Hamilton, Gavin

Hamilton, Gavin (1723-1798), Scottish painter and archaeologist, whose history paintings influenced the Neo-Classical style in art.

Hamilton was born in Murdieston, Lothian, and studied Greek at Glasgow University. He visited Rome briefly in the 1740s and settled there permanently in the 1750s. During the 18th century in Rome many excavations of antique remains were under way; recent discoveries at Herculaneum (1738) and Pompeii (1748) stimulated new interest in the study of Classical art, and Hamilton was one of a group of enthusiasts (along with Johann Joachim Winckelmann and Anton Raphael Mengs) who immersed themselves in archaeology. Hamilton himself spent time in the 1770s working on the excavations at Hadrian’s Villa. He also dealt in 16th- and 17th-century paintings.

Hamilton’s history paintings largely illustrate scenes from Classical literature, such as works by Homer and Livy, which are depicted in a classicizing style owing much to Nicolas Poussin. In these works costume and setting are antique and poses are dramatic, but seem frozen; the protagonists act their parts on a shallow, frieze-like plane.

Contemporaries criticized Hamilton’s sharpness of line and his indifference to colour, but his paintings influenced later artists, particularly Jacques-Louis David, whose choice of subject matter frequently echoes Hamilton’s. Hamilton’s works were usually commissioned by British patrons in Rome on their Grand Tour; many of his works were engraved by Domenico Cunego, allowing copies to be distributed among potential patrons and other artists.

Hamilton’s works include: Andromache Weeping over the Body of Hector (1762, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh), Oath of Brutus (1763-1764, Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London), and Agrippina with the Ashes of Germanicus (1772, Tate Gallery, London).