Richard Wilson, 1713/4–1782, British, active in Italy (1750–56)
Title:
Italian Landscape (Morning)
Date:
between 1760 and 1765
Materials & Techniques:
Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
27 5/8 x 37 1/4 inches (70.2 x 94.6 cm)
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1981.25.690
Classification:
Paintings
Collection:
Paintings and Sculpture
Subject Terms:
clouds | landscape | sky | morning | sun | sunrise | dawn | arches | woman | water | tombstone | tower (building division) | bridge (built work) | steeple | staff (walking stick) | boys | ruins | children | rural | figures | riverbank | mountains | river
Associated Places:
Campania | Italy | Napoli | Baiae
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting (Yale Center for British Art, 2014-03-06 - 2014-06-01)Classic Ground - British Artists and the Landscape of Italy, 1740-1830 (Yale Center for British Art, 1981-07-29 - 1981-09-20)
Publications:
Duncan Bull, Classic ground : British artists and the landscape of Italy, 1740-1830, , Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, 1981, p. 57, no. 82, ND1354.4 B85 (YCBA)Catalogue of an exhibition of pictures by Richard Wilson and his circle : organized by the City Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, January, 1949, The Tate Gallery, London, , Tate Britain, London, 1949, p. 15, no. 13, NJ18 W72 T37 (YCBA)Catalogue of pictures by Richard Wilson and his circle, November 17-January 9 1948-9 , City Museum & Art Gallery Birmingham, Birmingham, 1948, p. 13, no. 14, V 2449 (YCBA)Malcolm Cormack, Concise Catalogue of Paintings in the Yale Center for British Art, Yale Center for British Art, New Haven, CT, 1985, pp. 252, 253, N590.2 A83 (YCBA)Martin Postle, Richard Wilson and the transformation of European landscape painting, Yale University Press, New Haven, 2014, p. 322, Cat. No. 100, NJ18.W72 R53 2014 OVERSIZE (YCBA)Spencer-Longhurst, Paul, with Kate Lowry and David Solkin, Richard Wilson Online : A Digital Catalogue Raisonne, , The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London, 2014, no. P92B, http://www.richardwilsononline.ac.uk/index.php?WINID=1582051040261
Gallery Label:
This composition has been known by several titles including The Temple of Venus at Baiae. Although that identification has been challenged, it is partly correct. The painting does show the ancient ruins at Baiae, but they were actually part of a bath complex rather than a temple to Venus. A surviving drawing of the ruins made by Richard Wilson in Italy in the early 1750s shows the building from the other side and reveals how Wilson made radical adjustments to its coastal setting to achieve an ideal composition. The effect was to produce a more generalized view of the Italian landscape evocative of a lost golden age rather than a topographical view of a particular set of ruins. Gallery label for installation of YCBA collection, 2016