The Return to the Fold

A shepherd leads his flock home across a muddy, rutted field, his dog trotting alongside to keep the sheep in line. The rifle slung over his shoulder and his heavy dark coat suggest a long day outdoors, and the whole procession moves toward us through churned earth still soft from rain. Anton Mauve painted this scene in the late 1800s, and he was drawn again and again to the plain rhythms of rural Dutch life: shepherds, cattle, and the flat open country of the Netherlands.

Mauve belonged to the Hague School, a circle of Dutch painters who favored muted grays and browns over bright color, capturing the damp, cloudy weather their homeland is known for. Here the sky is a wash of dull cloud, and the earth beneath it is nearly the same tone, so the sheep almost glow by comparison. Mauve happened to be a cousin by marriage to Vincent van Gogh, and he gave the younger artist some of his earliest lessons in painting before their relationship soured. If you look at how the wheel ruts pull your eye straight into the flock, you can see the careful sense of composition that made Mauve one of the most respected painters of his day.