View in the Strada Nomentana, Italy

View in the Strada Nomentana at the Russell-Cotes Art Gallery depicts a scene along the ancient Roman road leading northeast from the city. The Via Nomentana, lined with tombs and villas, provided Wilson with subjects combining classical archaeology with the pastoral beauty of the campagna that extended beyond Rome’s walls. Richard Wilson's Italian landscapes were the foundation on which his entire career was built. The years he spent in Rome in the 1750s, studying the work of Claude Lorrain and Gaspar Dughet in the landscape of the Roman campagna that had inspired them, gave him the compositional intelligence and tonal discipline that distinguished his mature work from the topographical painting that preceded him in British art. His Italian subjects — the Alban Hills, the volcanic lakes, the ruins of the campagna — were produced both for the British tourists who wanted souvenirs of their Grand Tour and for the collector market in London that was learning to value landscape painting as a serious genre.

The road creates a perspective line drawing the eye into the composition. Wilson renders the roadside vegetation and ancient structures with warm Italian light that unifies the architectural and natural elements.