The Round Barn, Morrisville, Vermont

The barn in Arthur Jones’s painting was built in 1916 in Morrisville, Vermont. It is not round; it is actually an icosagon with 20 sides. Round barns are not common in Vermont; the few that exist were built in the late 1800s or the early 1900s.

Builders and farmers say there is no special practicality to a round barn, and they were more difficult to build. This barn was originally red, then painted yellow in the 1950s, as Jones saw it. During a 2008 restoration, it was painted red again.

This is one of Jones’ stories about painting farm scenes:

A fellow asked if I would include a cow in one of my scenes and I finished the painting and mailed it. When he got it, he called me because I outsmarted him . . . the title of the painting was Cows Behind the Barn. And he loved it . . . I’d rather paint an old truck or an old rake than human activity.