The nostalgia of paintings like this may be linked to the ongoing war. John Nash and his brother Paul had been to the Western Front. Returning to England, they rented a studio in Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire, and painted two monumental war commissions. The Cornfield makes a poignant contrast to those panoramas of devastation and death.

John said that they used to paint for their own pleasure only after six o'clock, when their work as war artists was over for the day. This explains the long shadows cast by the evening sun across the field in the centre of the painting.