Wooded Landscape with Family Grouped outside a Cottage Door (The Woodcutter's Return)
Contemporary writers expressed concern about families such as this, living independently in forests rather than labouring for a wage. They were often seen as lawless and lazy trespassers, surviving by furze-cutting and poaching, and defiantly opposing attempts to remove them.
Gainsborough presents an alternative view, perhaps echoing William Gilpin's opinion that 'these little tenements . give pleasure to a benevolent heart' if they are 'the habitations of innocence and industry'. |
