A disciple of Picasso and Braque, Roger de la Fresnaye joined the burgeoning Cubist movement in 1911. He had begun experimenting with this new idiom as early as 1910 and soon became an avid promoter of the Cubist cause. However, the artist was soon dillussioned with the static nature of Cubism's rigorous systems and the denial of color and the human presence. His vision of nature was much more lyrical appealing to his classical and poetic spirit. What he did garner from Cubism was an overall sense of discipline and a way of working that allowed him to abstract the essence of his subject matter.

Now the landscape is organized in geometric masses,
impressive in power and weight. Though the lyric
or bucolic aspects of the lovely countryside are
never entirely ignored, it is significant that the
artist usually chooses a distant viewpoint, as
though from a dominating hill. There is an
increased sense of action, a suggestion of a human
movement still viewed from afar, but one senses
it is the less static atmosphere suggested by the
rising smoke and the moving clouds. (G. Seligman,
op. cit., p. 32)

One of the first owners of this painting was John Quinn, a New York lawyer and patron of twentieth century art. A baker's son from a small provincial town in Ohio, Quinn became a champion of the avant-garde. By the time he died, his collection included major works by Brancusi, Cézanne, Matisse and Picasso and had blossomed to over one thousand works of art. Following his death in 1924, his collection was sold in two auctions; one in Paris in 1926 and the other in New York in 1927.