Return from the fields

In the typical bow-legged pose, which Ligabue uses to suggest the gait of the human figure, a farmer accompanies a pair of horses towards the village, whose coat is described with a wealth of tonal modulations. Recurring iconographic elements in the works that the artist dedicates to this theme are the dog barking at the horses, the hens in the act of pecking on the ground with the rooster represented in profile and, beyond the minutely described meadows, a village as if they can find them in Switzerland, to which the absence of inhabitants gives the character of a dream image.