Richard Wilson (painter)
| Richard Wilson | |
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| File:Richard-Wilson.jpg
Portrait of Richard Wilson by Anton Raphael Mengs (1752)
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| Born | August 1, 1714 Penegoes, Montgomeryshire, Britain |
| Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Colomendy Hall near Llanferres, Denbighshire, Wales, U.K. |
Richard Wilson RA (1 August 1714 – 15 May 1782) was an influential British landscape painter, who worked in Britain and Italy. With George Lambert he is recognised as a pioneer in British art of landscape for its own sake[1][2] and was described in the Welsh Academy Encyclopedia of Wales as the "most distinguished painter Wales has ever produced and the first to appreciate the aesthetic possibilities of his country".[3] In December 1768 Wilson became one of the founder-members of the Royal Academy.
Life
The son of a clergyman, Richard Wilson was born on 1 August 1714, in the village of Penegoes in Montgomeryshire (now Powys). The family was an established one, and Wilson was first cousin to Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden.[4] In 1729 he went to London, where he began as a portrait painter, under the apprenticeship of an obscure artist, Thomas Wright. Wilson could often be found walking around Marylebone Gardens with his acquaintance Baretti heading toward the Farthing Pie House,[5] now known as the Green Man Public House.[6]
From 1750 to 1757 Wilson was in Italy, and became a landscape painter on the advice of Francesco Zuccarelli. Painting in Italy and afterwards in Britain, he was the first major British painter to concentrate on landscape. He composed well, but saw and rendered only the general effects of nature, thereby creating a personal, ideal style influenced by Claude Lorrain and the Dutch landscape tradition. John Ruskin wrote that Wilson "paints in a manly way, and occasionally reaches exquisite tones of colour".[7] He concentrated on painting idealised Italianate landscapes and landscapes based upon classical literature, but when his painting, The Destruction of the Children of Niobe (c.1759–60), won acclaim, he gained many commissions from landowners seeking classical portrayals of their estates. Among Wilson's pupils was the painter Thomas Jones. His landscapes were acknowledged as an influence by Constable, John Crome and Turner.
Wilson died in Colomendy, Denbighshire on 15 May 1782, and is buried in the grounds of St Mary's Church, Mold, Flintshire.
Works
In 1948, Mary Woodall, keeper of art at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, organized a pioneer exhibition of his work.[8]
Extant works include: Landscapes
- Caernarfon Castle
- Cock Tavern at Cheam, at the Winnipeg Art Gallery
- Dolbadarn Castle
- Dover Castle
- Lake Avernus with a Sarcophagus, at the Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA
- Lydford Waterfall, Tavistock
- River at Penegoes
- The Garden of the Villa Madama, Rome
- Valley of the Mawddach with Cader Idris
- View at Tivoli
- View in Windsor Great Park
- Cilgerran Castle
- Classical Landscape, Strada Nomentana
- Conway Castle
- Dolgellau Bridge
- The Niagara Falls'
- Pistyll Rhaeadr, Aber Falls
- Solitude (or Landskip with Hermits)
Other
- Ceyx and Alcyone (1768)
- Francis Ayscough, Dean of Bristol and tutor to George III of England with his pupils
References
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Davies, Jenkins et al (2008) p. 966.
- ↑ Davies, Jenkins et al (2008) p.965
- ↑ Welsh Biography online
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ Kenneth Garlick, ‘Woodall, Mary (1901–1988)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004
Bibliography
Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.- Cole, Timothy. Old English masters (New York : The Century Co., 1902) pp. 67–76.
- Fletcher, Beaumont. Richard Wilson. R.A. The Makers of British Art (Walter Scott, London, 1908).
- Encyclopædia Britannica 1911. Richard Wilson.
- R. Edwards, 'Richard Wilson and his pupil', in Country Life (1945 November)
- B. Ford, The Drawings of Richard Wilson (1951)
- W. G. Constable, Richard Wilson (1953)
- Sutton, Denys & Clement, Ann. An Italian sketchbook: drawings made by the artist in Rome and its environs (Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968).
- David H. Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction (Tate Gallery, London, 1982).
- John Davies, Nigel Jenkins, Menna Baines and Peredur Lynch (Eds.). The Welsh Academy Encyclopaedia of Wales (University of Wales Press, 2008). ISBN 978-0-7083-1953-6
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Richard Wilson (painter). |
- Paintings by Richard Wilson at the Art UK site (285 paintings)
- Works by Richard Wilson on Google Art Project (50 works)
- Works by Richard Wilson on ArtCyclopedia
- Richard Wilson entry in the Encyclopedia of Irish and World Art
- Richard Wilson – English Landscape Painter
- Richard Wilson
- Richard Wilson, R.A. 1713–1782 Welsh landscape painter
- Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle (c.1765)
- The Mystery of the British Landscape Master, The New York Times, 4 June 2010
- Museo virtuale della città di Tivoli [1]
- Pages with broken file links
- Articles with hCards
- Pages using Template:Post-nominals with customized linking
- Articles incorporating Cite DNB template
- Commons category link is defined as the pagename
- 18th-century British painters
- 1714 births
- 1782 deaths
- People from Montgomeryshire
- Welsh landscape painters
- Royal Academicians
