Are you a fan of the Florentine school or the Venetian school of painting? Choosing to paint within the lines—the Florentine method—or using paint to obliterate the lines altogether—the Venetian method—has been a perennial question for painters since the Renaissance. Currently at the San Diego Museum of Art in Balboa Park is a pair of exhibitions by two British artists—one old and one new—who are definitely against painting within the lines. The two exhibitions Thomas Gainsborough and the Modern Woman and Howard Hodgkin: Time and Place are both worth seeing if you are fans of the Venetian tradition and love to view paintings with brushstroke bravura.

The female subjects of Gainsborough’s portraits were both famous and notorious. Gainsborough’s portraits were often painted to rehabilitate or enhance the reputations of his female subjects, who were actresses, aristocracy, and courtesans. One such portrait is “Mrs. Grace Dalrymple Elliott” (1754?-1823) who endured a messy, humiliating, and public divorce from her husband John Elliot by his successful accusation of his wife having an affair with Lord Valentia. With a whirl of loose brushstrokes, Thomas Gainsborough’s rococo paintings follow the painterly tradition of Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens who were also followers of the Venetian school. This Gainsborough exhibition features twelve important portraits of 18^th-century women whose lives are as interesting as the paintings (he is also famous for his portrait of “The Blue Boy” at The Huntington Library and Museum in San Marino, California). The Cincinnati Art Museum organized this exhibition in association with the San Diego Museum of Art. Paintings on loan from The National Gallery and Tate Museum in London; the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.; and the Metropolitan Museum in New York are included in the exhibit.

Depicted in a high powdered wig and elegant yellow and white satin gown, the disgraced Mrs. Elliot’s pose and dress make her seem both humble and elegant. The colorful brushwork makes the satin of her gown flash and glow in the light. The portrait hangs high on the gallery wall and allows the viewer to see up-close the extraordinary dance of brushstrokes that Gainsborough used to depict the gown’s glittering embroidered and jeweled hemline. The portrait successfully removes the tarnish of Mrs. Elliot’s past and restores her to a woman with eternal dignity and grace.

Even if you do not care for Gainsborough’s subject matter, you may marvel at seeing Gainsborough’s cavalier brushwork resolve into laces, satins, and brocades. Also on view are a series of dresses from the 18^th-century that allow museum visitors to visually compare the actual period fabrics to Gainsborough’s painted ones. For students of art history another elegant portrait of “Mrs. Siddons,” 1785 (on loan from The National Gallery, London), may be a treat to see as this Gainsborough portrait of the actress is reproduced in several art history books. Seated in a blue and white striped cotton dress, her gray wig is topped with a huge black hat crowned with a large bunch of black ostrich plumes. Gainsborough’s casual method of painting the blue stripes on her dress as well as the clunky gray and white brushstrokes that depict her elegant wig is interesting to see in person.

A nice contemporary pairing to the Gainsborough exhibition is a solo exhibition of oil paintings from 2001 through 2010 by living British artist Sir Howard Hodgkin (born 1932), which was curated by Michael Stanley for Modern Art Oxford in Oxford, England. Known for paintings with saturated hues; Hodgkin’s recent paintings are gestural and semi-abstract akin to 1950s Abstract Expressionism. He liberally paints on framed plywood so that the paint often sloshes onto the frame. Actually, because of the scruffy quality of his frames and plywood, many of his works appear to have been painted on the wrong side of the framed plywood. There are both hits and misses in the exhibit.

Many of the gestural paintings on display evoke landscapes or atmospheric sunsets, while others appear slightly graffiti-like. Other works consist of nothing more than a few elegant turns of his brush. A handsome example is “Leaf” (2007-2009). In a battered old frame, a single viridian green curl of a brushstroke fills most of the small surface of the plywood. The only other detail is the seepage of the oil from his paint into plywood background. It is simple, poetic, and sublime.

Hodgkin’s works have been accused of looking unfinished—a few paintings in this exhibit actually appear as if he literally lost interest while painting them. Four same-sized large-scale paintings are hung together: “Home Home on the Range” (2001-2007), “Where the Dear and the Antelope Play” (2001-2007), “Where Seldom is Heard a Discouraging Word” (2007-2008), and “And the Skies are Not Cloudy All Day” (2007-2008). He is usually at his best when the paintings are atmospheric or landscape-esque. A fine example of Hodgkin’s more atmospheric work is “Snow Cloud” (2009-2010). A thick white whip of a brushstroke pushes back a small scribble of black paint. Underneath a single wide warm red stroke breaches the plywood ground onto the frame. The three simple colors create extraordinary space and energy.

As the four paintings are hanging in the same order as the lyrics of the famous song, there is a strong implied narrative between the four works. The first two paintings are powerful with strong complementary colors and bold brushwork similar to 1950s Philip Guston paintings. The third painting is more timid, and the fourth is a spare field of individual short green brushstrokes. If read as a narrative series, the fourth painting appears as if Hodgkin just walked off without finishing it. Other works by Hodgkin give a similar feeling. Although, over and over the brushwork in Hodgkin’s paintings is captivating.

Together, the two different exhibitions are a fine complementary pair. Viewing the paint handling between old Gainsborough and contemporary Hodgkin is both engaging and enlightening. If you enjoy real painting—the actual paint handling and brushwork—then be sure to see this fine pair of exhibitions.