Painting and poetry
In London, Dyer apprenticed himself under the artist Jonathan Richardson. Richardson's fundamental principle of painting was that all aspects of learning, from reading, observation of nature, studying works by masters in painting and writing poetry were necessary to provide artists with inspiration. As a result, Dyer retained such interests and translated his studies into verbal landscape art. His first attempt in writing Miltonic octosyllabic couplets was addressed to his mentor, "An Epistle to a Famous Painter", the same measure as in his second version of Grongar Hill. It was under Richardson that Dyer met his coffee house group of friends, Thomas Edwards, Daniel Wray, George Knapton and Arthur Pond. Pond would later be referred to in The Fleece (IV. 265).
Dyer, with Richardson's blessing, sailed to Italy in 1724 to continue his studies and made his way straight to Rome, where he admired its objects of antiquity. The Pantheon was a favourite building and preoccupied his time during the trip, while the Colosseum and the Baths of Caracalla were also held in high regard. Among sculptures and reliefs, he notes the Hercules, the Apollo, the "Venus de Medici," the Laocoön group, Trajan's Column, the temple of Pallas, the arches of Titus and Constantine and the Borghese Dancers (now in the Louvre). Such were the inspirations or objects of interest in Dyer's poem The Ruins of Rome, written in 1740. But though he appreciated the beauties about him, his staunch Protestantism was appalled by what he regarded as the superstitious practices of Catholicism: "God of our Fathers, keep us from the ways of these foul hirelings," he exclaimed in a poetic fragment written at the time.
While there, Dyer fell ill with a malarial fever caught in the Campagna and began to contemplate his future. Resuming his journey northwards, he visited the ruins of Otricoli, where he found inspiration for his poem signifying this shift of mood, "Written at Ocriculum in Italy, 1725". Continuing on his journey to Florence, his visits to museums and buildings there instigated a shift in his interests from the classical to the Renaissance period to create one of his few surviving paintings, a copy of Antonio da Correggio's masterpiece, "Madonna Adoring the Christ Child."
On Dyer's return, a selection of six of his poems were published in Richard Savage's Miscellaneous Poems and Translations (1726), which largely consisted of the work of the coterie that had gathered about Aaron Hill, one of those literary groupings typical of the 18th century whose work interconnected and was often cross-referential. This was evident in the many 'collected' editions of Dyer's poems published after his death that were prefaced by poems addressed to him by these friends, in answer to or answered by the shorter poems of Dyer's placed at the end. Thus Dyer's poem "To Mr Savage, son of the late Earl Rivers", exhorting him to bear up under misfortune, is answered by Savage's "An epistle to My John Dyer in answer to his from the country". And Dyer's paean to living in country obscurity, "To a friend in town", becomes a Horatian exchange when complemented by Aaron Hill's "The Choice".
Another cluster of poems about Dyer's portrait of Martha Fowke, who went under the name of Clio in the group, is particularly rich. Both Dyer's "A Country Walk" and "The Inquiry" mention her with singular devotion. So also does "To Clio from Rome" (which remained uncollected in 18th century editions) with its reference to "the wreathed urn among the vines, whose form my pencil now designs." This comes aptly, since Dyer had recently painted her. Martha's reply apologises for her tardiness and compliments both his poetic and artistic tributes: "Your claim demands the bays in double wreath, Your poems lighten and your pictures breathe". Savage too paid his tribute "To Mr John Dyer, occasioned by seeing his picture of the celebrated Clio" in which, going beyond outward likeness, "You eye the Soul". The most that Dyer himself will admit in his epistle "To a Famous Painter" (his teacher Jonathan Richardson), also written from Rome, is the modest confession that "As yet I but in verse can paint".
Several later poems that only exist in manuscript were addressed to different ladies. His epistle "To Aurelia", another member of the coterie, is an appeal to "leave the smoky Town" with him for some rural retreat. Other poems cover pseudonymous flirtations with a Myra and a Celia.
