Oil paint on canvas
Tate Collection
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<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/george-robert-lewis-349" aria-label="More by George Robert Lewis" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">George Robert Lewis</a>
Hereford Dynedor and Malvern Hills Haywood Lodge Harvest Scene Afternoon
Presented by the Rev. Stopford Brooke 1904
adults
afternoon
agriculture and fishing
agriculture, gardening & fishing
animals: mammals
cart
clothing
clothing and personal items
Dinedor
England
England, Midlands
farmland
flower
group
groups
harvesting
Hereford - non-specific
Herefordshire
hill
horse
landscape
Malvern Hills
man
objects
people
places
plants and flowers
sheaf
society
times of the day
transport: land
tree
UK cities, towns and villages
UK counties
UK countries and regions
UK natural features
work and occupations
<p>During Britain’s long war with France (1793–1815) it was almost impossible to travel to Europe. Consequently, artists and writers focused on the native landscape with a new intensity. Like Constable, Lewis explored the possibility of working directly from nature, outdoors. This is one of a group of pictures of Herefordshire subjects which Lewis described as having been ‘Painted on the Spot’. However, it is clear that he must have reworked the composition. The passage of time has caused changes to the painting, which have revealed traces of a harvester to the right of the main group of figures.</p><p><em>Gallery label, May 2007</em></p>
painting oil paint canvas
15 October 2001 – 4 August 2002
2002-08-04
15 October 2001 – 4 August 2002
2002-08-04
2001-10-15
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2001-10-15
Constable: Outdoor Sketching
Collection based display
1 April 2003 – 12 July 2004
2004-07-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-04-01
Images of Rural Life
Collection based display
12 May 2003 – 23 April 2006
2006-04-23
12 May 2003 – 23 April 2006
2006-04-23
2003-05-12
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2003-05-12
Constable 2
Collection based display
8 May 2006 – 22 May 2007
2007-05-22
8 May 2006
2006-05-08
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2006-05-08
John Constable
Collection based display
6 October 2007 – 13 January 2008
2008-01-13
6 October 2007 – 13 January 2008
2008-01-13
2007-10-06
Museum voor Schone Kunsten (Ghent, Belgium)
http://www.gent.be/
2007-10-06
British Vision, Observation and Imagination in British Art, 1750 -1950
Loan-out
28 March 2012 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
28 March 2012 – 14 October 2012
2012-10-14
2012-03-28
Tate Britain (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/britain/
2012-03-28
Patrick Keiller
Collection based display
22 July 2013 – 28 June 2014
2014-06-28
22 July 2013 – 22 September 2013
2013-09-22
2013-07-22
Compton Verney (Compton Verney, UK)
5 October 2013 – 5 January 2014
2014-01-05
2013-10-05
Turner Contemporary (Margate, UK)
1 March 2014 – 28 June 2014
2014-06-28
2014-03-01
Laing Art Gallery (Newcastle upon Tyne, UK)
http://www.twmuseums.org.uk/
2013-07-22
Capturing British Landscape in the age of Turner and Constable
Loan-out
26 March 2015 – 27 May 2020
2020-05-27
26 March 2015 – 21 June 2015
2015-06-21
2015-03-26
Museo Nacional de Arte (Mexico City, Mexico)
18 July 2015 – 18 October 2015
2015-10-18
2015-07-18
Pinacoteca do Estado (São Paulo, Brazil)
27 April 2018 – 5 August 2018
2018-08-05
2018-04-27
Shanghai Art Museum (Shanghai, China)
4 September 2018 – 13 November 2018
2018-11-13
2018-09-04
National Art Museum of China (Beijing, China)
27 November 2019 – 27 May 2020
2020-05-27
2019-11-27
Hong Kong Museum of Art (Hong Kong, China)
2015-03-26
British Landscape
Tate partnerships & programmes
Hereford, Dynedor and the Malvern Hills, from the Haywood Lodge, Harvest Scene, Afternoon
support: 416 × 597 mm
frame: 625 × 800 × 92 mm
Presented by the Rev. Stopford Brooke 1904
<p>Lewis studied with Henry Fuseli (1741–1825) at the Royal Academy, and painted landscape at the beginning of his career, becoming known principally as a portrait painter after 1820. He exhibited <i>Hereford, Dynedor and the Malvern Hills ...</i> along with <i>Hereford, from the Haywood, Noon</i> (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-hereford-from-the-haywood-noon-n02960" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N02960</span></a>) and twelve small harvest scenes set in the same locality, two of which are in also in Tate’s collection (<a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-harvest-field-with-gleaners-haywood-herefordshire-t03234" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03234</span></a> and <a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/lewis-harvest-field-with-reapers-haywood-herefordshire-t03235" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>T03235</span></a>), at the Society of Painters in Oil and Water Colours in April 1816, announcing them all as ‘painted on the spot’; all these works have very specific titles giving topographical details of the viewpoint and time of day they were painted. In 1813 he had undertaken a sketching tour of North Wales with John Linnell (1792–1882), an enthusiast of <i>plein-air</i> landscape painting, which may account for Lewis’s continuing interest in the approach in 1815. 
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<br/>The scenes shown in all the Herefordshire landscapes indicate that Lewis, who lived in London, was staying in the late summer of 1815 at Haywood Lodge, a large farmhouse a few miles outside the city of Hereford; the fields and harvesters depicted were all associated with the farm. No particular family or other personal connection has been made between Lewis and Herefordshire at that time, although later in life he made drawings of Kilpeck church, in the same county, and published a pamphlet on education at Hereford. It is possible that Lewis may have been invited to paint the area by a local patron, or even by the owner of the farm itself.
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<br/>In <i>Hereford, Dynedor and the Malvern Hills ...</i>Lewis pays great attention to the accuracy of the topographical detail of the cornfields and the surrounding landscape, representative of the concentration by British artists on the authentic representation of the details of rural and agricultural life in the ‘decade of naturalism’, 1810–20, referred to by John Gage (<i>A Decade of English Naturalism</i>, exhibition catalogue, Norwich Castle Museum, 1969). Lewis’s work can be compared with contemporary detailed harvest scenes by Peter de Wint (1784–1849), John Linnell and John Constable (1776–1837). Rosenthal has noted that in the work of these artists can be seen a celebration of the fecundity of rural England, the morally uplifting emphasis on the success of Britain’s agricultural activity implicit in the paintings reflecting and promoting patriotic fervour and social harmony during the period up to the first defeat of Napoleon in 1814 (p.110). Interest in naturalistic representation of agricultural scenes declined after 1815, as economic depression made the theme more problematic. 
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<br/>Although <span>N0291</span> is ostensibly a <i>plein-air</i> study, Payne has suggested that three of the workers in the foreground, including the barely-visible <i>pentimento</i> figure with a jacket almost obscured by over-painting to the right of the group, may have been portraits of the employees of Mrs Theresa Price, the tenant farmer (p.96). The other figures, painted less convincingly with minimal individualization, were probably added in the studio later. It is possible that the jacketed figure represents the overseer, or bailiff, possibly arguing with the harvesters, and that Lewis removed the figure in order to minimize this confrontational element, creating a more harmonious atmosphere in the group. There was a serious fear of political instability in Britain in 1816, when the painting was exhibited, during a period of economic decline after the end of the Napoleonic war, and Lewis may have been concerned to avoid any allusion to tension between workers and their employers.  
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<a name="Heading10"></a><b>Further reading:</b></h2>
<p>Christiana Payne, <i>Toil and Plenty, Images of the Agricultural Landscape</i> in England, 1780–1890, pp.52–4 and 95–6, reproduced p.95.</p>
<h2>
<a name="Heading12"></a>Leslie Parris, <i>Landscape in Britain c.1750–1850</i>, exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery, London 1973, p.104, reproduced p.105.</h2>
<p>Michael Rosenthal, <i>British Landscape Painting</i>, London 1982, pp.110–12, reproduced in colour p.113.
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<br/>Cathy Johns
<br/>June 2002
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Summary
2010-02-03T00:00:00
summary
SHORT_TEXT
<p>During Britain’s long war with France (1793–1815) it was almost impossible to travel to Europe. Consequently, artists and writers focused on the native landscape with a new intensity. Like Constable, Lewis explored the possibility of working directly from nature, outdoors. This is one of a group of pictures of Herefordshire subjects which Lewis described as having been ‘Painted on the Spot’. However, it is clear that he must have reworked the composition. The passage of time has caused changes to the painting, which have revealed traces of a harvester to the right of the main group of figures. </p>

Display caption
2007-05-03T00:00:00
display-caption
DISPLAY_CAPTION
adults afternoon agriculture and fishing agriculture, gardening & fishing animals: mammals cart clothing clothing and personal items Dinedor England England, Midlands farmland flower group groups harvesting Hereford - non-specific Herefordshire hill horse landscape Malvern Hills man objects people places plants and flowers sheaf society times of the day transport: land tree UK cities, towns and villages UK counties UK countries and regions UK natural features work and occupations