From the Middle Ages, strictly regulated for trade between producer and consumer, then dominated by increasingly rich merchants and middlemen.
Lhermitte
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.
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.
Glass bottles contain potions, including medicines for the sick, and more generally for scientific purposes. Some also contain alcoholic drinks.
Goya’s crockery salesman, Lhermitte’s Les Halles in Paris, a trio of specialist markets, Rosa Bonheur’s horse fair in Paris, and the last hay market in London.
Split a block of rock, craft your sculpture, break stones to dress the roads, be a blacksmith, sharpen your scythe, forge iron, or operate on a leg with your hammer.
The only way to impart perception of motion of a spinning wheel is to blur it, which is what we naturally perceive. Examples of motion blur.
Not just the cereal harvest, but here paintings of the fruit harvest, from Bassano and Poussin, with grapes, figs, apples, blackberries, to Berthe Morisot.
Reading the history of agriculture in landscape paintings tells the story of the revolution that has taken place over the last 500 years.
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