Landscape painter and sporting artist whose contribution in moulding the English landscape tradition was considerable. Together with George Lambert, Wootton was a leading predecessor of Wilson. He was active from about 1714 based in the capital of English horse racing at Newmarket, and produced large numbers of portraits of horses and also conversation pieces with a hunting or riding setting. The Duke of Beaufort sent him to Rome in the 1720s, where he acquired a classicising landscape style based on that of Gaspard Dughet, which he used in some pure landscape paintings, as well as views of country houses and equine subjects. This introduced an alternative to the Dutch and Flemish traditions that had previously set the prevailing landscape style in Britain. In this respect Wootton may be seen as a harbinger of and influence on Wilson.
