<div class="description">
<p>Primarily self-taught, Varley played a significant role in the development of open-air drawing practice in 19thcentury England. He relished the opportunity to engage directly with natural phenomena and made numerous sketches of the English landscape. Raised by his uncle who was a watchmaker, Varley combined his artistic interests with his exposure to science, and in 1809 invented a "graphic telescope," a drawing instrument loosely derived from the camera obscura. Varley's drawings were more than mere transcriptions of nature, however. This drawing illustrates a stanza of Samuel Roger's popular poem "The Pleasures of Memory": 
</p><p>The adventuring boy that asks his little share
And hies from home, with many a gossip's prayer
Turns on a neighboring hill once more to see
The dear abode of peace and privacy;
And as he turns, the thatch among the trees
The smoke's blue wreaths, ascending from the
breeze,
The Village Common scattered with white sheep
All rouse reflection's sadly pleasing train
</p>
And oft he looks, and weeps, and looks again.</div>
<div class="fn value">
Cornelius Varley</div>
<a rel="nofollow" class="external free" href="https://clevelandart.org/art/2004.40">https://clevelandart.org/art/2004.40</a>