Life
The son of a clergyman, Wilson was born in Penegoes, Montgomeryshire. The family was an old and respected one, and Wilson was first cousin to Charles Pratt, 1st Earl Camden. In 1729 he went to London where he began as a portrait painter, under the apprenticeship of an obscure artist, Thomas Wright. From 1750 to 1757 he was in Italy and adopted landscape on the advice of Francesco Zuccarelli. Painting in Italy and afterwards in England, he was the first major British painter to primarily 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". He concentrated on painting Italianate landscapes and landscapes based upon classical literature, but when his painting, The Destruction of the Children of Niobe (c.1759-60), won high acclaim, he gained many commissions from wealthy families seeking classical portrayals of their estates.
His landscapes were acknowledged as an influence by Constable, John Crome and Turner. Wilson died in Colomendy, Denbighshire, and is buried in the grounds of the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, Mold, Flintshire.
Read more about this topic: Richard Wilson (painter)
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“We shall make mistakes, but they must never be mistakes which result from faintness of heart or abandonment of moral principles. I remember that my old school master Dr. Peabody said in days that seemed to us then to be secure and untroubled, he said things in life will not always run smoothly, sometimes we will be rising toward the heights and all will seem to reverse itself and start downward. The great thing to remember is that the trend of civilization itself is forever upward.”
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945)
“As a rule they will refuse even to sample a foreign dish, they regard such things as garlic and olive oil with disgust, life is unliveable to them unless they have tea and puddings.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“The advantage in education is always with those children who slip up into life without being objects of notice.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)