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.
Palmer
Turning harvested and threshed grain into food required it to be crushed into flour in mills, powered either by wind or water.
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.
Yellow for harvest at the end of the dry summer. Also mixed with blues and greens, although sometimes not proving lightfast.
Two strategies illustrated: painting in the valley and de-emphasising the surrounding hills, or painting from above the valley, with the hills not visible.
Rolling countryside in the Downs of England, the Alban Hills near Rome, Normandy, Pontoise, the Jorat in Switzerland, and the rural Midwest.
The first of two articles about painting trees, featuring Rubens, Poussin, Gainsborough, Constable, Corot and others.
This is the time to get out and admire the blossom on the trees, with the aid of Samuel Palmer, Millais, Millet, Sisley, and above all Vincent van Gogh.
Associated with the countryside of northern Europe, hedges are the product of enclosures made in the 18th century.
The Eclectic Light Company 