Landscape with Cows

"Landscape with Cows" from 1901 extends Kreuger's animal subjects from horses to cattle, demonstrating his interest in all the working animals of the Swedish agricultural landscape rather than horses alone. Cows in landscape had their own tradition in Dutch and Flemish painting, carried forward into nineteenth-century Realism by painters like Anton Mauve and the Hague School, whose work Swedish painters knew well. The Fürstenberg Gallery's holding of this work alongside the spring ploughing scene suggests Fürstenberg's systematic interest in Kreuger's range of rural subjects. By 1901 Kreuger's mature style was fully established, and a landscape with cows would receive the same careful, observational treatment as his horse subjects.

Cows in landscape require attention to the animals' bulk and relatively slow movement — they are heavier, more static presences than horses. Their coats vary in pattern and color across breeds, presenting different textural and chromatic challenges. Kreuger would position them within the landscape to create a natural, unstaged sense of pastoral ease.