Today, October 4, is the birthday in 1814 of Jean-François Millet, French Realist painter. He was born into a farming family and, as a boy, worked on the farm mowing, making hay, binding the sheaves, spreading manure, threshing, winnowing and so forth. Much of his work reflects his life on the farm and the lives of peasants.
This painting, The Gleaners, is one of his most famous. It depicts three peasant woman engaged in the backbreaking activity of gleaning – gathering the leftover grain missed by the farmer after harvest. Gleaning by the poor and homeless was a legal right in parts of Europe for many years. Millet tried to display the repetition and fatigue in the peasants’ daily lives. Contrast the meager amounts they have gathered with the farmer’s huge stacks of grain on the horizon.
I like this painting; I like the light and contrast of the women against the light background. I think he does a good job of representing their backbreaking labor and the miserable return they get. This particular painting is hung in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris. Go and see it next time you are there. You can find images of many of his other paintings in Wikimedia Commons by clicking HERE.
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