects that drew patrons to Gainsborough's studio in Bath

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his father was a weaver and his sister a milliner

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trained his eye to the materiality of cloth

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enabling his extraordinary skill of rendering the appearance of fabrics

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the Blue Boy's costume embraces the values of effeminacy

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the new luxury provided by the unparalleled grown of markets in the 18th century

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extraordinary grandeur of dress

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a culture that more thoroughly embraced feminine values

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men marked their apprehensions over relinquishing their older male ideals associated with classical warriors and farmers

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The Third Earl of Shaftesbury

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was concerned with what this meant for the morals, and the public behavior of both men and women

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after the Blue Boy arrived at the Huntington

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the American cartoon character Dennis the Menace pronounced the Blue Boy a sissy

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this was what critics of sensibility were worried about in the 18th century

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that men had so embraced feminine values in attempting to take on the culture of refinement, that they had become too feminine

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it was believed that the more men refined their pleasures, the more humane they became

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and the less susceptible they were then to indulge in vices such as gluttony, drunkenness and whoring, thereby contributing to the improvement of public life

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but it was afraid that they were neglecting their masculine side

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the sport of fox hunting was suggested as an anecdote

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Sir John Eardly Wilmot recommended the manly amusement of fox hunting as an entirely British antidote to effeminacy

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"It's pursuit gives hardihood, and nerve, and intrepidity to our youth, while it confirms and prolongs the strength and vigor of our manhood. It is the best corrective to those habits of luxury, and those concomitants of wealth, which would otherwise render our aristocracy effeminate and degenerate. It serves to retain the moral influence of the high over the lower classes of society, promotes good fellowship among equals, and is one of the strongest, preservative of that national spirit by which we are led to cherish above all life of active energy, independence, and freedom."

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Blue Boy is clearly not about to embark on a fox hunt, but he still cuts a manly figure

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elaborately dressed

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the pose of the figure and the direct gaze to the viewer undermines the effeminacy that otherwise might have undercut the figure's masculinity

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he firmly stands his ground as he looks straight at the viewer

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his left hand rests on his hip is wrapped in more loose silk drapery

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his right hand by his side holds a cavalier style feathered hat

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he stands in the contrapposto pose, the classical statuary

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his ribbon shoe laces completing his study in blue

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his stance is not that of a sissy at all

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nor is he here represented as a man of feeling

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x-ray photography shows that Gainsborough originally included a shaggy dog in the right foreground of the picture

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a water hound of the type seen in other works by Gainsborough

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reasons Gainsborough may have removed the dog from the painting

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the dog may have given the Blue Boy a more effeminate sense, as with some of Gainsborough's other paintings

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it raised the issue of crossing gender boundaries

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perhaps Gainsborough was being witty by removing the dog

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or perhaps he was conforming to aggressive gender codes of his day