.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
During 1890 Clausen returned to the subject of sheepfolds on several occasions. It was a familiar motif that he had tackled back in the 1880s when he first moved to Hertfordshire. Now in his final months in Berkshire, it was back on the agenda - but this time with a difference. Then, he had been inspired by Naturalism - what he termed 'modern realism' in the work of Bastien-Lepage. However to achieve the crisp rendering of surface detail that characterized Naturalistic painting, it was necessary for the artist and his contemporaries to work en plein air, on grey days when the light was consistent. Compositions were often static, or showed frozen moments when movement was arrested. As he studied Lepage's Jeanne d'Arc ecoutant les Voix at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889, Clausen began to have doubts about the efficacy of the Naturalist mantra. The figure was 'magnificent' but his works generally were 'incomplete as pictures'.
At this point Clausen's experiments in the use of pastel were under way (see lot 42), and not only was interest in vibrant colour increasing, but his painting style was beginning to be liberated. The present small canvas is one of the first to indicate a specific time of day in its title. Painted in the final months of 1890, it follows the twilight sketches of Brancaster painted earlier in the year and the impressive Sheepfold in Evening (1890, private collection) shown at the last Grosvenor Gallery Pastel Exhibition.
Yet here in the present canvas we see dramatic movement in the shepherd fixing his fence, combined with the splendid study of dawn light casting a soft glow on the fold and the surrounding trees. The mass of conflicting detail found in Bastien-Lepage's big Salon pictures is subdued in this overall impression which in its fine balance of foreground figure and background tree is 'complete' as a picture.
Clausen dispatched Sheepfold at early morning to his dealer, Croal Thomson, at Goupil's in mid-January 1891. It was priced at £25 and no notes are given of its eventual sale. Although he continued to admire Bastien-Lepage, his enthusiasm was tempered by the sense that light, movement and the overall unity of the impression were now more important aspects of painting than he had hitherto thought, and these are the most notable ingredients of this important little canvas. Within a few months, the Clausens were to move house from Berkshire to Widdington in Essex, but the advances made in small works such as this were to be taken forward on a larger scale in The Mowers (1892,Usher Gallery, Lincoln) and Evening Song (1893, private collection). But for the present, the 'solemn stillness' of Gray's Elegy is broken only by the murmur of sheep and the sound of a mallet.
KMc.
At this point Clausen's experiments in the use of pastel were under way (see lot 42), and not only was interest in vibrant colour increasing, but his painting style was beginning to be liberated. The present small canvas is one of the first to indicate a specific time of day in its title. Painted in the final months of 1890, it follows the twilight sketches of Brancaster painted earlier in the year and the impressive Sheepfold in Evening (1890, private collection) shown at the last Grosvenor Gallery Pastel Exhibition.
Yet here in the present canvas we see dramatic movement in the shepherd fixing his fence, combined with the splendid study of dawn light casting a soft glow on the fold and the surrounding trees. The mass of conflicting detail found in Bastien-Lepage's big Salon pictures is subdued in this overall impression which in its fine balance of foreground figure and background tree is 'complete' as a picture.
Clausen dispatched Sheepfold at early morning to his dealer, Croal Thomson, at Goupil's in mid-January 1891. It was priced at £25 and no notes are given of its eventual sale. Although he continued to admire Bastien-Lepage, his enthusiasm was tempered by the sense that light, movement and the overall unity of the impression were now more important aspects of painting than he had hitherto thought, and these are the most notable ingredients of this important little canvas. Within a few months, the Clausens were to move house from Berkshire to Widdington in Essex, but the advances made in small works such as this were to be taken forward on a larger scale in The Mowers (1892,Usher Gallery, Lincoln) and Evening Song (1893, private collection). But for the present, the 'solemn stillness' of Gray's Elegy is broken only by the murmur of sheep and the sound of a mallet.
KMc.