Hallowed Harvests: Agrarian Depiction from the Bible, Literature, and Art to Early Modern Times
Hallowed Harvests: Agrarian Depiction from the Bible, Literature, and Art to Early Modern Times
By Richard D. Scheuerman
316 Pages, including full color Gallery of Images and many additional color images throughout
7” x 10” | Paperback
Like the seasons, artistic expression of agrarian experience has varied since ancient and medieval times. For three millennia the Old Testament Book of Ruth has been synonymous with the abiding theme of divine deliverance associated with gleaning. Medieval fatalism gave way to more colorful renderings of joyful communal harvest and other farming endeavors. Still greater appreciation of peasant ways emerged during the Renaissance and was reflected in new styles of art and literature. Lavish Baroque canvases and detailed drawings followed to show lively scenes with mowers, gleaners, and carters working as one. The pantheon of eminent national artists and authors who created masterpieces on agrarian themes includes some of the greatest names in art and literature. For rich or poor in any age, survival has come from what is grown in the good earth. The duties of sowing and harvesting, therefore, have long had aesthetic connotations reflected in a variety of creative forms explored in these pages.
The pantheon of eminent national artists and authors who created masterpieces on agrarian themes includes Vincent Van Gogh, Jean Millet, and Émile Zola; Leo Tolstoy and Russian masters Alexey Venetsianov and Grigoriy Myasoyedov; John Linnell and Lea Anna Merritt of Great Britain; and Americans Fannie Palmer, Willa Cather, and Thomas Hart Benton. Study of Western culture through the centuries also reveals that artistic interpretations of rural experience have been variously shaped by the religious beliefs and predispositions of painter, author, and patron. While depictions of grain harvest generally retain noble aspects across times and cultures, they also can serve to realistically show other harsh realities of rural life, or use the power of symbols like sickles and the gleaning poor to advance political or social causes. Consideration of art and works of fiction and literary-nonfiction through a critical lens informs understandings of the ancient, feudal, and early modern past in ways that also influence contemporary creative expression and meaning making.
Paperback: 284 pages (includes color images)
Publisher: Coyote Hill Press (April 20, 2020)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0991264185
ISBN-13: 978-0991264186
Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.7 x 10 inches