Green Pastures and Still Waters. Benjamin Williams Leader (1831-1923). 1896 — note that there was also a painting of this title in 1883 (see Lusk 32); but, as Frank Lewis points out, "many of his paintings bear the same titles, and are almost identical, with perhaps slight variations" (23). Oil on canvas. H 50.1 x W 76.4 cm. Photo credit: Manchester Art Gallery. Accession no.1917.215, bequeathed by Mr James Thomas Blair, 1917. Image kindly made available via Art UK on the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Click on the image to enlarge it.
Closer view of the right side of the painting: the man with his dog, and the sheep nearby.
This peaceful pastoral scene with its title derived from Psalm 23 ("The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters") needs little commentary. A man rests by the water, with his dog beside him and a flock of sheep grazing nearby. A wide expanse of hayfield spreads in the background. Nothing could be more serene, yet more suggestive of plenty, and hope, than this glimpse of our familiar countryside. — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
Barringer, Tim. "Leader, Benjamin Williams [formerly Benjamin Williams] (1831–1923), landscape painter." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Web. 4 September 2020.
Lusk, Lewis. "B. W. Leader, RA." The Art Journal (attached monograph). Internet Archive. Vol. 63 (1901). Contributed by the Getty Research Institute. Web. 4 September 2020.
Created 4 September 2020