The Hayfield
Artist: Ford Madox Brown (British, 1821–1893)
Date: 1855-1856
Medium: Oil paint on mahogany
Collection: Tate Britain, London, United Kingdom
Description
In keeping with the Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic of 'truth to nature', much of this landscape was painted entirely on the spot. It offers a twilight view, looking east across rolling green fields on the Tenterden estate at Hendon in Middlesex. To the left of the picture, a farmer on horseback addresses the haymakers, who have almost completed the day's work. Another farm worker tends the horses, while a group of children await a lift home in the haycart. In the left foreground the artist himself rests against a small haystack, his equipment scattered about him. A full moon has just risen, and the setting sun strikes a distant house on its west side. Brown's aim in this picture was to achieve the effect of evening light, 'the wonderful effects' in the hayfields, the warmth of the uncut grass, the greeny greyness of the unmade hay in furrows or tufts' (Surtees, p.145). To this end, he began work at 5pm each evening, returning to the same spot about twice a week from the end of July until early September 1855. In October, after moving from Finchley to Kentish Town, he returned on several more occasions, and was sometimes forced to walk the fourteen miles there and back.
