Farmers harvesting fruit 

Carlo Maratti made this study of farmers harvesting fruit with chalk and charcoal on blue paper sometime before 1713. A quick sketch, it shows figures actively engaged in their labor, picking fruit from a tree, and bringing it to baskets. It’s worth pausing to consider the nature of such a sketch in relationship to agricultural work. Chalk and charcoal are relatively inexpensive materials, but the skill to use them effectively takes years of practice. Maratti was not a farmer; he was a highly successful artist, making his living with his mind and hand, as well as by managing a large workshop. The drawing is itself a kind of harvest – of visual information. In this light, the sketch is a reflection on the realities of labor, and in the division of labor. The artist is separated from the land, even as he attempts to capture its bounty on paper. Ultimately, by looking closely at the making of this drawing, we see the social distance between the artist, the materials, and the people he depicted.