The Harvesters (painting)

The Harvesters

Artist	Pieter Brueghel the Elder
Year	1565
Type	Oil on wood
Dimensions	119 cm × 162 cm (​46 7⁄8 in × ​63 3⁄4 in)
Location	Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City

The Harvesters is an oil on wood painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in 1565.

Painting

The painting is one in a series of six 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. Notably, some of the peasants are shown eating while others are harvesting wheat, a diachronic (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 Metropolitan Museum of Art 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.

In the center left of the painting, a group of villagers can be seen participating in the blood sport of cock throwing.

The painting has been at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City since 1919.

Further reading

• (fig. 3)

External links

• The Harvesters by Pieter Bruegel the Elder: a family guide from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF)
• Article at Great Works of Western Art – Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters – 1565