Returning from the harvest (Manuring) 1884

Paul Gauguin made this oil on canvas painting, ‘Returning from the harvest (Manuring)’, sometime in the late 1800s. Gauguin chose humble materials, paint and canvas, to depict the everyday life of rural workers. Gauguin’s broken brushstrokes don't shy away from showing the repetitive labor of rural life. The texture evokes the weight of the soil. You can almost smell the earthiness of the manure. The figures are bent over and hauling loads, highlighting the physical demands and labor involved. Gauguin painted the landscape with a visible lack of polish, which reflects an honesty about labor, and invites viewers to reconsider their relationship to those who toil in the fields. By focusing on the workers and their efforts, Gauguin imbues a sense of dignity to labor. Paintings like these remind us that all art is made with materials and processes that are not separate from society, and that the context of production informs the meaning of what we see.