Man Turning over the Soil

Man Turning over the Soil from around 1848 is an early treatment of the agricultural laborer that anticipates the monumental dignity Millet would achieve in The Stone Breakers, The Gleaners, and The Angelus. The digging figure—back bent, full weight applied to the task—was a subject Millet identified as central to his program before he had fully developed the technical and compositional means to realize it on the scale and with the authority of his mature works. The revolutionary year 1848 gave subjects of laboring humanity a political charge that Millet acknowledged while consistently maintaining that his interest was spiritual and moral rather than narrowly political. This early study documents the formation of a visual language for agricultural labor that would shape European painting for a generation.

The laboring figure is rendered with powerful physicality, the straining body conveying the effort of breaking the earth. Dark, earthy tones and thick paint application create a sense of the material weight of both the soil and the laborer's body.