Description

Sir David Wilkie was born on November 18, 1785 in Cults, Fife, Scotland was a British genre, portrait painter and draftsman, known for his anecdotal style.
Wilkie, who had studied in Edinburgh, went to the Royal Academy in London in 1805, exhibited there in 1806 and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1811. His first important painting, Pitlessie Fair (1804), was a genre performance according to the Dutch school and was clearly inspired by the work of David Teniers the Younger and Adriaen van Ostade. It set the style that Wilkie would pursue for the next 20 years, showing humble rural interiors and their occupants with a perceptive observation of character and a keen eye for detail. His genre images achieved such success that the canvas the Chelsea reading the gazette of the battle of Waterloo, which was exhibited in the Royal Academy exhibition of 1822, had to be protected by barriers from the multitudes of admirers.
A crucial change in his style took place from 1825 to 1828 when he visited Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Spain for health reasons. Particularly impressed by the Spanish painters Diego Velázquez and Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, he developed a broader and cheeky style and stronger use of color. This new style was criticized by many of his contemporaries, who missed his earlier genre style, but the history paintings and portraits that Wilkie currently made have a romantic daring that appeals to modern viewers. Wilkie died on June 1, 1841, at sea near Gibraltar.