Richard Wilson is the father of British landscape painting. It has been
said that he discovered Wales for the British public, and landscape painting
for British art.
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Wilson started out as a portrait painter in London, but whilst in Italy
in the 1750s was greatly influenced by Venetian and Roman landscape paintings
and took his inspiration from Masters such as Claude and Dughet. Wilson's
masterpiece Cader Idris marks the first great landscape
painting in which the British landscape itself is the subject and not
just merely a backdrop for some other focus.
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Cader Idris is one of the largest mountains in Snowdonia; Wilson was born
just down the road. The name means Throne of Idris: Idris was a legendary
Welsh bard and giant. Legend has it that anybody who spends the night
up the mountain will wake up either blind, or a poet, or a madman.
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During his lifetime, Wilson was never fully appreciated as a landscape
artist. By 1768 his commissions had run dry and he took to drink. Returning
home to Wales. he was put up by a cousin near Mold. Not far from here,
on the road to Ruthin, it is believed that one of Wilson's final commissions
was paid for at the meagre price of a few pints: the sign for the Three
Loggerheads Inn. The sign still exists today and you can see it inside
the inn where it hangs in a glass frame.
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It was not until after his death that Wilson's work was truly appreciated.
Constable once said: "He was one of those appointed
to show the world what exists in nature but which was not known till his
time." From Turner's tour of Wales in 1798, the
works he produced showed unmistakeable signs of the influence of Wilson,
and he even went looking for Wilson's birthplace.
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