Winter Morning

Sir George Clausen 1852 - 1944

Summary

This is a naturalistic, snowy winter landscape, with a hazy view of fields and trees in the background. In the right foreground, two figures are gathering wood surrounded by ivy-covered trees and a fallen tree-trunk.

Display Label

Winter Morning 1906 George Clausen 1852-1944 Oil on canvas Haystacks were famously painted by the French Impressionist artist Claude Monet in 1890-91. Unlike Monet, George Clausen does not focus solely on the changing light on the haystack – instead they are part of a rural scene like those evoked by English poet and novelist Thomas Hardy. The figures are perhaps uncouth and silent, but they work purposefully, at one with the land. Clausen was an English painter who in the mid 1880s helped to found the New English Art Club, a group of young artists dissatisfied with the way the art establishment was run. By the time he painted this work he was Professor of Painting at the Royal Academy, the very art establishment he had challenged. Purchased 1907.36