Gleaners
Three peasant women bend over a harvested field, painstakingly gathering the leftover stalks of wheat that the richer farmers missed. Millet painted this in 1857, and it caused a huge scandal among the French upper classes! They were terrified because it showed the poor working so hard, making poverty look almost heroic and threatening the social order. The hazy background shows the main harvest happening with plenty of food, while these women scrape by on the literal crumbs. It's a masterpiece of Realism that turned ordinary laborers into monumental, timeless figures.
- Technique
- Oil on canvas
- Material
- Oil paint and canvas
- Dimensions
- 83.5 cm × 111 cm
Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Views: 7