At the outbreak of the Second World War, Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant relocated to their countryside home, Charleston, permanently. By the date that this landscape was painted, the War had been raging for over five years. This view, which Duncan revisited numerous rimes, is a testament to the confinement imposed throughout the wartime years and the correspondingly growing role that Charleston played as muse for Duncan and Vanessa. This painting relates to a larger work by Duncan painted in c. 1944, the composition almost identical apart from the lack of the two figures and dog present in the middle distance of this painting.
However, even prior to the war this view clearly resonated with Duncan, as well as the torrent of visitors who stayed at Charleston, such as the eminent art critic Roger Fry who painted the same view in 1918.
Originally, the barn depicted was intended for the threshing and storage of grain; the large openings on either side of the building allowed harvest wagons to enter the threshing floor in the centre, and the grain was stored in the sections on either side of the barn.[1] Here the barn is celebrated for both its functional and aesthetic triumphs. Paintings of Charleston by both Duncan and Vanessa are generally governed by bright, warm pallets and the present painting is no exception. The forceful painterly gestures of the early post-impressionists are echoed in the vigorous horizontal strokes of the barn and the briskly painted dappled light reflected in the pond. Grafting reality and imagination, Duncan here manipulates colour as a means of adjusting mood.
This idyllic composition is a testament to the serene lifestyle constructed at Charleston and the familiar experiences of day-to-day life that followed.

[1] Waterfield, G. ‘The Barn at Charleston’, Charleston. [online]. Available at: https://www.charleston.org.uk/... (Accessed 04/12/2020).