{{Short description|Painting by Thomas Jones}} {{Infobox artwork | image_file=File:Thomas Jones The Bard 1774.jpg | backcolor= | painting_alignment= | image_size=380px | title= The Bard | artist= [[Thomas Jones (artist)|Thomas Jones]] | year= 1774 | type=[[Oil painting|Oil on canvas]], [[history painting|historical]] [[landscape painting]] | height_metric= 114.5 | width_metric= 168 | height_imperial= | width_imperial= | metric_unit=cm | imperial_unit=in | museum=[[National Museum of Wales]] | city=[[Cardiff]] }} '''''The Bard''''' is a 1774 [[oil painting]] by the Welsh [[artist]] [[Thomas Jones (artist)|Thomas Jones]]. The painting is inspired by the 1757 [[poem]] ''[[The Bard (poem)|The Bard]]'' by the English writer [[Thomas Gray]].<ref>Evans & Fairclough p.42</ref> [[Romanticism|Romantic]] in style, it depicts a scene from the [[Conquest of Wales by Edward I]]. A Welsh [[bard]], clutching a [[harp]], prepares to throw himself off a cliff after placing a curse on [[Edward I]].<ref name="museum">{{cite web|url=https://museum.wales/collections/online/object/92a7d980-aa81-3800-9206-8200a4e8ab1d/The-Bard/|title=The Bard - Collections Online|website=Museum Wales|access-date=2025-12-20}}</ref>
A pupil of [[Richard Wilson (painter)|Richard Wilson]], Jones was noted for his British and later Italian [[landscape painting|landscapes]]. Amongst other artists to produce works inspired by Gray's poem are [[Benjamin West]]'s ''The Bard'' (1809) and [[John Martin (painter)|John Martin]]'s ''[[The Bard (Martin)|The Bard]]'' (1817).<ref>Haywood, Matthews & Shannon p.52</ref> The work was exhibited at the 1774 annual exhibition of the [[Society of Artists of Great Britain|Society of Artists]] held in [[London]]. <ref>''The Garland Library of the History of Art: Rococo to Romanticism: Art and Architecture''. Garland Publishing, 1976. p.280</ref> Today the painting is in the collection of the [[National Museum of Wales]] in [[Cardiff]], which acquired it in 1965.<ref name="artuk">{{cite web|url=https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/the-bard-116865|title=The Bard|website=Art UK|access-date=2025-12-20}}</ref>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Bibliography== * Evans, Mark & Fairclough, Oliver. ''The National Museum of Wales :A Companion Guide to the National Art Gallery''. National Museum of Wales, 1993. * Haywood, Ian, Matthews, Susan & Shannon, Mary L. (ed.) ''Romanticism and Illustration''. Cambridge University Press, 2019.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bard (Jones)}} [[Category:1774 paintings]] [[Category:Paintings in National Museum Cardiff]] [[Category:Landscape paintings]] [[Category:History paintings]] [[Category:Wales in art]]
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