Stories Pictures Tell. Book 6

by Flora L. Carpenter

Anton Mauve has painted a companion picture to this one. The two pictures hang on the same wall in the Metropolitan Museum, New York City. The companion picture is called “Sheep in Autumn,” and, as the name suggests, it represents a scene in the fall of the year.

The first picture brings to our mind visions of green meadows, newly ploughed fields, tender grass, and tiny green leaves, quickening into life and beauty with the arrival of the mild days of spring; but the second picture has a different story to tell. It is autumn now; the leaves and grass have ripened to a reddish brown, and the grain has been gathered from the field at the right of the picture.

The sheep are turned away from us here, and it is not necessary for the shepherd and his dog to hold them back. There is no young and tender grass to tempt them, and they are going home. There are many young lambs with the flock now, born since their mothers went out to pasture, and they lag behind the rest as if the journey were a long one. We can almost hear the shrill bleating of the little lambs mingled with the deeper calls of the sheep as they move along the road.

The shepherd, this time an old man in the autumn of his life, tenderly carries a little weak lamb under his arm. Perhaps after it has rested, he will take up another tired one. The dog looks older too. No doubt he has had a hard summer of it with the care of all these sheep and their lambs.

By the long shadows, Mauve has told us that it is the end of the day as well as the end of the year.

There is a strong appeal in this picture when we think of the homecoming of this little company—the tired young lambs following their mothers, the tired dog that will now have a long rest, and the kind old shepherd with the helpless lamb under his arm.

Through both these pictures Mauve has expressed the same sympathy with, and love for, nature and its many changes of season and weather. It is difficult indeed to choose one for study in preference to the other, and it is perhaps for that reason that they are usually studied together.

In our picture of the sheep in spring, with all its suggestions of growth and beauty, the grass and leaves are luxuriant, and yet the days and nights are still too cool for the sheep to be sheared. When the warm days come, the shepherd will probably drive his flock to the river or some clear stream where, in spite of strugglings to escape, their long, woolly coats will be scrubbed and cleaned. Then when the wool is thoroughly dried it will be cut off with large shears and sent to the manufactories, where it will be made into cloth for the garments we wear.

Long ago, in our great grandmother’s day, wool was carded, spun, and woven into cloth by hand. Many families still keep the old spinning wheels and hand looms which were used in those times.

Questions to help the pupil understand the picture. In what country was this picture painted? What time of year is represented? Why does the shepherd keep the sheep back? How can he prevent them from going too fast? How do the sheep prefer to eat the grass? What can you see at the right of the picture? What is on each side of this road? To what does it lead? Of what use are the sheep? In what ways can the dog help the shepherd? How does he keep the sheep together? Tell about the dog and the seven hundred lambs. How can a trained dog understand his master even at a distance? In what ways are sheep helpless? How can a dog protect them from wolves? What is the companion picture to this one called? How does it differ from this painting? Which one do you like best? Why? Where are the original paintings?