The process of modernisation Basque painting underwent in the opening decades of the twentieth century resulted in the assimilation of new artistic languages coming from Europe. In this context, the influence of symbolist aesthetics played an instrumental role, outlining an innovative visual path for artists like Aurelio Arteta who spearheaded the renewal of the local art scene.

A scholarship granted by the Vizcaya Provincial Council between 1902 and 1906 allowed Arteta to spend time in France, Belgium and Italy, where he became familiar with post-impressionism and divisionism, echoes of which can be traced in work painted shortly after that. With a very loose brushwork and highly saturated colours, he shows, in plain daylight, the contrast between the activity of the bare-chested male figure, who is carrying a large bale of hay on his back, and the lassitude of a woman leisurely seated on the branch of a tree.

The difference in the treatment of each figure accentuates the opposition of their respective attitudes of activity and languor. In the execution, the vigorous modelling of the man evinces his exertion and energy, while the more synthetic form of the woman accentuates her stillness and her nearly ethereal nature. This is also true of the colour, the warm tones used in his depiction and the cool ones in hers, emphasising the allegorical contraposition alluded to in the title.

Through this antithesis, very much in tune with the fin-de-siècle symbolist sensibility, Arteta attempted to establish a connection between the material and the spiritual. The man is divested of any psychological features in order to embody physical work, while in contrast the woman conveys a sense of distraction, personifying subjectivity, as if the intention were to reflect the state of her soul.