Drinkstone Park Cornard Woodland

Drinkstone Park Cornard Woodland by Thomas Gainsborough is a landscape, oil on canvas painting with dimensions of 155 x 145 cm. The painting was created in 1747 by the painter, who specialised in landscapes and paintings of people. The painting is located at São-Paulo Museum of Art.

The work is one of the author's early works, painted when he was just 20, it shows the promise of his later works and as with many of his landscapes, is set in his native Suffolk, at Drinkstone Park near Bury St. Edmunds. The painting depicts a beautiful natural scene, trees and a track run in the foreground, while further away cattle drink from a pond, under a tree a person rests peacefully, and the sky is expansive. It is a scene of great peace and beauty.

The track, light in colour, as if sand, chalk or stone, winds through almost centrally, starting in the foreground and vanishes round a bend uphill by the pond. To the left of the track are dark native trees such as Oak or Ash, while on the right, younger trees are headed by a dying Birch tree by its colouring, perhaps hit by lightning. Dying off at the top but still with some hopeful foliage. The Birch is precarious on the bank of a small stream with it's roots exposed as they run into the water, the stream just noticeable as it runs through the undergrowth. There is another winding path through the trees on the right, while on the left, under one of the bigger trees, a man, possibly a travelling gentleman, lies to rest with his bundles beside him.

The trees and undergrowth are green but turning to brown, suggesting late summer. At the centre of the painting the pond is calm and dark with slight reflections of land and trees, while the few cattle, black and brown, have the heavy build of beef cattle, and are enjoying wading as well as drinking. In the distance behind the pond, hills rise in the distance. The sky reaches from the back of the painting to the front, a dull pale blue with grey clouds over most of it. The beauty and peace of the painting reaches out and draws the observer into the tranquillity and the unexplored edges.