Cottages at Clappersgate near Ambleside
Part of Ibbetsonâs career was spent in London, copying or forging Dutch landscapes and the works of English painters like Richard Wilson (1714-82). After 1800, however, his personal inspiration was the sweeping landscape of his native Yorkshire, to which he returned. His travels around England, especially to Wales and the Lake District, were to shape the rest of his work. Willy Hill, Clappersgate, was his home 1800-02. The visual possibilities of tumbledown barns and farmyards - their shape, colour, crumbling walls and creeping vegetation - excited artists. This particular composition explains Ibbetsonâs popularity as âthe Berchem of Englandâ. The debt to the Dutch 17th century is seen especially in the way the figures and animals are arranged.