Behind Rye, Victoria

'Almost without exception Arthur Boyd's best landscapes of this period [1935-1940] are extraordinarily 'sparse' in their motifs. ... Often the skyline slopes slightly upwards, sometimes quite interrupted so that the horizontal masses of grey-green paddock (perhaps with a scattered accent of grazing cattle or sheep) are set unbroken against a high sky with broken or moving clouds. ... As restrained and sparse as the motif is the range of pale tonality, from the yellow and grey-green of fields to the subdued grey-green of the sky. The impasto is applied with broad short strokes, quite often with the palette knife so that higher ridges stand against flat colour areas.' (F Philipp, Arthur Boyd, London, 1967, pp.24-26)