Sheep were the best mobile source of dung, and used to fertilise the soil used to raise crops such as staple cereals, wheat and rye. They also provided fleeces to generate the wool trade.
history
Turning harvested and threshed grain into food required it to be crushed into flour in mills, powered either by wind or water.
Threshing cut cereal using flails, horses towing a roller, oxen trampling the corn, a sledge, a hand-cranked machine, and a large threshing machine. With Monet’s grainstacks.
Gleaning has Biblical origins, to let the poor get their own free supply of grain. Was it confined to the poorest, and did it remain a right, later in Europe?
Was ripe wheat cut using a sickle, hook, or scythe? Paintings from 1565 to 1890 show a preference for scythes when men were available.
Stone-picking to improve the soil. A series of paintings of the Sower, broadcasting seed by hand. Weeding the fields to help the crop grow.
Preparing the soil to deliver its best yields using a mould-board or turning plough, pulled by a team of oxen, helps the soil drain and breaks it up into a fine tilth ready for sowing.
An introduction to a new series tracing the history of the countryside in fine paintings. Explains why some English country lanes have so many twisting bends.
Hamlet, including the first visualisation of Ophelia’s death; Christopher Columbus, Medea about to kill her sons, and shipwreck survivors in a small boat.
The fictional Marcus Sextus, Napoleon pardoning the rebels of Cairo, and Narcissus where he shouldn’t be: disinformation in history painting.
The Eclectic Light Company 