De Wint! I would not flatter nor would I
Pretend to critic-skill in this thine art,
Yet in thy landscapes I can well descry
Thy breathing hues as natures counterpart.
No painted freaks, no wild romantic sky,
No rocks nor mountains as the rich sublime,
Hath made thee famous, but the sunny truth
Of nature that doth mark thee for all time,
Found on our level pastures - spots, forsooth,
Where common skill sees nothing deemed divine.
Yet here a worshipper was found in thee,
Where thy young pencil worked such rich surprise
That rushy flats befringed with willow tree
Rivalled the beauties of Italian skies
John Clare, The Rural Muse, 1835
Clare wrote in his unpublished Essay of Landscape Painting that, ‘The only artist that produces real English scenery in which British landscapes are seen and felt upon paper with all their poetry and exillerating [sic] expression of Beauty about them is De Wint…. There are no mountains lifting up the very plains with their extravagant attitudes no ruins with their worn and mossy claptrap for effect but simple woods spreading their quiet draperys to the summer sky and undiversified plains bask in the poetry of light and sunshine…’ (J.W. and A. Tibble (eds.), The Prose of John Clare, London, 1951, pp. 211-212).
The relationship between the artist and nature had been growing through the 18th Century. The drama of the ever changing sky or the constantly moving sea or the distant hill and remote waterfalls became a thing to be painted and drawn rather than just a backdrop to man’s actions, Nature itself provided the drama. Clare was inspired to write his ode to De Wint in 1835, yet his broad, deep-toned washes and his response to light, time and weather give his work a simplicity and timelessness that still appeals today.