The painting depicts an elegantly dressed peasant mother leading two horses with a harrow while also keeping an eye on her child who is seated near the furrows.

Despite its small size, it is considered a masterpiece of the Tretyakov Gallery collection and is regarded by art historians as an integral part of Russian national culture's classical heritage.

[5] Nonetheless, modern researchers believe that In the Ploughed Field: Spring was created by Venetsianov in the first half of the 1820s, which is supported by the Tretyakov Gallery catalogue.

[6] Art critic Svetlana Stepanova [ru] writes: "The appearance of such a canvas as In the Ploughed Field: Spring seems to be a kind of mystery, if not a miracle.

[13] Venetsianov is credited with establishing Russia's naturalist school of landscape painting, which is most prominent in In the Ploughed Field: Spring.

[14] The painting's central figure is a young peasant mother leading two horses while watching over her child seated near the furrows in the lower right corner of the canvas.

[1] She walks across the field gracefully, barely touching the ground, as if hovering over it,[1] as if she is the goddess Flora,[16] personifying Spring;[1][19] this impression is reinforced by the fact that the woman figure appears to be proportionally larger than that of the horses.

[1][18] Venetsianov did not delve into the psychological symbolism of spring in the peasant woman's face because he did not paint small details on it, but instead concentrated on the execution of the perfect plasticity of the entire portrait, melodies of rhythms, and consistency of tones, which together give rise to a feeling of sublime beauty.

Summer were described as "beautiful" and "deep" by art critic Alexei Savinov,[26] who wrote that "they are distinguished by their remarkable truthfulness, the absence of conventionality in composition, colour, and characterization of images; the people depicted in them live in their own world".

[27] In his opinion, Venetsianov was able to "transmit the true poetry of motherhood, to show the charm of a young mother" in In the Ploughed Field: Spring.

[11] Savinov praised the artist's skill in this artwork, writing, "by the nobility of his thought, the strength of his feelings, the perfection of execution, this small painting by Venetsianov belongs to the classical heritage of national culture".

As a reason for this, he mentioned the elegant sarafan, the "dancing gait" of the peasant woman across a freshly ploughed field, and the ratio of her height to the size of horses.