When moving to New York for college, my first apartment was in Jackson Heights, Queens. The urban expanse and density, including thousands of people, offered much for an art student. I rode to and from Manhattan on the train experiencing daily life and viewing surroundings in a cinematic way. The many buildings, windows, streets—the contrast of residences, colorful individuals, families, and service people—impressed me. The distribution of wealth was evident. The neighborhoods illustrated economic exchange.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York holds the painting of Pieter Bruegel the Elder titled, The Harvesters. The artwork was completed by Bruegel with oil paint on wood. The work is 46 7/8”” x 63 3/4” inches. Bruegel is remembered for his depictions of everyday life.
New York City offered an echo of Bruegel’s peasants, each day a contact of people and ground with soulful painterly qualities.
The Harvesters is an expression of rest. The painting illustrates farm laborers gathering under a tree for lunch. Other field workers still attend to chores. One man walks on a pathway within the wheat of the fields. He carries two urns, presumably with water, for those who are gathered for lunch. His direction, his task, gives completion to the planning of lunch. The feeling is purposeful and joyful.
The Harvesters, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565, Oil on wood, 46 7/8 x 63 3/4 in., Rogers Fund, 1919, 19.164, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.NY
Under the tree we see people sitting on bundles of wheat holding bowls and spoons and eating a porridge of some kind. One of the workers is cutting bread. A man dinks from a vessel. The people sit in a circle, we are invited to imagine conversations.
On the opposite side of the tree a sleeping figure lays diagonally across the ground. He dozes vulnerably. His legs sprawl. The exposure speaks to tender feelings for humans—our needs, our beauty in just being people. The difficulty of life is evident in the man’s meaningful exhaustion, a ‘happy tired’. To work with virtue, and be tired for it, gains God’s blessing.
The sleeping man is a figure one perceives directly with sympathy yet it has power aside from emotional content. The position of the figure, at angle to the tree resembles a sun dial, or clock. The figure’s diagonal placement lends movement, a turning effect. The diagonal is strong.
Vulnerability of a figure is one of the most important components in Art. Throughout time artists have portrayed the strength and weaknesses of figures. For example, the Metropolitan Museum also has in its collection the Hellenistic sculpture, ‘Marble Statue of an Woman’. The attraction of the sculpture could be the character’s will, the way her face and body struggle to continue.
Bruegel’s sleeping man represents a delicate life balance, a wonderful sensitivity for humanity, our trials and tribulations.
The Harvesters has another feature I find compelling, the edge of the field. The golden field is in the process of harvest. Laborers are pictured at work. A figured is depicted with a scythe. The upright field is powerful compositionally as the edge moves in the scene, one is transported into the enclosed environment. The field with its comfortable edge builds a soft defense. One is nurtured by the color and feeling of the wheat.
Finally, Bruegel created distant space. Like his painting, ‘Hunters in the Snow’, the presented scene tapers far away to a nestled village. The foreground is an entry, one’s eye is treated throughout—eye and soul are brought together harmoniously—our visual pleasure and deep feeling. The painterly harmony is a song of tremendous value regarding a day’s work.
The Harvesters, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1565, Oil on wood, 46 7/8 x 63 3/4 in., Rogers Fund, 1919, 19.164, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
By Drew Burgess
Drew Burgess is an art professor at the College of Alameda of the Peralta Community College District of California.
Citations:
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “The Harvesters”, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, accessed November 24, 2024, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435809
“Marble Statue of an Old Woman”, The Metropolitan Museum Of Art, accessed November 24, 2024, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/248132
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, “Hunters in the Snow”, Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien, accessed November 24, 2024, https://www.khm.at/en/objectdb/detail/327/
Cite this page: Drew Burgess, “The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel”, November 24, 2024, https://www.drewburgess.art/museum-visits/2024/11/24/the-harvesters-by-pieter-bruegel-the-elder