The Coming Day

Arnesby Brown admired the softness and tonal quality of the French Barbizon School, particularly Jean-François Millet and Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, as well as the bold brushwork of the Impressionists. Interested in the effects of light on landscape, he tended to work in the open air, creating harmonious compositions dominated by the vast Norfolk sky. In this painting a hazy golden dawn glows across a marshy landscape, silhouetting a group of horses. The light lends a softness to the entire composition, which Arnesby Brown has rendered with a warm palette of yellow, green, orange and brown tones.