Coast Scene near Naples

Coast Scene near Naples at the National Museum Cardiff records Wilson’s experience of the Bay of Naples, one of the most painted landscapes in European art history. The dramatic coastline, with Vesuvius in the background and the islands of Capri and Ischia visible, provided Wilson with subjects of unrivaled scenic beauty. 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 coastal setting allows Wilson to exploit the contrast between the dark volcanic coastline and the luminous Mediterranean sea and sky. Warm, hazy light characteristic of the Neapolitan coast pervades the composition.