La Thangue lived in France for three years. He was fascinated by 'plein air' painting and spent his summer holidays on sketching trips in Brittany. When La Thangue returned to England, he chose to live in the country where he could paint the scenes he loved. After the First World War, the quiet rural life which he painted had all but disappeared. Although the world had moved on, La Thangue’s art stayed the same, his paintings inspired by memories of the countryside of his younger days. La Thangue painted several pictures showing a child or adult driving flocks of geese or ducks. Here the peaceful atmosphere of a summer’s day is conveyed by dappled sunlight. Light is crucial to his painting. A fellow artist remarked 'that it was the beauty of things in sunlight that excited him.