Artwork Details
Artist
Creation Date
Materials
Object Types
Dimensions
48 x 67 in. 58 x 77-1/2 in. (framed)
Accession Number
Credit Line
Gift of Mrs. Charlotte Jackson Baldwin
Copyright
Collection
European Painting and Sculpture Before 1800
Color Palette
Provenance
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Gallery Labels
Richard Wilson spent much of the decade of the 1750s in Italy, living in both Venice and Rome. Upon his return to England around 1759, he quickly became the preeminent English painter of the classical landscape.
Apollo and the Seasons provides an early example of the picturesque landscape tradition in England. In such works, the genres of landscape and history painting overlap in a way that validates an aesthetic response to nature through nostalgic references to classical literature and mythology. The inclusion of a ruined temple bathed in golden light heightens these literary associations.
The wild organic growth and crumbling classical architecture seen here are hallmarks of the Picturesque, an artistic concept that originated in 18th-century British landscape painting and design. Such allusions to the passage of time suggest the resilience and beauty of nature. Here, Wilson makes an additional temporal reference in the depiction of the four seasons as allegorical figures dancing in the foreground.
Wilson spent much of the 1750s in Italy, living in both Venice and Rome. Upon his return to England around 1759, he quickly became the preeminent British landscape painter. Wilson’s classical motifs, including the ruined temple in Apollo and the Seasons, likely derived from his studies in Italy.
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