The Wheat Gatherer 1853

Jean-François Millet made this etching called ‘The Wheat Gatherer’ at some point during his career, but its exact date remains unknown. Millet lived and worked in mid-nineteenth century France, during the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The old order, with its strict social hierarchies, was collapsing. His art shows the people at the bottom of this order, poor laborers, carrying out exhausting physical labor. This image presents us with such a figure, bent double to gather wheat. Here, Millet does not use his art to ennoble this figure, or to tell any grand story about them. Instead, the artist makes the viewer confront their sheer physical being. In doing so, Millet challenges academic conventions of painting. He does not flatter the sensibilities of his wealthy patrons. Art historians consult a range of social, cultural, and economic documents, as well as institutional records, to better understand artworks like this. We see Millet as part of a broader historical shift in the social role of art.