Leisure and Labor

Frank Blackwell Mayer

National Gallery of Art

Two men, a dog, and a horse gather at the wide opening to a barn-like building that fills this horizontal painting. A light-skinned, blond man in a tall, brimmed, straw hat leans with his ankles crossed and hands in pockets against the right side of the opening. His body faces us and he turns his gaze toward the man to our left, whose face is in profile. The blond man's knee-length, olive-green jacket has black lapels, and it hangs open to reveal a close-fitting, ivory-white vest over a white shirt with a sea-blue tie. His brown, calf-high boots have a band of brick red around the top. A slender, brown and white grayhound stands facing our left in profile with its front legs stiffly straight and its hindquarters pressing against the man’s right leg. The tanned, dark-haired man near the jamb to our left bends over to work on the underside of a horse’s hoof, which he holds between his knees with his left hand. He wears a loose red shirt with an open collar and rolled-up sleeves, over wrinkled brown pants. Short black locks emerge under the edges of his olive-green cap. A wooden box of tools, with a handle for carrying, sits on the dirt ground in front of him. The horse being shod, overlapped by the workman, faces into the barn and to our left, but its head, turning to our right, is silhouetted against a landscape visible through an open window at the back of the barn. The view is dotted with haystacks and framed by tree branches. A stirrup hangs on a strap flung over a saddle on the back of the horse, whose rump stands between the laborer and a woman, who is deep in shadow. Placing her right hand, on our left, on her hip, she appears in front of the grids of window panes. She seems to have pale skin and dark, loosely bound-up hair, and she looks toward the horse. Red flames flicker in a fireplace between her and the standing blond man. The front opening of the structure is protected by a shallow wooden portico, supported on the left by a slender, trimmed tree trunk with a ring hanging from a screw near the top. Curling red and yellow leaves are scattered on the long, narrow, wooden boards that form the porch roof. Sunlight dapples the barn wall to our left, and a square patch of light falls on the face of the wall to our right, near the ground. A broken plow lies on the ground to our right, with the wooden handle of a tool propped against it. A tuft of long dark hair, like a horse’s tail, hangs on the wall over the tools. Closer to the head of the standing man, a poster is printed with black on white paper. A running man carrying an hourglass and a scythe is enclosed in a thin circle, over the words, “STOP THEIF!!!” in capital letters, though “thief” is misspelled.