Formal Analysis of Pieter Brueghels The Harvesters

Pieter Brueghels later works, and more specifically his 1564 piece The Harvesters,
clearly shrug off the dominant art style of the time, of focusing on religion, the ideal human
form, and mans connection to the divine. However, perhaps even more significantly, Brueghel
also rejects simply portraying nature and removing the aspect of man from his works altogether.
Instead, he turns his attentions towards a more humanist view, focusing on the everyday man and
combining the motif of the peasant with the expansive landscapes he is so renowned for, to show
us the common mans place within nature.
On a surface level, the landscape seems to clearly dominate Brueghels Harvesters. The
relatively high horizon line allows for a far line of sight, while the atmospheric perspective,
achieved by transitioning the highly detailed and brightly colored foreground to the faded bluishgreen of the sea and sky, gives a great depth to the whole scene. Although no distinct linear
perspective exists, Brueghel utilizes geometries, through the bisections of the piece along the tree
and the edge of the hayfield, as well as the sharp lines of the roads and outlines of the ponds, to
maintain an order, despite the landscapes expansive size. In the background, we can see tiny
villagers and their houses, dwarfed by the trees and rolling hills that surround them. Even the
church (top-right) and the castle (middle-left), symbols that would generally dominate art of this
period, barely peek out from behind the trees, showing us clearly that traditional themes of
religion and hierarchy are not Brueghels focus in this piece.
Nature though, is not Brueghels only focus here. Following alongside the curve of the
hill through the road and into the cut in the hay, or down through the branches of the tree, our
eyes are forced throughout the piece to drift to the bottom right, where a group of peasants
assemble to rest and eat. By placing them in the foreground, but away from the center of the

piece, Brueghel is able to share something about our relationship to them. The perspective is as
though we are there among them, but we do not share in their work, or their relaxation. Instead a
certain distance exists, we are simply observers, perhaps not unlike what Brueghel himself must
have felt spending time with the lower classes. The peasantry are neither celebrated nor vilified;
there is nothing noble about their bread and porridge meal or the clear ugliness of the sleeping
peasant (left of the tree). Brueghel is not attempting to show that the hard work of the everyday
man, sweltering under the heat of a midday sun, must be cherished, or even appreciated, merely
that it should be considered.
Perhaps most important is to notice that these two major themes, of the peasantry and of
the landscape, are not placed in opposition in this work, but instead exist in a distinct, and
valuable, symmetry. To begin with, the landscape itself is not very richly colored; instead the
limited foreground palette of yellow and gold serves to mirror the simple clothes of the
peasantry. Then, as we fade towards the background, we see a shift towards greens, in both the
villagers and the landscape, as well as the emergence of small houses and towers, that seem to
grow out of the trees, rather than carve into them. Brueghels efforts to blend and mask the
efforts of man within nature are no accident. By doing this, he is able to create a feeling of
serenity despite the motion apparent in the painting, as opposed to the hectic and almost
aggressive feeling one might get from some of his other works, for example the Procession to
Cavalry or the Massacre of the Innocents. There are interactions between man and nature, but
they are so well merged through color (for example, the man throwing down fruits [middleright]) and shape (the group of peasants almost seem like they could be an extension of the roots
of the tree), that the viewer is left with a much more wholesome feeling, than, for example,

Brueghels Tower of Babel, where the stark contrast of palette and form leave the observer
feeling jarred and unsettled.
Through Brueghels ability to not only depict the landscape and the quotidian lives of the
peasantry, but also to expertly intertwine the two within one work of art, we are able to see the
everyday mans place within nature. The Harvesters does not serve as a critique or judgment per
se it is not that Brueghel aims to show us a good or bad through his art. Instead, he merely
seeks to open a window into a lifestyle that his contemporaries did not consider, and certainly did
not depict. It is not only that The Harvesters depicts the lives of peasants; it is that Brueghel
depicts them so much a part of nature themselves, that the viewer feels no pressure to celebrate
or vilify them, but is content to observe them go about their work with a simple satisfaction.