A dense, dark wooded hillside is massed on the left and slopes down to a sunken path that curves toward a pale opening in the sky. Just right of center, a cluster of gnarled, bare-branched pollarded willows forms the focal point. A small solitary figure walks in the distance, and a modest cottage roofline is glimpsed faintly at the right edge.

The light is soft and diffused, the overcast sky glowing faintly pale behind the trees with no cast shadows. In the Barbizon tonalist manner, forms dissolve into one another through hazy blending. Loose, dry-brushed and scumbled strokes build the foliage over visible canvas weave, while the sky is thinner and more smoothly glazed.