Brown's East Anglian landscapes were rooted in tradition: the Norwich School, Constable, and the Dutch artists who had originally inspired them. A conservative Royal Academician, he set his face against Modernish influences, especially those from Continental Europe.

The lyrical study of fields and sky in north Norfolk is deliberately timeless. With its wheeling birds and distant windmill, it is a vision of harmony in which the seasons and agriculture pursue their eternal rounds. In 1919 the furrows of the plough must have seemed like an antidote to the recent hell of the trenches.