The Gleaners

The Gleaners is an 1857 oil painting by Jean-François Millet showing three women gathering leftover grain from a harvested field. Its monumental depiction of rural poverty made gleaning a subject of serious art.

Jean-François Millet: Jean-François Millet was a French painter known for depictions of rural labor and peasant life. Millet composed the painting around the repetitive labor of three gleaners.
French Second Republic: The French Second Republic was the republican government established after the 1848 Revolution and ended by Louis-Napoleon’s coup in 1851. Its political upheavals formed the recent backdrop to the painting’s reception.
Théophile Gautier: Théophile Gautier was a French poet, novelist, and art critic. His criticism reflects the suspicion some contemporaries directed at Millet’s rural subjects.
The Angelus: The Angelus is an 1857–1859 painting by Jean-François Millet showing two peasants praying in a field. Its devotional stillness differs from the Gleaners’ depiction of labor and scarcity.
Gleaning rights: Gleaning rights are customary or legal permissions to collect leftover crops after harvest. The painting keeps attention on the precarious access to food represented by gleaning.
Gleaning: Gleaning is the collection of leftover crops from fields after the main harvest. The women perform the practice that gives the painting its subject.
French Revolution of 1848: The French Revolution of 1848 overthrew the July Monarchy and established the Second Republic. The revolution intensified public attention to class conflict and rural poverty.
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot: Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot was a French landscape painter associated with the Barbizon school. Corot belonged to the artistic milieu in which Millet developed his rural landscapes.
The Sower: The Sower is an 1850 painting by Jean-François Millet depicting a farmer scattering seed. The solitary, active farmer contrasts with the three women collecting what remains.
Barbizon school: The Barbizon school was a group of nineteenth-century French painters who worked from nature and rural subjects. Millet’s painting belongs to the movement that made rural life central to landscape art.

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