Harvest, Charles-François Daubigny

Harvest, Charles-François Daubigny

Attracting much attention at the 1852 Salon, this painting was the artist's first great success. The Goncourt brothers devoted a long commentary to it: "A pink band of light cuts across the full width of the sky. Thick brushstrokes, smudged with blue, mark out the chopped stalks of the young crops. The whole of the countryside is marked out in blue squares like a chessboard. Men doubled over, reaping, women hurrying along the narrow paths and people stooking sheaves of corn and loading carts, all this activity is picturesquely grouped around a golden blaze. In the centre of this, the artist has used a brush without paint to highlight a furrow here and there, making them glint in the light. [...]. The harvest has never been better interpreted [...] and this painting by Mr. Daubigny is a masterpiece, in spite of the lack of attention to the background".