William Jackson, one of Gainsborough's closest friends and biographers, noted that if he had 'to rest his [Gainsborough] reputation on one point, it should be on his Drawings'. Gainsborough was indeed a draftsman of rare talent and creativity, and his experiments in drawing inspired an entire generation of British artists, from John Constable (1776-1837) to J. M. W. Turner (1775-1851). When not occupied with his lucrative portrait business, Gainsborough devoted much of his time to his true passion, the depiction of landscapes, and more than 600 of the artist's approximately 800 surviving drawings depict the British countryside. Like most artists from his generation, Gainsborough did not draw directly from nature but instead re-invented landscape 'of his own brain,' laying out on his work table stones,