Richard Wilson

Richard Wilson – Artistic beginnings as a portrait painter

Richard Wilson was born in Penegoes, Montgomeryshire on 1 August 1714; the son of a clergyman of a long-established family, his cousin was Charles Pratt, the 1st Earl Camden and Lord Chancellor. Wilson moved to London in 1729 to start an apprenticeship with the painter Thomas Wright and in these early years, the artist focused on portrait painting and only occasionally forayed into landscapes. Whilst in London he became friends with the Italian literary critic, poet and translator, Giuseppe Marc’ Antonio Baretti and they would often stroll together through Marylebone Gardens. Richard Wilson celebrated his first successes as a portrait painter after his apprenticeship and made his name as a painter.

Richard Wilson became a landscape painter in Italy

Perhaps prompted by his acquaintance with Baretti, Richard Wilson travelled to Italy in 1750, where he remained until 1757. There he met Francesco Zuccarelli, the great Italian landscape painter, who liked to sign his work with a small gourd. Zuccarelli’s landscapes with ancient backdrops greatly impressed Wilson and he soon followed the advice of the Italian, and also turned to landscape painting. Wilson met the French painter Claude Joseph Vernet in Rome, who also reaffirmed his artistic reorientation. Regardless of his personal connection to Vernet and Zuccarelli, Richard Wilson admired no painter more than Claude Lorrain, whose play with light became an important inspiration for the young Welshman. In addition, he valued the Dutch school of landscape painting.

Between artistic success and economic difficulties

Richard Wilson initially profited from this change of direction and having returned to England, quickly gained access to the court circles, and even received commissions from the Duke of Cumberland. In 1768, Wilson became a founding member of the Royal Academy and would take on the post of Librarian eleven years later. In the meantime, despite great commendation from the critics and specialists, the artist often struggled economically, until finally an inheritance relieved him of the most pressing concerns, and he could retire to a country estate in Llanberis for the last years of his life. 

Wilson’s influence on Thomas Jones, John Constable and William Turner

Richard Wilson taught Thomas Jones - a painter who achieved fame in his own right - and is considered by researchers as to have been an important influence on artists such as John Constable, John Crome and William Turner. Wilson no longer considered the role of landscape painting as an accurately detailed illustration of reality, but he saw in it an artistic subject that should be interpreted and arranged with inspiration and imagination. He did not copy what he saw, but composed, arranged, romanticised and idealised. Together with his compatriot George Lambert, he thus became the pioneer of a generation of new landscape painters. The leading art critic of the Victorian era, John Ruskin, explicitly praised Richard Wilson’s occasional exquisite use of colour. 

Richard Wilson died in Llanberis in Wales on 15 May 1782.