The Brotherhood of Ruralists Information Website

Artists' Catalogue Entry

Artist: Ann Arnold

Title: The Fly (For John Clare)

Medium: Watercolour

Size: 30.5cm x 24cm

Date: 2000

Source: {B19}

Exhibited

Ruralist 2000 Exhibition
Barley Splatt, Cornwall,
30 September - 20 October 2000

Supplementary Information

The work is dedicated to the poet, John Clare (1793-1864). Earlier, Ann Arnold had produced a set of watercolour illustrations for an edition of selected works of Clare's, published under the title Clare's Countryside.

'Song of Secret Love' by John Clare
The poem is a possible source of inspiration for the painting

I hid my love when young while I
Couldn't bear the buzzing of a fly
I hid my love to my despite
Till I could not bear to look at light
I dare not gaze upon her face
But left her memory in each place
Where ere I saw a wild flower lie
I kissed and bade my love goodbye

I met her in the greenest dells
Where dew drops pearl the wood bluebells
The lost breeze kissed her bright blue eye
The bee kissed and went singing by
A sunbeam found a passage there
A gold chain round her neck so fair
As secret as the wild bee's song
She lay there all the summer long

I hid my love in field and town
Till e'en the breeze would knock me down
The bees seemed singing ballads l'er
The fly's buss turned a Lion's roar
And even silence found a tongue
To haunt me all the summer long
The riddle nature could not prove
Was nothing else but secret love