Fieldworkers

Flora Macdonald Reid (1861–1938)

Oil on canvas

1883

99 x 49 cm; framed, 121 x 81 cm.

Fleming Collection, Id. 810

Reid captures the beauty of the everyday, finding it even in the grind of daily labour, in a manner similar to that of Jules Bastien-Lepage. Bastien-Lepage was an important influence on James Guthrie, too: see Guthrie's The Shepherd Boy. But Reid's more closely detailed work is a less sentimentalised example of this kind of rural naturalism.

Closer view of workman's buttoned boots

Closer view of worker crouching

The painting in its frame

"A Window into Scottish Art" at the Lightbox Gallery, Woking (23 April - 3 July 2022) [Review]

Photograph and comment by Jacqueline Banerjee; photograph taken with permission, for the review of the exhibition linked above. [Click on the image to enlarge it, and mouse over the text for links.]