Richard Wilson (painter)

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

Life

Richard Wilson in 1729 went to London, where he first learned as a pupil of the portrait painter Thomas Wright and worked and later even reüssierte as a portrait painter. In 1750 he traveled to Venice and Rome, was a member of the Academy of English Professor of the Liberal Arts, and devoted himself in the following years on the advice of Claude Joseph Vernet and Francesco Zuccarelli mainly of landscape painting. 1755 he returned to England.

Richard Wilson was the first British painter who mainly focused on landscape painting. He made this genre released from its object-related Vedutenfixierung and produced by mood and atmosphere. Art historians consider the influence of his painting in the works of Constable and Turner.

1768 was one of the artists of the founders of the Royal Academy. Eleven years later, he obtained the post of librarian at the Academy. Wilson died in Colomendy near Llanberis in Denbighshire.