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Lot Essay
In a letter written in 1885 to Van Gogh his brother Theo praised Lhermitte as "the absolute master of the figure, he does what he likes with it - proceeding neither from the color nor the local tone but rather from the light - as Rembrandt did - there is an astonishing mastery in everything he does, above all excelling in modeling, he perfectly satisfies all that honesty demands". In defense of the greatness of modern art, van Gogh compares Millet and Lhermitte to Michelangelo and Rembrandt, ranking them all as geniuses. "In the work of Millet, of Lhermitte," Van Gogh writes in another letter of the same year, "all reality is also at the same time symbolic. They are different from what are called realists" (The Letters of Van Gogh, Greenwich, 1959, pp. 412-3, 416.)
Lhermitte's early training took place at the atelier of Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose students included Legros and Fantin-Latour. He studied the compositions of the Barbizon painters Corot, Millet, Breton and Daubigny, and developed a facility for rendering physical form by varying the gradations of light and dark, maximizing the effect of shadow in the modeling of his subjects.
Art critic Maurice Hammel compared Lhermitte's robust and often monumental depictions of the peasant to the imagery of Rodin. Lhermitte's peasants are actual, identifiable persons from his village unlike those of Millet's who are in a constant struggle with nature and are personifications rather than individuals. In addition to their strong physique, Lhermitte also portrayed the country folk at work and proud of their toil, creating a romantic nostalgia. The poses of the peasants are also borrowed from old master classics as well as ancient Greek sculptures. This allowed Lhermitte to create a visual vocabulary that was rooted in the classic and elevated his subjects - the country folk - to a more refined platform. In the present work, for example, the central male figure's gesture is inspired by the Roman copy of the Greek classic, The Dying Gaul, and loosely based on the figure of Diogenes in Raphael's The School of Athens. In Lhermitte's work, the landscapes are filled with light, color and atmosphere and the peasants working the fields are idealized for their labor and dignity. Ignoring the Industrial Revolution and fixating on the image of a society prior to its emergence, Lhermitte's peasants are a visualization of paradise lost for the citizens of large metropolises.
Lhermitte's early training took place at the atelier of Lecoq de Boisbaudran, whose students included Legros and Fantin-Latour. He studied the compositions of the Barbizon painters Corot, Millet, Breton and Daubigny, and developed a facility for rendering physical form by varying the gradations of light and dark, maximizing the effect of shadow in the modeling of his subjects.
Art critic Maurice Hammel compared Lhermitte's robust and often monumental depictions of the peasant to the imagery of Rodin. Lhermitte's peasants are actual, identifiable persons from his village unlike those of Millet's who are in a constant struggle with nature and are personifications rather than individuals. In addition to their strong physique, Lhermitte also portrayed the country folk at work and proud of their toil, creating a romantic nostalgia. The poses of the peasants are also borrowed from old master classics as well as ancient Greek sculptures. This allowed Lhermitte to create a visual vocabulary that was rooted in the classic and elevated his subjects - the country folk - to a more refined platform. In the present work, for example, the central male figure's gesture is inspired by the Roman copy of the Greek classic, The Dying Gaul, and loosely based on the figure of Diogenes in Raphael's The School of Athens. In Lhermitte's work, the landscapes are filled with light, color and atmosphere and the peasants working the fields are idealized for their labor and dignity. Ignoring the Industrial Revolution and fixating on the image of a society prior to its emergence, Lhermitte's peasants are a visualization of paradise lost for the citizens of large metropolises.