The Farm

François Bonvin and his half-brother Léon were born into humble circumstances. While François became an accomplished genre painter, Léonʼs talent was for still-life subjects and landscapes in watercolor, a medium more economical than oil paint. Here, he captured the muted palette of an overcast winter day, with the chalky veneer of frost on the fields and furrows. These atmospheric effects proved a challenge for other painters and even photographers, and Bonvin, with his keen sense of observation and delicate technique, was one of the most successful in evoking such phenomena.