Haymaker 1885 - 1887

Curator: This is "Haymaker," a work created between 1885 and 1887 by Camille Pissarro, currently housed at the SMK, the National Gallery of Denmark. Editor: Mmm, this has the quality of a daydream... the haymaker, all hunched with this repetitive motion, against this barely-there background. Is that the entire world she knows, or what she allows herself to see? Curator: It evokes, for me, the universal symbol of toil, almost a visual enactment of Sisphus, but softened, made bearable by Pissarro's technique, using delicate mediums like watercolor and pastel. Editor: Sisphus? It doesn't have that heavy, burdensome quality to me at all. If anything, she looks peaceful, integrated with the landscape, doing exactly what she is meant to be doing...there's almost a zen-like state evoked here. Maybe its just the soft lines of the impressionistic technique. Curator: Perhaps what we’re seeing is Pissarro tapping into a deeper mythos. Consider the cyclical nature of farming – sowing, reaping. He gives it a material form, allowing the subject to be simultaneously representative of agrarian activity, yet existing as an aesthetic symbol of it, too. It's the tension between the lived experience and its allegorical representation. Editor: Hmm. It still whispers more about fleeting moments. How the ordinary is saturated with beauty. See, even her hands at work have grace! To me that's what it means to turn toward our ordinary life as the primary material for an art life. Curator: I can appreciate that reading as well, understanding the work's symbolism alongside its quiet intimacy. Editor: Absolutely! Which is maybe why I respond to it more on that visceral level first and foremost. What a marvelous way of capturing daily rhythm. Curator: Well said. It certainly shows us Pissarro's talent to capture both reality and timeless symbolism on the canvas, leaving us something worth contemplating long after we leave this room.