1785 -1841 · Scottish genre scene and royal painting

Expressive faces, popular anecdotes, attentive crowds and revealing details make David Wilkie a great narrator of British painting.

Born in 1785 in Cults in Fife, son of a rural pastor, David Wilkie entered the Trustees' Academy in Edinburgh at the age of fifteen. His first village scenes reveal an exceptional talent for distributing characters, gestures and reactions around a common event. Installed in London in 1805, he quickly achieved success with paintings inspired by Teniers and Dutch painting, but transposed into contemporary British society. Reading a letter, a fair, a family ceremony or a new policy became real collective dramas under his brush. Reading a letter, a fair, a family ceremony or a new policy became real collective dramas under his brush. Reading a letter, a fair, a family ceremony or a new policy became real collective dramas under his brush. Reading a letter, a fair, a family ceremony or a new policy became real collective dramas under his brush. Reading a letter, a fair, a family ceremony or a new policy became real collective dramas under his brush. Reading a letter, a fair, a family ceremony or a new policy became real collective dramas under his brush. Reading a letter, a fair, a family ceremony or a new policy became real collective dramas under his brush. Reading a spaniards and adopted a freer touch and a darker palette after 1825. Appointed painter to the king in 1830 then knighted in 1836, in 1840 he undertook a trip to the Mediterranean and the Holy Land. He died at sea near Malta in 1841. The "David Wilkie" selection notably compares the residents of Chelsea reading the Waterloo dispatch and Portrait of the Reverend David Wilkie and his wife, parents of the artist. His reading favors the material.

Wilkie tells the story through reactions: one look, one hand and one neighbor are enough to spread the news throughout the crowd.