Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• SOLKIN, DAVID HERSH

Titel

RICHARD WILSON AND THE BRITISH LANDSCAPE. (VOLUME I: TEXT. VOLUME II: PLATES)

Ort / Verlag

ProQuest Dissertations Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

1978

Link zum Volltext

• ProQuest

Quelle

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This dissertation represents an analysis in depth of the English and Welsh landscapes that Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) painted after his prolonged period of study in Italy (1750-1756/7). Following an introductory survey of his experiences on the Continent, the discussion goes on to deal with his views of Britain, as they divide into three main thematic sections: Thames valley subjects, sites in rural England and Wales, and country house and garden scenes. The purpose lies in determining how Wilson's approach begins and evolves over time. Several different scholarly techniques come into play. On one level, traditional art-historical issues such as style and chronology predominate; works by other artists are also frequently introduced for comparative purposes. In addition, a great deal of time is devoted to using literary sources as an avenue for exploring contemporary attitudes towards Wilson's chosen sites. This investigation suggests a consistent pattern of thought behind his British landscapes from the period between c.1758 and c.1764. Virtually all of these works portray areas of well-established literary and/or historical significance; moreover, in each case the painter employs the graphic language of Italian art in order to emphasise the symbolic importance of the area he describes. His procedure is compared with the tendency among Augustan poets to classicise British scenery by discussing it in Roman terms. As a related issue, Wilson's artistic discovery of Wales is placed against the background of a widespread contemporary revival of interest in ancient British history. Though at first he tries to elevate the Welsh landscape by Italianising its appearance, in the middle 1760s he produces a series of six major views that do not rely on a Continental pictorial vocabulary. Yet he remains allied to the Grand Style in adhering to the belief that a serious work of art should offer something to the mind, and not merely to the eye. His vision of Wales stresses that country's monumental stature as a symbol of Britain's heroic past. By contrast, Wilson's later portrayals of similar subjects contain substantially less in the way of an underlying intellectual content. Instead the artist begins to display an increasing concern for purely visual qualities and non-specific emotive moods, divorced from a defineable mental framework. This evident change cannot be fully explained by the decline in Wilson's dependence on Italian art. A major hypothesis asserts that his development conforms to a broad trend in English landscape tastes during the middle half of the eighteenth century. These tastes are measured by referring to the evolving garden as a model for the movement in Wilson's own approach. His earlier, 'symbolic' descriptions are related to the emblematic mode of garden design, and his late views to the expressive style championed by 'Capability' Brown. The links between Wilson and the garden play a particularly important role in the section devoted to his pictures of country estates. Thus the dissertation incorporates a range of methodologies that aim towards a fuller understanding of Richard Wilson's British landscapes within their artistic and cultural context.