Peasants and a Writing Prompt
On the work of Jean-François Millet
I’d like to suggest a writing prompt. Pick one of the pictures of peasants by Jean Francois Millet, and write a story inspired by it. It doesn’t have to be set in France in the 1800’s. It could be, but it could be anywhere and it could also be modern day, or science fiction, or fantasy, or whatever genre you want.
The Potato Harvest, by Jean-François Millet, downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.
I’ve been basing my fiction primarily on men and women establishing relationships and families, and I recently thought of the famous image of the husband and wife pausing in their work to pray the Angelus. Maybe I could use it as inspiration for a story? I’m working on that right now.
When I looked up the famous painting, I ran into Millet’s other work. They are wonderful, realistic, evocative sketches and paintings of people doing the work that, prior to our advanced technology, was just part of living. Those of you who actually study art will probably be amused at my astonishment that his work was considered controversial at the time.
There seemed to be at least two interpretations of his work, both of which, to me, totally miss the point. The man himself said that he depicted peasants because he was a peasant, and his biography seems to bear this out. His father had a small farm which their family worked, and Millet himself worked the land for almost the first three decades of his life. And even after he became a painter, he still helped to support his family by farming as well as painting.
One controversy seemed to be that he wasn’t really producing art. His peasants weren’t beautiful people with pale skin (no, this isn’t about race; it’s about showing no signs of working in the sun) and lovely clothes. And they weren’t depicting gods or goddesses, or forces of nature, or fighting bold battles, or being … beautiful, I guess. They were doing gross manual stuff like hoeing fields or chopping wood or doing laundry or carrying pails of water. But not in a pretty, allegorical way. Like it was, you know, actual work.
And that led to the other controversy. The socialists claimed him because he showed people doing hard physical labor. Because, of course, hard work is, in and of itself, a very bad thing. And is a clear sign of being oppressed by evil capitalists. Or somebody.
Myself, as an American midwesterner from flyover country, I would use a different word than peasant: farmer, or ordinary person. Yes, of course, most of the people he depicts are working hard. Farming, and providing the daily needs of a family, are hard work. Especially before modern technology. Apparently, it was controversial to show what normal people, who owned their own little house and piece of land, had to do to support themselves when they didn’t have servants or slaves to do all the icky manual stuff.
Men dig furrows and chop wood and shovel manure and drag pigs to slaughter. Women spin and sew and knit and pound laundry at the riverside and bend over double gleaning grain in the fields. Children tend sheep and catch wild birds for food. And everyone helps in the fields when necessary, especially at harvest-time. So no, it’s not a 9 to 5 job. You end up out in the field still harvesting potatoes when the sun is setting and the church bell tolls at 6 pm for the Angelus.
Why is this not showing oppression? Well, because they’re working for themselves. It’s their fields and their firewood and their children. And they’re not “beautiful” but they’re not starving either. Their clothes are plain, but not rags, and get dirty, but also washed. The labor is exhausting, but they also rest.
Noonday Rest, by Jean-François Millet, downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.
This isn’t “socialist realism” that shows “stronk socialist worker,” nor the pitiful starving underclass under the whip of the cruel overseer, nor yet the “happy peasant” with their quaint and colorful folksy ways. These are the people that grow the crops and make the clothes and raise the children. Not off to the side, but front and center, the subject of their own stories. Not idealized, but really working, and getting tired and bent over. Not for someone else, but for their own families.
So are you up for it? Pick a public domain work of Millet showing working people and write something. Anyway, that’s what I’m going to do.