Britton, John [Hrsg.]: The fine arts of the English school: illustrated by a series of engravings from paintings, sculpture, and architecture, of eminent English artists ; with ample biographical, critical, and descriptive essays (London, 1812) [Cicognara, 14]

A BRIEF

BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIR

OF

RICHARD WILSON, ESQ. R.A. PAINTER:

WITH

AN ENGRAVED PORTRAIT BY W. BOND, FROM A PICTURE BY

antonto 2fiUpf)ael JWens$.

To write a satisfactory memoir of such an artist as Wilson, is an arduous and
delicate task, for he was a painter who possessed original and pre-eminent
talents: his best works are replete with extraordinary merit: they command
our warmest admiration; but it is difficult to describe and define their peculiar
and positive characteristics. They are generally grand, and often sublime, jn
composition; broad and skilful in effects of light and shade; exquisitely harmo-
nious and rich in colour; appropriate and judicious in the arrangement of
parts, and adaptation of effect to that arrangement; hence it may be confidently
said, that the best landscapes, by this master, are worthy to rank with the most
eminent paintings in the world. " Wilson," observes a learned and eloquent
professor of painting, " is now numbered with the classics of the art; though
little more than the fifth part of a century elapsed since death relieved him
from the apathy of cognoscenti, the envy of rivals, and the neglect of a tasteless
public; for Wilson, whose works will soon command prices as proud as those of
Claude, Poussin, or Elzheimer, resembled the last most in his fate, lived and
died nearer to indigence than ease, and, as an asylum from the severest events
incident to age and decay of powers, was reduced to solicit the librarian's place