''The Harvesters'' is an
oil painting
Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments combined with a drying oil as the Binder (material), binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel, or oil on coppe ...
on wood completed by the
Netherlandish Renaissance artist
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Pieter Bruegel (also Brueghel or Breughel) the Elder ( , ; ; – 9 September 1569) was among the most significant artists of Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painting, a painter and printmaking, printmaker, known for his landscape art, landscape ...
in 1565. It depicts the harvest time set in a landscape, in the months of July and August or late summer.
, a merchant banker and art collector from Antwerp, commissioned this painting as part of a cycle of six paintings depicting various seasonal transitions during the year.
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 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 charact ...
of
cock throwing.
The painting has been at the
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
in
New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
since 1919. The
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, colloquially referred to as the Met, is an Encyclopedic museum, encyclopedic art museum in New York City. By floor area, it is the List of largest museums, third-largest museum in the world and the List of larg ...
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''
File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder- The Harvesters - Google Art Project.jpg, ''The Harvesters''
File:Die Heuernte.jpg, '' The Hay Harvest''
File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Hunters in the Snow (Winter) - Google Art Project.jpg, '' The Hunters in the Snow''
File:Pieter Bruegel (I) - The Return of the Herd (1565).jpg, '' The Return of the Herd''
''The Gloomy Day'', ''The Hunters in the Snow'', and ''The Return of the Herd'' are on display in the
Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien ( "Vienna Museum of art history, Art History", often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts, Vienna") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, i ...
in
Vienna
Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...
. ''The Hay Harvest'' is on display in the
Lobkowicz Palace in
Prague
Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...
. ''The Harvesters'' is at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
Legacy
Legendary animation director,
Hayao Miyazaki
is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist. He co-founded Studio Ghibli and serves as honorary chairman. Throughout his career, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Anime, Japanese ani ...
took inspiration from this painting for his short film ''
Mr. Dough and the Egg Princess''.
See also
*
List of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
References
Further reading
* (fig. 3)
*
External links
''The Harvesters'' by Pieter Bruegel the Elder: a family guidefrom The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Harvesters, The
1565 paintings
Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Farming in art
Food and drink paintings