In a harvested field, three peasant women bend to pick up stray ears of wheat, while in the distance rise great haystacks and a busy harvest crew. Millet painted the poorest labourers with solemn dignity, and the picture provoked fierce debate when it was shown.
Key facts
- Artist
- Jean-François Millet1814–1875 · French
- Date
- 1857
- Period
- Realism1840–1880
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- 83.5 × 110 cm
- Location
- Musée d'Orsay Paris, France
Actual size
Compared with an adult 170 cm tall
Palette
#9A8D6A#231A19#45392E#BBB09B#D3C4B2Background
Gleaning was an age-old European custom: after the harvest, landowners allowed the poorest villagers into the fields to collect the leftover grain. It was one of the few rights the poor had, and one of their means of survival.
Millet came from a farming family in Normandy and moved in 1849 to the village of Barbizon near the Forest of Fontainebleau, where he devoted himself to peasant life and labour. He studied the theme of gleaning for nearly ten years in drawings and etchings.
At the Salon of 1857, conservative critics felt the painting made the poor too large and imposing, with a socialist, inflammatory message that recalled the Revolution of 1848.
Technique & composition
fill the foreground, as massive as classical sculpture and arranged horizontally like a frieze. Their bending movements show successive stages: one reaching down, one straightening, one holding the gathered stalks.
The muted tones of the foreground contrast sharply with the golden, sunlit behind. The low horizon opens up the sky and emphasises the women's isolation and toil.
Millet worked in sober ochres, browns and muted blues with soft brushwork and warm light, giving ordinary labour a quiet dignity.
Details
Symbolism
Poverty and plenty
In the background the haystacks tower and workers load the harvest onto carts; in front the women can only pick up scattered ears. In the distance watches everything, hinting at social hierarchy and inequality.
The dignity of labour
Millet did not intend to incite revolution but to portray labour with almost religious reverence. His silent, stoic women recall the biblical story of Ruth gleaning in the fields of Boaz.
Stories
- Did you know?
Millet had already made an etching of the same subject in 1855, with the three women in almost the same poses, showing how long he refined the composition.
- Did you know?
In 2000 the French director Agnès Varda made the documentary The Gleaners and I, starting from this painting to explore scavenging and waste in modern society.
Legacy
The Gleaners is one of the defining works of Realism, raising peasants to the status of serious artistic subjects. Van Gogh revered Millet and made over twenty copies after his work; Pissarro was also deeply influenced.
Today the painting is often invoked in discussions of poverty, food waste and social justice, its influence reaching far beyond art.
