Frits Thaulow was one of the Nordic artists who were really successful in France, to which he came in 1875. In 1878 he was back home in Norway, where he visited Jæren on the south-west coast. The countryside there became popular with artists as it offered interesting motifs for plein-air painting. This work was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1879 and its use of telegraph poles shows how landscape also became contemporary art.