David Wilkie | |
|---|---|
 Self-portrait of David Wilkie, aged about 20 | |
| Born | (1785-11-18)18 November 1785 |
| Died | 1 June 1841(1841-06-01) (aged 55) |
| Occupation | painter |
Sir David WilkieRA (18 November 1785 – 1 June 1841) was a Scottish[1] painter, especially known for hisgenre scenes. He painted successfully in a wide variety of genres, includinghistorical scenes, portraits, including formal royal ones, and scenes from his travels to Europe and theMiddle East. His main base was inLondon, but he died and was buried at sea, offGibraltar, returning from his first trip to the Middle East. He was sometimes known as the "people's painter".
He wasPrincipal Painter in Ordinary to KingWilliam IV andQueen Victoria.[2][3] Apart from royal portraits, his best-known painting today is probablyThe Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch of 1822 inApsley House.
David Wilkie was born inPitlessieFife in Scotland on 18 November 1785. He was the son of theparishminister ofCults, Fife.Caroline Wilkie was a relative.[5] He developed a love for art at an early age. In 1799, after he had attended school atPitlessie,Kingskettle andCupar, his father reluctantly agreed to his becoming a painter. Through the influence ofDavid Leslie, 6th Earl of Leven Wilkie was admitted to theTrustees' Academy inEdinburgh, and began the study of art underJohn Graham. FromWilliam Allan (afterwards Sir William Allan and president of theRoyal Scottish Academy) andJohn Burnet, the engraver of Wilkie's works, we have an interesting account of his early studies, of his indomitable perseverance and power of close application, of his habit of haunting fairs and marketplaces, and transferring to his sketchbook all that struck him as characteristic and telling in figure or incident, and of his admiration for the works ofAlexander Carse andDavid Allan, two Scottish painters of scenes from humble life.
Among his pictures of this period might be mentioned a subject fromMacbeth,Ceres in Search ofProserpine, andDiana andCalisto, which in 1803 gained a premium of ten guineas at the Trustees' Academy, while his pencil portraits of himself and his mother, dated that year, and now in the possession of theDuke of Buccleuch, prove that Wilkie had already attained considerable certainty of touch and power of rendering character.[according to whom?] A scene fromAllan Ramsay, and a sketch fromHector Macneill's balladScotland's Skaith, afterwards developed into the well-knownVillage Politicians.
In 1804, Wilkie left the Trustees' Academy and returned to Cults.[6] He established himself in themanse there, and began his first important subject-picture,Pitlessie Fair (illustration), which includes about 140 figures, and in which he introduced portraits of his neighbours and of several members of his family circle. In addition to this elaborate figure-piece, Wilkie was much employed at the time upon portraits, both at home and inKinghorn,St Andrews andAberdeen. In the spring of 1805 he left Scotland for London, carrying with him hisThe Village Recruit, which he soon disposed of for £6 (£512.50 in 2021),[7] and began to study in the schools of theRoyal Academy. One of his first patrons in London was Robert Stodart, a pianoforte maker, a distant connection of the Wilkie family, who commissioned his portrait and other works and introduced the young artist toLouisa Murray, dowager countess of Mansfield. Her son was the purchaser of theVillage Politicians,[a] which attracted great attention when it was exhibited in the Royal Academy of 1806, where it was followed in the succeeding year byThe Blind Fiddler, a commission from the painter's lifelong friend Sir George Beaumont.
Wilkie now turned to historical scenes, and painted hisAlfred in the Neatherd's Cottage, for the gallery illustrative of English history which was being formed by Alexander Davison. After its completion he returned to genre-painting, producing theCard-Players and the admirable picture of theRent Day which was composed during recovery from a fever contracted in 1807 while on a visit to his native village. His next great work was theAle-House Door, afterwards entitledThe Village Festival (now in theNational Gallery), which was purchased byJohn Julius Angerstein for 800 guineas. It was followed in 1813 by the well-knownBlind Man's Buff, a commission from thePrince Regent, to which a companion picture,The Penny Wedding, was added in 1818.
In November 1809 he was elected an associate of theRoyal Academy, when he had hardly attained the age prescribed by its laws, and in February 1811 he became a full Academician. In 1812 he opened an exhibition of his collected works inPall Mall, but the experiment was financially unsuccessful.
In 1814 he executedThe Letter of Introduction, one of the most delicately finished and perfect of hiscabinet pictures. In the same year he made his first visit to the continent, and in Paris entered upon a profitable and delighted study of the works of art collected in theLouvre. Interesting particulars of the time are preserved in his own matter-of-fact diary, and in the more sprightly and flowing pages of the journal ofBenjamin Haydon, his fellow traveller and brother Cedomir. On his return he beganDistraining for Rent, one of the most popular and dramatic of his works. In 1816 he made a tour through Netherlands and Belgium in company withRaimbach, the engraver of many of his paintings.Reading the Will, a commission from KingMaximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, now in theNew Pinakothek atMunich, was completed in 1820; and two years later the great picture ofThe Chelsea Pensioners reading the Waterloo Dispatch, commissioned by theDuke of Wellington in 1816, at a cost of 1200 guineas (£102,600 in 2021),[7] was exhibited at theRoyal Academy Exhibition of 1822. On his return to Scotland in 1817, he paintedSirWalter Scott and his Family, (titledThe Abbotsford Family[9]) a cabinet-sized picture with small full-length figures in the dress of Scottish peasants, the result of a commission bySir Adam Ferguson, during a visit to Abbotsford.[10][11]
In 1822 Wilkie visitedEdinburgh, in order to select from theVisit of King George IV to Scotland a fitting subject for a picture. TheReception of the King at the Entrance of Holyrood Palace was the incident ultimately chosen; and in the following year, when the artist, upon the death ofHenry Raeburn, had been appointedRoyal Limner for Scotland, he received sittings from the monarch, and began to work diligently upon the subject. But several years elapsed before its completion; for, like all such ceremonial works, it proved a harassing commission, uncongenial to the painter while in progress and unsatisfactory when finished. His health suffered from the strain to which he was subjected, and his condition was aggravated by heavy domestic trials and responsibilities.
In 1825 he sought relief in foreign travel: after visiting Paris, he went to Italy,[12] where, inRome, he received the news of fresh disasters through the failure of his publishers. A residence at Toplitz andCarlsbad was tried in 1826, with little good result, and then Wilkie returned to Italy, toVenice andFlorence. The summer of 1827 was spent inGeneva, where he had sufficiently recovered to paint hisPrincess Doria Washing the Pilgrims' Feet, a work which, like several small pictures executed in Rome, was strongly influenced by the Italian art by which the painter had been surrounded. In October he passed into Spain, whence he returned to Britain in June 1828.
It is impossible to overestimate the influence upon Wilkie's art of these three years of foreign travel. It amounts to nothing short of a complete change of style. Up to the period of his leaving Britain he had been mainly influenced by the Dutch genre-painters, whose technique he had carefully studied, whose works he frequently kept beside him in his studio for reference as he painted, and whose method he applied to the rendering of those scenes of English and Scottish life of which he was so close and faithful an observer.Teniers, in particular, appears to have been his chief master; and in his earlier productions we find the sharp, precise, spirited touch, the rather subdued colouring, and the clear, silvery grey tone which distinguish this master; while in his subjects of a slightly later period – those, such as theChelsea Pensioners, theHighland Whisky Still and theRabbit on the Wall, executed in what Burnet styles his second manner, which, however, may be regarded as only the development and maturity of his first – he begins to unite to the qualities of Teniers that greater richness and fulness of effect which are characteristic ofAdriaen van Ostade. But now he experienced the spell of the Italian masters, and ofDiego Velázquez and the great Spaniards.
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In the works which Wilkie produced in his final period he exchanged the detailed handling, the delicate finish and the reticent hues of his earlier works for a style distinguished by breadth of touch, largeness of effect, richness of tone and full force of melting and powerful colour. His subjects, too, were no longer the homely things of the genre-painter: with his broader method he attempted the portrayal of scenes from history, suggested for the most part by the associations of his foreign travel. His change of style and change of subject were severely criticized at the time; to some extent he lost his hold upon the public, who regretted the familiar subjects and the interest and pathos of his earlier productions, and were less ready to follow him into the historic scenes towards which this final phase of his art sought to lead them. The popular verdict had in it a basis of truth: Wilkie was indeed greatest as a genre-painter. But on technical grounds his change of style was criticized with undue severity. While his later works are admittedly more frequently faulty in form and draftsmanship than those of his earlier period, some of them at least (The Bride at her Toilet, 1838, for instance) show a true gain and development in power of handling, and in mastery over complex and forcible colour harmonies. Most of Wilkie's foreign subjects – thePifferari,Princess Doria, theMaid of Saragossa, theSpanish Podado, aGuerilla Council of War, theGuerilla Taking Leave of his Family and theGuerilla's Return to his Family – passed into the English royal collection; but the dramaticTwo Spanish Monks of Toledo, also entitled theConfessor Confessing, became the property ofHenry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne.
On his return to the UK Wilkie completed theReception of the King at the Entrance ofHolyrood Palace – a curious example of a union of his earlier and later styles, a "mixture" which was very justly pronounced by Haydon to be "like oil and water". HisPreaching ofJohn Knox before the Lords of the Congregation had also been begun before he left for abroad; but it was painted throughout in the later style, and consequently presents a more satisfactory unity and harmony of treatment and handling. It was one of the most successful pictures of the artist's later period.
In the beginning of 1830 Wilkie was appointed to succeed SirThomas Lawrence asPrincipal Painter in Ordinary, and in 1836 he received the honour ofknighthood. The main figure-pictures which occupied him until the end wereChristopher Columbus Explaining His Intended Voyage (1835);Napoleon and Pius VII at Fontainebleau (1836);Josephine and the Fortune-Teller (1837);Queen Victoria Presiding at her First Council (exhibited 1838); andGeneral Sir David Baird Discovering the Body ofSultan Tippoo Sahib (completed 1839). His time was also much occupied with portraiture, many of his works of this class being royal commissions. His portraits are pictorial and excellent in general distribution, but the faces are frequently wanting in drawing and character. He seldom succeeded in showing his sitters at their best, and his female portraits, in particular, rarely gave satisfaction. A favourable example of his cabinet-sized portraits is that of SirRobert Liston; his likeness ofWilliam Esdaile is an admirable three-quarter length; and one of his finest full-lengths is the gallery portrait of John Erskine, 11th Earl of Kellie, in the town hall ofCupar.
In the autumn of 1840 Wilkie resolved on a voyage to the East. Passing through the Netherlands and Germany, he reachedConstantinople, where, while detained by the war inSyria, he painted a portrait of the young sultanAbdülmecid I. He then sailed forSmyrna and travelled toJerusalem, where he remained for some five busy weeks. The last work of all upon which he was engaged was a portrait ofMuhammad Ali Pasha, done atAlexandria. On his return voyage he suffered from an attack of illness atMalta, and remained ill for the remainder of the journey toGibraltar, eventually dying at sea off Gibraltar, en route to Britain, on the morning of 1 June 1841. His body was consigned to the deep in theBay of Gibraltar. Wilkie's death was commemorated byJ. M. W. Turner in the oil painting titledPeace – Burial at Sea.
An elaborateLife of Sir David Wilkie, byAllan Cunningham, containing the painter's journals and his observant and well-considered "Critical Remarks on Works of Art", was published in 1843. Redgrave'sCentury of Painters of the English School andJohn Burnet'sPractical Essays on the Fine Arts may also be referred to for a critical estimate of his works. A list of the exceptionally numerous and excellent engravings from his pictures will be found inThe Art Union for January 1840. Apart from his skill as a painter Wilkie was an admirableetcher. The best of his plates, such as theGentleman at his Desk (Laing, VII), thePope examining a Censer (Laing, VIII), and theSeat of Hands (Laing, IV), are worthy to rank with the work of the greatest figure-etchers. During his lifetime he issued a portfolio of seven plates, and in 1875David Laing catalogued and published the complete series of his etchings and dry-points, supplying the place of a few copper-plates that had been lost by reproductions, in hisEtchings of David Wilkie and Andrew Geddes.
Wilkie stood as godfather to the son of his fellow AcademicianWilliam Collins. The boy was named after both men, and achieved fame as the novelistWilkie Collins.
A painting which might be a real Wilkie or only a copy (the question is only resolved in the latter half of the book) plays a role in the novelWinter Solstice byRosamunde Pilcher.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Wilkie, Sir David".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 644–645.
David Wilkie.| Court offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Principal Painter in Ordinary 1830–1841 | Succeeded by |
