Wyant probably came to that point of view at first through Inness and then, later on, through Constable, Corot, and Rousseau. It was the right point of view, though he never gave it with quite the breadth of Corot or with the solid painting of Rousseau. His canvases were always sufficiently covered with pigment, but no more. Some of his late pictures show a freer use of pigment, but he seldom if ever did any fat or unctuous painting, and never painted for mere display of dexterity. He had certain formulas of composition, methods of getting certain effects that he employed continuously. For instance, he liked a dark foreground, a lighted middle distance, and a veiled sunlight effect at the back. To avoid the obviousness of this composition he often introduced light spots from a pool in the dark foreground and dark stumps or tree trunks in the light middle distance, or otherwise varied the contrast of light with dark. But these with glazed shadows and opaque high lights were not exactly painter’s tricks but rather the conventional practices of the studio at that time. Wyant up to the last ten years of his life painted much out of doors and directly from the model. From that he got exact knowledge of forms, lights, and colors, so that in after-years he was able to draw and paint largely from visual memory. Working directly from the model led him into much detail, and some of his earlier pictures are burdened with a multitude of facts, but when he worked from memory in the studio all that was changed. He simplified his composition to a few large masses, threw out detail, and depended for effect largely upon light, air, and diffused color. A little valley view with half a dozen beeches at the left, a clump of bushes with a ledge of rock at the right, a veiled distance--that was enough for him. Occasionally in his pictures one sees a white cottage in the background, a road or a bridge; but these do not occur frequently, and I cannot remember any picture by him that shows man, woman, or child. The human interest was not his. He believed that nature was sufficient unto itself and needed no association with mankind to make it beautiful or interesting. So long had he looked at nature and studied her appearances, so long had he marvelled and brooded over her grandeur and beauty, so long had he loved the veiled mountain light, the blue air, and the forest shadow, that finally he came to have a way of seeing things, a point of view about nature that by its intensity and depth was perhaps abnormal. He saw not as we see but as an absorbed nature-lover sees. The disturbing prose of facts was no longer there. The poetry of light, air, and color alone remained.