James Glen Wilson, Emigrant Ship leaving Belfast
January
James Glen Wilson (1827-63)
Emigrant Ship leaving Belfast, 1852
James Glen Wilson, a marine and landscape painter, came from Co. Down (the exact location of his birthplace remains unknown). He studied for a time at the Belfast Government School of Design before joining the Royal Navy as a ship’s artist in the spring of 1852. Thereafter, he spent seven years at sea before settling in Australia, where he worked as a surveyor with the New South Wales Department of Lands. He died in Australia of rheumatic fever, aged only thirty-six. That he was highly gifted is plain to see from this view of an emigrant ship being towed down the Victoria Channel, towards the open sea; note his mastery of natural elements like sea and sky and his eye for genre detail, evident in the grief-stricken families at the quayside, waving their loved ones off to America. Greek sailors like those shown in the foreground were frequent visitors to Belfast during the 1850s and were amongst Wilson’s favourite motifs.
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