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    300 years
    Return to "Wilson and Europe 2014 " is linked to these Works 122 items
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    Apollo and the Seasons

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    Apollo and the Seasons
    Apollo and the Seasons
    Apollo and the Seasons
    Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge
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    Artist
    Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782)
    Title
    Apollo and the Seasons
    Date
    c.1770-71
    Medium
    Oil on canvas
    Dimensions
    Metric: 100.1 x 125.7 cm
    Imperial: 39 7/16 x 49 1/2 in.
    Collection
    Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. To license images click here.
    Accession Number
    PD27-1952
    Wilson Online Reference
    P164
    Description
    Apollo sitting to the left plays his lyre on Mount Olympus, raising his right hand towards the Seasons or Horae, four female figures who dance in a circle to the right. Two cherubs sit blowing bubbles nearby, in a landscape with an overgrown temple to right. There is a river running through the centre, mountains in the background and a square tower on the left bank in the middle ground.
    Exhibited
    RA 1779 (352) - a version; London, Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, Recent Acqusitions VII, 1951 (3); London, Goldsmith's Hall Treasures of Cambridge, 1959 (325); Hazlitt, Gooden & Fox, London, Landscapes from the Fitzwilliam, 1974 (64); Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge 1976 The Fairhaven Fund: The first Quarter Century (102); Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Beauty, Horror and Immensity - Picturesque Landscape in Britain, 1750-1850, 1981 (21); London, Cardiff and New Haven, 1982-83 (131); Tokyo, Isetan Museum of Art, British Landscape Paintings from the Fitzwlliam Museum, September-October 1992 (3)
    Provenance
    Sotheby's, property of a Lady, possibly Miss Turner, 6 March 1940 (25 Landscape (Lake Avernus)), bt Norris, £4; Christopher Norris sale, Christie's 4 July 1952 (20), bt Benson for Arthur Tooth & Sons Ltd, London; bt by Fitzwilliam Museum from Fairhaven Fund 1952
    Signature/inscription
    Unsigned; no inscription
    Techniques and materials
    The shorthand loops describing the foreground foliage and the mannered elongation of the figures, both comparable with the Wynnstay views of 1770-1 (P166 and P165 both in the collection of the Yale Center for British Art), suggest a similar dating for this painting. There is a pink tonality overall. Pentimenti are visible above the two towers of the castle and at its right extremity. The castle itself is vague and flat. The horizon of the landscape may once have been flatter and not mountainous. Note the out-of-scale cows in the background.
    Verso inscriptions
    [1] Chalk on stretcher: July [?] 6 - 23 [?]
    [2] Graphite on stretcher: '415'
    [3] Stencil on stretcher: Produce of England
    Labels
    [1] Exhibition
    [2] Exhibition
    [3] Exhibition
    Subject
    Based loosely on a passage from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo. The subject was popular with classical landscape painters of the 17th and 18th centuries. Apollo, god of the Sun, plays his lyre while the four Seasons dance to the music.
    Related Prints
    E24 Earlom after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, Royal Academy of Arts, London
    E24A Earlom and Sayer after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    E24B Earlom after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, The British Museum
    E47 William Woollett and Benjamin Pouncy, after Mortimer after Wilson, Apollo and the Seasons, The British Museum
    E47A William Woollett and Benjaminm Pouncy after Wilson, Apollo and the Seasons, Royal Academy of Arts, London
    Versions
    See 'Links' tab
    Critical commentary
    Solkin observed that the composition essentially reverses that of P119 Landscape with Phaeton's Petition to Apollo (1763, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool). Wilson may have treated the theme even earlier, during his Italian years, since his Irish pupil, John Plimmer painted a version, reproduced in an etching of 1760, with almost identical figures. However, stylistic criteria suggest that this painting is datable from the early 1770s. One feature that is unique to this version is the distant waterfall, similar in shape to the roughly contemporary P178 Falls of Niagara, (Wolverhampton Art Gallery). The fact that that P164 includes quotations from several previous compositions may suggest that Wilson's powers of invention were beginning to decline as his active career neared its end. The figures leave something to be desired, for example the scale of Apollo's hands.
    Previous Cat/Ref Nos
    4031
    Bibliography
    Hazlitt 1843-44, vol. 1, pp. 184-85 (a version); Recent Acquisitions VII, London, p. 3 repr.; Fitzwiliam Museum Cambridge Annual Report for the Year ending 31 December 1952, 1953; pl. 2; Waterhouse 1953, p. 176; WGC, pp. 93-94, 96, 167, pl. 26b; J. Hayes, Richard Wilson (The Masters 57), 1966, pl. 13, repr. in colour; exh.cat. Landscapes from the Fitzwilliam, London, 1974, no. 64, pl. 12; J.W. Goodison, Catalogue of Paintings in the Fitzwilliam Museum, III, British School, pp. 287-88, pl. 13; Simon 1979 p. 438, fig. 69; Solkin 1982, pp. 236-7, no. 131; exh. cat., British Landsape Paintings from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Tokyo 1992, pp. 30-31; Wilson and Europe 2014 (fig.114)
    Link to WG Constable Archive Record
    WGC/1/1/28
    Condition/Conservation
    Carved and gilded wooden frame. Kate Lowry has noted:
    Oil on canvas, simple weave with a pale grey ground visible where left exposed amongst the foliage near the top left corner. Support appears to have been relined, as it is quite flat, although the reverse could not be inspected. The warm evening light gives the whole painting, foliage, figures and sky, a rosy hue. The foliage of the trees has been mostly painted on a reserve but the foliage at the upper left and middle right overlaps onto the paint of the sky. The figures are fairly typical of Wilson, as is the way the sky is painted down to the castle at centre left. The castle towers were originally taller and Wilson has reduced them in height, leaving pentimenti visible. The temple at right is rather sketchy. Horizontal lines of impasto, pushed through by the lining treatment, indicate that the distant landscape originally had a slightly higher horizon. The sky is mostly smoothly painted with some impasto in the highlighted clouds right of the centre. No signature or date were found, although something like a 'W' is visible between the dancer's legs.

    Work of Art

    Prints

    • Richard Earlom after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, Royal Academy of Arts, London
    • Richard Earlom and Robert Sayer after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, National Museum Wales, Cardiff
    • Richard Earlom after Wilson, Apollo and the Nymphs, The British Museum
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and Benjamin Thomas Pouncy, after John Hamilton Mortimer, after Wilson, The British Museum
    • William Woollett (1735-1785) and Benjamin Thomas Pouncy after Wilson, Apollo and the Seasons, Royal Academy of Arts, London

    Versions

    • Richard Wilson (1713/14-1782) Apollo and the Seasons, Indianapolis Museum of Art

    Exhibitions

    • London, Tate Gallery, Cardiff, National Museum of Wales, and New Haven, Conn., Yale Center for British Art, 3 November 1982 - 19 June 1983

    Documents

    • William George Constable, Richard Wilson
    • David Solkin, Richard Wilson: The Landscape of Reaction
    • Ellis Kirkham Waterhouse, Painting in Britain 1530-1790
    • Martin Postle & Robin Simon, Richard Wilson and the Transformation of European Landscape Painting
    • Robin Simon, 'New Light on Richard Wilson'
    • William Hazlitt, Criticisms on Art
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