The Fields, Plateau Of Red Cross (1914)

The painting "The Fields, Plateau Of Red Cross" by Félix Vallotton is a captivating landscape that beautifully captures the tranquility and structured diversity of agricultural fields. Created in 1914, this piece exemplifies Vallotton’s skills in the post-impressionist style, characterized by vivid colors, clear forms, and bold simplicity.The artwork depicts an expansive view of several fields, each planted with different crops. On the left, a vibrant dark green patch shows a dense leafy growth, possibly of a vegetable crop, lined by a narrower strip of blossoming flowers in deep blue, adding a playful contrast. Adjacent to this, the scenery opens up to a vast expanse of golden yellow, likely a grain field ripening under the sun. The rightmost field returns to the lush greens, sectioned off by a neat path that invites the viewer’s eye to wander through the fields and explore the distant line of trees bounding the horizon.Above this serene agricultural mosaic, the sky is depicted in light, almost pastel hues, suggesting either early morning or late afternoon light. The clarity and stillness of the scene evoke a timeless sense of peace and order, the earth rich and productive under the careful tending of unseen hands.This painting not only shows Vallotton's acute sense for color and form but also subtly reflects the calm before the storm of the First World War, capturing an idyllic moment in a world on the brink of great change.