Landscape with Cattle, Evening 1896

Henry William Banks Davis gave us ‘Landscape with Cattle, Evening’ with oil paint on canvas, likely sometime in the late 19th century. Davis was part of a generation of artists that brought a fresh sensibility to landscape painting. But while his contemporaries in France were embracing radical approaches, Davis remained committed to academic technique. He took a craftsmanlike approach to his landscapes, evident here in the precise brushwork used to build up the scene. Consider the texture of the rough stone wall in the foreground, built with countless individual marks. This is the labor of painting made visible, but so too is the labor of farm work, with cattle at rest in the fields. Davis's vision of the landscape gives us a world that is worked and shaped by human activity, even as it exudes a sense of natural peace. By considering Davis's commitment to careful craftsmanship, and his subject matter, we can see how he brought a progressive vision to the tradition of landscape painting.