1940
watercolor
From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum
Dominant colour
Breast Plough at Tresham, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire is a 1940 watercolor by Archibald Standish Hartrick, a Social Realism work, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.
A man is plowing a field with a long wooden tool, walking behind a small dog. His clothes are dark and worn, and the ground looks muddy and uneven. In the background, there are a few small houses and a fence, with a pale sky above. The painting feels rough and textured, like the artist worked quickly with watercolors. The brushstrokes are loose, especially on the dog and the field. Next, check out the Victoria and Albert Museum to see more works like this.
A watercolour signed by Archibald Standish Hartrick from 1940 depicts a solitary farmer ploughing a field in a bleak winter landscape near Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire, illustrating a vanishing mode of subsistence agriculture reliant on horse and manual labour. The work was created as part of the 'Recording Britain' project, a wartime initiative funded by the Pilgrim Trust and directed by Sir Kenneth Clark to document places and traditions perceived as threatened by modernisation and war. Hartrick’s painting captures a moment when rural practices were increasingly giving way to…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Archibald Standish Hartrick (7 August 1864 – 1 February 1950) was a Scottish painter known for the quality of his lithographic work.
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