Unlike the landscapes in which the artist represents the cart with oxen coming back burdened from the field or from the fair and where the peasant is placed seated on transport load, this is a work scene. The physical effort suggested by capturing movement belongs both to the animals brought to the fore by using a diagonal line, and to the man seen in the lunging position, pushing the plough.
The composition is created from the dialogue of colours and light of two areas: materiality, the earth of an intense reddish ochre, with the black streaks of fresh tillage (as it happens in spring); the sky with its cold sensation due to the combination of white and blue. The horizon line descends imperceptibly into the area of the tree silhouettes, creating the image of the heavenly vault.
In Grigorescu’s personal exhibitions of 1895, 1897, 1900, and later in the one opened by his son in November – December 1930 in the hall of the Universul1 newspaper, several works were displayed which were entitled: Tillage, Spring Tillage, Autumn Tillage, etc.
Orig.: Collection of the artist’s descendants.
1 In 1930, works originating mostly from the collection of Gheorghe N. Grigorescu were presented. The catalogues of the above-mentioned exhibitions do not indicate the medium, the technique, the size.
