" PHEASANTS AT DUSK "
Robert Bateman

950 s/n Paper
20.5" x 30.25"
Email-price

"The building in Pheasants at Dusk was a former cheese factory, until vandals burned it down
a few years ago.The factory itself had closed because of competition from a large monopoly.
With it died one example of a particularly vital form of economic democracy - the farmers’
cooperative. This was where my grandfather and his neighbors took their milk to be made
into cheese. You can see the curving drive and part of the covering over the loading platform
where Grandad would have pulled up his horse-drawn wagon. The split rail fence comes at
you into the foreground - almost landing in your lap - then leads you back into the picture
and toward the male pheasant in flight. The pheasant provides a hint of opulence in an
otherwise stark, late-autumnal scene, perhaps a faint reminder of summer. Brought over
by settlers from the British Isles as a game bird, the pheasant has survived better than my
grandfather’s way of life, although its numbers have declined drastically in the last ten
years.  I really enjoy painting its rich tapestry of feathers.  I don’t think the human
imagination could devise a more surprising or pleasing visual combination."
Robert Bateman

  

- Pheasants at Dusk - Robert Bateman

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