A Summer Evening

Richard Wilson 1714 - 1782

Summary

An Italianate rural landscape, seen from a river bank, which overlooks a wide meandering river. The warm yellow evening light gives way to a brown-toned foreground and a sky that is pale blue in the painting’s top corners. Two boys fishing to the right have three fishing rods. One boy lies on his stomach to fish, while the other stands to attend to his fishing line. Two delicately-leaved trees to the left are silhouetted against the evening light, and a fallen tree trunk next to them has its splintered end propped up on a boulder. The ground in front of the trees is covered with large, almost flouncy, foliage. A high rocky cliff in the right middle ground is surmounted by a partly ruined castle. The broad stretch of water in the middle distance reflects this cliff, as well as the soft outline of trees and a small tower situated on the prominent opposite bank. The river continues to meander behind this bank into a hazy plain, on which is the indication of a distant town and mountains.