Richard Wilson

The British painter Richard Wilson (1713/1714-1782) raised English landscape painting to new heights by uniting its topographical traditions with those of the great 17th-century landscape masters on the Continent.

The third son of the rector of Penygoes in Montgomeryshire, Wales, Richard Wilson received an excellent grounding in classical literature from his father. In 1729 Richard went to London "to indulge his prevailing love for the arts of design," and there he trained under an obscure portrait painter, Thomas Wright. Family connections with the aristocracy helped Wilson to get portrait commissions, including one from the royal family, but his reputation among artists was chiefly for topographical landscapes imbued with a strong feeling for open-air naturalism. In 1746 he painted the Founding Hospital and St. George's Hospital for the Founding Hospital.

In 1750 Wilson went to Venice and about a year later to Rome, where Salvator Rosa was his chief model for dramatic landscapes with storms, shipwrecks, and bandits. For six years Wilson made an intensive study of the Italian landscape, especially scenes with classical associations, working up his open-air sketches into studio pictures, strongly influenced in his handling of light and air by the Dutch masters and in his composition by Gaspard Dughet, Nicolas Poussin, and Claude Lorrain.

After his return to England in 1756 or 1757, Wilson took an apartment in the Great Piazza in Covent Garden, where he also had a studio for his pupils. He made his chief bid for fame with a number of versions of the Destruction of the Daughters of Niobe, one of which was exhibited at the Society of Artists in 1760. The verdict of Sir Joshua Reynolds was unfavorable, but in any case the taste of the aristocracy was not for heroic essays in the sublime, corresponding to the theories of Edmund Burke, but for pictures of their country houses elevated by the style of Claude Lorrain and for Italian scenes that reminded them of their grand tours.

Between 1765 and 1769 Wilson gave up his apartment in Covent Garden. Elected a foundation member of the Royal Academy in 1768, he established a practice both substantial and lucrative, but sporadic ill health, generosity, touchiness, and the unremunerative proportion of his time devoted to uncommissioned heroic landscapes all contributed to the decline of his fortune. His appointment as librarian to the Royal Academy in 1776 was largely a charitable gesture.

Wilson frequently visited his beloved Wales, and he retired there in 1781. He died in Colomendy, Denbigshire, the following year. His Welsh landscapes, such as Snowdon (ca. 1766) and Cader Idris (ca. 1774), and views of the English countryside are highly original paintings which announce the romantic exaltation of nature and solitude.

Further Reading

The standard authority for Wilson's life and work is W. G. Constable, Richard Wilson (1953), which contains nearly 400 illustrations. An excellent appreciation of Wilson is in Ellis Waterhouse, Painting in Britain, 1530-1790 (1953; 2d ed. 1962). □

Wilson, Richard (b Penegoes, Montgomeryshire [now Powys], ?(1 Aug.) 1713 or 1714; d nr. Llanberis, Denbyshire [now Clwyd], 11 May 1782). British painter, born in rural north Wales, the son of a well-connected clergyman who encouraged his interest in art as well as giving him a good classical education. Wilson became the leading British landscape painter of his generation, but initially he seems to have worked mainly as a portraitist. He began his training in London in 1729 and was working independently by 1735, but the decisive change in his career did not come until his visit to Italy in 1750–7, when he decided to devote himself exclusively to landscape. He is said to have done this at the urging of Francesco Zuccarelli, whom he met in Venice and whose portrait (1751, Tate, London) he painted, but he was more obviously influenced by Claude and by the natural surroundings of Rome where Claude had worked.

Back in London Wilson became successful with his Italian landscapes and applied the same classical compositional principles to English and Welsh views, as in his celebrated Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle (c.1765, versions in Walker AG, Liverpool, and Castle Mus., Nottingham). He also painted large historical landscapes more or less in the manner of Dughet or Salvator Rosa (Destruction of the Children of Niobe, 1760, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, and other versions), and these too sold well (he often repeated successful pictures, referring to a money-making composition as a ‘good-breeder’). Wilson, however, had a prickly nature and a problem with drink, and in the early 1770s his career went into a sharp decline. The Royal Academy (of which he had been a founder member in 1768) helped him out by appointing him librarian, but in 1781 his family took him (now a pitiable figure) back to Wales. His work is of great importance in the history of British art, for he transformed landscape from an art that was essentially topographical to one that could be a vehicle for ideas and emotions; Ruskin wrote that ‘with Richard Wilson the history of sincere landscape art founded on a meditative love of nature begins in England’. He had several pupils, notably Thomas Jones, as well as numerous imitators (making connoisseurship of his work difficult), and he was admired by such later artists as Cotman, Crome, Constable, and Turner.

Wilson, Richard (1713/14–82). British painter, born in rural north Wales, the son of a well-connected clergyman who encouraged his interest in art as well as giving him a good classical education. Wilson became the leading British landscape painter of his generation, but initially he seems to have worked mainly as a portraitist. He began his training in London in 1729 and was working independently by 1735, but the decisive change in his career did not come until his visit to Italy in 1750–7, when he decided to devote himself exclusively to landscape. He is said to have done this at the urging of Francesco Zuccarelli, whom he met in Venice and whose portrait (1751, Tate, London) he painted, but he was more obviously influenced by the painting of Claude and by the natural surroundings of Rome where Claude had worked.

Back in London Wilson became successful with his Italian landscapes and applied the same classical compositional principles to English and Welsh views, as in his celebrated Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle (c.1765, versions in Walker AG, Liverpool, and Castle Mus., Nottingham). He also painted large historical landscapes more or less in the manner of Dughet or Salvator Rosa (Destruction of the Children of Niobe, 1760, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, and other versions), and these too sold well. Wilson, however, had a prickly nature and a problem with drink, and in the early 1770s his career went into a sharp decline. The Royal Academy (of which he had been a founder member in 1768) helped him out by appointing him librarian, but in 1781 his family took him (now a pitiable figure) back to Wales. His work is of great importance in the history of British art, for he transformed landscape from an art that was essentially topographical to one that could be a vehicle for ideas and emotions, often by evoking nostalgia for the past. He had several pupils, notably Thomas Jones, as well as numerous imitators, and he was admired by such later artists as Cotman, Crome, Constable, and Turner.

Richard Wilson 1713?-1782, British landscape painter, b. Wales. He studied in London and achieved success as a portrait painter, but after a visit to Italy (c.1750-1756) he devoted himself to landscape in the classical tradition of Claude Lorrain. The exhibition of Wilson's Niobe in 1760 won him acclaim, and he was made a member and later librarian of the Royal Academy. His work did not become generally popular until after his death. Although his Italian landscapes did not depart from the classical tradition of picturesque Roman ruins and recumbent nymphs, his work shows considerable originality and breadth of treatment, especially in his many fine paintings of English country houses. He exerted a strong influence on subsequent landscape painting in England. On Hounslow Heath (National Gall., London) and Afternoon and Lake Nemi (both: Metropolitan Mus.) are well-known examples of his work.

Wilson, Richard (1714–82). Landscape painter. Born in Wales, the son of a clergyman, Wilson's formal training and early career were in portrait painting, but, while in Italy between 1750 and 1756, he decided to concentrate on painting landscape in the classical style. On his return to England, his pictures brought him fame but little employment. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy and appointed librarian in 1776, by which time he had almost ceased to paint. An abrasive character, Wilson was often critical of his contemporaries. He referred to Gainsborough's ‘fried parsley’ landscapes and while serving on the hanging committee of the RA would wash over brightly coloured paintings to reduce them to his more restrained tones. He is now regarded as the first great British landscapist and an important influence on 19th-cent. landscape painting.

June Cochrane

Wilson, Richard (1926-)

Physics professor who was active in the field of parapsychology. He was born on April 29, 1926, in London, England. He studied at Oxford University (M.S., Ph.D.). He began his teaching career as a research lecturer at Christ Church, Oxford (1948-53). He spent two years in the United States before returning to Oxford for two years (1953-55), and then moved to the United States as a professor at Harvard University.

A corresponding member of the Society for Psychical Research, London, Wilson devised a random number selector for extrasensory perception.

Sources:

Pleasants, Helene, ed. Biographical Dictionary of Parapsychology. New York: Helix Press, 1964.

Wilson, Richard. "A Random Number Selector." Proceedings of the American Society for Psychical Research 48 (1946-49).

Wilson, Richard (1714–82). Landscape painter. Born in Wales, the son of a clergyman, Wilson's formal training and early career were in portrait painting, but, while in Italy between 1750 and 1756, he decided to concentrate on painting landscape in the classical style. On his return to England, his pictures brought him fame but little employment. He was a founder member of the Royal Academy and appointed librarian in 1776, by which time he had almost ceased to paint. He is now regarded as the first great British landscapist and an important influence on 19th‐cent. landscape painting.

Wilson, Richard (1953– ). See installation.

Wilson, Richard (1953– ). See Installation.

Wilson, Richard. See INSTALLATION.