Kuo Juping was the painter of everyday life and portrayed landscapes of simple beauty, giving the viewer a glimpse of old Malaya. His grounding in academic art enabled him to execute solid and robust works. In this painting, the artist depicts a group of cows amidst a lush tropical forest in rich colours, with the effects of light. Cows are deeply respected in Hindu culture for their gentle nature and agricultural uses, and in this work he captures the animals with a balanced composition, and a sense of peace. Kuo Juping (the name was taken after a water plant) was in the pioneering batch of students at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Art (NAFA) in Singapore but had to return a year before graduating to tend to his father’s import-export business, Sing Guan Thye & Co. He was a founding member of Thursday Art Group and Penang Chinese Art Club in 1936. He was one of the first artists to paint the ordinary people and places such as rubber estates, oil palms / cocoa plantations, padi-fields, kampung and make-shift hawker centres. He was a mentor of Tan Choon Ghee (1930-2010) who became a legendary watercolourist. Kuo died of a stroke in March 1966 at the age of 58.