Barking, Springtime

Inspired by the Surrey countryside, Myles Birket Foster’s watercolours were occasionally painted on an uncommonly large scale for the medium, and combined carefully modelled figures and intricate details with broadly washed skies and backgrounds. In this painting, commissioned by the Art Gallery of New South Wales trustees, a section of woodland overlooking flat plains has recently been cleared. A woodcutter has stripped the trunk of an oak of its bark, which has been laid out to dry on a framework of short poles. Eventually the tannin-rich bark will be sold for use in the tanning of leather. The presence of a young mother with a child in her arms and a basket at her feet suggests the hour of the midday meal.