Tuesday 31 July 2012

Léon Augustin Lhermitte and The Haymakers

'The Haymakers' (1887) by Léon Augustin Lhermitte; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

For today I chose a painting that I have seen numerous times and that gets better with every viewing. It's part of the permanent collection of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam and it's usually displayed on the ground floor. The painting is big in size so it's hard to miss. Its artist is Léon Augustin Lhermitte, a French Realist painter, born on July 31, 1844 (see the French Wikipedia page for the exact data of his birth and death). Lhermitte depicted the peasant worker and rural life. With this painting he might have wanted to illustrate the three stages of life by depicting a child, two adults and an old man. The painting has also been part of the exhibition 'Illusions of reality' at the same museum, from October 2010 till January 2011, and moved for that reason to the exhibition wing. 

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