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The painter, Károly Fülöp Schallhas, was born in Pozsony. Of his life we know little beyond the fact that he studied at the Vienna Academy and was active in that city. He was admitted to the school probably between 1783-1786; he had a stimulating master in Johann Christian Brand, a teacher of landscape painting who at one time had been active in Hungary. In January 1787 Schallhas shared with Anton Troger an Art School Prize, his own painting being based on a theme from Gessner's idylls. In 1790 he became a member of the Academy and in 1795 was appointed teacher in the Faculty of Landscape Painting. He died an early death in 1797 by which time he was an assistant professor under Friedrich August Brand.
The five oil paintings and about one hundred drawings surviving from an oeuvre still not fully researched, show Schallhas to have been an artist sensitive to nuances of colour, capable of delicate brushwork and interested in the relationship between man and nature, he was fascinated by the beauty of the Austrian countryside and the drawings he made on his journeys reflect personal experiences. In his oil paintings he tried to give a more general representation of airy landscapes, hazy light and local atmosphere. His choice of subject suggests a slightly romantic outlook and, especially in his sketches, a leaning towards historicism. His landscapes with wide horizons, the details merging hazily with the sky, are often charged with tension but the view itself is always composed of quietly arranged harmonious structural elements. In this picture the approaching storm is indicated by changes in the light, dark shadows of the accumulating clouds and a rising wind that stirs up the dust raised by the homeward bound cattle. And this is represented by the painter in hazy colours and with a touch of nostalgia.
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