After entering the Dresden Art Academy in 1871, Hugo Mühlig devoted himself entirely to landscape painting. In 1881, he moved to Düsseldorf whose Academy played a preeminent role in the landscape painting genre but had already moved away from the sentimental, romanticized approach. The dominant force in Mühlig’s time, however, was the “Malkasten” artists association which was also a lively forum for discussions about the latest developments in art. Together with his painter friend Adolf Lins, Mühlig went on numerous hikes in the Lower Rhine region, which was the source of many of his motifs. Imbued with a vivid immediacy of nature, his brushwork became noticeably looser and he used a bright color range with an Impressionistic flavor. His portrayal of the plains of the Lower Rhine is dominated by its expansive perspective, with the narrow poplars hazily silhouetted in the distance. Mühlig employed a spontaneous crispness whilst dabbing the corn ears and clouds onto the canvas, which he must have painted directly in front of the motif. The artist’s generous, loose painting style captures the exuberance of summer and the luminosity of nature in the warm golden yellow of the cornfield. [KT]