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Article: A Rich Harvest // Peasant Images Hide Complex Undercurrents
- Article from:
- Chicago Sun-Times
- Article date:
- May 5, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 Chicago Sun-Times. (Hide copyright information)
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`Peasants and Primitivism: French Prints from Millet to Gauguin'
Through June 9
Smart Museum of Art, 5550 S. Greenwood, University of Chicago
campus
Free
(312) 702-0200
It's hard to imagine those bucolic, late-19th century images
depicting French peasants at work in the fields, gathering wood or
hanging up their wash as being charged with radical social and
political implications. Yet, at the time many of them were made,
they were.
To be sure, such picturesque idylls as shepherds tending their
flock, a bustling village market and rustic farmhouses were the
objects of nostalgia, even during the mid- to late 1800s when the
vogue for peasant images was at its peak. But, the ...