The Beet Harvest 1890

Curator: It always amazes me how art can distill a season into a single, potent image. What are your first thoughts looking at this canvas? Editor: My first thought is pure, honest labor. It’s got this back-breaking feel, and yet, those muddy colours… almost comforting. It evokes that earthy, root vegetable scent clinging to my grandmother’s cellar. Curator: Indeed! What we have here is Emile Claus’s "The Beet Harvest," dating back to 1890, currently held in the Museum of Deinze and the Leie region, in Belgium. Notice the impasto, almost like he troweled the soil directly onto the canvas! He renders rural life, focusing here on laborers during a very significant part of the agricultural calendar. Editor: You know, there's something about the stooped postures of the workers that hints at Millet’s “The Gleaners,” but without the explicit commentary on poverty. Claus seems to be more about the cycle of the land. The art market then must've loved it, that sanitized image of rustic beauty! Curator: Absolutely. The painting's charm also rests in its seeming simplicity; these people ARE the landscape, rendered almost invisible by how embedded they are. You have that central figure looking almost worried...it almost becomes more intimate. This allows you to view this not as political, but personal. Editor: I find the painting successfully expresses the quiet desperation of the agricultural lifestyle... Even a sort of dignity there, maybe. In some ways, its the opposite of contemporary art right now, as it looks to the earth rather than tech or outer space. Curator: Exactly! The art captures both this grueling aspect of life and yet manages to showcase the earthy beauty surrounding the rural farmer! Editor: It's made me hungry, thinking about beetroot stew. Time for lunch. Curator: Agreed. I'm glad the image and colors connected us back to earth again.