Richard Wilson (painter)

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Self-Portrait (Richard Wilson)
Mont Snowdon as seen from Llyn Nantlle (1765)

Richard Wilson RA (born August 1, 1714 in Penegoes, Montgomeryshire , † May 15, 1782 in Llanberis in Wales ) was a Welsh landscape painter and co-founder of the Royal Academy in 1768.

Life

In 1729 Richard Wilson went to London , where he first learned and worked as a student of the portrait painter Thomas Wright and later became successful as a portrait painter himself. In 1750 he traveled to Venice and Rome , where he was a member of the Academy of English Professors of the Liberal Arts and, on the advice of Claude Joseph Vernets and Francesco Zuccarelli , devoted himself mainly to landscape painting in the following years . Throughout his life he remained an admirer of Claude Lorrain's compositional skills and his use of light in the picture.

In 1755 he returned to England .

Richard Wilson was the first British painter to focus primarily on landscape painting. He made this genre free from its object-related vedute fixation and thereby created mood and atmosphere. Art historians see the influence of his painting in the works of Constable and Turner .

In 1768 the artist was one of the founders of the Royal Academy. Eleven years later he was given the post of librarian at the academy. Wilson died in Colomendy near Llanberis in Denbighshire .

Web links

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