Harvest 1931

Konstantin Gorbatov painted "Harvest" with oil on canvas. Gorbatov, who was exiled from Russia after the Revolution, imbues this work with a sense of longing for a lost homeland. The painting captures a golden, sun-drenched field dotted with neatly arranged sheaves of wheat, leading our eyes towards rustic wooden buildings. But this is no mere pastoral scene; it’s a constructed image of Russian identity, emphasizing the connection between its people and the land. Gorbatov was painting in a Europe marked by war and displacement, and his art became a way to hold onto a cultural heritage that was slipping away. Consider the repetitive, almost iconic arrangement of the wheat bundles; they evoke a sense of tradition. While seemingly bucolic, the painting also touches on the socio-political realities of agricultural labor and the peasant class in early 20th-century Russia. The painting is nostalgic, but it asks us to think about what gets idealized, and what gets left out.