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Artist Information

Mehrdad Fahimi

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Title of Artwork

Inspired by Gleaners from Millet

Year of Creation

Undated

Dimension

Tools

Brush and paper

Medium

Watercolour

Genre

Landscape

Style

Impressionism

Brief Description

Original Painting by Jean-Francois Millet in 1857. True to one of Millet's favourite subjects – peasant life – this painting is the culmination of ten years of research on the theme of the gleaners. These women incarnate the rural working-class. They were authorised to go quickly through the fields at sunset to pick up, one by one, the ears of corn missed by the harvesters. The painter shows three of them in the foreground, bent double, their eyes raking the ground. He thus juxtaposes the three phases of the back-breaking repetitive movement imposed by this thankless task: bending over, picking up the ears of corn and straightening up again. Their austerity contrasts with the abundant harvest in the distance: haystacks, sheaves of wheat, a cart and a busy crowd of harvesters. The festive, brightly lit bustle is further distanced by the abrupt change of scale. The slanting light of the setting sun accentuates the volumes in the foreground and gives the gleaners a sculptural look.

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