John michael wright biography
John Michael Wright
John Michael Wright (May – July )[2] was a Britishportrait painter in the Baroque style.
Wright was taught in Edinburgh by the Scots painter George Jamesone. He became a famous artist and scholar during his long journey in Rome. There, he entered the Accademia di San Luca, and came to know some of the most important artists of his time. He was hired by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands in His job was to find artworks in Oliver Cromwell's England in
He settled in England from He served there as a court painter before and after the English Restoration. A Roman Catholic, he was favoured by the Stuart court. Hired by both Charles II and James II, he saw many of the political experiences of the era. In the last years of the Stuart rule he went back to Rome as part of an embassy to Pope Innocent XI.
Today, Wright is seen as one of the most important British painters of his time. He is important mostly because of the special realism he used in his portraits. Perhaps because of his unusual experiences, he was favoured by people of the highest level of society. This was surprising in an age in which foreign artists were usually more liked. Wright's paintings of royalty and aristocracy are in the collections of many great galleries today.
Early years and Scottish connections
[change | change source]John Michael Wright, who would later sign himself "Anglus" or "Scotus",[4] is of uncertain origin. The diarist John Evelyn called him a Scotsman. Horace Walpole and his later biographer, Verne, agreed with this.[5]
But in , Thomas Hearne claimed that Wright was born in Shoe Lane, London. He added that after Wright became a Roman Catholic when he was an adolescent, he was taken to Scotland by a priest. A baptismal record, dated 25 May , for a "Mighell Wryghtt", son of James Wright, described as a tailor and a citizen of London,[6] in London, seems to agree with this claim.[7]