Landscape with a Man Digging 1877

Camille Pissarro's "Landscape with a Man Digging" is rendered in oil paint, a medium closely tied to the development of modern art, and indeed, modernity itself. The visible brushstrokes and the thick impasto, applied wet-on-wet, are integral to the image's effect. The pigment becomes more than mere color; it’s a substance, almost like the earth the figure is tilling. The scene shows a worker performing manual labor; this wasn't just a pretty landscape. The labor is baked into the facture of the painting, the way the paint has been applied. It prompts a connection between the physical effort of the painter and the physical effort of the figure in the field. Ultimately, Pissarro asks us to consider not just the beauty of the scene, but the often invisible work on which it depends. And his chosen medium, oil paint, participates in that reality, as well.