Les Moissonneurs 1605 - 1650

Jean Morin's "Les Moissonneurs," a print now at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, presents us with a scene where the formal arrangement constructs a layered viewing experience. Notice how Morin uses stark contrasts and textural variations to lead your eye through the composition. The print is divided into distinct zones – from the detailed foreground with harvesters resting under a tree, to the carefully articulated middle ground of fields and buildings, receding into a softly rendered background landscape. Morin employs hatching and cross-hatching to define forms, create tonal depth, and add dimension to the scene. The lines create visual textures that invite close inspection. In the context of printmaking, these formal choices reveal an interest in the possibilities inherent in the medium. Morin destabilizes our reading of the landscape by framing it through a constructed, almost theatrical space, challenging the supposed naturalness of landscape art. Consider how Morin transforms a pastoral scene into a study of space, light, and form, pushing us to look beyond the subject matter to the structural elements that define the work itself.