Lot Essay
Jules Breton's intense preoccupation with rural field activity was
inspired by his early up-bringing in the small northern French village of Courrières in the pas-de-Calais. Here, he often had the opportunity to witness the cycles of hay gathering and planting that took place in the fields close to his home. As he matured as an artist, and following early training in Belgium, Breton's world of reference was enlarged. He bacame aware of earlier painters who captured rustic field scenes including the idyllic compositions of the nineteenth century Swiss romantic Léopold Robert--a painter who became a model for some of Breton's most effective rustic themes.
In the early 1870s, at the moment when The Haymakers at Rest was completed, the focus on peasant rural life had spread to many other nineteenth century painters. Certain members of the Impressionist group were also touched by this interest in the early 1880s. Scenes were selected because they suggested not only an awareness of actual field labor but intense parallels with religious themes. Peasants resting in the fields were equated with the "chosen few"--those whose work helped create a spiritual ambience in the newly sanctified fields. This aspect is certainly reflected in Breton's canvas. He has constructed a compositional grouping that suggests a relationship with aspects of the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt." Here a holy family, surrounded by adoring minions, creates an atmosphere of warmth and compassion for the nursing child and mother.
Breton developed this concept from earlier paintings and drawings, especially work he completed in the 1860s. In some, he had created an atmosphere of idealism also inspired by images by Raphael. These Madonna and Child compositions from the Renaissance were now transformed into caring mother and child seated in the fields. These inflections provided another level of meaning to Breton's compositions making him a precursor of the extensive religious revival in genre that took place from the mid-1880s onward. Breton's canvases, due to these inflections, were avidly collected in France and the United States.
Often, as in the Haymakers Rest, Breton presented his scene during an early evening hour when the light was being diffused and softened. He used the encroaching darkness to further reinforce the mood of peaceful reverie that settled over man and countryside alike. All of the figures share in the creation of this mood, although the figures along the front, one sprawled at length, and the figure collapsing into the hay at the right, suggest something else. These casual poses were new. Breton, during the 1870s, was reflecting an interest in natualism. Peasants were shown in attitudes approaching an acute observation of how such figures actually looked. Breton enlarged this tendency in another painting close to this one, The Siesta, shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris (1878). This canvas, along with Haymakers Rest, demonstrated how Breton was modernizing a traditional theme.
The tender atmosphere of this work is abetted by the recent restoration of the face of the nursing mother. When shown in the 1982 Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition exhibition, the mother had a face reflective of the artistic tendencies of the 1920s (when the work was also cleaned) and the return to its original state enhances the tender relationship between all figures. The painting will be reproduced in the forthcoming catalogue on the painter being prepared by Mme. Annette Courrut Lacouture.
We are grateful to Dr. Gabriel P. Weisberg for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
inspired by his early up-bringing in the small northern French village of Courrières in the pas-de-Calais. Here, he often had the opportunity to witness the cycles of hay gathering and planting that took place in the fields close to his home. As he matured as an artist, and following early training in Belgium, Breton's world of reference was enlarged. He bacame aware of earlier painters who captured rustic field scenes including the idyllic compositions of the nineteenth century Swiss romantic Léopold Robert--a painter who became a model for some of Breton's most effective rustic themes.
In the early 1870s, at the moment when The Haymakers at Rest was completed, the focus on peasant rural life had spread to many other nineteenth century painters. Certain members of the Impressionist group were also touched by this interest in the early 1880s. Scenes were selected because they suggested not only an awareness of actual field labor but intense parallels with religious themes. Peasants resting in the fields were equated with the "chosen few"--those whose work helped create a spiritual ambience in the newly sanctified fields. This aspect is certainly reflected in Breton's canvas. He has constructed a compositional grouping that suggests a relationship with aspects of the "Rest on the Flight into Egypt." Here a holy family, surrounded by adoring minions, creates an atmosphere of warmth and compassion for the nursing child and mother.
Breton developed this concept from earlier paintings and drawings, especially work he completed in the 1860s. In some, he had created an atmosphere of idealism also inspired by images by Raphael. These Madonna and Child compositions from the Renaissance were now transformed into caring mother and child seated in the fields. These inflections provided another level of meaning to Breton's compositions making him a precursor of the extensive religious revival in genre that took place from the mid-1880s onward. Breton's canvases, due to these inflections, were avidly collected in France and the United States.
Often, as in the Haymakers Rest, Breton presented his scene during an early evening hour when the light was being diffused and softened. He used the encroaching darkness to further reinforce the mood of peaceful reverie that settled over man and countryside alike. All of the figures share in the creation of this mood, although the figures along the front, one sprawled at length, and the figure collapsing into the hay at the right, suggest something else. These casual poses were new. Breton, during the 1870s, was reflecting an interest in natualism. Peasants were shown in attitudes approaching an acute observation of how such figures actually looked. Breton enlarged this tendency in another painting close to this one, The Siesta, shown at the Exposition Universelle in Paris (1878). This canvas, along with Haymakers Rest, demonstrated how Breton was modernizing a traditional theme.
The tender atmosphere of this work is abetted by the recent restoration of the face of the nursing mother. When shown in the 1982 Jules Breton and the French Rural Tradition exhibition, the mother had a face reflective of the artistic tendencies of the 1920s (when the work was also cleaned) and the return to its original state enhances the tender relationship between all figures. The painting will be reproduced in the forthcoming catalogue on the painter being prepared by Mme. Annette Courrut Lacouture.
We are grateful to Dr. Gabriel P. Weisberg for his assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.