In 1931, at the height of his popularity in America, Maxfield Parrish issued a statement to the Associated Press announcing his decision to abandon the figurative work that had made him a household name. Now, he declared, he was devoting himself exclusively to landscape painting: “I’m done with girls on rocks. I have painted them for thirteen years and I could paint them and sell them for thirteen more…It’s the unattainable that appeals. Next best thing to seeing the ocean or the hills or the woods is enjoying a painting of them" (as quoted in Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler, Maxfield Parrish: A Retrospective, San Francisco, California, 1995, p. 14).

As a result of this decision, the magical, detailed landscapes previously seen only as backgrounds for his figurative works now became the primary subject of his work. Goddesses and nymphs were replaced by another ideal—the mountains, lush meadows, grand oak trees, open blue skies, and humble dwellings that characterized the American landscape. Painted in 1937, Village School House exemplifies the vision of a pastoral Eden that, as a resident of rural New Hampshire, Parrish held in high esteem. Here he depicts a simple white clapboard schoolhouse nestled at the top of a wooded path. The jewel-like color the artist’s most successful works achieve is plainly demonstrated in the luminous palette of verdant green and brilliant blue that characterizes the painting. The crystalline quality of the light—one of Parrish's primary aesthetic interests—suffuses the composition with a radiant glow, contributing to a tranquil, idyllic vision of his beloved New England home, the place he once described as “Such an ideal country, so paintable and beautiful, so far away from everything—and a place to dream one’s life away…I long to be up there and become identified with it” (as quoted in Sylvia Yount, Maxfield Parrish: 1879-1966, New York, 1999, p. 23).