Lake Albano

Richard Wilson (1714-1782) was a Welsh painter known as the father of British landscape painting, whose Italianate landscapes influenced the development of landscape painting in Britain throughout the 18th century. Lake Albano from 1762 depicts the Italian lake in the idealized landscape manner that Wilson developed from his Italian travels (1750-57) and transmitted to the British landscape tradition. The 1762 date places this in Wilson's most productive period, when he was producing the Italianate landscapes that combined the classical composition of Claude Lorrain with the topographical accuracy of the British landscape tradition.

Lake Albano is important in the history of British landscape painting because it demonstrates the idealized landscape manner that Wilson introduced to the British tradition from his Italian travels. The painting's combination of classical composition with Italian topographical accuracy was the formula that Wilson introduced to British landscape painting, and his influence on the development of the British landscape tradition—from Gainsborough through Turner—is comparable to Claude Lorrain's influence on the French landscape tradition.

Lake Albano is Wilson's Italianate landscape as the foundation of British painting: the Italian lake rendered with the classical composition and topographical accuracy that Wilson introduced to the British landscape tradition from his Italian travels. The 1762 painting established the formula that would influence British landscape painting from Gainsborough through Turner.