The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (514 page)

(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 education. Wilson became the first major British artist to specialize in landscape, but after moving to London in 1729 he seems to have initially worked mainly as a portraitist. The decisive change in his career did not come until his visit to Italy in 1750–6, 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 (Tate, London, 1751) he painted, but he was more obviously influenced by the painting of
Claude
and by the natural surroundings of Rome where Claude had worked. Here he found subject-matter suited both to his own taste and to that of his patrons, who were for the most part English noblemen, for whom he made chalk and charcoal drawings as well as paintings.
Back in England Wilson became sucessful with his Italian landscapes and applied the same classical compositional principles to English and Welsh views, as in his celebrated
Snowdon from Llyn Nantlle
(versions are in the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, and the Castle Museum, Nottingham,
c.
1765). He also painted large historical landscapes more or less in the manner of
Dughet
or Salvator
Rosa
, trying to establish himself as a master of the
Grand Manner
(
The Destruction of the Children of Niobe
, Yale Center for British Art, 1760). 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. The only one of his pupils to attain distinction was Thomas
Jones
, but he had many imitators and was admired by such later artists as
Cotman
,
Crome
,
Constable
, and
Turner
.

 
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(1889–1972)
. British self-taught painter of imaginative subjects, born in Glasgow of working-class parents. A colourful character, he ran away from home at the age of 16, did military service in India and South Africa, and lived in Canada from about 1930 to 1945. He started to draw in the 1930s. After the Second World War he settled in London and became something of a character in the art world (he was barely literate and fond of the bottle). He made a good living selling his work to dealers but lived in very modest circumstances. Unlike the work of most
naïve artists
(with whom he is sometimes grouped), his pictures (which are often in coloured inks) were not ‘realistic’ renderings of scenes from the daily life with which he was familiar but pure decorative fantasies incorporating stylized birds, fishes, butterflies, swans, flowers, self-portraits, and totem heads. The last of these he saw at Vancouver, and they were rather fancifully thought by some commentators to represent the powers of evil in contrast to the powers of good symbolized in the images taken from nature. All his work, however, was decorative rather than symbolic or profound.

 
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Wilton Diptych
.

See
INTERNATIONAL GOTHIC
.

 
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(1722–1803)
. English sculptor. He trained in Flanders and with
Pigalle
in Paris, then was in Italy from 1747 till 1755. On his return to London he rapidly became successful, carved the state coach (still in use) for the coronation of George III (1760), and was then appointed sculptor to the King (1764). He was an intimate friend of the architect Sir William Chambers , with whom he often collaborated, and he was one of the original members of the
Royal Academy
. His portraits are generally regarded as his best works, his monuments showing him hesitating between various styles. Much of his work was executed by assistants. His talents were considerable, but he was more interested in social life than his work; he inherited a fortune from his father (a manufacturer of ornamental plaster) but dissipated it and became bankrupt in 1793. Considering the quality of his training and his friendship with key figures in the art world, his career is a story of wasted opportunity.

 
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(1717–68)
. German art historian and archaeologist, a key figure in the
Neoclassical
movement and in the development of art history as an intellectual discipline. He impressed contemporaries and later generations as much through his romantic life-story as by his writing. The son of a poor cobbler, he early developed a fervent love for
classical
antiquity and ancient art. After studying theology and medicine he held lowly positions as a schoolmaster and tutor whilst he taught himself Greek and absorbed himself in ancient culture. Eventually, in 1755, Winckelmann managed to reach his goal of Rome (his conversion to Catholicism in 1754 was allegedly to facilitate this), and there he became librarian to the famous collector Cardinal
Albani
and soon established himself as a scholar and antiquarian of European fame. In 1768 he was murdered in Trieste, perhaps for the sake of some gold coins he had shown to a fellow guest at his inn.
Winckelmann's two most important books are
Gedanken über die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei und Bildhauerkunst
, published in 1755, shortly before he left for Rome (
Fuseli
published an English translation in 1765 under the title
Reflections on the Painting and Sculpture of the Greeks
), and
Geschichte der Kunst des Altertums
(History of Ancient Art), published in 1764 (this is the first occurrence of the phrase ‘history of art’ in the title of a book). In these immensely influential works he proclaimed the superiority of Greek art and culture, combining rapturous descriptions of individual works (above all the
Apollo Belvedere
) with historical analysis. He never went to Greece and unwittingly based most of his observations on Roman copies, but his account of the stylistic development of Greek sculpture was a milestone in archaelogical writing, and he is regarded as having laid the foundations of modern methods of art history. His analysis of ancient Greek culture as a unity, and his interpretation of art as an index of the spirit of the time were novel (he thought that when social conditions in general were good, then art was good, and when one declined the other did also); these ideas were subsequently developed into a proper philosophy of culture by 19th-cent. German writers. He refined the notions of how a work may be dated or its place of origin located and explained the character of works of art by reference to such factors as climate, religious customs and social conditions. His influence on contemporary artists—above all
Mengs
—was enormous, and his interpretation of classical antiquity determined aspects of German education right into the 20th cent.