Landscape with Cattle, Morning 1894

Henry William Banks Davis painted "Landscape with Cattle, Morning" using oil paints on canvas, a very typical material combination for a landscape painter of his time. The way Davis has worked the surface shows that this wasn't about a smooth, blended finish. You can really see the marks of the brush, especially in the rendering of the cattle, and the rocky foreground. This tactile approach creates a strong sense of place. You can imagine him working outdoors, rapidly trying to capture the specific atmosphere of the location. However, it is worth remembering that images like this one were intended as luxury goods. Canvases and oil paints were factory-produced, and Davis would have been part of a system, focused on selling romantic visions of nature to an increasingly urbanized population. It is work about leisure and consumption, created for a market that was being shaped by industrialization.