The Sower

Millet's The Sower of 1850 depicts a single peasant figure striding across a field at dusk, casting seed from a broad gesture of the arm in one of the most iconic images of agricultural labor in Western painting. The figure's monumental silhouette against the twilight sky transforms a routine agricultural task into something archetypal — humanity in its oldest relationship with the earth. Millet's treatment of the sower provoked controversy when exhibited: conservatives saw a threatening, revolutionary figure; progressives saw a dignified assertion of peasant humanity. Van Gogh copied the composition repeatedly, regarding it as a fundamental statement about labor and existence.

Millet silhouettes the figure against a twilight sky, creating a near-monumental effect. The thick, earthy paint application and restricted palette of dark browns and dusky golds emphasize the physical weight of agricultural labor.