The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (513 page)

Wilding , Alison
.

See
NEW BRITISH SCULPTURE
.

 
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(active
c.
1100)
. Italian
Romanesque
sculptor. His name is known from an inscription on the façade of Modena Cathedral—‘Among sculptors, your work shines forth, Wiligelmo. How greatly you are worthy of honours.’ He must have been the main sculptor of the
reliefs
on the façade (scenes from Genesis together with figures of prophets), which date from soon after 1099, when the cathedral was begun. Nothing else is known of him, but he created a distinctive style (his figures are squat and full of earthy vigour) that was the fountainhead of Romanesque sculpture in northern Italy.

 
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(1785–1841).
Scottish painter. He was trained in Edinburgh and then in 1805 moved to London, where he studied at the
Royal Academy
Schools. His
Village Politicians
(private coll.) was the hit of the RA exhibition of 1806 and he established himself as the most popular
genre
painter of the day. He was strongly influenced in technique and subject-matter by 17th-cent. Netherlandish artists such as
Ostade
and
Teniers
, and the public loved the wealth of lively and often humorous incident in his paintings. In 1825–8 he travelled abroad for reasons of health and his style changed radically under the influence particularly of Spanish painting, becoming grander in subject-matter and broader in touch. The change was regretted by many of his contemporaries. In 1840 Wilkie went to the Holy Land to research material for his biblical paintings and on the return journey died at sea;
Turner
commemorated him in
Peace: Burial at Sea
(Tate, London). Wilkie's success did much to establish the popularity of anecdotal painting in England and many Victorian artists were influenced by him. The esteem in which he was held was possible only in an age which looked first to the ‘story’ of a painting and the moral lesson it contained.

 
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(1927–82).
Australian painter and graphic artist. He studied at the National Gallery School in his native Melbourne, 1944–9, and then in London, 1951–6. His earliest etchings, often with music-hall subjects, were produced about this time. He returned to Australia in 1957, and from the late 1950s began to produce paintings revealing a distinctly personal vision of the Australian landscape such as
Charcoal Burner
(NG of Victoria, 1959). By increasing reductivism, his paintings in the 1970s became uniquely evocative of the primeval mystery and remoteness of Australian landscape, and he was regarded as the most original of Australian landscape painters. His work is represented in all Australian state galleries.

 
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Willing , Victor
.

See
REGO
.

 
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(1863–1958)
. Danish painter, sculptor, architect, engraver, and potter. He was in Paris in 1888 and again in 1890–4, abandoning his early naturalistic manner under the impact of
Gauguin
(whom he met) and of
Symbolism
. His work became highly individual, notable for its obscure and disturbing subject-matter and glaringly bright colours (
After the Tempest
, NG, Oslo, 1905). His sculpture is often
polychromatic
, using mixed media, showing the influence of
Klinger
. Willumsen was also influenced by El
Greco
, on whom he wrote a long book (2 vols., 1927). There is a museum devoted to Willumsen at Frederikssund in Denmark.

 
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