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There are so many animal painters in art that you have to do something very special in this profession to stand out from the crowd. John Wootton is one of those who have done it. And it was not his favourite motif - the horse - that earned him this status, because paintings of horses are not exactly rare either. No, it was rather his very own style that earned the English painter a reputation of rank. John Wootton clearly hit the nerve of the time with his works. If you like, the British artist was even one of the first representatives of popular culture.
Unusual for a person of his renown, some things are unclear regarding his origin, his youth and his career. John Wootton was born in the village of Snitterfield in the West Midlands, his year of birth is thought to be 1686 (other sources mention 1682). As a youth he is said to have been a page at the court of the Dukes of Beaufort, but this is not confirmed. It is likely that he took his first artistic steps under the aegis of the famous Dutch baroque painter Jan Wyck. But enough speculation! John Wootton's first surviving work dates from 1711; it is the horse portrait "Bonny Black". From then on, at the latest, things went steeply uphill. He took sporting subjects as the main subject of his work and thus attained great popularity. He perfected his education in Rome in the 1720s. In the course of this time he expanded his style by a classicistic landscape style in the style of Gaspard Poussin, to pure animal painting came portraits of high-ranking personalities and views of country houses. This made him a real alternative to the traditional Dutch and Flemish landscape painters, whose work had hitherto almost exclusively influenced the depiction of England's countryside, and he soon became one of the leading painters in his country in this field. However, all of this was not necessarily so extraordinary to become an icon. John Wootton made his great breakthrough (and also commercial success) with the depiction of hunts and horse races as well as battle scenes. He became a true pioneer of this genre, being mentioned in the same breath as artists like Peter Tillemans and James Seymour. Because of their true-to-life expression and richness of detail, these pictures became a real fashion phenomenon. They became popular collector's items right up to the highest social classes.
John Wootton lived in London from 1706 and was a founding member of the Academy of Painting and Drawing in 1711, and his style of landscape painting was continued by his student George Lambert after his death in 1764.
There are so many animal painters in art that you have to do something very special in this profession to stand out from the crowd. John Wootton is one of those who have done it. And it was not his favourite motif - the horse - that earned him this status, because paintings of horses are not exactly rare either. No, it was rather his very own style that earned the English painter a reputation of rank. John Wootton clearly hit the nerve of the time with his works. If you like, the British artist was even one of the first representatives of popular culture.
Unusual for a person of his renown, some things are unclear regarding his origin, his youth and his career. John Wootton was born in the village of Snitterfield in the West Midlands, his year of birth is thought to be 1686 (other sources mention 1682). As a youth he is said to have been a page at the court of the Dukes of Beaufort, but this is not confirmed. It is likely that he took his first artistic steps under the aegis of the famous Dutch baroque painter Jan Wyck. But enough speculation! John Wootton's first surviving work dates from 1711; it is the horse portrait "Bonny Black". From then on, at the latest, things went steeply uphill. He took sporting subjects as the main subject of his work and thus attained great popularity. He perfected his education in Rome in the 1720s. In the course of this time he expanded his style by a classicistic landscape style in the style of Gaspard Poussin, to pure animal painting came portraits of high-ranking personalities and views of country houses. This made him a real alternative to the traditional Dutch and Flemish landscape painters, whose work had hitherto almost exclusively influenced the depiction of England's countryside, and he soon became one of the leading painters in his country in this field. However, all of this was not necessarily so extraordinary to become an icon. John Wootton made his great breakthrough (and also commercial success) with the depiction of hunts and horse races as well as battle scenes. He became a true pioneer of this genre, being mentioned in the same breath as artists like Peter Tillemans and James Seymour. Because of their true-to-life expression and richness of detail, these pictures became a real fashion phenomenon. They became popular collector's items right up to the highest social classes.
John Wootton lived in London from 1706 and was a founding member of the Academy of Painting and Drawing in 1711, and his style of landscape painting was continued by his student George Lambert after his death in 1764.