The Gleaners

As one of the most well-known artists associated with the Realism movement, which swept across Europe in the late nineteenth century, Jean-François Millet is often considered to be one of the greatest living artists. Throughout his career, he painted peasants and ordinary French citizens who toiled away every waking hour of the day to cobble together just enough money to make ends meet. A good example of this is his work The Gleaners, which summarizes his efforts to bring to light the plight of the poor peasant class in France at a time when the nobles enjoyed significantly better living conditions than the peasantry.

Three peasant females are depicted in the photograph gleaning, or harvesting, crops that had been left behind by people who harvested the field before them. At the time, gleaning was a typical practice among peasants, and it was considered one of the most unattractive duties in the French farming culture. It was Millet's intention with this painting to depict the hardship of life endured by many French peasants throughout the nineteenth century, and he achieved that goal with this picture.

Author: Jean-Francois Millet