The Mower

Arthur Hughes painted 'The Mower' in 1865, a year of considerable productivity during which his Pre-Raphaelite approach had matured into an assured personal style. The scythe-bearing mower — a figure with deep roots in European iconography reaching back to personifications of Time and Death — here appears in a naturalistic English context rather than an allegorical one, reflecting the Pre-Raphaelite preference for embedding symbolic resonance within scenes of observed reality. The agricultural laborer had become an increasingly important subject in British art during the 1860s as rural England was transformed by mechanization and rural depopulation, creating a nostalgic investment in images of traditional hand labor. Aberdeen Archives, Gallery and Museums holds this canvas within its collection of Victorian art, reflecting Scottish institutional collecting of significant English painting during the nineteenth century. Hughes's treatment of the male agricultural figure offers a male counterpart to the more numerous female rural subjects in Pre-Raphaelite painting.

The canvas likely employs the bright, jewel-like palette characteristic of Hughes's 1860s work, with the white-primed ground contributing luminosity to the outdoor scene. The mower's physical form and the sweep of his scythe would require careful attention to figure movement, an area where Hughes excelled in conveying dynamic action within a static image.