Back from the Fields or Farmer on an Ox-Cart

Back from the Fields or Farmer on an Ox-cart is a typical work of Hubert Malfait’s early period. Its composition in sharply-defined planes, sober colours and extreme simplification of form reveal the influence of both Cubism and Expressionism. Malfait lived in Astene on the River Lys and, like Constant Permeke, Gustave De Smet and Frits Van den Berghe, he sought…

Back from the Fields or Farmer on an Ox-cart is a typical work of Hubert Malfait’s early period. Its composition in sharply-defined planes, sober colours and extreme simplification of form reveal the influence of both Cubism and Expressionism. Malfait lived in Astene on the River Lys and, like Constant Permeke, Gustave De Smet and Frits Van den Berghe, he sought his subjects in the daily lives of the farmers around him. He was one of a generation of younger artists whose work was influenced by Flemish Expressionism.