French landscape and marine painter who worked in Rome from 1734 to 1753. Wilson finally decided to commit himself to landscape painting as a result of Vernet's advice to him in Rome in 1752. Vernet himself was influenced by Salvator Rosa (1615-1673), among other C17 artists. However, he rose to such eminence that he was summoned back to his native land in 1753 to paint the famous series of Ports of France, leaving the vacancy for a major landscape painter in Rome that was to be filled by Wilson. For a detailed discussion of Vernet's influence on Wilson, see the essay by Lars Kokkonen, 'This so important a Crisis of my life: Wilson in Rome and the Vernet Effect', Wilson and Europe 2014, pp. 53-69; also Conisbee 1976.
