Laurits Andersen Ring - Harvest [1885]

Laurits Andersen Ring - Harvest [1885], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The labourer is the brother of Ring (1854 - 1933), Ole Peter Andersen, and the picture was painted at his farm in Tehusene at Fakse on South Zealand. Many of Ring’s works depict common people in everyday situations, often scenes from those Zealand village communities that he was so closely linked to through his childhood and subsequent homes in adulthood.

It is a monumental portrait, not of the brother, whose face is virtually hidden, but of the agricultural labourer as a type, as a powerful bearer of Ring’s hopes of revolution. It is also, however, a picture of the Reaper mowing down the cornfields, thereby presenting an image of man’s position suspended between life, the ripe cornfield, and inevitable death. The extremely high horizon is very typical of Ring’s works. Here it serves to prevent the reaper from reaching up into the sky, keeping him firmly grounded.