Shepherds and Plowhands: Work and Leisure in the Nineteenth Century

January 18 – April 24, 2005

The vast economic and social changes of the Industrial Revolution dramatically transformed the long-held ways of country and village life: centralizing resources in city environments, changing people's occupations, and ultimately refacing the bucolic landscape.

Whether documenting true habits of rural life or nostalgically returning to pastoral themes of an earlier age, many nineteenth-century artists were drawn to rustic subject matter that appeared to be fading from view.

The collection-based exhibition gathered scenes of rural labor and leisure by various nineteenth-century French artists: Charles Daubigny, Charles Jacque, Jean-Fransçois Millet, Féix Buhot, Alphonse Legros, Camille Pissarro, Maximilien Luce and others.

Consisting mainly of works on paper, the exhibition considered the Etching Revival artists' renewed interest in the craft of printmaking in relation to nineteenth-century notions of the nobility of work and the individual laborer. It also featured a bronze sculpture by Constantin Meunier and a recently acquired painting by Léon L'Hermitte.