In the Fields in June. Sir George Clausen (1852-1944). 1914. Oil on canvas. Size: 183.0 x 213.7 cm. Collection: Amgueddfa Cymru — National Museum of Wales, Cardiff. Acquired by purchase in 1914. Accession Number: NMW A 176. Having pointed out that Clausen "specialised in scenes of rural life and was preoccupied with the effects of light," the museum explains: "Sketches reveal that he originally intended to portray six or seven labourers in this unusually large canvas." However, in the end he must have felt that his real subject was not so much the farm-workers as the setting itself: "The subject matter recalls Millet, but the extensive sky is reminiscent of recent Dutch paintings of the Hague School" ("Art Collections Online").
The painting in its frame.
Indeed, Clausen talked much about the challenge of painting the sky in his lectures at the Royal Academy, especially in his lecture on "Landscape and Open-air Painting": "The most difficult of all, perhaps, is to paint a sky which shall really be a sky; but as this means that all the other elements in the picture shall be in accord with it, to paint a good sky is to paint a good picture" (100-101).
Photographs, text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. You may use these images without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and the National Museum of Wales and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
Related material
Bibliography
"Art Collections Online: In the Fields in June ." Amgueddfa Cymru — National Museum Wales. Web. 30 August 2019.
Clausen, George. Six Lectures on Painting Delivered to the Students of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, January, 1904. 3rd ed. London: Methuen, 1904. Internet Archive. Contributed by Reese Library, University of California. Web. 1 September 2019.
Last modified 26 June 2020