Evening Light on a Wooded Lakeside with Cattle Drinking 1882

Henri-Joseph Harpignies made this watercolor painting, "Evening Light on a Wooded Lakeside with Cattle Drinking", sometime in the late 19th or early 20th century. This image creates meaning through its nostalgic visual codes of rural life. Harpignies was part of a generation of French artists who looked to the countryside for scenes of pre-industrial harmony, reflecting a desire to return to simpler times amid rapid urbanization. The image presents a very specific view of the French landscape. One can use the archives of regional agricultural reports and records of rural economics to provide a sense of what country life in France looked like at this time. Harpignies presents the countryside as a place of natural beauty and tranquility, downplaying the harsh realities of rural labor and economic inequality that defined the period. We can only really come to terms with the work through understanding that it is contingent on social and institutional context.