Sheepshearing in the Fens. 1889. Oil on canvas. 14 3/8 x 18 9/16 inches (38.4 x 47.2 cm). Collection of Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums, accession no. ABDAG002276. Reproduced for non-commercial study purposes. [Click on the images to enlarge them.]
This is another of Macbeth's pictures dealing with farm workers in the Fens, this time dealing with the task of shearing sheep. He had previously exhibited a painting entitled Sheep-Shearing at the Grosvenor Gallery In 1883, no. 74, and in 1890 he exhibited Sheep-dipping in the Fens at the Royal Academy, no. 858. When his first painting on the subject of sheep-shearing was exhibited at the Grosvenor in 1883 Frederick Wedmore felt that Macbeth gave to his rural social realist compositions the abstraction of classical grace:
Sheep-Shearing is more in his accustomed lines. In it, as in The Ferry and the Flood and other contributions of past years, the artist, inspired a little by George Mason and a little by Frederick Walker, has taken some theme of labour or of adventure among the country folk, hardly the poor, and has bestowed upon the treatment of it not a touch of sentimentality, but something of the reserve and abstraction of classic grace. In that department of his work, Mr. Macbeth gives a splendid dignity to rural life – treats rural life rather for majesty of line and glory of colour than for the perpetuation of such of its virtues as are domestic and popular. [871]
Left: Closer view of the sheepsheering. Right: Closer view of the woman punting across the river.
Alfred Baldry has pointed out that Macbeth "has yet made himself best known to the majority of art lovers by his consistent study of open-air life. Mr. Macbeth is too much in sympathy with the rural atmosphere to make mistakes about the character of his subjects, or to miss the essentials that the painter of pure nature must seek after devotedly" (292).
This picture of rural life in the Fens features two men shearing sheep, one to hold the ewe down and the other to do the actual shearing. Two men and a woman immediately behind them prepare to lift the next sheep into place. A large flock of sheep can be seen behind this group waiting to take their turn, while sheep already sheared dominate the left foreground. To the right of the sheep shearers can be seen a young woman punting a boat in the nearby river. A sheep dog lies and observes the scene. In the background is a densely clouded sky that looks ominous for possible rain. This painting is much more "impressionistic" than much of Macbeth's early work.
Bibliography
Baldry, Alfred Lys. "R. W. Macbeth, A.R.A." The Art Journal New Series XXXIX (1900): 289-92.
Wedmore, Frederick. "Genre in the Summer Exhibitions." The Fortnightly Review XXXIX (1883): 864-72.
Created 1 June 2023