Proles

Vincent van Gogh
Woman planting Potatoes
1885
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Anonymous Dutch Artist after Jan Saenredam
Adam tilling the Soil
ca. 1650-1700
drawing
Kupferstichkabinett,
Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Dresden

Adam Elsheimer
Excavation of the True Cross
before 1610
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Tiburzio Passarotti
Youth lifting a Rock
ca. 1590
drawing
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Anna Ancher
Harvest Time
1901
oil on canvas
Fuglsang Kunstmuseum, Lolland, Denmark

Franz Xaver Reinhold
Corn Harvest
ca. 1840
oil on paper, mounted on panel
Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna

Hieronymus Hopfer after Marcantonio Raimondi
Harvesters overseen by Silenus and the Pope
ca. 1540
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Anton Romako
Peasant Girl in the Roman Campagna
1873
watercolor on paper
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna

Adriaen van de Velde
Study of Farm Woman
before 1672
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Adriaen van de Velde
Peasant on Horseback
before 1672
drawing
Städel Museum, Frankfurt

Sebald Beham
Farmer going to Market
1520
engraving
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

August Sander
Young Farmer
1912-13
gelatin silver print
Museum Folkwang, Essen

Daniel Steudner after Matthias Scheits
Winter
(series, The Four Seasons)
ca. 1515-20
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Daniel Steudner after Matthias Scheits
Spring
(series, The Four Seasons)
ca. 1515-20
etching
Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig

Leopold Kalckreuth
Sunday Afternoon
1893
oil on canvas
Hamburger Kunsthalle

Ludwig Johann Passini
Pumpkin Seller in Chioggia
1876
watercolor on paper
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

The next winter, Aristides, the son of Archippus, one of the commanders of a fleet which the Athenians had sent out to gather tribute from their confederates, apprehended Artaphernes, a Persian, in the town of Eion upon the river Strymon, going from the king to Lacedaemon.  When he was brought to Athens, the Athenians translated his letters out of the Assyrian language into Greek and read them; wherein, amongst many other things that were written to the Lacedaemonians, the principal was this: that he knew not what they meant, for many ambassadors came, but they spake not the same thing; if therefore they had any thing to say certain, they should send somebody to him with this Persian.  But Artaphernes they sent afterwards away in a galley, with ambassadors of their own, to Ephesus.  And there encountering the news that king Artaxerxes, the son of Xerxes, was lately dead (for about that time he died), they returned home.   

– from The Peloponnesian War as written by Thucydides (5th century BC) and translated by Thomas Hobbes (1628) and edited by David Grene (1959)

Congruence

Henry Moore
Two-Piece Mirror Knife-Edge
1976-77
plaster
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giorgio Morandi
Still Life
1943
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Camille Pissarro
Harvest Scene
ca. 1895
drawing (study for painting)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henry Moore
Double Standing Figure
1950
bronze
Loeb Art Center, Vassar College,
Poughkeepsie, New York

Giorgio Morandi
Still Life
1948
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Camille Pissarro
Apple Harvest
1895
drawing (study for painting)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henry Moore
Fragment Figure
1957
bronze
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Giorgio Morandi
Still Life
1949
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Camille Pissarro
Faggot Bearers
ca. 1895
drawing (study for painting)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henry Moore
Reclining Figure
1951
bronze
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

Giorgio Morandi
Still Life
1955
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Camille Pissarro
Illustration to Daphnis and Chloe
ca. 1895
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henry Moore
Sketch Model for Reclining Figure
1946
terracotta
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Giorgio Morandi
Still Life
1955
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Camille Pissarro
Illustration to Daphnis and Chloe
ca. 1895
drawing
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Henry Moore
Woman Reading
1946
terracotta
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

Giorgio Morandi
Still Life
1962
oil on canvas
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC

Camille Pissarro
Watering Cows
ca. 1895
drawing (study for painting)
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford

    A parallel story occurred in my own life.  Outside a dentist's office, towering above a row of parking spaces, there was a line of majestic white pines.  The largest, at the end, truly enormous in girth and height, was being strangled by a vine, also well grown, that reached to the top of the tree and extended out some of its branches.  I learned from a receptionist inside the building that the row of pines belonged not to the dentist's practice but to the property next door.  I went up the driveway next door and knocked and rang, but there was no answer.  I wanted to tell them they risked losing an exceptionally grand tree

and that the solution was simple, as I had recently found out from my reading about invasive plant species.  There was no need to take down the vine.  All one had to do was cut the vine at its base – the rest would take care of itself.  At home, I tried to find a phone number for this residence, but eventually I gave up. 

– Lydia Davis, from Into the Weeds (Yale University Press, 2025)

Workers - I

Arthur Kampf
Women binding Sheaves
ca. 1930-40
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Jules Bastien-Lepage
Haymaking
1877
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Gustave Courbet
Winnowing Grain
1854
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes

Henri Lehmann
Mariuccia
1841
oil on canvas
Musée Fabre, Montpellier

Charles Maurin
Children's Nurse seated on a Bench
ca. 1890
drawing
Morgan Library, New York

Hans Olde
Milkmaids in Borgfeld
1899
oil on canvas
Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel

Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones
The Shoe Shop
ca. 1911
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Elizabeth Sparhawk-Jones
Shop Girls
ca. 1912
oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago

Max Liebermann
Bleaching Ground
1882
oil on canvas
Wallraf-Richartz Museum, Cologne

Bartholomeus Breenbergh
Laundresses in a Grotto
ca. 1650
oil on panel
Musée des Augustins de Toulouse

Abraham Bloemaert
Shepherdess with Bowl of Grapes
1628
oil on canvas
Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe

Louis-Joseph Anthonissen
Pressers in a Trouville Workshop
1888
oil on canvas
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Pau

Robert A. Robinson
Jenny and Magnus digging Potatoes
1957
gelatin silver print
Stortingets Kunstsamling, Oslo

Bertil Lybeck
Quartier Latin
1915
etching
Moderna Museet, Stockholm

Ludwig von Beniczky
Venetian Fishing Family
1846
oil on canvas
Belvedere Museum, Vienna

Sigmar Polke
Man feeding Chickens
2005
acrylic on canvas
Musée de Grenoble

Chorus:

Come now, dear serving-women of the house,

when, pray, shall we display

the power of our lips in aid of Orestes?

O mighty Earth, O mighty mound

of the tomb that now lies heaped 

over the corpse of the king who commanded the fleet,

now give ear, now give aid!

For now is the right time for guileful Persuasion

to enter the arena together with him, and for Hermes of the Night,

Hermes of the Underworld, to watch over these men

in their deadly contest with the sword. 

– Aeschylus, from The Libation-Bearers (458 BC), translated by Alan H. Sommerstein (2008)