Patrick Nasmyth

Tintern Abbey is much celebrated in poetry and painting. Until 1829 it was approachable only by rough roads or boat on the River Wye. This may explain Patrick Nasmyth’s distant view of the Abbey but in doing so gave him opportunity to do what he did best. This small, highly wrought oil on panel contains all the defining features of Nasmyth’s painting: clouds, hedgerows, a river, trees and a single carefully placed figure of a woman on the road. The foreground of bullrushes, tree stumps and grasses points straight to the paintings of 17th-century Dutch artists, in particular Hobbema and Ruisdael whose work were enormously influential on him. A number of larger scale oils taking in Bristol, Bath, the Severn and the River Avon were executed during 1826-7.

The eldest child of Alexander Nasmyth, Patrick was also his pupil, until he moved to London in 1807. As a teenager, Nasmyth lost the use of his right hand following an accident, forcing him to learn how to paint with his left. A childhood illness also left him partially deaf. It was said of Patrick that he was introverted by nature. He travelled around Britain widely nonetheless and made regular return visits to Scotland.