''The Harvesters'' is an

oil painting Oil painting is the process of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on wood panel or canvas for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest ...

on wood completed by

Pieter Bruegel the Elder Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder (, ; ; – 9 September 1569) was the most significant artist of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaker, known for his landscapes and peasant scenes (so-called gen ...

in 1565. It depicts the harvest time, in the months of July and August or late summer.

Nicolaes Jonghelinck Nicolaes Jonghelinck (1517–1570) was a merchant banker and art collector in Antwerp. He is best known for his collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Frans Floris. His brother was the sculptor Jacques Jonghelinck. In the archive ...

, a merchant banker and art collector from Antwerp, commissioned this painting.

Painting

The painting is one in a series of six (or perhaps twelve) works, five of which are still extant, that depict different times of the year. As in many of his paintings, the focus is on peasants and their work and does not have the religious themes common in landscape works of the time. Notably, some of the peasants are shown eating while others are harvesting wheat, a (relating to phenomena such as ideas, language, or culture, as they occur or change over a period of time) depiction of both the production and consumption of food. Pears can be seen on the white cloth in front of the upright sitting woman who eats bread and cheese while a figure in the tree to the far right picks pears. The painting shows a large number of activities representative of the 16th-century Belgian rural life. For example, on the far right a person is shaking apples from the tree. In the center left of the painting, a group of villagers can be seen participating in the

blood sport A blood sport or bloodsport is a category of sport or entertainment that involves bloodshed. Common examples of the former include combat sports such as cockfighting and dog fighting, and some forms of hunting and fishing. Activities char ...

of cock throwing. The painting has been at the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

since 1919. The

calls this painting a “watershed in the history of Western art” and the “first modern landscape”. A sense of distance is conveyed by the workers carrying sheaves of wheat through the clearing, the people bathing in the pond, the children playing and the ships far away.

Cycle

The surviving ''Months of the Year cycle'' are: File:Pieter Bruegel de Oude - De sombere dag (vroege voorjaar).jpg, ''

The Gloomy Day ''The Gloomy Day'' is an oil on wood painting by Pieter Bruegel in 1565. The painting is one in a series of six works, five of which are still extant, that depict different times of the year. The painting is currently in the collection of the K ...

'' File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder- The Harvesters - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Harvesters'' File:Die Heuernte.jpg, ''

The Hay Harvest ''The Hay Harvest'' (also known as ''Haymaking''), is an oil painting on wood panel by Pieter Bruegel (c. 1525–1569), executed in 1565. The most important of the Lobkowicz family's Northern pictures, it was hung in the dining room of the Antwe ...

'' File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Hunters in the Snow (Winter) - Google Art Project.jpg, ''

The Hunters in the Snow ''The Hunters in the Snow'' ( nl, Jagers in de Sneeuw), also known as ''The Return of the Hunters'', is a 1565 oil-on-wood painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The Northern Renaissance work is one of a series of works, five of which still survi ...

'' File:Pieter Bruegel (I) - The Return of the Herd (1565).jpg, ''

The Return of the Herd ''The Return of the Herd'' is an oil on wood painting by Pieter Bruegel in 1565. The painting is one in a series of six works (High Springtime is presumed lost) that depict different seasons. The painting is currently in the collection of the Ku ...

'' ''The Gloomy Day'', ''The Hunters in the Snow'', and ''The Return of the Herd'' are on display in the

Kunsthistorisches Museum The Kunsthistorisches Museum ( "Museum of Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, it is crowned with an octagonal d ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. ''The Hay Harvest'' is on display in the

Lobkowicz Palace The Lobkowicz Palace ( cs, Lobkowický palác) is a part of the Prague Castle complex in Prague, Czech Republic. It is the only privately owned building in the Prague Castle complex and houses the Lobkowicz Collections and Museum. The palace wa ...

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

Legacy

Legendary animation director,

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widel ...

took inspiration from this painting for his short film ''

Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess ''Mister'', usually written in its contracted form ''Mr.'' or ''Mr'', is a commonly used English honorific for men without a higher honorific, or professional title, or any of various designations of office. The title 'Mr' derived from earlier ...

''.

References

External links

''The Harvesters'' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder: a family guide
from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF) {{DEFAULTSORT:Harvesters 1565 paintings Paintings in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder Farming in art Food and drink paintings

Painting

Cycle

Legacy

References

Further reading

External links